JPL Falls For LaRC Cold Fusion / LENR Story
The nuclear reactor in your basement, NASA Global Climate Change
“Several labs have blown up studying LENR and windows have melted,” according to Dennis Bushnell, Langley’s chief scientist, in an article he wrote for NASA’s Future Innovation website. This, he wrote, indicates that “when the conditions are ‘right’ prodigious amounts of energy can be produced and released.” But it’s also an argument for the approach that the Langley researchers favor: master the theory first.”
Keith’s note: Looks like Bob Silberg at JPL fell for the Cold Fusion story – using only LaRC web postings as a source. LaRC even took down the links that Silberg cited. This post has been sitting online at NASA for more than a year and no one noticed.
– NASA Cold Fusion Update, 2013
– Cold Fusion Update From LaRC (Update), 2012
– Why is NASA Langley Wasting Time on Cold Fusion Research?, 2011
i don’t know anything about cold fusion but i have seen several of these posts on nasawatch…is cold fusion a joke or something? could someone give me the 411?
We call this Pathological science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…. But I insist that this LENR and cold fusion was not a science at all. Cause it certainly try to violate basic simple mathematical approximations of cross section and reactivity for reactions that they constantly got out of magic hat. Now they try to violate basic energy conservation law for endothermal e+p->n+neutrino reaction with extremely low cross section and ultra high energy requirement. Its much more real to produce muon-antimuon pair (286kev each) from electron-positron scattering for muon catalysis than this unobtanium catalysator of LENR.
you parrot the myth.
it is massively replicated (153+ peer reviewed papers showing excess heat, 4 refuted critics on F&P that are broke)
for the description of the four, the only four critis, read Beaudette book
http://iccf9.global.tsinghu…
for the peer review papers start with this tally
http://lenr-canr.org/acroba…
add recent paper by takahashi and iwamura in JJAP
for a synthesis you may simply read
http://www.lenr-canr.org/ac…
for know the report was strongly attacked but no critic have survived.
electrical critics don’t hold for someone knowing power meter…
for IR cam and alumina transparency, the question is solved and alumina is opaque for IR longer than 7um, as the IR cam read, confirmed by the fact that the optical brightness of the zones don’t change the temperature the IR cam observe
the Pomp critic on isotopic challenge are absurd as a fraudsters would at least find an explanation for the result he manufacture.
moreover this is in a long list of heavily attacked but never positively debunked test, with previous on enough convincing for honest observers ( it was enough for cherokee fund to invest and now to manufacture that reactor themselves).
this is a desperate reaction of groupthink that make some people unable to admit they were fooled by the academic parrot (even if some academic did their job, and often lose their job for that).
AlainCo, you misunderstand how science works. There may well be 153+ reports of excess heat in the peer-reviewed literature, but that does not mean the reports are correct: any effect that is not easily replicated and that may simply be a result of experimental error will accumulate a number of “positive” reports, in large part because those who get negative results don’t bother to publish. This is not a numbers game and not every paper published is correct. And the onus is on those claiming an effect to prove it unequivocally by publishing replicable recipes and/or credible theoretical models, not on the sceptics who doubt to disprove the claims.
In addition to what dahduh says in his comment (about the fact that 153 papers don’t mean the effect is real), the bigger problem is that finding excess heat does not mean that the heat must have come from nuclear, rather than chemical, reactions. LENR has never been convincingly demonstrated in a lab in any replicable manner.
Maybe Langley’s cold fusion reactors can power JSC’s warp drive, and they can all zoom off to fantasy land together.
So Rossi’s friends are pushing that again, right? At least this time they got some outside scientists to look at it, although they’ve done that before and the paper fell to pieces.
Seriously, if he’s got the patents on it, he should just let some outside people try and duplicate it and then publish papers on it if it works. Until then, I’ll stay skeptical – cold fusion has been a trap to soak gullible investors and people for more than two decades now.
EDIT: I’m glad you have good commentators here on your blog. There always seems to be one or more cold fusion diehards on a lot of science blogs that I follow, and when their pet topic comes up they spam the comments with tons of links and nonsense.
Total crap of nuclear reaction that e+p->n+v(e) is. Weak, endothermal(need energy) and is so rarely happened that even this p+p->d+v*(e) with billion of years in stars is much more frequent. Its not even cold fusion, its much more crappier. Quantum physics makes this LENR stupidity more unreal that even the aneutronic fusion, which is possible but uneffective and in need of ten time higher temperatures than DT. Probability of this is less than 10exp(-100) in cold temps, and proton has more probability to die.
this is why edmund Stirms propose another theory,
p-e-p fusion, with a quantum coherent big object (hydroton, a chain of p-e-p-… insulated from chemical environment in a crack) that dissipate energy as x-rays transition…
anyway theory have never been a good reason to deny an observation.
it is common however.
I dont see someone denies any observations, but those guys didn’t even provide smthg for other scientists to repeat. So you cant even find any peer reviewed articles with such observations on the base of fear of revealing some tech secret. Give me articles in some respected physics journal plz, not on some lunatic theory but measured cross sections, energy reqs and output, confinement approximations etc
I sometimes read a lot of articles about recent developments in aneutronic fusion field like p+B11 reaction and feel those guys do real research, that everybody can confirm.
The main lesson from cold fusion is how even good scientists can suddenly become delusional. Now they are still punting “Widom-Larson theory”, which is basically collective effects => large effective electron mass => e+p->n => n + X => beta decay, and thereby “avoid the Coulomb barrier”. Now yes it is true collective effects can give an electron a large effective mass, but this is a _low energy collective_ phenomenon; as soon as the physics involves high energy (i.e. the e+p->n part of it) the individual electron’s bare mass is what is relevant. It is a bit like arguing that you are going to use tidal oscillations to surf your ship across the Atlantic – you can’t, there is a complete mismatch in scales. Right from day 1 of Pons & Fleischmann’s press conference people have been making this wishful mistake.
Elforsk boss launche LENR initiative…
another one…
who is deluded?
those who accept evidence or those who have no argument but are sure to be right because they have a theory that don’t work on the observations.
It’s surprising that an official NASA web page would publish something so improbable as though it were an established fact. The problem isn’t lack of approval procedures for web postings, which are already nightmarish. The problem is lack of critical thinking and scientific judgement.
Whether power production by low temperature fusion is possible or not is currently unknown. There are well-known low-energy fusion reactions that can be reproduced, such as meson-catalyzed fusion. Unfortunately those reactions which are reproducible do not produce net energy. It is a complex field and current theory neither demands nor rules out low temperature fusion power, so careful experimentation and simultaneous development of the relevant theoretical structure are needed.
The biggest obstacle to determining the facts is the tendency of so many people who are making claims to refuse to publish or explain their work in detail, apparently in the hope of getting rich by selling their “secrets”. This means that reliable information is not exchanged and there is little or no progress. At the same time, reputable experimental and theorical physicists can get no funding to pursue the area since it has become so controversial.
NASA and DOE need to shed light on the situation, not confuse it further. New Energy Times is generally the most reliable source of information in this uncertain field. Here’s their (as usual quite detailed) take on this tale:
http://news.newenergytimes….
Dear Colleagues,
The useful phrase in the article posted by JPL is this one: ‘”From my perspective, this is still a physics experiment,” Zawodny said.
“I’m interested in understanding whether the phenomenon is real, what
it’s all about”‘
There is no claim that the phenomena are real, nor that the rather marvelous “what if it were real applications” are actually going to be realized. it’s just experimentation … and a negative result is a perfectly good one.
If there are ever positive results, I’m sure that we’ll hear about it soon enough. In the meantime, this theoretical notion is no more or less “real” than room temperature superconductors, and other “unicorns” of physics. Fun to search for, and every now and then somebody finds one. (For example, “meta-materials” that were just theory for decades, and are now engineering reality…)
It is perhaps a bit less clear why this is being done at NASA LaRC, an applied and tax-payer supported lab, rather than at a university…
Best…
No internal peer review to approve funding this work at NASA; no publication by NASA researchers in professional peer reviewed journals; no clear explanation as to why NASA is funding this research or exactly where the funds come from; rare response to public/media inquiry as to why the agency is doing this. This all smells of quackery.
Keith,
It doesn’t look like a lot of money has been invested in this case. However, this work does NOT seem to have been a matter of a year or two of “speculative research” — the sort that would be reasonable for any laboratory. Rather it appears to have been going on for some years now. If that’s the case, your concerns are well-founded (although it might be more charitable to describe the effort as “optimistic” rather than “quackery”).
At any event, it’s difficult to see why greater transparency is not provided as to resources (sources, amounts), and some sort of independent review is not implemented. If the foundations of the work are solid, why not ask the OCT at NASA Hq to organize an independent review, perhaps with participation by researchers from the Office of Science in DOE, appropriate organizations in the NSF, or other technically strong, and forward-looking organizations? For that matter, if this work is solid, why shouldn’t it compete for funding from DOE (e.g., ARPA-E), or some other source that uses competitive review?
Regards…
NASA refuses to say how much was spent, what the criteria were used for approving this project and/or how it was scored, what progress reports have been submitted by the researcher(s), or how long this research will be supported. I have asked multiple times – I only got one evasive response.
Why is Cowing pulling out his old ( June 2012) , previously answered questions re: NASA investigation into LENR?
Could it be the recent third party confirmation of 3.5 COP from Rossi’s LENR reactor? Or the definitive transmutation products, isotopic shifts, COP >> 1, all establishing beyond doubt that the reaction is nuclear with power densities orders of magnitude greater than chemical?
If this LENR story was only coming from one or two directions I would still be skeptical as well. Now we hear from so many respected labs and researchers all over the world about excess heat energy output many multiples of the input that one would have to be a pathological skeptic to continue to joke about cold fusion.
I do hope NASA, SPAWAR, DIA, SRI, CERN, etc. will increase funding exponentially to bring this new nuclear technology from the lab to my basement combined heat and power plant asap before climate change becomes irreversible, if it is not already.
Simple. NASA has continued to refuse to answer questions about this project since 2011. Please cite the peer reviewed publication of the most recent “results”. And make sure you under stand what “peer reviewed” actually means before replying.
Do you have any articles we can read?
Sure, just google any of the acronyms I gave, like NASA, with LENR.
I was hoping for referrals to info from “respected labs and researchers all over the world”. I read NASA news pretty frequently. I still googled NASA and LENR anyway like you said and didn’t get what I was hoping to see.
Here is the first link for SPAWAR and LENR-
http://blog.newenergytimes….
I didn’t find much when looking with DIA or SRI.
All I can find are articles hinting that it might be close.
Unless Rossi is willing to provide detailed plans for building the apparatus to another group of independent physicists (under NDI, if he’s actually worried about IP theft), so that they can replicate his results on their own setup, then he either has to (a) build a working reactor and start selling power from it, or (b) continue to be viewed as either self-deluded or an intentional hoaxer who is faking his results. Science is based on replicating results, and so far, no credible lab has replicated his. He’s making remarkable claims, which require remarkable evidence – the fact that he’s trying to get investors to part with their money prior to the results being independently replicated by other labs on their own equipment puts him in the same league as Stoern Energy, and other quacks.
I don’t have the expertise to pass judgment on either concept, but interesting that this story also showed up in the news a few days later:
http://aviationweek.com/tec…
The Lockheed reactor design is a more conventional HENR (high-energy nuclear reaction) design, which is known to be possible. Not their exact design maybe, but we know that nuclear fusion works at high energies. Low-energy reactions (LENR, aka “cold fusion”) has never been demonstrated in any replicable manner, and may not be even theoretically possible unless physics is wrong about a few things 😉 The general rule of, “if it seems too good to be true…” applies double to LENR.
Now it’s not just the moon beams at NASA – Airbus Group has just filed a patent for a Cold Fusion generator. http://www.e-catworld.com/2…
NASA hired Boeing and GE aerospace engineers to work on their SUGAR low carbon project which includes LENR. NASA, GE, Boeing, DARPA, U.S. Navy. High tech gone crazy?
There’s simply to much at stake to not adopt LENR. Pay special attention to pages 81-83 on this report from the DTRA on LENR.
http://lenr-canr.org/acroba…
I believe that this is the DOD report to the HASC concerning utility of LENR in Military.