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Cold Fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy

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Two speeding nuclei do not have the speed to over the barrier between them. Hydrogen is composed of an one proton with one electron circling. Water or H2O has two protons with two electrons circling. Deuterium has one proton and one neutron and one electron. Heavy water is composed of two deutrerium nuclei and one oxygen for a total of two protons and two neutrons and two electrons. A very rare isotope called tritium has one proton and two neutrons with a orbiting electron. Possible fusion reaction combinations requiring temperatures between 45-400 million degrees celius 1. deutrerium plus tritum producing helium 4 and a neutron 2. deuterium and helium 3 producing helium 4 and a proton 3. deuterium and deutrium producing either helium 3 and a neutron or tritium and a proton. The problem is getting nuclei close enough together because like charges repel each other.

Quantum tunneling occurrs the nuclei jump through the repulsion barrier between the two nuclei. Quantum uncertainty suggests that there is always a finite but small probability that the nucleus will find itself in another location, at the other side of the barrier that separates them. This is how nuclei in high temperature plasm interact. If they can get close enough for a long enough time, they are able to complete the process by tunneling through the repulsive forces and fuse.

University of Utah, Martin Fleischmann and Stanely Pons announced they had obtained nuclear fusion at room temperature. Fleischmann and Pons experiment cell begins with a rare metal called Palladium. Palladium has the ability to absorb hydrogen, a piece of palladium can absorb up to 900 times its own volume of hydrogen. As hydrogen enter the palladium atoms, they give up their other electrons. They hydrogen atomes are packed together. Fleischman and Pons needed an additional force to get the deuterium nuclei closer together. They realized the most practical way was by using an electrolytic cell. The current caused the oxygen and deuterium to separate; the hydrogen leaves behind its electron and the hydrogen and oxygen become a positively charged nucleus. If the electrolysis conditions were right the deuterium would not boil off but enter into the palladium. Pushing up the voltage one the cell would increasing the electrical pressuring on the deuterium nuclei crowding them even more tightly into the electrode. Pons and Fleischman were estimating with the voltage they were using, they were achieving a pressure equivalent to 100 trillion trillion times that of atmospheric. The conditions inside the palladium rod equivalent to that of a core star. The idea was that deutrium had to be pumped into the negative palladum electrode until the deutrium nuclei were held so close that quantum tunneling would all them to fuse. Fleischmann and Pons argued the fusion reaction carried out with palladium was the reaction deutrium plus deutrium equals Helium 4 and energy, no neutron emissions and no radiation, just pure energy. The fusion reaction promised a totally clean form of nuclear energy with the need to worry about radiation.

Nuclear fusion offerred an unlimited source of clean energy. Fleischmann and Ponns budget was personally financed for a couple hundred thousand dollars, whereas, high power nuclear fusion costs exceeded $10 million requiring powerful lasers and electromagnets. The Deutertium and Palladium experiment had produced a 60 fold increase in heat and persisted over a 100 hours. To help understand the signficance of fusion energy lets look at the requirements to run a 1,000 megawatt generator for a year. The 1,000 megawatt power generator would take 20,000 railcars of coal for the year and an oil fire station would require a similar volume of oil. A single railcar of uranium will power a nuclear fission reactor for a year. However, one auto car full of water would power a nuclear fusion generator for a year.