A novel approach, but still problems

Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan

"A New Way to Do Nuclear"

by

Gareth Cook

June 13th, 2013

The New Yorker

In February of 2010, Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie, two M.I.T. students, were sitting on a bench in a soaring marble lobby under the university’s iconic dome. They had just passed their Ph.D. qualifying exams in nuclear engineering, and were talking about what to do next. This being Cambridge, they began to muse about a start-up. By the end of their conversation, they’d decided to design their own nuclear reactor. Even as start-up concepts go, it was pretty weak. Constructing a nuclear power plant is not like tossing together a ninety-nine-cent app, and the industry is not an obvious one to try to disrupt. Nuclear engineering is a complex and potentially dangerous field that drives international conflicts. Dewan and Massie would need money and an abundant amount of patience. Another flaw in their scheme: they didn’t actually have an idea for a new and better nuclear power plant.

Three years later, Dewan and Massie have a company, called Transatomic, with a million dollars in funding, an impressive board of advisers, and a vote of confidence from the Department of Energy, which recently awarded the pair first prize in their Future Energy innovation contest. Russ Wilcox, a co-founder of E Ink, has joined as C.E.O. and resident grownup. In the months after their first conversation, Dewan and Massie drew up a design for a nuclear reactor that is small, relatively cheap, and “walk-away safe”: even if it loses all power, it cools on its own, avoiding a Fukushima-style meltdown. Theoretically, the reactor can put out as much electric power (five hundred megawatts) as a standard coal plant without belching carbon into the atmosphere. It can also run on nuclear waste, generating power even as it relieves another environmental burden. “We had this sense that there are so many unexplored aspects of nuclear technology,” Dewan said. “We knew that there would be something out there that would work, and would be better.”

Dewan is twenty-eight and the kind of person who fits right in at M.I.T.: she is dubious of received wisdom, fond of building, and unabashedly geeky. Growing up outside Boston, she always knew that she wanted to attend school there; as an undergraduate, she learned of an archeological debate regarding the seaworthiness of Ecuadorian balsa rafts, so she built one and sailed it down the Charles River with a crew of six. To help recruit students to her dorm, she constructed a My Little Pony Trojan horse that rolled on casters and comfortably seated eight. (It sadly passed away in its prime: papier-mâché, rain.) Her father, David, an M.I.T. grad himself, gave her a credit card when she left for college, and for the first two years, he said, “the largest expense category by far was Home Depot.”

When I met Dewan on campus recently, she was stylishly dressed in a black herringbone blouse, jeans, and silver flats. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a loose braid. She laughed easily and encouraged me to stop her if, in her enthusiasm, she veered into jargon.

“A nuclear power reactor is just a fancy way of boiling water,” she began. Nuclear fuel typically contains uranium-235, a massive and slightly unstable atom famously capable of sustaining chain reactions. Under the right conditions, its nucleus can absorb an extra neutron, growing for an instant and then separating into two smaller elements, releasing heat and three neutrons. If, on average, at least one of these neutrons splits another uranium atom, the chain continues, and the fuel is said to be in a critical state. (Criticality has to do with the concentration of uranium, and whether the neutrons are bounced back toward the fuel. A Ph.D. in nuclear engineering is helpful for understanding the concept, as is this video of ping-pong balls mounted on mouse traps.) Water is pumped past the heat source and becomes steam, which then turns turbines, generating electricity.

Traditional nuclear power plants, however, come with two inherent problems. The first is the threat of a meltdown. Even after a reactor is shut off, the fuel continues to generate some heat and must be cooled. Dewan compares it to a pot on a burner that just won’t turn off; eventually, the water boils over, and the pot gets scorched. If a plant loses all electric power, it can’t pump water past the fuel, which gets hotter and hotter, leading to disaster.

The second problem facing traditional plants is that the fuel must be manufactured in long rods, each encased in a thin metal layer, called cladding, that deteriorates after a few years. The rods then have to be replaced, even though the fuel inside is still radioactive, and will remain so for hundreds of thousands of years. Unsurprisingly, nobody wants this trash in their backyard.

Dewan and Massie’s design seems to solve both problems at once. It’s based on a method that worked successfully at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, in the nineteen-sixties. Called a molten salt reactor, it eschews rods and, instead, dissolves the nuclear fuel in a salt mixture, which is pumped in a loop with a reactor vessel at one end and a heat exchanger at the other. In the vessel, the fuel enters a critical state, heating up the salt, which then moves on to the heat exchanger, where it cools; it then travels back to the vessel, where it heats up again. Heat from the exchanger is used to make steam, and, from this, electricity. At the bottom of the reactor vessel is a drain pipe plugged with solid salt, maintained using a powerful electric cooler. If the cooler is turned off, or if it loses power, the plug melts and all of the molten salt containing the fuel drains to a storage area, where it cools on its own. There’s no threat of a meltdown.

To explain the second trick—modifying the reactor to run on nuclear waste—Dewan explained a key subtlety of nuclear physics: a neutron can only split an atom if it is moving at the right velocity, neither too slow nor too fast. Imagine cracking eggs: if you bring the egg down too softly on the lip of a mixing bowl, it will not break. In the bizarre world of atomic physics, the egg will also fail to break if struck too hard. To keep a uranium chain reaction going, engineers employ materials that slow neutrons to exactly the speed required to split uranium-235. The Transatomic reactor uses a different set of materials, slowing neutrons to the velocity needed to cleave uranium as well as other long-lived radioactive elements in nuclear waste, breaking them down and releasing their energy. Transatomic can crack plutonium, americium, and curium. Any egg will do.

The environmental advantages are huge. There are no rods to fall apart, so the reactor can keep working on the uranium. (This was proven at Oak Ridge.) And the Transatomic reactor can also work off the radioactive byproducts, gleaning more energy and substantially reducing both the amount and radioactivity of the waste. Today’s nuclear power plants extract about three per cent of the fuel’s available energy, while Transatomic wrings out more like ninety-six per cent, according to computer simulations carried out on industry-standard software.

Transatomic faces a challenging climb. The company hasn’t built anything yet; there is always the danger of a inhibitive engineering problem emerging. If, for example, the corrosive salt fuel severely limits the life of the heat exchanger, the reactor could prove too expensive to compete commercially. The most daunting obstacle, though, is the United States government: it is exceedingly difficult to get permission to build a demonstration reactor, no matter how good the idea. In many industries, companies trying to do something hard face what investors call the “valley of death”: that long, financially barren stretch between proving a concept with a bit of seed money and taking the first commercial steps. Ray Rothrock, a prominent venture capitalist who is an investor in Transatomic and a partner at Venrock, told me that, in the case of nuclear energy, “the valley of death might be a Grand Canyon.”

The accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are partly to blame, but so is a flaw in the way we approach risk. When nuclear power plants fail, they do so dramatically. Coal and natural gas, through air pollution, kill many more people every year, but the effects are diffuse. One recent paper estimated that nuclear power has prevented 1.84 million air-pollution-related deaths globally. Nobody died at Three Mile Island.

Attitudes are shifting, though. Chernobyl melted down when Dewan was one year old, and the Three Mile Island accident unfolded before she was born. For her generation, the defining environmental horror is not Fukushima but the inherited, ongoing catastrophe of climate change. Put aside emotions, and certain facts are not in dispute. The planet is going to need a lot more power. Engineers have not yet found a way to substantially scale up wind and solar power. Oil and gas contribute to climate change and air pollution. Within the nucleus of each atom, there are huge amounts of energy, and humans have only begun to explore the ways in which it can be tapped.

There are signs that we are moving toward a pro-nuclear moment. A new Robert Stone documentary, “Pandora’s Promise,” about the green case for nuclear power, is in theatres now. (Michael Specter wrote about the film for today’s Daily Comment.) More students are entering nuclear degree programs. Transatomic is just one of several nuclear power start-ups, including a Bill Gates venture called TerraPower. My time on the M.I.T. campus made it evident that more are undoubtedly on the way.

After our interview, Dewan and I stepped out for a walk. It was one of the first hot days of the year. The students were out, in backpacks and shorts. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and we strolled by a Alexander Calder sculpture. “I’ve always thought of nuclear as something that’s good for the environment,” she said. “I worry about my polar bears.”

Interview with Pandora's Promise director Robert Stone...

The Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor...

Women’s History Month...making a difference in science and technology innovation

ENERGY.GOV...

Women @ Energy

STEM [Science, Energy, Technpology, and Mathematics] [Wikipedia]


Women of science in the Renaissance

Nix on nuclear power

Smart move.

"Another Major Setback For A "Nuclear Renaissance""

August 31st, 2009

Nuclear Power Daily

The so-called "nuclear renaissance" is finding few friends among state lawmakers in the United States. The nuclear power industry has been shut out across the board in 2009 in its efforts in all six states - ranging across the nation from Kentucky to Minnesota to Hawaii - where it sought to overturn what are either explicit or effectively bans on construction of new reactors, according to the nonprofit Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS).

Efforts to overturn bans also have failed to advance in Illinois and West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Beyond failing to reverse a single state-level ban on new reactors, the industry also suffered a wide range of major defeats, including an effort to repeal a ban on "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP) payments that would have been imposed on Missouri ratepayers to finance a new nuclear power plant, which was then promptly mothballed.

Industry efforts to get nuclear declared "renewable" by the states of Indiana and Arizona also failed to achieve results. Also going nowhere is a California bill to lift the state's pioneering law banning new reactors until a high-level waste dump is in place. That follows a 2008 California statewide referendum drive with the same focus that failed for lack of sufficient signatures to get it on the ballot.

Michael Mariotte, executive director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said: "While the nuclear power industry and a few members of Congress claim the U.S. is on the verge of a nuclear power resurgence, the industry looks more like a critical patient struggling to get by on life support out in the real world beyond the Beltway. No one seriously expects the industry to go away. But the truth is that things will be even tougher for their state lobbyists in 2010 now that the freeze on Yucca Mountain has taken long-term waste disposal off the table and also in the wake of new evidence of runaway construction costs that make nuclear power even more of a boondoggle."

Dave Kraft, director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Chicago, IL., said: "Authorizing construction of new nuclear reactors without first constructing a radioactive waste disposal facility is like authorizing construction of a new Sear's Tower without bathrooms. Neither makes sense; both threaten public health and safety."

Jennifer Nordstrom, Carbon-Free Nuclear-Free coordinator, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Madison, WI., said: "Telling states to build new nuclear plants to combat global warming is like telling a patient to smoke to lose weight: There are too many other serious downsides that cannot be ignored. Fortunately, it is both technically and economically feasible to go both carbon-free and nuclear-free by 2050. Here in Wisconsin, we have a carbon-free, nuclear-free coalition in support of Wisconsin's current law on nuclear power, and a 100 percent renewable Wisconsin."

Commenting on the defeat of an industry-sought CWIP repeal in the Missouri Legislature this year, Mark Haim, chair, Missourians for Safe Energy, Columbia, MO., said: "New nuclear plants are far too risky and expensive to attract investor funding. Utilities will only build them if they can transfer the risk to the taxpayers or their ratepayers. Here in Missouri AmerenUE attempted to repeal a voter-enacted state law that bans Construction Work in Progress charges. Their goal was to get the ratepayers to assume the risks. When our legislators heard from consumer, senior, low-income and industrial groups all opposing CWIP, the CWIP repeal went nowhere. Once Ameren realized they couldn't get CWIP, they announced that they were abandoning efforts to build a new nuclear reactor. The pattern is clear, investors find nuclear too risky and utilities will only go down the nuclear path if their customers or the taxpayers underwrite the project."

NIRS provided this overview of the six states where industry efforts to overturn what are explicit or effective bans on new reactors failed:

MINNESOTA. The 1994 law in Minnesota provides that the state will not approve "the construction of a new nuclear-powered electric generating plant ..." The Minnesota House voted 70-62 on April 30, 2009 to keep the state's nuclear moratorium in place. Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, has stated publicly that the issues that led to the 1994 law are still not resolved. "We hear about advancement in technology, but we haven't solved the issue of waste - a million-year radioactive toxic legacy that we'll pass on to untold generations," said Hornstein.

Since then, Minnesota has seen the launch of a group calling itself "Sensible Energy Solutions for Minnesota" including a retired power company CEO and the self-proclaimed head of a wildlife group who also headed up an organization called "Sportsmen for Bush." According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the new organization was founded by "three veteran Republican operatives": Matt Burns, spokesman for the 2008 Republican National Convention; Ben Golnik, who last year was Midwestern manager of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign; and Tom Steward, a campaign spokesman for McCain and communications director for former Sen. Norm Coleman. By contrast, the Minnesota House's upholding of the moratorium was supported by the Clean Water Action Alliance of Minnesota, Environment Minnesota, Izaak Walton League of America-Minnesota Division, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and Sierra Club North Star Chapter.

WEST VIRGINIA. In 1996, section §16-27A-2 of the West Virginia State Code was enacted, stipulating that any nuclear facility must be approved by the Public Service Commission, comply with environmental requirements, be economically feasible for in-state rate payers, and, most importantly also that "a functional and effective national facility which safely, successfully and permanently disposes of any and all radioactive wastes associated with operating any such nuclear power plant, nuclear factory or nuclear electric power generating plant has been developed and that such facility has been proven safe, functional and effective by a minimum of twenty-four months' operation or experience." This spring, a bill to repeal West Virginia's effective ban on nuclear power plants died in the 2009 Legislature.

WISCONSIN. Wisconsin law sets two conditions that must be met before new nuclear power plants can be built in the state. One is that there must be "a federally licensed facility" for high-level nuclear waste. In addition, the proposed nuclear plant "must be economically advantageous to ratepayers." As the Center for Media and Democracy noted on March 26, 2009: "Given the near-death of the planned waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, and the estimated $6 to $12 billion cost of building one nuclear reactor - not to mention the lack of interest from private investors and the tanking economy - Wisconsin's law effectively bans new nuclear plants in the state. The major industry group Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) registered four lobbyists in Wisconsin. NEI is lobbying state legislators on issues related to 'nuclear generation ... engineering education and other issues related to state policies on energy, job creation, and environmental law,' according to disclosure forms. It's the first time that NEI has had lobbyists in Wisconsin since at least 1996, though the group has organized public and media events here, especially in recent years."

As the Milwaukee Journal reported on April 21, 2009: "Supporters of nuclear power made a big push earlier this spring to overturn the state's ban on construction of nuclear reactors. The supporters included (Patrick Moore) a co-founder of Greenpeace who now is working for an energy coalition funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute.... [A] coalition of environmental groups and others concerned about nuclear power responded, saying the high cost of nuclear power and the challenge of radioactive waste - the spent fuel left over from production of electricity from reactors - make nuclear the wrong choice for the state. 'Given nuclear power's high costs and its legacy of nuclear waste, expanding the use of nuclear power is not a responsible choice for meeting future electricity needs in Wisconsin,' Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups said in a letter to Gov. Jim Doyle and members of the Legislature."

HAWAII. Hawaii's ban on nuclear reactors dates back to the state's 1978 Constitutional Convention, which added Article XI, Section 8 to the State Constitution: "No nuclear fission power plant shall be constructed or radioactive material disposed of in the State without the prior approval by a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature." Industry-supported bills to lift this constitutional requirement failed in the 2009 Legislature.

ILLINOIS. Illinois' law requires either a federally-approved waste disposal strategy or the state legislature's approval for a new reactor project. According to the Nuclear Energy Information Service, the repeal attempts of the Illinois nuclear construction moratorium did not move in the 2009 legislative session in the Capitol. Bills introduced in the Illinois House and Senate died in both chambers. These restrictions may be linked to the fact that Illinois is described as "the Most Nuclear State in the USA". Illinois has 11 operating power reactors, three power reactors prematurely closed, and hearings underway for a new plant. Illinois also has a waste closed and leaking dump for "low level" radioactive waste, a storage facility for spent fuel, and Manhattan Project waste buried in a forest preserve.

KENTUCKY. Kentucky's law not only requires a high-level nuclear waste facility "in actual operation" by the time the new nuclear reactor would require it, but also insists on detailing "the cost of [waste] disposal ... with reasonable certainty." A combination of industry-backed bills designed to remove these restrictions died in the 2009 Legislature.

According to NIRS, the nuclear industry's 2009 defeats in 10 or more state capitols - including all six efforts to overturn bans on new reactors - were offset by only one win. Georgia state lawmakers approved CWIP, empowering a subsidiary of the Atlanta-based Southern Co. to collect $2 billion from its customers before a single watt of power is produced from two planned nuclear reactors. Outside of the South, CWIP bail-outs for the industry have made little headway to date.

LENR or "Cold Fusion"--same charlatan

Just change the name and the "pie in the sky" rhetoric flows again. Just like 1st and 2nd Century BC Jews, modern man is looking for a "messiah"...an "energy messiah".

"Navy Scientists Zip Lips on Cold Fusion Tests"

by

David Hambling

March 26th, 2009

Wired

The first rule of cold fusion club is… you do not talk about cold fusion club.

Twenty years ago this week, physicists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that they had replicated the fusion reaction which powers the sun, paving the way for endless free energy… in a laboratory test tube. The resulting debacle, which ended with their claims being scorned and ridiculed, left cold fusion research about as scientifically respectable as astrology. The small club of cold fusion believers still working in this area know that funding would be slashed if anyone found out.

Danger Room's own Sharon Weinberger has been tracing cold fusion for some time; five years ago she reported in the Washington Post on the extraordinary secrecy around the Department of Energy's cold fusion discussions, noting that, "to some, the meeting would seem no less outrageous than if the DOE honchos had convened for a séance to raise the dead."

The Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) has long been known to harbor cold fusion enthusiasts; they've often managed to fit in their experiments in down time between other projects, and without official funding.

Now analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of SPAWAR has broken the silence. Speaking at the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City (the site of the infamous Pons/Fleischmann press conference) she described "The first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device."

LENR means Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, a euphemism that has been adopted since the words "cold fusion" tend to provoke bouts of metaphorical heretic-burning.

However, unlike Pons and Fleischmann, Mosier-Boss has had her results accepted by a peer reviewed scientific journal, Naturwissenschaften. This will make the results much harder to challenge – but other scientists still question the interpretation of those results.

"In its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons," Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University told the Houston Chronicle.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it will take more than a few stray neutrons to shift the balance in favor of cold fusion when there is a formidable array of theoretical reasons to doubt that it is possible. Build a laboratory fusion reactor which generates endless free energy and people will sit up and take notice. Until then, the cold fusion club are better off keeping their heads down and avoiding attention.

Darpa may be home to many crazy ideas, but they don't talk about cold fusion, either. At least not openly. However, a close look at their budget documents under "Alternate Power Sources" reveals that in 2007 they "Completed independent evaluation of recently reported experimental protocol for achieving excess heat conditions in Pd cathodes."

Excess heat being generated by Palladium (Pd) cathodes is a signature of cold fusion. And in the 2008 research budget we find that Darpa are set to "Determine the correlation between excess heat observations and production of nuclear by-products."

This sounds suspiciously as though Darpa has been getting involved in the cold fusion club – without mentioning it in a way that might attract undue attention. (They learned their lesson the hard way over the isomer triggering issue )

Perhaps the extreme case of embarrassment about cold fusion comes in the Iron Man movie. The fictional power unit for the armor is a tiny nuclear reactor generating an amazing 3 gigawatts (more than a large power station); and the crucial component Palladium scavenged from missile parts. It sounds exactly like what Pons and Fleishmann had in mind. But although it gets referred to casually as a possible future power source, the device is always referred to as an "Arc Reactor." Clearly, any mention of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, never mind cold fusion, would have audiences shaking their heads in disbelief.

Cold Fusion: still too ridiculous for Marvel Comics. Scientists, take note.


Cold Fusion...it's back!

"Hydrinos"...new energy source????

Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

Deceased--Geoff Ballard

Geoff Ballard
October 16th, 1932 to August 2nd, 2008

Perhaps in time his name and association with fuel cells will be more popular.

"Geoff Ballard, 75; geophysicist expanded use of fuel cells"

by

Thomas H. Maugh II

August 11th, 2008

Los Angeles Times

Geoff Ballard, the Canadian entrepreneur who transformed pollution-free fuel cells from an exotic power source used in the space program to an everyday engine used in industry, buses and, perhaps soon, in cars, died Aug. 2 at Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver from complications of liver disease. He was 75.

In 1999, Time magazine named Ballard a "Hero of the Planet" for his efforts to reduce pollution in cities by getting fuel cells into cars -- an effort that has borne little fruit yet, but that is receiving renewed emphasis because of the rising price of gasoline.

Ballard's name "will forever be associated with this company's fuel-cell products, which are being deployed as an energy source for applications in a growing number of important global markets," said John Sheridan, president and chief executive of Ballard Power Systems.

A geophysicist by training, Ballard spent the first years of his career working for the U.S. Army, specializing initially in microwave communications and later in ice physics. In the latter role, he studied ways to hide fuel tanks for U.S. bombers in Greenland's ice fields.

When the energy crisis hit the United States in 1974, Ballard was chosen to lead the newly created Federal Energy Conservation Research program.

Stymied by Congress' refusal to provide what he considered adequate funding, he quit and set out on his own, buying a decrepit Arizona motel for $2,000 and turning it into a research laboratory. He initially tried to create a lithium battery that could be used instead of an internal-combustion motor in cars, but that effort led him into bankruptcy.

The company moved to Vancouver when it got a contract to provide a lithium battery for a submarine owned by Canadian industrialist John Horton, who agreed to provide funding for the company.

In 1983, Ballard teamed up with engineer Paul Howard and electrochemist Keith Prater to try to develop fuel cells, getting seed money from the Canadian military.

Conceptually, fuel cells are simple. Hydrogen and oxygen are combined in the presence of a catalyst to produce electricity, with the only waste product being water.

The concept for the technology was developed in the 1830s by British scientist Sir William Grove, but implementation had been slow and fuel cells proved to be either bulky and inefficient or very expensive.

The three entrepreneurs worked tirelessly to improve the efficiency of existing fuel cells and reduce their size and cost.

A breakthrough moment for the company came in summer 1989 while Ballard was relaxing in a spa at the Hollyburn Country Club in Vancouver with a British Columbia official. Ballard convinced the official that his company could produce a municipal bus that would run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor.

"Can you get me a green photo op?" Ballard later recalled the official asking him.

Four years later, officers of Ballard Power gathered with Canadian officials to ceremonially sip water collected from the tailpipe of the $4.2-million bus.

Eventually, Daimler AG and Ford Motor Co. bought into Ballard, investing more than $750 million in development of the technology. This year, Ballard sold the company's automotive fuel-cell division to the two auto manufacturers for nearly $100 million.

One of the most promising projects to come out of the research was a fleet of 60 fuel-cell-powered buses that have been operating for six years in Germany, Japan, Singapore and the United States. The buses produce no emissions and are 30% more fuel-efficient than diesel buses.

Ballard Power has chosen to concentrate its efforts on fuel cells for use indoors -- such as in forklifts -- where emissions are a bigger problem and a pricier power source is feasible.

Ballard himself, meanwhile, recognized that fuel-cell cars could never be viable unless a distribution system could be established for hydrogen. In 1999, he started General Hydrogen to explore ways to manufacture and market the fuel. That company was bought last year by Plug Power Inc. for $10 million.

Given current technologies, fuel cells are not yet an optimum solution. Hydrogen is generally manufactured by an electrolysis process powered by burning fossil fuels. The net effect of implementing fuel-cell cars would thus be a transfer of emissions from cities to remote power plants -- not necessarily a bad idea, Ballard argued.

To overcome the pollution problem, Ballard in his later years argued that nuclear energy should be used to generate hydrogen.

An estimated 200 fuel-cell-powered cars running on hydrogen are now operating on California roads, and car companies hope to increase that number in the next few years. But major problems remain, including the high cost of the technology and the lack of an infrastructure for delivering hydrogen to consumers.

At least three stations that offer hydrogen to commercial customers are operating in Los Angeles, and Royal Dutch Shell recently upgraded a service station in West L.A. to provide hydrogen to consumers.

Geoffrey E. H. Ballard was born Oct. 16, 1932, in Niagara Falls, Canada. He studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, then received his doctorate in earth sciences from Washington University in St. Louis.

He fully retired two years ago because of health problems.

Ballard is survived by his wife of 52 years, Shelagh; and three sons, Curtis, Mark and Edward.

MIT claims large-scale solar power

Daniel G. Nocera

Shades of Randy Mills, Martin Fleischmann, Stanley Pons, Rusi Taleyarkhan?

"In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine."

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution



"Hydrinos"...new energy source????

Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

Cold Fusion...it's back!

Kind of like the pesky mosquito that was thought to have been dispatched--"cold fusion" is back.

"Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion"

by

Lisa Zyga

May 27th, 2008

PhysOrg.com

To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.

However, many experts debate whether money should be spent on cold fusion research or applied to more realistic alternative energy solutions. For decades, researchers around the world have been simply trying to show that cold fusion is indeed possible, but they´ve yet to take that important first step.

Now, esteemed Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University in Japan claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion. Last Thursday, May 22, Arata and his colleague Yue-Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University presented the cold fusion demonstration to 60 onlookers, including other physicists, as well as reporters from six major newspapers and two TV studios. If Arata and Zhang´s demonstration is real, it could lead to a future of new, clean, and cheap energy generation.

In their experiment, the physicists forced deuterium gas into a cell containing a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide, which absorbed the deuterium to produce a dense "pynco" deuterium. In this dense state, the deuterium nuclei from different atoms were so close together that they fused to produce helium nuclei.

Evidence for the occurrence of this fusion came from measuring the temperature inside the cell. When Arata first injected the deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70° C (158° F), which Arata explained was due to nuclear and chemical reactions. When he turned the gas off, the temperature inside the cell remained warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours, which Arata said was an effect of nuclear fusion.

While Arata´s demonstration looked promising to his audience, the real test is still to come: duplication. Many scientists and others are now recalling the infamous 1989 demonstration by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who claimed to produce controlled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature. However, no one - including Fleischmann and Pons - could duplicate the experiment, leading many people to consider cold fusion a pseudoscience to this day.

But one witness at the recent demonstration, physicist Akito Takahashi of Osaka University, thought that the experiment should be able to be repeated.

"Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy [heat] from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers [J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008]. This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."

In addition, researchers will have to repeat the experiment with larger amounts of the palladium and zirconium oxide mixture in order to generate larger quantities of energy.


"Hydrinos"...new energy source????