At 01:45 PM 5/4/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Never heard of the guy . . . See:
http://worldfuture2010.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/conquering-climate-change/
By Dennis M. Bushnell, NASA Langely Chief Scientist, WorldFuture 2010 Speaker
. . . Low-energy nuclear reactors (LENRs), otherwise known as cold
fusion reactors, were considered impossible to build a decade ago
but are gaining attention thanks to the work of Allan Widom and
Lewis Larsen, who have proposed a new theory to explain how LENR
might work. NASA is conducting experiments in an attempt to verify
their theory, which explains the decades-long LENR experiments as
products of quantum weak interaction theory applied to condensed
matter, not fusion.
<Banging head against wall>
Gaining attention thanks to the work of Widom and Larsen? A "new
theory," one among many theories, none proven. But, apparently, that
it's "not fusion" is enough to get some drooling. Wait until they try
to figure out where the helium is coming from. What's the "fuel"?
And if you are taking that fuel and creating helium, with some
fancy-dancy neutron black box in the middle, isn't this "fusion"?
Well, it could be some kind of neutron activation, perhaps generating
alpha particles, but where, then, is the fission waste, i.e., the
lower elements in quantities sufficient to be associated with the
helium? The transmutations reported are far below the level that
would be predicted.
Bizarre. Two decades of experimental work showing excess heat and
other evidence of nuclear reactions, probably some kind of fusion,
just not the straight d-d kind (unless some new mechanism for energy
transfer is demonstrated, a long shot), most likely some kind of
multibody fusion with no detectable intermediate, if there is an
intermediate (i.e., intermediate decays immediately), means nothing.
Someone comes up with a theory that practically nobody in the field
accepts, and it's a major development?
Anyway, the attention is good. Just a bit frustrating.
