CFRL English News No. 5X       (2004. 12. 10)

Cold Fusion Research Laboratory (Japan) Dr. Hideo Kozima, Director

                            E-mail address; cf-lab.kozima@nifty.com

                                           hjrfq930@ybb.ne.jp

                            Websites; http://www.geocities.jp/hjrfq930/

            (Back numbers of this News are posted on the above Website)

 

   CFP (Cold Fusion Phenomenon) stands for gnuclear reactions and accompanying events occurring in solids with high densities of hydrogen isotopes (H and/or D) in ambient radiation.h

 

   This is the CFRL News (in English) No. 59 for Cold Fusion researchers published by Dr. H. Kozima, now at the Cold Fusion Research Laboratory, Shizuoka, Japan.

This issue contains following items:

1. ICCF11was held in Marseille, France

2.    H. Kozima, hCold Fusion Phenomenon and Solid State-Nuclear Physicsh was presented at ICCF11

3.    gDOE Report on the Cold Fusion Phenomenon - 2004h was issued on December 1, 2004

 

1. ICCF11was held in Marseille, France

As was reported in the CFRL News No.57 and the following issues, the 11th International Conference on the Cold Fusion (ICCF11) was held on from October 31 to November 5 at Marseille, France. Number of presentations were about 110 (Oral 50, Poster 60 according to the Program) and participants were about 160 (according to the List of Participants) including 39 from USA, 29 from France, 25 from Italy, 16 from Russia, 13 from Japan. Details of the Conference is posted at the ICCF11 homepage: www.iccf11.org 

 

2. H. Kozima, gCold Fusion Phenomenon and Solid State-Nuclear Physicsh was presented at ICCF11.

As was announced in the CFRL News No.28, my paper with the above title was presented on November 1 at ICCF11 in the poster session. As main stream of the Conference has been along the Fleischmannfs hypothesis (cf. CFRL News No.58, 2. Cold Fusion PhenomenoniCFPj and Fleischmannfs Hypothesis), the above presentation was placed in the poster session and given 8 pages in the Proceedings to be published in future. It is discussed in relation with the gDOE Report – 2004h discussed in the next item that the cold fusion phenomenon (CFP) occurring in complex systems and including various events should be investigated in wider perspective communicative with researchers in the neighboring fields.

Posters of the above presentation used at ICCF11 were posted in the CFRL website: http://www.geocities.jp/hjrfq930/News/NewsPrefaces/poster.pdf

 

3. gDOE Report on the Cold Fusion Phenomenon - 2004h was issued on December 1, 2004

Haiko Lietz and others mailed us about the DOEfs Reort of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (DOE Report – 2004) posted at the following website of DOE.

http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/index.htm

In this site, there are several materials about the review in which we can know details of this matter. The DOE Report – 2004 is posted at CFRL website as a doc file.

http://www.geocities.jp/hjrfq930/News/NewsPrefaces/DOE2004.htm

 

a) The conclusion of the review was similar to the conclusion of 1989 Review by ERAB of the DOE rejecting a special program to develop CFP as follows.

 gConclusion

While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review.

The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field, two of which were: 1) material science aspects of deuterated metals using modern characterization techniques, and 2) the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods. The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.h

The final comment gthis field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journalsh is universally true but ignoring real situation that CFP is in the right side of the Medawar zone and has lost benefit from existing archival journalism. (About the Medawar zone, confer the essay by Peter Gluck in gDiscoveryh Section 16.5 posted at the following website:

http://www.geocities.jp/hjrfq930/Books/Discovery/chap16.htm j.

It might be a surplus expectation to ask DOE judgment about scientific value of CFP research even if we present them correct materials in this field. The material presented to DOE from five American researchers in this field (Attachment 1 in the above Report) was aimed at the D+D 4He + 23.8 MeV (in thermal energy) along the Fleischmannfs hypothesis. From my point of view expressed several times in this News and in many papers, CFP is abundant of wonderful events occurring in complex systems and should be investigated from wider perspective than only the two- particle collision and a few particle interaction in solids. Then, communication with researchers in neighboring fields will become easier profiting each other including the proposal gmaterial science aspects of deuterated metalsh in the above Conclusion of the DOE Report – 2004.

There are several articles on this topic in newspapers and newsletters. Here, we cite two of them from the New York Times and the Whatfs New.

 

b) NYT objectively reports DOE Report – 2004.

Evidence on Cold Fusion Remains Inconclusive, New Review Finds

By KENNETH CHANG
IIn a new review of cold fusion - the claim that energy can be generated by running electrical current through water - the Department of Energy released a report yesterday that says the evidence remains inconclusive, echoing a similar report 15 years ago.

Over the past several months, 18 scientists reviewed research in cold fusion, and two-thirds of them did not find the evidence for nuclear reactions in the experiments convincing. Almost all of them, however, said that aspects of cold fusion merited consideration for further research.

"I think the new review has shed some light on the status of research that has been done over the last 15 years," said Dr. James F. Decker, deputy director of the science office in the Energy Department who agreed to the review at the request of several scientists involved with cold fusion research.

Dr. Decker said the department was open to proposals for cold fusion research, but added that was not new. "We have always been open to proposals that have scientific merit as determined by peer review," he said. "We have never closed the door to cold fusion proposals."

Cold fusion briefly appeared to promise an unlimited energy source in 1989 when Drs. B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah announced that they had generated fusion - the same process that powers the sun - inn a tabletop experiment using a jar of water containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen.

They claimed that an electrical current running through the water pulled deuterium atoms into two palladium electrodes, generating heat. The speculation was that the heat was coming from the fusion of the deuterium atoms.

Other scientists, however, had trouble reproducing the findings, and at the end of 1989, a review by the Energy Department recommended against a specific cold fusion research program, although it did support further investigation into some aspects.

After that, most scientists regarded cold fusion as a discredited farce, but a small group of scientists continued work in the field. Measurements have become better, but cold fusion experiments still produce heat at best half of the time. At the end of last year, several cold fusion scientists approached Dr. Decker, asking for a review. Dr. Decker agreed.

In the review, nine scientists chosen by the Energy Department considered a paper submitted by the cold fusion scientists. Another nine listened to oral presentations by cold fusion scientists in August.

"This was a very, very scientific, very level-headed, review by everybody," said Dr. Kirby W. Kemper, vice president for research at Florida State University and one of the reviewers of the oral presentations. But Dr. Kemper said, "I don't think we've made much progress since '89 in really nailing down the parameters that make it reproducible."

He said there were interesting scientific questions on the behavior of hydrogen within metals that merited research, and he said his comments tried to offer a future research path.

Dr. Michael McKubre, a scientist at SRI International, one of the scientists who approached Dr. Decker last year, said the conclusions were at least "mildly positive" in endorsing consideration of further research.

"All we set out to demonstrate was there were serious issues of science that had to be developed further," Dr. McKubre said. "If you look through the materials, the majority, if not the entirety, agree on that point."(NYT December 2, 2004)

c) Bob Park of University of Maryland discusses as follows.

gCold, Cold FusionF So after 15 Years, what has been learned?

Wefve learned that DOE should stop playing games with the Federal Advisory Committee Act while shrouding its review in secrecy (WN 17 Sep 04). Beyond that, we havenft learned much. The report released this week is an attempt to summarize individual comments from 18 unidentified reviewers. The conclusions at the end of the report were: 1) "significant progress has been made in sophistication of calorimeters," and 2)"conclusions reached by reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review." Thatfs it? After 15 years wefve got better calorimeters? The 1989 review called for no more cold fusion research. Good advice. Proponents now prefer "low energy nuclear reactions," but "no more" is still good advice.h (WN December 3, 2004) http://www.aps.org/WN/index.cfm

I wish he would recognize scientific value of CFP examining experimental data after long history of his concern with this field.