Source: Gizmodo
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/05/scientist_creates_cold_fusion_
for_the_first_time_in_decades-2.html
Cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear reaction at room
temperature, has long been relegated to science fiction after
researchers were unable to recreate the experiment that first
"discovered" the phenomenon. But a Japanese scientist was
supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction earlier last
week, which-if the results are real-could revolutionise the way
we gather energy.
Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan,
demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University
on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters
from six major newspapers and two tv studios, Arata and a co-
professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.
.
Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an evacuated
cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix(ZrO2-
Pd). Arata said that the mix caused the deuterium's nuclei to
fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the centre
of the cell warm for 50 hours.
Arata's experiment would mark the first time anyone has
witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and
Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis
of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other
researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion
became synonymous with bad science.
But the method Arata showed was "highly reproducible,"
according to eye witnesses of the event. If nobody calls this
demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have finally found the
holy grail of cheap and abundant energy-nuclear power, without
its destructive heat.
Source: Gizmodo
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/05/scientist_creates_cold_fusion_
for_the_first_time_in_decades-2.html
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