Cold confusion
On March 23 two chemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons startled the world with a press conference at the University of Utah where they announced that they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperatures. As evidence they cited the production of ''excess'' amounts of heat in an electrochemical apparatus and observation of neutron production. While the production of heat in a chemical apparatus is not in itself unusual the observation of neutrons is certainly extraordinary. As it turned out, though, careful measurements of the neutron production in electrochemical apparatus similar to that used by Fleischmann and Pons carried out at dozens of other laboratories has shown that the neutron production fails by many orders of magnitude to support the assertion by Fleischmann and Pons that their discovery represents a new and cheap source of fusion power. In particular, independent measurements of the neutron production rate suggest that the actual rate of fusion energy production probably does not exceed 1 trillionth of a watt. This paper discusses the feasibility that cold fusion is actually being achieved. 7 refs.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 6026306
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-101583; CONF-8905143-9; ON: DE89016654
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: NATO international advanced courses on the nuclear equation of state, Peniscola, Spain, 12 May - 3 Jun 1989; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTIONS
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
DEUTERIUM
NEUTRONS
PALLADIUM
BARYONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
FERMIONS
HADRONS
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
METALS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEI
NUCLEONS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
ODD-ODD NUCLEI
PLATINUM METALS
STABLE ISOTOPES
SYNTHESIS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
700000* - Fusion Energy
653003 - Nuclear Theory- Nuclear Reactions & Scattering