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Cold Fusion and Big Oil
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by Emilio Lizardo | August 17, 2008 at 05:16 pm
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Now Public contributor E. Lizardo
August 17, 2008 8:51 PM EDT
OPINION:
Prior to about a year ago the phrase, 'cold fusion,' for me brought to mind images of scientists sitting around a dirty little table somewhere in a dimly lit, smoke filled corner of some waterfront bar comparing notes and whispering urgently back and forth, circling words or numbers with red pencils on beer stained paper. Poorly groomed and plotting, scheming, with conspiratorial smiles and raised eyebrows they were up to something. Bad teeth, three days' worth of stubbly beards, needing showers and haircuts, their clothes looking like they had been slept in, these were images, indeed, of some very shady characters.
A year ago, before I found myself revisiting the subject when looking into alternative energy technology, cold-fusion research, at least in my mind was synonomous with trickery, charlatainism, cooking the books and just plain old bad science. That all began to change almost immediately after arriving on a reference page for this subject which served as a jump-point to all the public domain information on cold-fusion which had accrued in the nearly 20-years since it had been dismissed nearly out of hand by mainstream science as little more than deplorable fakery.
An Historic Announcement
Cold Fusion Has Been Achieved
In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported producing a tabletop nuclear fusion reaction at the University of Utah. In their press conferences and papers, they reported the [the production of more energy out of than was put into a test] cell ... Lacking an explanation for the source of such [excess] heat, they proposed the [theory] that the heat came from nuclear fusion of [heavy water]. The report of their results raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy.
Ironically, Pons' and Fleischmann's announcement was partially eclipsed a mere 12-hours later by the sudden and sensational news of the greatest environmental disaster to ever hit the Pacific Northwest, the grounding and hull breach off the Alaskan coastline of the Exxon Valdez ...
Public Reaction
We are reminded of the excitement and frenzied media activity which followed immediately in the wake of the public announcement of this now historic and infamous scietific event by a citation from a mainstream newspaper article which ran a few days later.
Fusion in a Jar: Announcement by 2 Chemists Ignites Uproar
March 28, 1989Two chemists who claimed last week to have triggered nuclear fusion in a jar of water have ignited a major uproar in the scientific world.
At a news conference Thursday, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Dr. Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton announced that they had not only achieved hydrogen fusion in a simple electrolytic cell, but had obtained a substantial yield of energy.
If their assertion is verified, scientists agree, the two would almost certainly win a Nobel Prize and would probably become very wealthy through the commercialization of their process. Such an achievement might also give the world a new source of cheap energy.
For someone such as myself, who felt as if the wolves were never far from his door, the notion of a sudden windfall of cheap and abundant energy, although certainly wonderful and exciting, seemed almost too good to be true.
And so, it turned out to be. Further on in the same NYT® announcement already cited, was news of the vastly negative reception of Pons' and Fleischmann's cold-fusion work and the huge controversy it was already causing amongst the fold of the faithful 'mainstream' researchers.
Fusion in a Jar: Announcement by 2 Chemists Ignites Uproar
Deepening the professional skepticism was the unorthodox way in which the claimed achievement was announced. Although the two said they had been working on their idea for 10 years, they said they had confided in no other scientists. Up to the present, they have not published their claim in any scientific journal, a procedure that would have required them to submit convincing experimental results to a panel of their peers.Dr. Pons said in a telephone interview that his work had, in fact, undergone peer review by a professional journal, which would publish it. But he refused to say which journal, or to disclose other details of publication.
He said he and Dr. Fleischmann had paid for their work with their private funds, about $100,000, because they had assumed that "mainstream" scientific financing agencies would not take them seriously.
Even scientists who believe the claim to be hypothetically possible deplored the way in which the achievement was disclosed.
Pons and Fleischmann had worked under the cover of secrecy. Using their own funds their work remained under the radar of the scientific establishment for more than ten years, quietly advancing toward their goal. In hindsight, they certainly may have been justified in their decision to keep their work a secret, for already, not ten days after their initial announcement of success, one gets the undeniable impression that somehow the wagons of mainstream science are circling to exclude them.
The story of what happened to them and their careers over the next few years illustrates very clearly they were probably correct to do so.
The Announcement's Aftermath
The US government wasted little time in taking strong measures to correct what evidently appeared to to them as a deplorable malfeasance of science.
The Energy Research Advisory Board
In November [1989], a special panel formed by the Energy Research Advisory Board, under a charge of the United States Department of Energy, said that it was not possible to state categorically that cold fusion has been convincingly either proved or disproved. The experimental results of excess heat from [test cells] reported to them did not present convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion.
Only two years later, in 1991, Dr. Fleischmann found his career in ruins
Scientist in Fusion Dispute May Lose His Job
AP
Published: March 24, 1991One of the two scientists who claimed to have discovered a process in which atomic fusion could be induced at room temperature has been told by the University of Utah that his future there is in jeopardy.
In a letter dated Feb. 4, the chairman of the university's chemistry department asked Dr. Fleischmann, who is living in Britain, whether he intended to reapply as an auxiliary professor in the department before his current appointment expires at the end of the academic year.
Dr. Fleischmann, a widely published electrochemist, replied March 6 that he wanted his appointment put to a vote and said he had no doubt that his colleagues would reaffirm his position.
He also accused Dr. Stang of trying to sabotage the university's cold-fusion research program, which resulted from the claim made by Dr. Fleischmann and Dr. Pons. "I think you would like to close the file" on cold fusion "because you find it uncomfortable," Dr. Fleischmann wrote.
For much of the last two years, Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann have come under fire from the scientific community, and as a result, the cold-fusion program being financed by the State of Utah has suffered setbacks.
Dr. Pons, Fleischmann's partner in crime, so to speak, being perhaps the wiser of the pair, had chosen to retreat from the furor their work had caused. He was on sabattical somewhere in France by 1991.
And where are they today ?
Martin Fleischmann
In 1992, Fleischmann moved to France with Pons, to work at the IMRA laboratory (part of Technova Corporation, a subsidiary of Toyota); the laboratory closed in 1998 after exhausting a research investment of $12 million USD. The pair parted ways in 1995, and Fleischmann returned to Southampton, where he remained as of 1999. He has recently co-authored papers with researchers from the U.S. Navy and Italian national laboratories (INFN and ENEA).
Stanley Pons
Pons moved to France in 1992, along with Fleischmann, to work at the IMRA laboratory (part of Technova Corporation, a subsidiary of Toyota); the laboratory was closed in 1998 after burning through a $12 million research investment ... As of 1999, Pons was living in southern France. According to a report of the history of the chemistry department at the University of Utah, as of 2000 he is no longer doing research in France.
The strange and terrible saga of the careers and lives of these two gifted researchers unavoidably brings to this writers mind a remarkably similar series of events which has already been described in another Now Public® article, Galileo and Big Religion.
Cold Fusion Research Today
Work in cold-fusion research has been quietly and seriously underway for nearly 20-years now, being conducted in military, government and university labs
2007 Cold Fusion Symposium
The American Chemical Society's (ACS) 2007 conference in Chicago held an "invited symposium" on cold fusion ... and thirteen papers were presented at the "Cold Fusion" session of the 2006 American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting in Baltimore. Articles supporting cold fusion have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy.In 2007, a United States Naval Research Laboratory researcher ... wrote a review of [cold fusion research] experiments ... [He] said that more than 10 groups worldwide have reported the measurement of excess heat in 1/3 of their experiments and that most of the research groups have reported occasionally seeing 50-200% excess heat for hours to days.
But other groups are working on it too, ones we don't often hear of, ones which have presented no papers at any scientific conferences. Their research goes on in what may only be described as a rather secretive manner.
When I first looked into all this, just last year I was able to rather quickly find more than a few links referring to cold fusion research being conducted by big oil companies. Today, after more than an hour of searching, the best I could come up with were a few names of individuals currently working in cold fusion reseach and who were formerly employed by Exxon®. For example
Lou Furlong
CETI has spent about $2 million on cold fusion research since its foundation in 1995, much of it family money, a large fraction paying for additional patents ... "We just finished a $2.5 offering about nine months ago. That enabled us to hire a president, Jack St.Genis, who was a very senior manager at Matsushita, NEC, and IBM. And Lou Furlong joined us six months ago as director of research, formerly at Exxon®.
One other interesting find I made is a 194 page book on cold fusion in pdf format available freely at what appears to be the author's website. Foot-note 92 on the bottom of page 74 refers to an Amoco® internal technical report
Cold Fusion and the Future - a footnote
Lauzenhiser, T. and D. Phelps, Cold Fusion: Report on a Recent Amoco Experiment. 1990: Amoco Production Company, Research Department.
Another citation from the same page perhaps sums up the situation as well as any might
Cold Fusion and the Future
Cold fusion has largely been developed by maverick scientists working within mainstream institutions, including mainstream energy industry research institutes. Amoco Production Company and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) funded some of the most impressive cold fusion research, but they put the results aside and scaled back or cancelled programs, apparently because managers within these organizations are hostile toward cold fusion.A working cold fusion generator at any price, for any market, will be the kiss of death to the electric power industry ... Cold fusion cannot help the energy industry. It can only strangle it. The rational response to cold fusion would be to prepare for the orderly liquidation of the electric power industry, the oil companies, and the rest of the energy sector. This would be unthinkable to managers at EPRI® and Exxon®.
Summary
I must apologize for the excessive length of this article. Upsetting to our carefully conditioned short western attention spans, it's length resulted from my effort to thoroughly make the case that the crib-death, as it were, of cold-fusion technology was a direct result of the immense threat such technology would pose to the practical strangle-hold big oil has on the energy supply for the world's energy consumers. A market so gigantic it truly boggles the imagination. For instance, the gross cash income to big oil from the pockets of American car drivers is around 10-billion dollars a week, by my recent estimates, for the purchase of their automotive fuels alone.
This article is tagged OPINION since it was the writer's intention to show a relationship between big oil and the apparently doomed prospects of commercial cold-fusion technology, a relationship not officially regarded as fact, to his knowledge, by any references publicly available.
Finally, I would hope this article was informative, interesting and enjoyable to read.
Further Resources
1. U.S. Department of Energy Homepage
2. ENERGY RESEARCH ADVISORY BOARD COLD FUSION PANEL
3. U.S. Department of Energy Report on Cold Fusion
4. The 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science
5. Wired Coverage of the MIT "Cold Fusion" Conference
6. CV of Dr. Allen Bard
7. Cold Fusion and the Future
8. Evidence-Based Public Policy toward Cold Fusion
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Emilio Lizardo
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (21)
at 17:42 on August 17th, 2008
Emilio Lizardo, thanks for an interesting history and multi-source roundup.
at 18:13 on August 17th, 2008
Sounds like a bad movie. In the 1997 movie: The Saint with Val Kilmer, all about cold fusion, bad guys tried to steal the process and tried to kill anyone who had knowledge of it. It had a happy ending, tho.
at 18:40 on August 17th, 2008
Emilio Lizardo, nice piece of investigative reporting. I've always felt that both energy companies and the automotive industries have always maintained such tight control on advancing research as a means of hindering it so as to keep their own pockets lined at the public's expense, or buying up patent ideas rather than letting the ideas hit the open market.
I always wondered what had happened to the two researchers. I am sorry, though not suprised, that their careers were so trashed. That, though, is what happens when someone goes up against big money.
You do good.
at 18:40 on August 17th, 2008
Thanks for the flags, Rene and Julian! much appreciated.
at 18:44 on August 17th, 2008
although I am not really suprised to see what happened to these guys, I was suprised at the number I got when using volume data from a recent OPEC report that looks like Americans spend around 10-billion bucks a week just on gasoline ... it's staggering - and also makes it very easy for an old sea-dog like myself to understand why bad things seems to happen to people who make too many waves ... hmmm ... i think i'll shut up now ...
at 22:02 on August 17th, 2008
I quote your Post:" I must apologise for the excessive length of this article. Upsetting to our carefully conditioned short western attention spans, "
I like the phrase! Okay I know that story and you did a great job, really good in bringing this up! My Grand Father worked on projects in that area in Europe, where we the largest Cold fusion reactor was build in 1970th a new one in the 1990 another on was recently completed in Canada BC in 2006 or 2007, I forgot! The two Scientist in question here where most likely wrong though and delusional!Cold fusion was never abandoned in Europe nor in Japan, the research has been going on eagerly yet rather frustrating! To this day fortunately, I would say we have not managed to achieve it! Why? Remember Chernobyl and Three mile Island? Well, a single cold fusion accident could destroy the earth and be on! This potential energy source may be rather tempting to achieve for a nice easy supply of energy, yet it is the most dangerous source of energy as well and could be devastating with on single little mistake or mall function! Well, the people in charge will assure you that all will be under control as they said for Chernobyl and three Mile Island and as they said in France until 5 Nuclear power station Yes 5 not 1 not 2 but 5 started leaking Radioactive components!So I for one was rather happy in 1989 to see that those two where most likely charlatans! This Nuclear Fusion is not some thing to toy with nor to take lightly and other than energy it will produce Bombs as well!
at 23:11 on August 17th, 2008
Emilio Lizardo, I like this story. It's good stuff. Think about the $ 15 bn competition Fusion ( not cold ) project ITER, Brits try to make it cheaper with Laser triggered Fusion; all ending in new "pocket weapons". Emilio breathtaking NY article
at 23:43 on August 17th, 2008
Oh Darn..... .... ... I forgot what I was going to write. =-)
at 03:14 on August 18th, 2008
I know virtually nothing about the science involved here, Paschen.
It's somehow involved with the very strong forces, at the atomic scale, right on the surface, or inside the bulk material of the electrodes which are made of exotic materials. When the electricity is turned on, then at extremely tiny scales the forces are quite immense. When heavy water atoms are subjected to these 'electromotive' forces while in contact with the exotic material then, viola', fusion occurs ! Excess heat is released, photons of light have been observed, and also gamma radiation ...
I read several anecdotes of 'accidents' which occurred during Pons' and Fleicshmann's experiments, as well as those of other researchers. The general way these stories go is that for some reason the fusion reaction rate goes from just being pretty good to way off the scale ... when the reaction rate goes off the scale, for whatever reason ( they don't really seem to know why this happens - but it is pretty interesting, capice' ? ), then the reaction electrode gets way, way hot - then it burns through the container, burns through the lab table, continues to burn through the linolium on the lab floor, and once in contact with the concrete of the lab floor it just sits there sometimes for hours still producing all this excess heat - far too hot to move it or touch it ...
Very intriguing ... I have a feeling I understand why the oil companies are concerned about regular folks learning how to put one of these babies together in their basements and then dropping permanently off the grid !!
at 03:17 on August 18th, 2008
Thanks for flags and comments, Solar and world !
at 07:56 on August 19th, 2008
That was informative - Thanks Emilio! Another movie that comes to mind, regarding, same scenario of control and termination of competition -- "The Formula" (1980) staring the now deceased actors George C. Scott and Marlon Brando. A low-budget flick prompted by the earlier oil crisis.
at 10:33 on August 19th, 2008
Emilio Lizardo, There have been a number of "cold fusion" type reactors that exist, that were built by private individuals. The best one, my favorite, has been built by a 16 (I think, maybe younger) year old in Michigan on his own, with some help from his father, with parts and equipment bought at salvage or on eBay@. It was found out about by Michigan's Dept. of EH & S by accident one of the outer building that housed the x-ray component the roof had not been shielded properly. So far as I know he has not been shut down and probably taken care of that problem. Though he has not been able to keep a sustained reaction going... yet. His dad is rather proud of the boy's engineering and I admit that I'm impressed. Wish that I had keep a copy of the article.
I look more to the young people like this for better ideas than I do for something from big money as they have a totally different agenda for people than to graciously help them or the world we live in.
at 22:20 on August 19th, 2008
No problem with the length; not a simple topic, you didn't waste words, thanks for pulling the links together.
"A market so gigantic it truly boggles the imagination. For instance, the gross cash income to big oil from the pockets of American car drivers is around 10-billion dollars a week, by my recent estimates, for the purchase of their automotive fuels alone."
That’s a powerful incentive to kill and stamp out alternatives, and it wouldn't be the first time Who Killed the Electric Car?. 138 billion gallons used in 2006 according to wiki; $10 billion a week sounds right. This ogre Lee Raymond looks pretty happy; he got a $400 million dollar retirement package after raping us consumers at the pump for years. This report from consumerfed.org March 08, blacked out or spun by the corpse media, shows 10-40% of the price of gas is due to anti-free market, anti-competitive practices by the oil industry in refinery markets. RISING GASOLINE PRICES: WHY CAN’T CONSUMERS CATCH A BREAK?
I say nationalize the oil industry, and the banks; oil and money are public goods like clean air and water, and these fat cat scumbags are doing the human race no favors-they're killing us and holding back progress. Until we convert to electric cars, there's a market and demand for oil, and the people running the industry are entitled to fair compensation for the value of the work they contribute, but obscene profits, salaries and bonuses aren't needed to make it run effectively. They're not drilling the leases they already have, and they want to drill our coasts? They have $100 billion profits and have built no new refineries; where's the incentive- more availability means the price goes down. Certainly revenues like they have some of these people would decide are worth killing people for; indeed, people are die in wars due to their selfishness and greed, whatever people might have been whacked or bought out that had inventions threatening their revenue streams.
The "recent developments" section in wikipedia says "On May 22, 2008, Arata and Zhang publicly demonstrated what they say is a cold fusion reactor at Osaka University." So does this mean Japan is the next target, not Iran? I don't know what's up with cold fusion, but if it's possible, and the US oil pigs are stamping it out in the US and western nations, it will be done in some other industrialized nation, if it's really as simple as some of the results indicate- and then the US will have to bomb them, or compete- or get left behind. People do claim things to get attention, and the results need to be replicated. I'm not sure what to make of cold fusion. Interesting article.
at 07:31 on August 20th, 2008
Emilio Lizardo, I like this story. It's good stuff.
I woke up with this article on my mind. I was hesitant to flag it as good stuff as it seems to imply cold fusion is for real, and i don't see hard evidence has been provided, but you end the article with:
"This article is tagged OPINION since it was the writer's intention to show a relationship between big oil and the apparently doomed prospects of commercial cold-fusion technology, a relationship not officially regarded as fact, to his knowledge, by any references publicly available."
Cold fusion may be bunk and it may not, but it appears lots of people are trying to answer that question. You have shown the links between big oil and cold fusion research, which has come to naught so far. It may be that they're suppressing the info; they could hire scientists with conflicts and non-disclosure agreements and pay them to say it doesn't work, wasn't replicated. The oil industry is not to be trusted, and their involvement in the research indicates they think there might be, or that there is something to it. If cold fusion for real, they won't have a monopoly or a captive market, and they won't be able to make hundred billion dollar profits anymore. It's clear the oil industry is evil, and they've worked to suppress truth and good ideas- Who Killed the Electric Car?, the real reason Afghanistan and Iraq were attacked and Iran is a target now; after the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh who was moving to nationalize the oil industry, Rockefeller, Ford and the Secret History of Alcohol.
Also, the efforts by the oil industry to "debunk" global warming from human causes is suspicious; they have an interest in killing that information as well, and it doesn't appear there's a financial incentive for promoting it. I have not researched global warming much. The correlation between human CO2 emissions and rising temps is striking.
Thanks for writing this and I hope you'll continue investigating, i'm now monitoring the cold fusion issue as a result of reading this.
at 10:32 on August 20th, 2008
Indeed, the OPINION flag may cover a multitude of sins ...
As far a my personal position on the Cold-Fusion issue, even though you didn't directly ask - of course it's for real!
It's like the difference between microwave-communications and carrier pigeons ...
Just another quantum step in the evolution of our knowledge of our own world ...
To sum up what this article meant for me - Why don't we have cold-fusion today, running in everything from our cars to our microwaves ( that might be a stretch, I admit ... ) ?
Answer : Because it's just about the money ...
at 10:34 on August 20th, 2008
Never saw the movie, Bally. Glad you enjoyed the article.
at 10:38 on August 20th, 2008
This thing's definately for real, Monte ...
I have seen photos of quartz plates which have been pitted by gamma-ray emmisions from cold-fusion reaction vessles ... you don't get gamma-rays unless there is a true nuclear reaction occuring ...
This thing's real, and they killed it in the cradle just to keep their existing business plan in place ... of course, IMHO ...
at 17:08 on August 20th, 2008
I can't rule it out, the existence of this Universe, period, is more amazing than anything that happens in it. Einstein said "imagination is more important than knowledge"
at 17:48 on August 20th, 2008
Younger people have the advantage over their elders in terms of sheer mental acuity and horsepower. But all is not lost lost for those of us, like yours truly who now find themselves growing somewhat 'long in the tooth.' Our greater years of experience have given us a wider, and in some cases a much wider 'information horizon' than younger members of the tribe ... we just know more stuff because we've lived longer and have more experience ...
Here's one of the things I know about Einstein which you may not - he wrote a letter to President Truman advising him that building an atomic bomb would be a good idea ...
How frickin' smart was that ?
at 21:58 on August 22nd, 2008
Emilio, you might want to re check you information. Einstein did not write Truman, he wrote Roosevelt after having contacted a number of nuclear scientists that had just fled Europe and had information concerning Nazi scientists trying to establish a controlled nuclear fission, really the first step in understanding then building a atomic or nuclear weapon. Yes HE did write Roosevelt, which is what led to the starting of the "Manhattan Project", and advised him of the work that was being done by the Nazis at the time and that we needed to develop the bomb first before the Nazis. That was in the early years just before the USA came into the war and the rest "as they say" is history. YES he did advocate the building of the bomb by the USA rather than the Nazis having it. He also came out later against any further development of atomic or nuclear weapons, and I believe that he, Oppenheimer and N. Bohr wrote Truman to that effect.
at 07:22 on February 16th, 2009
I recently discovered a company called Energetics Technologies. They have a process called SuperWaveFusion, which could be a possible breakthrough in cold fusion.. Using an interaction between palladium and deuterium they have reported an excess heat reaction. I am trying to learn more about this process and would like to hear from others about what they think.