Is Avoiding the Central Issue Dishonest? The Truth About Cold Fusion's Return

[Ivan Seeking]

Scientific Papers Selected for the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy Cold Fusion Review
http://www.newenergytimes.com/doe/7papers.htm

Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science (SC) was approached in late 2003 by a group of scientists who requested that the Department revisit the question of scientific evidence for low energy nuclear reactions. In 1987 Pons and Fleishmann first reported the production of "excess" heat in a Pd electrochemical cell, and postulated that this was due to D-D fusion (D=deuterium), sometimes referred to as "cold fusion." The work was reviewed in 1989 by the Energy Research Advisory Board (ERAB) of the DOE. ERAB did not recommend the establishment of special programs within DOE devoted to the science of low energy fusion, but supported funding of peer-reviewed experiments for further investigations. Since 1989, research programs in cold fusion have been supported by various universities, private industry, and government agencies in several countries.[continued]

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

Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
Conclusion
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.

http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/CF_Final_120104.pdf

 

[Ivan Seeking]

2004 U.S. Department of Energy Cold Fusion Review
Reviewer Comments

Original comments from the reviewers of the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy Cold Fusion Review.

http://newenergytimes.com/DOE/2004-DOE-ReviewerComments.pdf
http://newenergytimes.com/DOE/DOE.htm

 

[Ivan Seeking]

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.

I am still trying to distill this statement.

 

[polyb]

Ivan I don't think it will be as easy as a binary yeah or nay when it comes to understanding what is really happening with these experiments. The DOE report, if I remember correctly, did contend that there was an excess of engery given by the reactions being studied. The fact that APS is having a conference on the subject is a sign that there is more consideration being given to the phenomena and probably is being set up to give more scrutiny to the details of the subject. What ever is happening is not well understood and unfortunately the contraversy has hampered any real progress. Such spectacle does hinder any progress into what would otherwise be a legitimate investigation.

It seems to me that what ever is happening merits study and the ridicule that 'cold fusion' receives is often from people who really don't care to study the subject and investigate. Such is the world of R&D, when you are looking into those dark corners of ignorance quite often people get ridiculed. Sometimes you come out empty handed and othertimes you walk out with a handful of gems, though people may scoff for whatever reason or lack there of. Too bad Boltzman didnt have the guts to tell his peers to 'piss off'.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Review #1

1) The experimental evidence for "cold fusion" is unconvincing. Much of the work (including several of the papers included in the packet) is of poor quality, with inadequate descriptions of apparatus, a lack of error analysis, and data presented without uncertainties.
2) The evidence does not demonstrate that a new phenomenon is occurring.
3) I do not see a scientific case for continuing these studies under federal sponsorship.

Review #2

The observations of low-level neutron and proton emissions is interesting, but appears to be unrelated to the reported observations of excess heat and 4He. Further quantifying these results would seem worthwhile, but not in connection with the generation of excess heat. The excess heat reported remains unexplained. However, in my opinion, there is no evidence for this being a nuclear physics phenomenon.

Review #3

Have the authors provided convincing evidence that the Pd/D system is worthy of continued investigation? The answer is clearly yes. Have the authors provided evidence that LENR exists? Maybe! Should DOE establish a sizeable program to investigate LENR? No. Should DOE consider individual applications for financial assistance for research on the Pd/D system? Yes. Such applications should be considered on their merit.

Review #4

This set of articles make a significant case for phenomena in the deuterium/palladium system that is (I) markedly different from that of the hydrogen/palladium system, (ii) supportive of the claim that excess energy is generated in the deuterium/palladium system, and (iii) without a coherent theoretical explanation.

Review #5

With respect to the section on Excess Heat I was disappointed that the review described some more sophisticated versions of the original Fleischman-Pons experiment but basically it seems to be “more of the same” of this type of research

Review #6

I find nothing in the articles that I've read that convinces me that the new anomalies reported are not experimental artifacts. Exposing or disproving experimental artifacts is far more difficult than generating them. Better experiments could be done, however. For example, a time projection chamber trace showing a proton and triton originating from the same point in a TiD foil with the correct energy would be convincing. Certainly the weight of the evidence present thus far is not strong enough to overcome the three miracle requirement.

Review #7

The proponents of this research clearly believe that they have made their case. As I said above, I do not concur. I note that reference DoE31 itself contains several instances where it points out conflicting results from different cold fusion experiments; e.g., on page 24, “this discrepancy .. is large, and this difference has not been resolved.” And DoE31 also describes the conclusions drawn from several experiments in terms that are not at all definitive, e.g., “apparently” or “it seems that” or “we conclude tentatively that…”.

Review #8

effects reliably (even if achieving that high x is very difficult and very dependent on the materials science of the Pd), while heat balance is attained for x < 0.9 in PdDx (or when using PdHx at all x), we've got the start of science. ...but with all the above said... these experiments are frustrating and difficult, and require expertise that cross-cuts physics, materials science, electrochemistry, as well as analytical chemistry of breathtaking difficulty. The two most difficult things any scientist can be asked to do are trace analysis/mass balance and calorimetry. Most scientists simply aren't good enough to do extremely demanding experiments in every aspect of the research -- and highly deuterided palladium seems unwilling to cut us a break at any stage.

Review #9

The body of work that has resulted from LENR investigations is formidable and worthy of attention of the broader scientific community. It is unfortunate that a few vocal individuals have manage to stigmatize this field and those working in it. The implications of this work, if correct, could be profound. Other nations have pursued LENR and continue to do so. Further work that would add to the understanding of LENR is warranted and should be funded by US funding agencies.

Review #10

In a general summary of the calorimetric results, the observation of sudden and prolonged temperature excursions (bursts of excess heat), has been made a sufficient number of times that, even if not totally reproducible, still have not been explained in terms of conventional chemistry or electrochemistry (a conclusion also made in the 1989 ERAB report). However the systems are sufficiently complicated, the measurement sufficiently difficult, and the effects sufficiently small, that it is difficult to conclude from these effects alone that nuclear processes are involved. Even with all of the
careful work that has been done on electrochemical cells and calorimetry, the system is still not under experimental control, in the sense that one knows exactly the materials needed and the operating conditions to get the same results, even semiquantitatively, every time.

Review #11

I believe the scientific case has been made for continued studies

Review #12

In summary, in my opinion, there is no theory for low-energy nuclear reaction yet. Therefore, the burden of proof lies on experiment. Although there is still a long way to go, the experimental efforts are moving in the right direction to provide a converging conclusion, one way or the other. The current evidence is not sufficiently conclusive to demonstrate that nuclear reactions occur in metal deuterides yet.

Review #13

In response to charge 3), yes, I think it is important to get to the bottom of the science that is going on, not with some massive attack on it, but in considered support of well conceived proposals submitted to address the scientific issues

Review #14

I find that the overall situation has not fundamentally changed since1989 when the ERAB report was written: the experiments are poorly executed, the phenomena are not reproducible, and the claims of “new physics” are not plausible. Consequently, my recommendations are similar to the major recommendations of that report:
1) DOE should not establish a special program for energy production by low energy nuclear
reactions.
2) DOE should consider supporting proposals for research in this area that are of high scientific
quality. However, because this research has been underway with little progress for fifteen years, any such proposals would have the burden of clearly establishing what would be done differently.

Review #15

The properties of Paladium rods in electrolytic cells and the rods uptake of hydrogen and deuterium need to be studied with modern materials characterization techniques. This work might be of future interest in the “hydrogen” economy.

Review #16

I do not believe it is necessary for the DoE to establish a separate program to fund experiments that probe highly screened low-energy nuclear reactions. Experimental proposals should be evaluated individually on their own merits for the likelihood of establishing these unexpected physical effects
convincingly.

Review #17

Charge 3: Determine whether there is a scientific case for continued efforts in these studies and, if so, to identify the most promising areas to be pursued. My response to this question is a weak YES. It is weak, because the proponents of the “cold fusion” effects do not seem to be interested in making their observations go away or in finding conventional explanations for them. This is never a good basis for critical experimental investigations. Having made this broad statement, there are some issues, which could be studied immediately:

Review #18

The best that this paper can claim is that there are possibly coincidences of charged particles. No chance coincidence spectrum is shown. Whether the events are protons, tritons or cosmic rays remain open.

I think that clears things up nicely.

 

[polyb]

I think that clears things up nicely.

That is one way of putting it!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yep, it's pretty obvious that there's nothing to it.

 

[russ_watters]

What do you want, Ivan? 18 separate reviewers with 18 separate opinions are going to make for a lot of separate opinions (does that seem redundant?), some equivocal, and some not. If you want it simple, it can be boiled down to 1 reviewer found that the evidence for the occurrence of low-energy fusion was compelling and the rest did not (though several didn't directly answer the question).

I do find it interesting that the one thing you chose to bold in that long string of quotes had nothing at all to do with cold fusion. If you want to discuss the possibility of other interesting things that are implied by cold fusion research (such as building a better electrolytic cell for generating hydrogen for a hydrogen economy), by all means, but its extremely important to differentiate here: My comments, and the point of the DOE review, are exclusively regarding the validity of cold fusion.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Nearly all recommended continued research. I call that a consensus. Your evaluation is pedestrian and unrepresentive of the report in total. In fact, the conclusion of the report defines this a credible arena of research.

 

[russ_watters]

Nearly all recommended continued research. I call that a consensus. Your evaluation is pedestrian and unrepresentive of the report in total. In fact, the conclusion of the report defines this a credible arena of research.

I'll settle for pedestrian - your assesment is flat out misleading, especially considering you first posted that you didn't know what to think about the conclusion. To me, the key sentence in the conclusion is the first one. Saying that it could benefit from the peer review process says nothing about its validity; saying that very little has happened in the past 15 years to change the opinions of reviewers speaks volumes.

I also don't think you're addressing the distinction between generalized research and cold fusion research. Quite a number said general research is a good thing, but there is no evidence for cold fusion. #2, for example: I assume you would consider that to be one of the "nearly all" - but its highly misleading to imply that that's a thumbs up for cold fusion (since he specifically said it wasn't).

edit: in fact, some that were recommending more research seemed to be recommending it because the experiments thus far have been so bad, not because they have been good - implying to me that with better data, they could give a more decisive thumbs down.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

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.

I read the reviews in order to try to interpret the meaning here. Wasn't that abundantly clear given the 18 quotes? The point was not that anyone has found good evidence for Cold Fusion. The point is that there appears to be an anomaly. The reviewers certainly did not recommend DOE funding for Cold Fusion research. Based on the reviews I wouldn't either. But after reading the reviews, it is clear that most felt that further research is needed to sort this matter out. This is why I prefer to call this the anomaly formerly known as Cold Fusion. Frankly, given another name this is a highly credible topic. What could be causing so much confusion? I'd say that's a pretty important question. Most reviewers seem to agree.

 

[russ_watters]

I read the reviews in order to try to interpret the meaning here. Wasn't that abundantly clear given the 18 quotes? The point was not that anyone has found good evidence for Cold Fusion. The point is that there appears to be an anomaly. The reviewers certainly did not recommend DOE funding for Cold Fusion research. Based on the reviews I wouldn't either. But after reading the reviews, it is clear that most felt that further research is needed to sort this matter out. This is why I prefer to call this the anomaly formerly known as Cold Fusion... What could be causing so much confusion? I'd say that's a pretty important question. Most reviewers seem to agree.

Ivan, I pretty much agree. My point was simply that the title of this thread is "The Return of Cold Fusion," the title of the article was "Cold Fusion Back From the Dead," and the title of the report was "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." The primary issue/point here is not some "anomaly," the issue is 'was there cold fusion?'. The answer is 'the evidence points to no.'

It is important to separate the wheat from the chaff- the "anomaly" from the "cold fusion" claims, and I perceived from you an unwillingness to do that. In the context of this thread, your previous statement...

Nearly all recommended continued research. I call that a consensus.

...implies the report was a thumbs up for cold fusion, and it appears we are in agreement that wasn't.

Frankly, given another name this is a highly credible topic.

Hardly. The name is weak scientifically, but unlike many other popularizations of scientific concepts (ie, Big Bang), its accurate. The DOE uses "low-energy nuclear reactions" which is better, but it doesn't change anything: low-energy nuclear reactions still didn't happen and P&F (and a large fraction of their followers) are still frauds.

Further, crackpots of all sorts are becoming savy - they know that by changing the name, they can fool a forgetful and scientifically uneducated public into thinking their reincarnation of old psuedoscience is new real science. ZPE is a great example of a real scientific concept that has been perverted and attached to old psuedoscience in an effort to trick people into spending money on it. I don't want the same thing to happen with cold fusion.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ivan, I pretty much agree. My point was simply that the title of this thread is "The Return of Cold Fusion," the title of the article was "Cold Fusion Back From the Dead," and the title of the report was "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." The primary issue/point here is not some "anomaly," the issue is 'was there cold fusion?'. The answer is 'the evidence points to no.'

I don't agree that the evidence says no. The only evidence that we have says yes, by defintion. The interpretations of those results are mostly negative. I would say that the jury is out and the evidence is weak.

It is important to separate the wheat from the chaff- the "anomaly" from the "cold fusion" claims, and I perceived from you an unwillingness to do that. In the context of this thread, your previous statement... ...implies the report was a thumbs up for cold fusion, and it appears we are in agreement that wasn't.

I think what happens in situations like this is that I had already read that the conclusion wrt Cold Fusion was mostly negative. Since I don't address this specifically, you seem to think that I haven't read it. Frankly, this is one reason that you tick me off at times. You give me far too little credit. I had already moved on to the more subtle implications of this report. That being, we seem to have an anomaly; but not likely Cold Fusion.

Hardly. The name is weak scientifically, but unlike many other popularizations of scientific concepts (ie, Big Bang), its accurate. The DOE uses "low-energy nuclear reactions" which is better, but it doesn't change anything: low-energy nuclear reactions still didn't happen and P&F (and a large fraction of their followers) are still frauds.

Further, crackpots of all sorts are becoming savy - they know that by changing the name, they can fool a forgetful and scientifically uneducated public into thinking their reincarnation of old psuedoscience is new real science. ZPE is a great example of a real scientific concept that has been perverted and attached to old psuedoscience in an effort to trick people into spending money on it. I don't want the same thing to happen with cold fusion.

The point was to use a name that does not imply Cold Fusion. For crying out loud Russ... Again you would rather assume that I am playing some ridiculous game instead of trying to understand what I'm really suggesting. In my experience, we often expect from others that which we do ourselves. This has made me very suspicious of your motives. For a the first six months or year that I was here, I could understand. But after all of this time I really shouldn't have to defend against such silly interpretations of what I say.

We have an anomaly that needs a name. It's probably not Cold Fusion. Since we don't have another popular name to use, it becomes a bit of a catch 22 to even discuss the anomaly. Finally and most importantly, there is nothing crackpot about investigating anomalies.

 

[bsr]

The deuteron is dumbell shaped with magnetic radius twice the lateral radius. DUDES! The Pons and Fleishman experiment could have arrived at the conclusions it did... because of magnetic residual oscillation. MAGNETIC OSCILLATION. Enough with the debates. Experiment 1 works, all other repeats of the experiment fail! There was a reason for this, an unaccounted for factor in the original experiment. A residual magnetic oscillation can push the deuterium atoms together, forcing fusion. You want to debate whether cold fusion is real... Well... It is, and they recently proved it on the 6 year anniversary of the P/F experiment... Russ, there was an ANOMALY, so why doesn't anyone try to reach into the matter and get it? Well I guess its more fame for me, cause its going to take me a couple years to do it. lata.
www.rpi.edu/web/News/press_releases/2004/lahey.htm#cool:[/URL]

 

[russ_watters]

I think what happens in situations like this is that I had already read that the conclusion wrt Cold Fusion was mostly negative. Since I don't address this specifically, you seem to think that I haven't read it. Frankly, this is one reason that you tick me off at times. You give me far too little credit. I had already moved on to the more subtle implications of this report. That being, we seem to have an anomaly; but not likely Cold Fusion.

This is, indeed the source of most of the issues between us: it is my opinion that you can't "move on" until you address the central issue. Doing so forces others to read between the lines and make guesses about what you really think about the central issue. Sometimes I guess right, sometimes I guess wrong, but either way, the failure to address the central issue seems dishonest.

I don't agree that the evidence says no. The only evidence that we have says yes, by defintion. The interpretations of those results are mostly negative.

You're saying the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, that's not what we have here: Here we have actual evidence of absence. If you do an experiment that doesn't produce the result you expect, that's positive evidence of a negative nature. See the Michelson Morley experiment. For CF, using a neutron detector and detecting no neutrons is positive evidence that fusion did not occur.

The point was to use a name that does not imply Cold Fusion. For crying out loud Russ... Again you would rather assume that I am playing some ridiculous game instead of trying to understand what I'm really suggesting. In my experience, we often expect from others that which we do ourselves.

Pot, kettle, Ivan - I didn't say you were playing this game, I said crackpots were playing the game and I gave an example of a group that has been doing this (and cold fusion crackpots are doing it as well). As far as I know, you've never filed a perpetual motion patent aplication. I fully believe you would have the name changed in the interest of getting a better scientific approach applied to this - what I'm saying is that crackpots who have no interest in real scientific research would (and indeed, already do) use this to further their crackpottery.

Ivan, the reason I feel so strongly about this is twofold: First, crackpottery is bad for science, and second, real people get defrauded out of real money over these things.

bsr - bubble fusion (whether it works or not) is not cold fusion. It says explicitly in the link you provided that it occurs at a temperature of a hundred million K. It also occurs in water, whereas P&F claimed theirs occurred in a metal matrix. Its completely different from what P&F did/claimed.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This is, indeed the source of most of the issues between us: it is my opinion that you can't "move on" until you address the central issue. Doing so forces others to read between the lines and make guesses about what you really think about the central issue. Sometimes I guess right, sometimes I guess wrong, but either way, the failure to address the central issue seems dishonest.

It was already abundantly clear that the cold fusion interpretation was negative. The fact that I quoted it was the first clue that I knew this.

That last time that we got into it, in the UFO thread, when you did the same thing that you did here, and when I quoted prior conversations in which I had made my position clear, you disappeared. You never said a thing. This is what you do. Then you come back with the same nonsense again in a few months. This thread is another example. You know full well that I would have never read the conclusion of this paper and stated things as your presented them. If you don't know better, then you never listen anyway and you're a waste of my time. I consider your tactics to be a cheap trick designed to present false impressions of previous encounters. Intentional misrepresentations of intent or meaning are the same as lies. This is why Zero often closed threads because of you. Its not just me.