MY COLD FUSION HISTORY (I)

A confession first- I am much more interested in the future than in the past. I have no chance to be or act as a historian, see please my former posting... However, this week, Wednesday- we will celebrate the 22^nd anniversary of cold fusion and I will remember

in writing some events which have impressed me deeply and are perhaps relevant for the future.

The essence is this: what became of cold fusion has a great future.

My vision of this subject has changed radically from the initial understanding of it but this is quite normal for a new scientific process.

Anyway, as I have told, based on my concept of unstoppable technological progress- that has to be valid for energy generation via nuclear fusion too- I have joined this “movement” as soon as

I got the surprising information about the historical Fleischmann - Pons conference.

I have read everything I could gather about Cold Fusion and I have decided to do research in this field. The F-P conference was in March 1989, then the socialist regimes from Europe have collapsed,

in December, the dictator Ceausescu was executed and we became free. A good start, but free and penniless is not exactly a happy state. (I had great problems with my ill son.)

I moved from the Institute of Chemistry to the neighboring Institute of Isotopic and Molecular Research- Cluj. One of the teams here had a really great experience of working with palladium. I have worked with a skilled physicist, Mrs. Evelina Palibroda- she has planned, organized and executed the experimental part. As the majority of early workers we were searching for nuclear signals. The results are described in this paper:

Evelina Palibroda, P. Gluck

“Cold Nuclear Fusion in thin foils of Palladium.

J. Radioanal. Nucl.Chem. Letters 154(2)153-161 (1991)

The first, introductory sentence of this paper, demonstrates how unjust is that I suffer from the Cassandra Syndrome:

“After many months of intensive research, cold fusion remains a

multidimensional enigma.”

This is a great and profound truth today too, the introductory sentence of the present paper could be:

“After 22 years of intensive, creative, serious, diversified research cold fusion, actually (LENR) remains a multidimensional enigma.”

Surely the scientific community has demonstrated that the phenomena (very diverse!) are REAL but there still are many problems with the “know what”, the “know how” the “know why”

and, the most important and relevant “know why NOT” -elements

The Palibroda- Gluck paper was presented at the 2^nd International Conference on Cold Fusion at Como, in 1991. My colleague made the presentation- with success; however these congresses are not organized for extended and deep discussions. I was enchanted to have the possibility to participate, I could do this because a rich relative from the US has sent me some money but have asked me why I am going to such an expensive place? In socialism to be poor is a natural state, but in capitalism it is disturbing and humiliating. And a sin.

At Como I was in a very disadvantageous situation- no presentation, no reputation, nobody knew me- it seemed that I will be one of the most unremarkable participants. I wanted to join the community. What shall I do?

Early Cold Fusion history was characterized by a strange application of statistics and of a kind of democratic process- similar to voting. Hundreds of teams worldwide have tried to reproduce the Fleischmann-Pons process or something similar, a few succeeded But the majority failed, including some famous universities and research institutes. Based on this bad statistics, the mass media and the mainstream scientific community have concluded that cold fusion does not exist, is dead. But those who have obtained positive results have continued to work, and the field is active living, creative now 20 and some years later.

This application of statistics was very unscientific, erroneous, misleading. Very stupid!

This gave me an idea- I cannot write a paper, but I will write

a meta-paper, a paper about papers demonstrating that statistics

cannot kill cold fusion. A very short paper:

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FROM 317 PAPERS REVIEWED ON COLD FUSION, ONLY 56 PRESENT POSITIVE RESULTS.

CONCLUSION: COLD FUSION IS STATISTICALLY DEAD.

THE ROMANIAN DICTATOR, NICOLAE CEAUSESCU WAS EXECUTED/ THE FIRING SQUAD WAS SCARED. HAD USED 302 BULLETS BUT ONLY 43 HAD HIT DEADLY.

CONCLUSION: NICOLAE CEAUSESCU IS STATISTICALLY ALIVE.

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I have shown this first to Douglas Morrison, the great skeptic present at the conference (who was convinced that I am an idiot

because I have asked him once in 1990 what is an e-mail?)  and then I gave to Martin Fleischmann- who is a genius, a nice man

and a man of culture. Martin has liked the meta-paper that became a poster at Como and I was saved from the curse of anonymity.  

I became a collaborator of Hal Fox’s “Fusion Facts” See please

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET29-8dd54geg.shtml#halfox Hal Fox is a great friend, now retired.

I have studied the results obtained by the experimentalists, have tried to understand the ideas of the theorists. I remember with gratitude the first overviews written by Ed Storms and Mahadeva Srinivasan- excellent ones!

My ideas that resulted from this study are presented in this paper:  

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GluckPunderstand.pdf

It is a highly unsuccessful paper, largely ignored, simple ideas, no beautiful mathematical theory. More questions than answers.

I have tried then to explain the problems of cold fusion. Why it has not succeeded to become a source of energy in 3 years? This question has a great permanency we can ask why it does not succeeded to become a source of energy in 20 years. Piantelli’s and Rossi’s NI-H processes, very different from the classical cold fusion have, fortunately changed this, very recently.

Classical Pd – D cold fusion has the following fatal drawbacks;

-       low intensity of energy release;

-       bad reproducibility and controllability;

-       lack of continuity- cannot work for months

-       cannot be scaled-up. remains a lab curiosity

My explanation for this techno-tragedy is not believed by my colleagues. It’s sketch is in the following phrase of the “Topology” paper:

“ In my opinion, this “lack of reproducibility”, is actually  nothing else than an extremely high, mimosaceous SENSIVITY of the cold fusion phenomena that can be triggered, delayed, perturbed or stopped by some hyperfine, immeasurably small causes such as sub-parts-per-billion level impurities or “esoteric” metallurgical factors.

I consider that all “sick” cold fusion/LENR processes are poisoned by the trace impurities of air that inactivate the nuclear active sites

where the reactions can take place.

True? Fixed idea? Simple stupidity?

What I know- Piantelli’s process works and he takes really extreme measures to clean the surface of nanometric nickel.

What I don’t know: the E-cat of Rossi Focardi works well; Rossi says he uses a proprietary process for treating nickel. If this treatment includes very thorough cleaning of the nickel’s surface

or the system is rather tolerant for impurities is still an enigma.

But if my theory is falsified and a “dirty”  Pd-D process starts to

work fine, generating plenty of energy at will, for long times and

an industrial prototype is presented, I will make intellectual seppuku- i.e. never more telling or writing a single word about this subject that was vital for me- for 22 years.