*NEWS*RESEARCHERS PRODUCES NUCLEAR FUSION

[Anonymous]

UCLA Researchers Produce Nuclear Fusion

LOS ANGELES (April 05) – A tabletop experiment created
nuclear fusion – long seen as a possible clean energy solution – under lab
conditions, scientists reported.

But the amount of energy produced was too little to be seen
as a breakthrough in solving the world’s energy needs.

For years, scientists have sought to harness controllable
nuclear fusion, the same power that lights the sun and stars. This latest
experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While
falling short as a way to produce energy, the method could have potential uses
in the oil-drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, one of
the physicists who did the experiment at the University of California, Los
Angeles.

The experiment’s results appear in Thursday’s issue of the
journal Nature.

Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with
skepticism and even derision by physicists. In 1989, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the
University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England
shocked the world when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold
fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts
to reproduce it failed.

Fusion experts noted that the UCLA experiment was credible
because, unlike the 1989 work, it didn’t violate basic principles of
physics.

“This doesn’t have any controversy in it because they’re
using a tried and true method,” said David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and
plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There’s
no mystery in terms of the physics.”

Fusion power has been touted as the ultimate energy source
and a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil. Fossil fuels are
expected to run short in about 50 years.

In fusion, light atoms are joined in a high-temperature
process that frees large amounts of energy.

It is considered environment-friendly because it produces
virtually no air pollution and does not pose the safety and long-term
radioactive waste concerns associated with modern nuclear power plants, where
heavy uranium atoms are split to create energy in a process known as
fission.

In the UCLA experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal
that can generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with
deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the researchers
activated the crystal by heating it.

The resulting electric field created a beam of charged
deuterium atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more
deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with their
counterparts in the target, they fused.

The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with
subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The
experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in – an
achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

Commercial neutron generators work in a similar way. But
the UCLA instrument was “remarkably low-tech” in comparison, Michael Saltmarsh,
a retired physicist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, wrote
in an accompanying article.

UCLA’s Putterman said future experiments will focus on
refining the technique for potential commercial uses, including designing
portable neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or scanning
luggage and cargo at airports.

[Author]

April 28, 2005 at 10:31 AM