In the last post I discussed the problems of getting past the ‘Coulomb’ Barrier to achieve fusion in which the heat released can be used to generate electricity (steam turbines). Considering the extreme energetic effort needed to reproduce the internal thermonuclear conditions at the core of a star (extreme heat and gravitational pressure) to get ‘Hot Fusion,’ it seems science fiction to suggest that it might be possible at room temperatures! But that is just what Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) or Cold Fusion is exploring.
If we are to become truly sustainable, then our energy generation is one of the major aspects we need to change. In a nutshell, any energy system we develop has to produce more energy than needed to create it and also be as non-polluting in its manufacture and end-of-life use as possible. Hot fusion (Thermonuclear fusion and Beam–beam or beam–target fusion), which I discussed in my last post do not fit this need at this time. Cold fusion, however, has that potential. Despite numerous efforts over the past few decades there is little large scale research involved in exploring this avenue. Only very recently have governmental agencies restarted funding LENR research.
The benefits of cold fusion are that if it works, it would yield virtually limitless energy generation, minimal radioactive waste, and significantly reduced environmental impact compared to fossil fuels. The coulomb barrier still remains the problem, and despite early claims in 1989 by chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons results have always been indeterminate and hard to reproduce, partly because they resisted the need to release full details of their procedures and apparatus. Attempts to replicate the system without such details caused a backlash against such sensationalized science making it a career destroying ‘pathological science’ topic.
Fleischmann and Pons used deuterium as the fuel for their table top fusion system. Deuterium (heavy water) is an isotope of hydrogen with one extra neutron than the hydrogen molecule. When they used electrolysis of deuterium across a Palladium surface, there was an unexplained calorimetric increase of energy that could not be attributed to the chemical interaction alone. While that may be the main mechanism, we would have cold fusion already. The system obviously needs some extra inputs that Fleishman and Pons wouldn’t release, and despite their continued research, they were never able to make it work further. So, is it possible after all? What we do know is that despite the inconsistent results something odd is going on at the atomic and subatomic level. What physicists in the 1940s called ‘spooky action.’
New research on LENR has focused on using muons (one of the fundamental subatomic particles,) instead of electrons around the atoms. Muon catalyzed fusion has been theoretically predicted since the 1940s, but being subatomic particles, they are unstable and dissipate quickly. And we need to produce them using particle accelerators (think CERN) so getting them no small task in themselves. Part of the problem is actually measuring what is going on. There is the excess heat produced and then the decay products of the fusion. We have sensors to measure the decay products but extra heat output from the system is curiously very difficult to measure at this time.
This is a problem of ‘hadronization (Hadrons are the heaviest particles composed of two or more quarks that are held strongly by the electromagnetic force. Every individual quark has functional electric charges, these combine such that hadrons carry a net integer electric charge) in which we understand the properties of the subatomic particles but don’t understand how they all connect. Its’ like knowing that a black tote bag has a lot of types of actively connecting sticky-balls in it, and when we open the bag, the balls all spill out, but we have no idea what the balls were doing within the bag before it was opened. Once you get down below the subatomic level of matter, then the universe gets really, really strange. It isn’t matter, just energy, everywhere! We may yet get cold fusion, but once we fully understand the quantum level of everything, we probably will not need it for we will have access to all the energy within the universe! That’s why quantum level research is so necessary.
Again, it may seem like science fiction to state that we can tap into this quantum field, but theoretically, that is just what quantum physicists are looking at now. I talked a bit about this in previous posts (see links The New Physics, parts 1, 2, 3 and 4). Not only is quantum physics ‘spooky’ but it is also tapping into the mysteries of consciousness itself (but that’s for another time, and covered a bit in the blog already).
To sum up about deriving energy from the quantum field. For starters, there is no such thing as empty space, anywhere! All space contains this energy. It is only solid at our vibrational level, and faster vibrations beyond the gamma part of the electromagnetic spectrum still exist, but are beyond our physical abilities to see them. Even in the solid part of our universe, within atoms, it is still 99.99% ‘space,’ but permeated throughout with energy, most of it from these higher vibrational realms.
Indeed, what we call solidity is just ‘quantum vacuum fluctuations’ which is the temporary random change in the amount of energy of any point in space, as prescribed by Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The field energy is crucial in understanding the makeup of the universe. Once we understand the energetic aspects of the quantum field, we will be able to control and manipulate gravitational fields as well as the quantum fields. No small thing. NASA is funding serious research in to these phenomena because it could also address how to travel interstellar space with minimal effort or time.
The geniuses of the late 1800s, Maxwell and Faraday, created equations that the properties describing electricity and magnetism show how they interact with electro magnetic waves. Gauss and Faraday laws about magnetism allow us to calculate energy intensity at any specific point. This all shows us how matter is an extension of the quantum field, not separate from it.
Technical geniuses from Tesla to today have used quantum field knowledge and electromagnetic frequencies to create systems that seem to produce excess energy apparently out of thin air, which is really the quantum field. You would think that if this quantum energy is theoretically possible, and there are many claims that it works, then there should be mega amounts of research funding going into it? It’s also called free energy and there is the rub – it would be free and infinitely plentiful once the system to capture the energy is set up. And from all accounts, a home anywhere in the world might be run from a quantum energy generation system, the size of a shoebox that isn’t plugged into anything except the field. Now who could object to that!
Apparently, a lot of big money and political hierarchies for starters. Energy control is a massive money maker and allows for geopolitical manipulation of social power structures around the world. Just get a lot of scientists to say it’s impossible (remember there are many who say it isn’t) and then prevent any large-scale funding to study the phenomena, and you keep your monopoly of the planets current energy systems. Remember that Tesla said he was going to give his ideas to the world, when J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts pulled his funding and ruined him. After all, at the time they were heavily invested in Thoams Edison and his controllable wired electrical system and grid, and more importantly, the ability to meter energy usage by the masses.
I have read deeply into this idea of quantum energy and while it sounds fanciful, there is enough validity to claims by energy pioneers to warrant serious large-scale research. In the many months ahead, as the hierarchical systems begin to crumble, do not be surprised if unique energy generation systems suddenly appear on the market from the vaults of the energy companies who had them all along. I know it sound like a bad Hollywood movie, but keep an open mind. Freeing ourselves from technological inertia of dominant market forces, rejuvenating creativity and innovation beyond hierarchical control can only be a good thing for a better and more resilient world for everyone, not just the 20% of the developed world.
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