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Italian Scientists Claim To Have Discovered Nickel-Hydrogen Cold Fusion, Create Copper As Byproduct
According to PhysOrg.com, two Italian scientists from the University of Bologna have taken on one of physics' historically most discredited concepts, cold fusion, and have actually succeeded in creating a sustainable reaction. Aside from the major implications of the energy market should this be validated and recreated (an issue that buried the original Cold Fusion discovery by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann), one of the more economically important side effects of this purported rediscovery is that one of the byproducts of the reaction is none other than recently uber-bubbleicious copper. One wonders what the implications for the copper supply and demand curves (and equilibrium price) would be should the reaction documented by Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi be proven to not be a hoax. Is modern day alchemy the only thing that can dethrone copper from its historic price highs?
From Physorg:
Few areas of science are more controversial than cold fusion, the hypothetical near-room-temperature reaction in which two smaller nuclei join together to form a single larger nucleus while releasing large amounts of energy. In the 1980s, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann claimed to have demonstrated cold fusion - which could potentially provide the world with a cheap, clean energy source - but their experiment could not be reproduced. Since then, all other claims of cold fusion have been illegitimate, and studies have shown that cold fusion is theoretically implausible, causing mainstream science to become highly speculative of the field in general.
Despite the intense skepticism, a small community of scientists is still investigating near-room-temperature fusion reactions. The latest news occurred last week, when Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of heat power with an input of just 400 W. Last Friday, the scientists held a private invitation press conference in Bologna, attended by about 50 people, where they demonstrated what they claim is a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor. Further, the scientists say that the reactor is well beyond the research phase; they plan to start shipping commercial devices within the next three months and start mass production by the end of 2011.
Rossi and Focardi say that, when the atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a large amount of energy. The reactor uses less than 1 gram of hydrogen and starts with about 1,000 W of electricity, which is reduced to 400 W after a few minutes. Every minute, the reaction can convert 292 grams of 20°C water into dry steam at about 101°C. Since raising the temperature of water by 80°C and converting it to steam requires about 12,400 W of power, the experiment provides a power gain of 12,400/400 = 31. As for costs, the scientists estimate that electricity can be generated at a cost of less than 1 cent/kWh, which is significantly less than coal or natural gas plants.
Several videos highlighting and supposedly validating the discovery have been released which we reproduce below, primarily for the benefit of our Italian-speaking readers, as they have yet to be translated in other languages.
And before the skeptics scream this is nothing but another scientific fraud, here are some of the third party reactions to the finding.
- Hope Grows as Journals Weigh in on Italian Cold Fusion Breakthrough (link)
- Specifics of Andrea Rossi’s “Energy Catalyzer” Test, University of Bologna, 1/14/2001 (link)
- Directory:Andrea A. Rossi Cold Fusion Generator (link)
- Rossi and Focardi LENR Device: Probably Real, With Credit to Piantelli (link)
- Rossi Discovery – What to Say? (link)
- Rossi and Focardi LENR Device: The Melich and Macy Reports (link)
- Focardi and Rossi Energy Catalyzer first jan 14 demo videos and summary of an online Question and Answer session from Jan 15 (link)
Obviously, should this discovery be validated by the global community and should wholesale cheap energy production based on this principle be adopted, the implications for the global economy will be unparalleled.
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So
Nickel is promoted to Copper by fusion both of which are above the 'iron point' where fusion becomes endothermic, there's a net energy release, but no accompanying radiation. Hmmmm.
Runs on light water too Hmmmmmm!!! Now if the H2 feedstock had been D2 you might expect to see some D2O in the 'dry steam'. These buggers are sneaking oxygen in somewhere and this looks like a Ni catalyzed fuel cell. Sure it'll get hot- fuel cells tend to do that.
Of course, it would be cute if there was H - H or H - Ni fusion going on but I'm betting on a fuel cell hiding somewhere...
Should anybody care if the excess heat is the result of fusion or chemistry?
Yes
If it's chemical you need sizeable physical input quantities to generate the energy whereas similar feeds to a fusion system would produce a lot more energy. Also the void coeff might be interesting to know in terms of being +ve or -ve.
OK, but doesn't it depend on how you define "sizable physical input"? Of course fusion would produce much more energy, I'm not arguing that. What I am suggesting is the work done in electro-chemistry has been superficial at best. Take something very simple like the daniell cell; has anyone ever taken the time to determine the rates of consumption under various conditions?
Well now, as I remember it electrochemistry goes back a good 250 years and chemistry itself is a 'mature' field in science. That said, it still throws up the unusual from time to time not the least of which was validation for the Kékule structure of resonant bonds in benzene and BuckyFullerene as a third allotrope of carbon to mention but two (but I digress)
The basic elchem theory is well established and catalysis as a discipline is not trivial either but recent times have advanced material surface structures to the point of nanoassembly. My point being that catalysis could be possible within much more precise 'foamed' structures (Ni or Pd or Pt) leading to much higher densities of the reactants (Hydrogen - all isotopes) in better more highly ordered structures. At THESE levels of physical coherence there could be atypical catalysis taking place.
Additionally I don't know of anyone trying any NMR or NQR techniques at the same time. Might even be interesting introducing a muon stream under such circumstances (just for kicks!)
It's still a fuel cell though.
Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2129165010048711403#
Why do the press conference in front of the loo?
Its called low energy radiationless fusion of hydrogen isotopes during heavy water electrolysis in the surface of metal deuterides. (or electrolysis of other kinds of electrolytes may have the same result.)
Its actually a study in nuclear chemistry.
The theory is that hydrogen isotopes in heavy water under electrolysis will be caught in the surface structure of the crystals of the metal deuteride and fuse as they are reduced to a space of 50nm. They act as a bose einstein condensate and their quanta merge into one wave very briefly without being superheated or supercooled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMFvzohuVew
Its real, it happens. All it produces is a greater amount of heat than the electricity put in.
You need a steady controllable abundant aneutronic fusion that produces an ion stream. Probably this will come out of consdensed matter physics at the low end of the temperature extreme rather than high temperature physics at the high end of the temperature extreme. Or the use of both.
A type of aneutronic fusion comes out of fusing hydrogen and boron 11 or hydrogen and lithium 7, which then split to form helium. Its called fusion-fission.
But so-called cold fusion is just a step in the right direction.
Nickel has 28 isotopes. Yes not 20, not 3 not 5, 28 isotopes. If this is a recipe it's going to be about a bitch and half to find the secret sauce formula.
Nickel has 5 "stable" isotopes in nature. The rest of the isotopes have decayed away.
And 23 unstable isotopes in nature. Umm it's not like you can kill off unstable isotopes. You troll them with the right energy they are going to snap and turned into an unstable nickel donkeys on the edge.
Forming unstable isotopes of metals is very problematic way to go, especially if you're going to dump cuprous elements into the water. You would have to use much more energy to electrowin the metals out of the water.
LENR is probably here to stay, the engineering problem with all of these steam generators is that the metals become pitted.
You would need a lattice structure of crystals on a nano scale in commercial production, such as aluminum-lithium alloys that the Japanese have produced for over a decade for aerospace applications.
Or something like a 3-D metal printer that can form lattice structures in Titanium or Tungsten-Carbide alloys with the appropriate strength of materials and the appropriate 50nm aperture that can reproduced on a commercial scale. This would give you an electrode that would last and not become thoroughly pitted with use.
Not so much that you would invest in the inventors of these LENR units, or who has the patent, but the suppliers to this field. Somebody will come up with a solution, then somebody else will reconfigure, etc, etc.
But the nuclear chemistry is a given. Its a proven fact that LENR is a reproducible experiment, it just boils down to an engineering problem.
-F6
Another reason to save nickels, I suppose. As I read this, I thought of the old gaslights in tenements that required a nickel in the slot to operate. It would be funny to return to that.
I'm doubtful of the veracity of this, but it certainly would be nice.
Io sono Italiano...ma no, sono non - typico Italiano Americano.
Has anyone here ever worked in Italy? all I can say is yea right - fusion or fission or copper its all my ass.
Wood powered steam engines.
Coal powered steam engines.
Oil powered steam engines.
Natural gas powered steam engines.
Fission powered steam engines.
Fusion powered steam engines.
There appears to be a pattern here.
Cannot believe reverse engineering of the Roswell UFO yielded an anti-matter powered intergalactic hyperspace jumping steam engine.
19 pages and counting of nerds debating the "science"/"scam".
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2829&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
"If" it does work there will be a large increase in demand for nickel for the reactor inventory. There is very little copper produced in the conversion of matter to energy. Several tons of copper per year in hundreds of thousands or millions of tons of nickel inventory in the reactors with world wide conversion of all coal and nuclear reactors.
For the second time in the same day, I am reminded of the old days practicing with a Big Four CPA firm in Hawaii. Some nutty perfessor-looking character came to our office looking for help with financial forecasts needed to raise capital for his start-up cold fusion venture. (Of course, he had no FeRNs or backers.) When asked how he figgered it out, when thousands of scientists are baffled, he claimed that he was dyslexic, so was able to look at it backwards, which made it easy to engineer. He also claimed to have destroyed the working prototype and schematics, lest they fall into enemy hands...
The other reminder article was about the mortgage companies asking for permission to shred original documents, reminding me of a (alleged) mob-affiliated company on Kauai that burned down a week after we reviewed and requested copies of boxes of records. The Hawaii Business Journal article made sure to mention, "All records were destroyed."
(And forget any crazy ideas about making gold & silver, since the platinum and palladium that precede them on the periodic table are even more rare and valuable.)
Haha! Good stuff!
The University of Bologna is one of the world's leading, and finest, universities.
The staggering, immense, profund level of stupidity seen on this board sometimes is simply amazing.
I LOVE the Usa and Usanians, but sometimes you make it easy for people to say you are incomprehensibly stupid.
It's really a shame.
Some utter moron above spoke about "Italian technology" (rusty 70s fiat). I mean, what can you say -- this from the land of GM. It's beyond belief.
In American slang, "baloney" means nonsense. (Baloney can also refer to Bologna sausage.) So when an American sees "University of Bologna", he/she might tend to think "University of Nonsense".
This is not intended to demean the academic reputation of the University of Bologna, which I have no doubt is a very fine university. It is simply making a pun, which probably only Americans would catch.
Ya plus italy did a really good job keeping that fool copernicus from teaching everybody his junk science.
I agree, I would take any 1970's fiat against any modern GM BUT the great Roman - Italian empire has been completely diluted.
Let's be fair; nothing has been proven yet, and TD has linked to a sceptical article. Any negative comments are worth just as much as overly positive.
There's a huge interest in keeping any simple new sustainable energy source off the market. Economics 101. Fossile fuel sources (incl. fission reactor fuel) are finite, and thus profitable. Doing research in this area is considered professional suicide since the whole subject was discredited. Rossi may have picked up another "golden" opportunity. FWIW I'm not jaded enough to stop hoping.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/01/24/1550205/Italian-Scientists-D...
where you will find a link explain what the hell they did:
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/01/19/rossi-and-focardi-lenr-device-...
Which makes me think they discovered something legitimate enough to warrent further research but definitely NOT Cold Fusion.
This latest variation on cold fusion perpetual motion zero point energy resembles what the Fed and Treasury are cooking up...
Italians must make sure that there is no Zio patent Clerk.
E=MC2 was stolen
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27167495/Einstein-Stole-E-Mc2
I was teaching nuclear physics when the first cold fusion papers came out. It would be a great thing if it were true. But I'll lay anybody 20-1 that they made a mistake somewhere. Not 100-1. But 20-1. Any takers?
And, me thinks ZH is spreading itself too thinly with stories like these. Stick to what you are experts at.
I'm not a taker on that bet, but the quest for energy independence, especially in a form that empowers the individual, should always be worth a few keystrokes. There is no more noble quest on this planet. Many have failed, more than a few have lied, but all that doesn't mean the quest should stop.
If these guys are for real, their picture will grace my home for the rest of my life and I will never forget where I heard about it first. All that said, I'm not holding my breath...
It's all talk and hopes and dreams until it's readily demonstratable to the public.
I give not a fuck about what some hallway skittering ivory tower fuck has to to say about it. Talk talk talk. Just do something already.
It is absurd to malign the University of Bologna. The earlier cold fusion work was done in Utah. And without question more stupid ideas have come out of Harvard and Princeton recently than poor old Bologna.
In effect, an aluminium-powered vehicle. That concept has seen quite a bit of real life implementation, but well, I't a "little bit" on the pricey side... (space shuttle boosters, solid fuel ballistic missiles).
Sounds like a bunch of Bologna to me!
Dang, if i had a nickel for every nickel i spent......
If they have found cold fusion with a copper by product we can expect an accident for these gentleman pretty soon.
Interesting.
What we have here is one of only two possibilities.
1. It is true.
2 It is deliberate fraud.
Unlike the previous claims for cold fusion there is no vagueness here. A 30:1 energy return is totally unambiguous. Previous claims were based on fusing hydrogen to hydrogen producing Helium and releasing energy in the process. The processes produced little or no energy and were impossible to duplicate.
This process involves fusing hydrogen to nickel resulting in copper.
If it's true, and I hope it is, then we have new line of research on producing energy and transmuting elements.
If it's fraud, which I expect, then the target is most likely, the price of nickel.
However, you have to wonder why anyone would convert nickel at $11/lb to copper at $4/lb, maybe that's the catch with the process?
Good news for gold lovers. The element behind Au is Pt. Don't expect there will be too much effort spent on trying to convert platinum to gold ;-)
The metal doesn't matter. The energy contained in 1 gram of nickel (according to fusion with hydrogen yielding copper) is worth about $200 at today's prices.
I hope it is true, and if it is they have opened and went through the door to other energy sources other than fossil fuels and spent nuclear rods from nuclear reactors.
I have to say, it seems to good to be true.
yuck. cold fusion sucks. PHP is so much better!
I would like you all to gather around while I transmute this pile of suckers money into hookers and blow. You will see that the return on investment is immediate for myself and my partner in this experiment.
We will be providing updates from Thailand while covered in Thai hookers double fisting Maitai's.
If I had to guess, the heat is from oxidation of the nickel metal by water vapor to nickel oxide (burning). The presence of an oxide layer on the nickel metal will prevent further oxidation (stainless steel is stainless because of the protective oxide film). Free hydrogen in the steam gas over the nickel can diffuse through the protective oxide film and form defects so that the water vapor can oxidize the nickel hydride and some additional nickel metal reforming an oxide film. The gas phase requires a larger excess of free hydrogen to accelerate the reaction to a measurable rate and replace the hydrogen swept out of the reactor in the steam. If it was fusion, the reaction would require 1/10 billionth 1e-10 gram of hydrogen per hour for 12,000 watts and could have been prechargedwith hydrogen. They danced around the weight measurements before and after because you could definately measure the weight increase of converting nickel metal to nickel oxide.
There is no need to have a closed mind on this, funny how many negative posters there are on this....I smell big oil/vested interest trolls.......
If they paid me, I'd atleast try a little harder in my trolling.
You can have my cold fusion reactor when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
You can have my cold fusion reactor when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Can't be Zero Hedge ... the ugly dude in the sweater would be using the perpetual motion machine to multitask ... and turn lead into gold rather than nickel into copper.
My 2 cents: cold fusion is already between us. Try to google out what italian scientist Emilio Del Giudice says about DU. When USA military use DU (depleted uranium) rounds they are using a tactical nuclear weapon. In the gulf war iraqi thanks were "smelted" and inside people was "gamma irradiated". This is not possible happening aside a nuclear reaction was involved.
So, keep your mind open and learn italian, it could be anyhow useful.
Furthermore, it is worth to remind that University of Bologna was born in 1088. I'm not sure Ivy League colleges will exist in 30th century.
That said, cold fusion reactor don't work on for more a few minutes, so we are far far away from reaching the target of a new energy paradigm.
My first comment on this is: Name calling: The rhetorical technique used by people who have neither facts nor logic to support their position. If either existed, it is doubtful that a person resorting to name calling the intellectual skills to use either.
Of more direct relevance to this discussion: When I first heard of the nickel hydrogen fusion my original thought was that this is highly unlikely as iron has the highest binding energy of any element. It turns out that this is a generalization, with exceptions for some isotopes. In particulare, the two stable isotopes of copper can be formed by adding a proton to their nuclear neighbors nickel. That leaves the problem of how does this proton overcome the coulomb repulsion?
Here is my theory, or perhaps hypothesis. As many of you know, in quantum mechanics a particle can cross an energy barrier that is greater than allowed classically. The greater the barrier, the less likely that a particle of given energy will cross the barrier. So perhaps a combination of coulomb shielding by the inner electrons of nickel and quantum energy barrier penetration allows a small percentage of protons to penetrate to the core of the nickel nucleus and be captured with the release of the binding energy as some combination of recoil (heat) and perhaps neutrinos (hard to detect)
Normally, there are not enough opportunities to allow enough collisions to be noticeable. I read that the nickel is in a nano - powder form which will create an enormous area. Probably on the order of 4 orders of magnitude greater than a sheet of metal foil. That is the difference between a few watts output (hard to notice when compared to 400 watts input), and over 10,000 watts output.
You read it here first
The copper is superflous, it is only present in extremely small amounts, just sufficient to show an atomic process is occurring rather than a chemical one. The amounts of hydrogen and nickel being consumed in the process are very nearly immeasurable once again pointing to an atomic process producing the heat, rather than a chemical process.
The entire jist of the mechanism is to produce excess energy in the form of heat. According to the translated reports, the device while operating also produces gamma radiation, for which it is shielded, but it produces no radioactive waste byproducts, that woudl need remediation or disposal.
Thinking of this device as a copper production mechanism is akin to using a nuclear pile as a lighting device - yes it will glow in the visible light range, but the amount of light produced versus the amount of heat given off by a nuclear fission pile is several orders of magnitude in difference.
If this device is legitimate and scaleable at economic pricing, than indeed the whole world has changed just as it did when the atom was first split by man in Chicago, beneath the bleachers of a football stadium.
Not all great discoveries are made inside corporate labs, Tesla invented AC generators and motors pretty much on his own using only his mind to suss it out. Without this "impossible" invention by Tesla, we would not have the internet or this conversation.
If Focardi and Rossi turn out to be wrong or frauds, it is certainly not as bad as the destruction wrought by securities fraud over the last decade, and if they are right then the whole world has changed beneath our feet.
In 12 months we should know if it is shit or shinola, and there is certainly no harm in thinking about ways to invest that would take advantage of this technology shift. Copper production however should be the least of your thoughts regarding this technology. Nickel is the most tradeable element involved in this process. Could nickel be the next gold?
The former execs that ruined the company for 50 years with meritless, non-achievement, nepotistic hiring practices, have been and now are living without having to work, being paid billions, the life of Riley.
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The first thing in the morning ZH read makes me wonder? Is the confidence and faith in the Government and Media so destroyed that it can not be rebuilt? Not to say that I believe any one of the sons of bitches. Just sayin that some how some way, trust has to be re-invented.
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