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Science Technology

Bubble Fusion Results Replicated 83

Posted by Hemos from the the-elusive-fusion-tracking-continues dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) stating that they have replicated and extended previous experimental results that indicated the occurrence of nuclear fusion using a novel approach for plasma confinement. Interesting stuff, read about it here."
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Bubble Fusion Results Replicated More

Bubble Fusion Results Replicated

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    • Someone's already addressed the questions of "is it practical" - but the question I have is, if it is practical and we can get an energy surplus out of the thing, *when* will we see it?

      Not to unduly don a tinfoil hat, but will it be surpressed by oil companies until there's a worldwide oil shortage? And if so, it wouldn't be so "cheap" when they released it.

      Tinfoil hats aside, I doubt something like this will get the funding it deserves.

      • whether it is suppressed or not, over the long term, if it works then someone will reproduce the results ( and given the basic research is available in the journals it will be easier for someone to rebuild a working system from basic principles ).

        Basically what it comes down to, is that if this works, the cat is out of the bag.

      • Because of course, we all know that oil companies only want to make money off of selling oil, not other forms of energy, which is why when you see oil companies investing in wind, solar and fuel cell technologies, it is just your imagination.
        • Good Lord, I hope you're not actually as gullible as that post makes you seem.

          Oil companies like to be known as "energy" companies because it diffuses the appearance of their nearly-exclusive association with oil production. So, it's for PR purposes first off.

          Much more important, investments in wind, solar, fuel cell and other alternative energy fields allow the oil companies some degree of control over the research in those areas (it happens fast, slowly, or not at all at their say-so).

          Such investments

          • Re:Cheap unlimited Energy for everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @01:13PM (#11469915) Homepage Journal
            Please remove your tinfoil hat.
            I will give you a clue. Companies care about making money. I swear I wish the extreme left and the libertarians both would get a clue. A companies job is to make money. The governments job is to make laws to regulate companies for the common good. Consumers make the decision of how much the will spend for positive behavior. It is like the outcry about outsourcing. You do not want outsourced tech support? Then do not buy a $500 PC. The energy companies do not care if it is from oil, gas, coal, or burning tinklies. The reason that they do not push for small-scale wind, solar, and biomass production is frankly they suck. solar has limited value in many places. The northern area of North America is one. I would like to see more solar roofs in the south. I would like just a 100 watt panel tied to the grid be required on all new homes built in the south. Wind is noisy, ugly, and expensive. Biomass has some potential but will never be a major part of the energy picture in it's current state. Now that bio mass converter I read about a while ago if it works could be very cool.
            As far as the big oil companies stopping this research no they are just not putting huge amounts of money into it. Even if they where stopping it in the western nations what about Japan? They have no national oil reserves at all. I doubt that Oil companies could stop Japan or China from developing those technologies if they where practical.
            • I swear I wish the extreme left and the libertarians both would get a clue

              You /do/ realize how ridiculous that statement is, right? I can only assume that since you seem to dislike the 'extreme left' that you're a republican. Your poor grammar only further the hole you dug with your already ignorant statements, so I'll try to make this quick, because I have much better things to be doing right now.

              You say: The governments job is to make laws to regulate companies for the common good

              You're aware that's
              • "Since that's the case, how did you group Libertarians with anybody except the extreme right, let alone the far left?"

                Libertarians have a naive faith in laissez faire economics. We tried that in 19th century. Some markets may settle into a healthy, competitive environment. Others are vulnerable to market distortions like cartels, oligopolies and various barriers of entry to competition. While the far-left does have noble goals with their agenda, they're equally naive about the economic consequences of thei
              • I do not know if it worth the effort to help you but I will try.
                No I am not a Republican. I am an independent. My wife is Democrat with a degree in political science. She seems to feel I have a pretty good grip on the political system.
                Second Democrat does not equal "extreme left" unless you are a member of the extreme right which I am not. Some Democrat are moderate some are slightly left, some are extreme left, some are extreme right.
                Frankly I have little use for the extreme left or right. As to the differ
                • First of all, let me say you've done a very good job keeping up with the myriad of replies under your post--that impresses me.

                  Moving on, I never said democrat equals extreme left. Anywhere. You said extreme left. Furthmore, my boot was a metaphorical boot whose origin stems in how hard you just got smacked around knowledge-wise. Proof is not only in the original ignorance of your statements, but also in the fact you spent more time describing your 'credentials' than defending what you originally said again
                  • With out some government control the US and most other nations would spin totally out of control.
                    As one very bright person put it on slashdot once. "I hope the Libertarians are watching this. If people can not behave in the Sims On line what chance is there in the real world?"
                    In the real world you can only expect corporations to do what makes them money. You can not expect them to act morally. They are things. Things do not have morals. Individuals can act morally but Corporations have so many individuals t

            • Re:Cheap unlimited Energy for everyone! (Score:4, Interesting)

              by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:23PM (#11473194) Homepage
              A companies job is to make money. The governments job is to make laws to regulate companies for the common good.

              The government's "job" is to represent the will of the people. Only in Corporate America can you "consumers" be so brainwashed into believing the government exists to regulate the companies.

              Wind is noisy, ugly, and expensive.

              Wind turbines are quieter and more beautiful than a coal fired power plant, and less expensive than nuclear. The only people complaining about wind power are those with a NIMBY complex. I say stick a coal fired power plant in their backyard and see what they think about wind turbines then.

              • Apples and oranges. The largest coal plants are still relatively compact in terms of square footage compared to wind turbines. So, although a single wind turbine may e less ugly than a single powerplant, the thousands of wind turbines necesary to equal the power output of your theoretical coal fired plant would cover an enormous acreage and affect far more people.

                As for noise, I think you may be just flat out wrong about that; my experience at powerhouses is that there is almost no noise outside the fenc

                • Apples and oranges. The largest coal plants are still relatively compact in terms of square footage compared to wind turbines.

                  How much space do you think a strip mine takes? Don't forget to include the tailings dam.

                  the thousands of wind turbines necesary to equal the power output of your theoretical coal fired plant would cover an enormous acreage and affect far more people.

                  You can (and people do) use the land under a wind turbine for grazing and farming.

                  As for noise, I think you may be j

                  • "How much space do you think a strip mine takes? Don't forget to include the tailings dam."

                    How much space does an oil/gas field take?
                    "You can (and people do) use the land under a wind turbine for grazing and farming. "
                    Ditto for the oil and gas field.

                    I have to second the the power plant comment. I do not know about coal plants but the oil and gas plants I have been around are almost completely silent. While the turbines I have been around and read about in HomePower have lots of noise and vibration. In one
              • "Wind turbines are quieter and more beautiful than a coal fired power plant, and less expensive than nuclear."

                I'm not going to say you can't find some report some where that in a particular case wind power could be cheaper than nuclear. But in the many reports I have read nuclear has always been cheaper than wind power. Also wind power is not viable in all areas and is not constant. There are significant losses if you have to store a large amount of energy for times when the wind does not blow.
              • "Wind turbines are quieter and more beautiful than a coal fired power plant, and less expensive than nuclear"

                The problem is that you have to have them in EVERYBODY'S back yard. You can not build a single 10mw windmill. I have to question the cost vs nuclear also. No new nuclear plants have been made in years so we have no real idea how much a modern reactor like a pebble bed would cost. Plus you have the problem of storing the power from the wind turbines. You can not just crank them up to make more power

              • The government's "job" is to represent the will of the people.

                That's your opinion. In mine, the government's job is to protect the rights of the people. If the people want to express their will, I don't see why they need the government to do it.

                • You sir, are a sheep; an ignorant one at that.

                  Why do you think the US is a democratic republic?

                  We elect people who are suppose to represent us. Unfortunately the way government has been working for a long time, does not follow that paradigm. It has become "how much can we get away with" not "what do the people want?"

                  I think the paradigm shift occured around the first world war, until then the US was much like the EU is now. People were Texans and Virginians before they were Americans, allegiances were to

                  • You sir, are a sheep; an ignorant one at that.

                    Don't bother calling me "sir"; after an insult like that, I'm certainly not going to call you "sir". I'd love to hear you say this to my face, when you're not wearing your "Slashdot muscles".

                    Why do you think the US is a democratic republic?

                    Do you remember how Jefferson defined "democracy"? I seem to remember something in there about "the rights of the minority". And we are each of us a minority. Democracy is not unlimited mob rule.

              • Wind turbines are quieter and more beautiful than a coal fired power plant, and less expensive than nuclear

                Most studies I have read place the TCO of wind turbines at over 10p/kW compared to ~4p/kW for nuclear.

                • Most studies I have read place the TCO of wind turbines at over 10p/kW compared to ~4p/kW for nuclear.

                  Provide a source, don't just pull figures out of the air.

                  Wind power ranges from 4 cents to 6 cents per kWh, compared to electricity from coal power at 4.8 cents to 5.5 cents per kWh, gas at 3.5 cents to 4.4 cents per kWh, hydro at 5.1 cents to 11.3 cents per kWh, biomass at 5.8 cents to 11.6 cents per kWh, and nuclear at 11.1 cents to 14.5 cents per kWh. -- http://www.lightparty.com/Light/ForcastFo

            • Amen...preach it brother ;)

            • Companies exist to make money, and they make money by being very highly specialized. Oil companies are only just beginning to make the transition to becoming "energy companies", and it is a sure thing that some of them will not survive the transition.

              So energy companies certainly do care about where the energy is coming from, because they are currently highly optimized to generate power from oil and coal. It is harder for an oil company to switch to a new power source based on a completely different tech

  • Any Immediate Application? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Psion ( 2244 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @08:57AM (#11466949)
    While these results are fascinating, and the research is worthwhile in its own right as pure science, I wonder if this is at all useful for generating power. Is there any way to capture the energy released? I'd imagine most of the energy produced would be wasted and difficult to extract.
    • This thing produces a flood of neutrons - ionising radiation. if these can be directed they can be focused on a flow of neutral atoms or molecules, ionising them and thus producing a flow of ions. flow of ions = flow of current which can be extracted by induction methods.

      please feel free to berate me if i have got this wrong?

      • Re:Any Immediate Application? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Psion ( 2244 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:57AM (#11467446)
        That's a cool idea, but what would be the efficiency of that process? Earlier experiments used a 14MeV neutron beam to generate microscopic nucleation points which sonoluminescent fusion expanded and collapsed, releasing 2.5 MeV neutrons. I'm not ready to say "bubble fusion" can't be used to generate power, but I think it's important to consider it an area for pure research at the moment without any immediate application. This problably will not lead to fusion power plants, unfortunately.

        That doesn't, mean the subject should be ignored, just that folks shouldn't get their hopes up over this process. (Added for the benefit of clueless ACs who might have difficulty with reading and comprehension.)
        • what really is key, is whether the energy expended to produce the fusion is more or less than the energy produced. If there is an overall 'profit' in energy then its worthy, no matter how inefficient the extraction method.
        • A couple of things: as I said in response to the previous article, efficiency is negligible at this point. A few hundred watts of power are required to produce less than one watt of heat. Though this process may be scaled up, leading to greater efficiency, there is an issue with the experimental set-up needing to be cold. The deuterated acetone needs to be kept around 30 deg. F for best bubbling. Higher temperatures destroy the effect.

          For commercial power generation, the heat generated will have to be
      • Neutrons have no electrical charge. They can't ionize anything. They can, however, create nuclear isotopes, many of which will be unstable and radioactive.

        Having said that, it's actually not hard to imagine how energy can be extracted from this. The fusion will also produce heat. Your fuel is water, which, interestingly enough, is also the same substance used to turn steam turbines. Start your reaction, let the fuel get to superheated steam level, run it through a heat exchanger, and presto, electrical ene
        • Neutrons are definitely ionizing! However, it's not their (lack of) electrical charge that does it, but the high speed at which they smack into other atoms that knocks electrons off the target atoms' shells, thus ionizing them. 'Strooth.
        • True, with one caviat - this approach to fusion requires the substance (acetone really, not water) to stay liquid. So you have to use the heat energy to boil some other working fluid. The only real hard part is that the acetone (at least at this point) needs to be cool. That can probably be fixed via high pressure, but the low temperature aspects may limit usefulness.

          On the other hand, there are always alternatives. It can probably be used very soon in low temperature environments.


          • The weirdest thing about the bubble fusion story is that acetone produces neutrons, but water (even heavy water) does not.

            Presumably now that the neutron results in acetone have been replicated, researchers will investigate the role of different molecular properties in neutron production rate. Why there should be a coupling between atomic and nuclear phenomena in this case is far from clear, but it is pretty clear now (although one replication doth not a science make) that some nuclear phenomenon is occur
            • I hadn't thought of that - although at this point do we really know where the energy is going? (As in, do we know the energy of the ejected nuetrons, or just that there were nuetrons ejected?)

              Either way, I think this is one of the most exciting areas of science at the moment.

        • Re:Any Immediate Application? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Psion ( 2244 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @02:15PM (#11470797)
          I don't think it's that simple. First, I believe this experiment used acetone for the liquid medium, and I'm not certain that it's behavior in a steam turbine system is satisfactory. Second, there is the question of energy density. Sure, they're seeing bubbles that exhibit sonoluminescence, but are they seeing enough bubbles to heat the fluid to the point that it can drive a steam turbine?

          And even if they are, which I don't think is the case (the flashes last only 35 picoseconds), will the system be efficient enough to exceed break-even? I can boil water on my electric stove to drive a steam turbine, but not at sufficient power to run the stove.
          • I can boil water on my electric stove to drive a steam turbine, but not at sufficient power to run the stove.

            That would be because of thermodynamics...all the energy is coming from the stove, and some is lost as a matter of course.

      • Re:Any Immediate Application? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No, the goal is to capture the kinetic energy of the moving neutrons, which is turned into heat, which is then translated to mechanical motion, which turns a generator, which generates electricity, if the heat is not used outright on its own.

        Even in a thermoelectric battery, powered by the heat generated typically from plutonium decay, the heat induces a potential difference between two different metals, which is then captured. You get the same thing if you take a chunk of the two metals and heat it with a

  • mwr (Score:2)

    by Renraku ( 518261 )
    Probably a dupe, but its 'good news' so I don't mind hearing it twice. I mean, if this were TV, we'd hear it every fifteen minutes from every news channel.

    • Re:mwr (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SunPin ( 596554 )
      if this were TV, we'd hear it every fifteen minutes from every news channel.


      This story? In which country?

  • How many times is this story going to be posted? I swear this was up here just a few days ago. No wonder he posted AC...

  • Test Tube Nuclear fusion? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mlush ( 620447 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:07AM (#11467032)
    Not In My Back Pocket!!!!

  • Bubble fantastic (Score:5, Informative)

    by pg133 ( 307365 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:15AM (#11467105)
    Previous slashdot articles
    Thursday January 20: Fusion Using Sonic Compression [slashdot.org]
    Monday April 19 2004: Bubble Fusion Results Replicated by 4 Institutions [slashdot.org]

  • Just what I need.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @09:16AM (#11467117) Journal
    for my flying car.
  • The press release is from March, 2004. On the other hand, its going to be interesting to see if the campus links here can survive the slashdot effect.
  • ....And in continuing developments in increasing the density of the cavitation bubbles, it was discovered that root beer and a dollop of ice cream lead to an inhanced tritium user experience.

    The research subjects were noted to leave with a glow on as well.

    More news forthcoming from Slashdot.... -JB

  • Fusion has first been achieved more than 50 years ago. What is important is BREAKTROUGH, that is, more energy produced than has been poured in the system.

  • The quoted press release is from April of last year. Looks like someone's trying to get some hype for something.

  • Shrimps did it! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by arakis ( 315989 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @01:37PM (#11470266)
    The press release linked doesn't mention it, but nature has an implementation of this phenomenon called the Snapping Shrimp. This tiny bugger creates a cavitation buble with a claw that actually stuns prey with the shockwave generated. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I first saw video of this.

    Maybe we will see the rise of genetically engineered shrimp that can live in the reactor and keep the system up for peanuts?

    Here is a link on the shrimp How Snapping Shrimp Snap [utwente.nl]

    • This tiny bugger creates a cavitation buble with a claw that actually stuns prey with the shockwave generated. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I first saw video of this.

      Those are amazing shrimp. This sounds like serious B movie material. A tanker ship carrying heavy water sinks. Next thing we know, we're beset with nuclear snapping shrimp. An evil Beat poet reads something particularly inspiring to the shrimp and we lose the entire west coast...

  • Hot enough to produce _______watts of power...?
  • Maybe if this story is duped enough times then there'll be enough of them to condense and initiate a fusion reaction!

  • News? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ebmonroe ( 790097 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @03:44PM (#11471986)
    It's news because the replicated findings are finally getting printed in a peer-reviewed journal, Physical Review E. The press release means that the authors say they did it, it means little until it get accepted by a journal. Do I think this is the wave of free energy? No but as far as a pure science aspect, it is interesting. Several assupmtions still need to be worked out anyways with the calculated temperature. Assumptions always need tested... Phys. Rev. E 69, 036109 (2004) http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v69/e036109doi:10 .1103/PhysRevE.69.036109 [aps.org]
  • This will probably only work if they can develop inteligent mechanical snake-like arms that weld to a man's spine and incorporate some kind of neural-nanotechnology interface to help contain the Fusion Reaction.....

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