Posts by NEPS*NewEnergy

Previous post indicated the most important factor in a cold fusion program is how well management can crack the whip (as was done in the Manhattan project and some others since then). The Pentagon is the only agency able to do this and serve effectively as program manager. DOE should be involved under the Atomic Energy Act, but (inc. ARPA-E) has a conflict of interest from managing hot fusion. A joint development program will be needed with about three hundred million dollars ($300,000,000), divided between the DOE, DoD and NASA over 5 years. The DoD and, for example, its systems engineering and technical assessments contractor should serve as Program Manager due to its technical insight developed previously. NASA could serve as coordinator with industry and the scientific community for manufacturing and applications development. The DOE could provide quality control and peer review, to include nuclear theory development in support of the program. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will also need to be involved from a nuclear health and safety standpoint.

In saying "in rapid program development, much like the Manhattan Project (though not as technically complex)", the most important factor is how well management can crack the whip. This is possible with very high priority programs, where exceptionally bright people are employed, standard management methods are by-passed, and all work 80-hour weeks.

Cold fusion looks like the best option to address climate change. But this will require significant government support in rapid program development, much like the Manhattan Project (though not as technically complex). The development process must focus upon new energy concepts that are different from those for nuclear fission, and many areas of expertise are involved. It requires scientists and engineers with advanced knowledge and understanding of physics and engineering and committed to further innovation. Industrial partners will be technically advanced research and development companies, highly interested in solving the climate crisis and committed to advancing scientific discovery and technical innovation. Many technical companies and institutions today, by comparison, are specialized and limited in the required areas of expertise. A type of large, joint development program will be required to integrate work of the team members. The program can begin with previously discussed system concepts and parameters, e.g.:

- scaling-up from liquid electrolysis experiments to industrial systems would be difficult.

- deuterium gas loading in gaseous systems can be just as operative as electrolytic loading for liquid systems.

- the role of microscopic crevices and channels of the system’s cathode reaction material.

- reasons for consolidated metal powder as cathode reaction material.

- the role of deuterium diffusion rate.

- the role of reaction material (cathode) temperature (e.g., from a built-in electric heater).

- the requirement to remove the additional heat produced by cold fusion.

- the need to remove helium produced by cold fusion.

The parallel is striking between the climate crisis and Netflix's movie, "Don't Look Up". After trying unsuccessfully to get U.S. government attention over a large incoming comet, the astronomer shouts on the news channel, "Don't you understand? We're all going to die!!" The key finding of the latest scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chage (IPCC), "Climate Chage 2021: The Physical Science Basis," August 9, 2021 is that this immediate threat is widespread, rapid and intensifying. The IPCC is the United Nation's body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC report describes changes in the earth's climate in every region of the earth and across the whole climate system. Many changes are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds-of-thousands of years. The report points to the need for strong and sustained reductions in emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to limit climate change. Columnist Eugene Robinson writes in "Opinion: The U.N.'s Dire Climate Report Confirms: We're Out of Time," (The Washington Post, August 9, 2021): "We're out of time. It's as simple as that.... If the world immediately takes bold, coordinated action to curb climate change, we face a future of punishing heat waves, deadly wildfires and devastating floods - and that's the optimistic scenario, according to an alarming new U.N. report. If, on the other hand, we continue down the road of half-measures and denial that we've been stuck on since scientists first raised the alarm, the hellscape we leave to our grandchildren will be unrecognizable."

Information discussed at the recent 23rd International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ICCF-23) in June 2021 has provided even greater encouragement for pursuing the goal of commercialization. In a briefing on “The Nature of the D+D Fusion Reaction in Palladium and Nickel,” Dr. Edmund Storms (previously Los Alamos National Laboratory) verified that deuterium (D) gas loading in gaseous systems can be just as operative as electrolytic loading for liquid systems. This understanding is highly important, as scale-up from liquid electrolysis experiments to industrial systems would be difficult. Liquids produce problems, such as boiling and evaporation of the liquid, build-up of contaminants, and limited operating temperature. Cold fusion reactions are now believed to occur in microscopic crevices and channels of the system’s cathode reaction material. This briefing also showed that the amount of output power can be increased by increasing deuterium diffusion rate into these voids and by increasing temperature of the reaction material with a built-in electric heater. Several scientists discussed positive experimental results using consolidated metal powder as cathode reaction material.

This discussion is critically important as only eight (8) years are available to develop a robust energy solution to global warming/climate change. The drop-dead date is 2032 (see “As Climate Change Worsens, A Cascade of Tipping Points Looms,” by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, December 5, 2019. Commercial cold fusion systems may be the only realistic option since nuclear power plants are very expensive to build and operate. Nuclear fission plants are also not acceptable due to radioactive pollution they produce. Hot fusion cannot be seriously considered since it is many decades from being commercialized. For commercial systems to be developed in this short time, scientists in this community must be more willing to collaborate and become part of engineering development efforts within their countries. Rather than continuing solely with individual laboratory research efforts, the scientists must bring their current knowledge into focused systems engineering activities and then perform directed research to address areas supporting engineering processes. Financial support must be provided by national and state governments with greater emphasis on the importance of cold fusion as a solution to climate change. International support can also be expected for the best commercial system concepts.

It may be helpful if we stepped back a moment to discuss our conventional view of nuclear reactions, as this seems to differ a little from some recent writings by others attempting to explain cold fusion. Physics books that discuss nuclear particle scattering go through steps of elastic scattering, inelastic scattering, exchange reactions, and capture, with each assumed to involve higher and higher energy of the incident particle. Deuterons are viewed as loose structures (low binding energy) with internal and external regions. We view d-d reactions that produce He3 and T3 as examples of exchange reactions, but a d-d reaction that produces He4 as an example of capture reactions. A p-d reaction that produces He3 is considered as an example of capture reactions, but is also considered a “radiative transition”. We, therefore, think that “fragmentation” sometimes used in the literature is just a way of describing d-d exchange reactions that strip a neutron or proton away to produce He3 and T3, not as fragmentation of He4 already formed. In this case, energy of the incoming, incident deuteron is not quite high enough for us to consider it as a capture type of reaction. A nucleus (such as He4) formed in an excited state (e.g., due to energy of the incoming deuteron and mass difference between the nucleus and the incoming deuterons), can transition to a lower energy state by emitting gamma rays and also by transferring some of its energy to electrons surrounding the nucleus. Gamma radiation is not produced with high probability in the case of He4 formed by d-d fusion. The transition to a lower state is then connected with the ejection of an electron or electrons from a bound orbit in a process of “internal conversion”. The total transition probability to a lower energy state is the sum of the probability for emitting gamma rays and the probability for internal conversion. Internal conversion is discussed on pages 614-622 of “Theoretical Nuclear Physics” by Blatt and Weisskopf, John Wiley and Sons, 1952, and pages 122-135 of “Elements of Nuclear Physics,” by Meyerhof, McGraw-Hill, 1967. We, therefore, think that p+d +(e) à He3 + (e) found several times in cold fusion literature since 2004, and called “solid state internal conversion”, should not be used as an example of internal conversion. The effect of near-by electrons should not be confused with internal conversion (see a similar comment in “Observation of Electron Emission in the Nuclear Reaction Between Protons and Deuterons,” by M. Lipoglavsek et al., Physics Letters B, vol. 773, pages 553-556, 2017).

Professor Sinha's technical background is highly important: Dr. Krityunjai Prasad (K.P.) Sinha received an M.Sc. from Allahabad University in 1950, a Ph.D.in Solid-State Physics in 1956 from Poona University, and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in 1959 from Bristol University in the U.K. He began his career as a scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India in 1959. From 1969 to 1970, he was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories, Murry Hill, New Jersey. From 1970 to 1989, he began his stay at the Indian Institute of Science as Senior Professor in the Physics Department. In 1990, Sinha became a senior scientist with the INSA for four years. From 1991 to 1994, he served as the Director of the Institute on Complex Systems, located in Shilling, India. Sinha is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. He is author of over 225 papers and books. He established schools of research activity in condensed matter, theoretical studies and complex systems at many institutions in India.

Posts #116 and 117 are interested in the term "lochon".

This term is explained as follows in "A Theoretical Model for Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions in a Solid Matrix," published in Infinite Energy Magazine: The central idea of the model is that an electron, or electron pairs, located on the proton or deuteron and interacting with high frequency modes of the solid material (phonons or ionic plasmons) can acquire heavy effective mass, and the corresponding atoms or ions are squeezed to much smaller size. Such tightly bound electron pairs will have integral spin (S=0) and behave like local charged bosons (acronym "lochons"). The small ions can be called bosonic ions and the composite boson (electron pair) can pull towards it another proton or deuteron, overcoming Coulomb barrier and taking advantage of the attractive nuclear forces leading to fusion.

The post #115 states that after 1999 there was a Research Gate (RG) publication by Sinha and Meulenberg in 2011.

"Bridging the Gaps: An Anthology on Nuclear Cold Fusion" (pages 37-38) says that Professor Sinha continued his theoretical work on cold fusion as a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2000-2003). He met Andrew Meulenberg (PhD, Vanderbilt University in Nuclear Physics) who has been working with him under the aegis of the Science for Humanity Trust in Bangalore, India, which they founded. Since that time, they have co-authored about a dozen related papers and briefings that can be found on the internet. Information on electrostatic fields in the channels was discussed in 2006 and 2007 and additional information on reaction rates was discussed in 2012.

Related theories are discussed in "The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" by Edmund Storms (Infinite Energy Press, 2014) and in "Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on Metallic Hydride Surfaces," by Alan Widom and Lewis Larsen (Condensed Matter, May 2, 2005).

Key local electron pairing concepts listed in NEPS-TN-003:

a, The role of local electron pairs (S=0) was first demonstrated to enhance superconductivity in 1966.

b. The importance of local electron pairs in high-temperature oxide superconductors was identified in 1988.

c. Species such as (H+D-), (D+H-), (D+D-) exist in reaction material in addition to H+ and D+.

d. Squeezed D-(H-) results from trapping of electron pairs (local charged bosons), due to interaction with phonons of the lattice field.

e. The electrons acquire a heavy effective mass and the ionic radius becomes much smaller.

f. These entities are located in internal channels of the reaction material.

g. The electrons shield the nuclear charge, and the Coulomb barrier is reduced.

h. The reaction material (host matrix) role is to provide a confining potential and channels.

i. The channels are essentially one dimensional.

A recent post indicates that about 40 copies of Professor Sinha's briefing charts were distributed as a technical note to scientists across the nation. This note is identified as NEPS-TN-003 dated November 18, 1999, and was distributed at that time, for example, to scientists in the DoD (DARPA, ONR, NRL, Army Research Office and Air Force Office of Scientific Research), SRI, LANL, the University of Illinois, and MIT, among others.

K.P. Sinha's work from the late 1990s and discussed in "A Theoretical Model for Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions," Infinite Energy Magazine, January-February 2000 introduced the first theory that seriously viewed cold fusion as occurring in cracks, crevices and defects of the cathode reaction material (instead of the bulk between atoms of the material). A drawing on page 35 of "Bridging the Gaps: An Anthology on Nuclear Cold Fusion" depicts related reaction mechanisms. The double dash indicates two electrons around a deuteron, causing it to have a negative charge. Examples of fusion occur when protons, deuterons, or tritons (tritium) combine with the negatively charged deuteron ions shown on the top row of the drawing. Some researchers have indicated that, instead of the first reaction where (p,d) fusion produces helium-3, the proton could combine with an electron, forming a neutron, which might then enter the deuteron to form tritium, rather than helium-3. This is not expected to occur with high probability since deuterium has a low neutron adsorption cross section and (p,d) experiments are reported to produce helium-3 . In the case of (p,d) fusion, the extra electron(s) is (are) envisioned to help the proton and deuteron come together but not become part of the nucleus.

A heavy electron or pairs of heavy electrons close to the nucleus can be captured by a proton to form a neutron through an electron capture process. The neutron can cause transmutation of adjacent reaction material.

Professor Sinha initially suggested the role of electron pairing during a cold fusion meeting held in Bangalore, India in 1989. The idea was also mentioned in an obituary that he wrote for Professor F.C. Frank in 1998. He indicated that he could explain how cold fusion works during a conference hosted by the Integrity Research Institute at the Holiday Inn in Bethesda, Maryland in April 1999. The staff and technical consultants for Epoch Engineering, Inc. in Gaithersburg, Maryland assisted him in further documenting his theory in the summer and fall of 1999. Professor Sinha discussed the theory in a meeting on "The Role of Electron Pairing in Facilitating Fusion, Fission and Other Mechanisms in Reproducible Experiments," held at the Hilton Hotel in Arlington, Virginia on November 18, 1999. About forty copies of his briefing charts were distributed as a technical note to scientists across the nation. The theory was also discussed in a March 2000 proposal on "New Power Production Technology Reaction Material" to the US Department of Defense.

Robert Bryant's post says that nuclear energy transfer by internal conversion and pair production is a testable assumption. These are two normal nuclear phenomena and are studied in nuclear physics courses. "Bridging the Gaps: An Anthology on Nuclear Cold Fusion" poses a concern that they were not seriously considered by the cold fusion community, and researchers have devoted significant time and resources developing alternative theories to explain the reason gamma radiation is not observed.

The two references (Kalman et al., "Understanding Low Energy Nuclear References," January 2021, and Kasagi, Search for Gamma Rays, ICCF-21) provide interesting background information. Each appears to regard "cold fusion" as a transmutation ("LENR") process. This is mainly due to absence of significant amounts of gamma radiation from d+d fusion. Nuclear physics courses have pointed out, however, that excited He4 resulting from d+d fusion should not be expected to emit gamma radiation.

Robert Bryant's recent post says: that gammas are not emitted appears to be the approximate reality in experiments.

The most logical explanation from studying nuclear physics would be to assume that some of the energy produced by the third d+d fusion branch is transferred by electrons emitted from internal conversion and pair production. In addition, the third d+d fusion may have a low cross section, as indicated in an earlier post. The possibility of internal conversion and pair production doesn't seem to have been discussed previously by cold fusion scientists. Instead, researchers devoted significant time and resources developing alternative theories to explain the reason gamma radiation is not detected.

The idea of varying the amounts of deuterium and hydrogen should help in understanding cold fusion, as gamma radiation would be expected from p+d fusion.

Dr. Richard: Your apology is accepted. We would be very pleased to send you and your associates at Ecalox copies of "Bridging the Gaps: An Anthology on Nuclear Cold Fusion, if you can send your mailing address to [email protected].

The first usage of "Snicker-bar" as far as we know was by "Dr. Richard" on January 6, 2022, but we have no idea what is meant by it. Maybe someone on the LENR-forum staff could ask "Dr. Richard" to explain what is meant.

See above post. According to page 312 of "Too Hot to Handle: The Race for Cold Fusion," by Frank Close (Princeton Legacy Library, 1991), internal conversion is believed to have been mentioned to Pons and Fleischmann in 1989 by a couple of scientists from the University of Utah.

In the above, Robert Bryant says that Schwinger's view was that the lattice environment is important for cold fusion and that for d + d fusion one of the deuterons is outside the "domain" to produce gammas. By comparison, cold fusion scientists now seem to think that cold fusion occurs in cracks, crevices and defects of the cathode reaction material (instead of the bulk between atoms of the material), and (more specifically) that gammas are not emitted since He4 would not be in a 1P state (ref. "Investigations of the Capture of Protons and Deuterons by Deuterons," By W.A. Fowler et al., Physical Review, vol. 76, no. 12, pgs. 1767-68, December 15, 1949.

Please note the following related information from page 8 of "Bridging the Gaps: An Anthology on Nuclear Cold Fusion": High-energy gamma radiation was not observed from the experiments, but little attention was given to the possibility of internal conversion and pair production as alternative processes for an excited nucleus (e.g. helium-4) to reach its lower-energy ground state by emitting high-energy electrons.

Internal conversion and pair production are discussed on pages 614-622 of "Theoretical Nuclear Physics," by Blat and Weisskoff, John Wiley and Sons, 1952.