Table-top fusion 'demonstrated'

[Dover]

Table-top fusion 'demonstrated'

Previous claims for desktop fusion have been highly controversial
A US team has created a "pocket-sized" nuclear fusion reactor that generates neutrons, Nature magazine reports.
Scientists have tried to harness nuclear fusion - the same process that powers the Sun - for commercial uses but this goal has remained elusive.

The new device is expected only to have small niche applications, such as in fine-control thrusters on spacecraft.

Full-scale fusion is a key target because it would provide an abundant source of relatively clean energy.

It works on the principle that energy can be released by forcing together atomic nuclei - rather than by splitting them, as is the case of the fission reactions that drive current nuclear power stations.

But controlling fusion reactions is technically very challenging. And although a large fusion power station is thought to be feasible, its realisation could still be many years away....cont'd

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4489821.stm

[wtmusic]

1. Sounds like they're jumping the gun again

You'd think by now they'd wait for conclusive results.

[ooglymoogly]

2. yah we went through this back in the 80's when two mit

scientist's made similar claims and we all blew a gasket....here we go again

[Salviati]

3. These claims seem to be on much firmer ground...

...and they are also making absolutely no claims about using this as a power source. This device operates nowhere near unity. Any breakthroughs will likely come as a result of having a tiny, easily powered neutron source, not from the fusion that is going on in order to creat the neutrons...

[carnie_sf]

4. Except they weren't MIT

they were either BYU, or Utah.

[ooglymoogly]

5. and i say they were mit

[Igel]

7. No.

See my post #6.

[Igel]

6. Yes.

http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/atearchive/s76a5433.htm

"There have been several developments in cold fusion since last month's issue, but none of them decisive. However, let me first repeat something from last month, because so many reporters stumble over it: the difference between the cold fusion reported by Jones and colleagues at Brigham Young University (BYU) and the excess heat observed by Fleischmann and Pons (P&F) at the U. of Utah."

[ooglymoogly]

8. shamed by an avalanche of fact

[oneighty]

9. Ahhhhhh

The goodwill exchanged between thinking people is a wonder to behold.

Way to go ooglymoogly.

180

[Henny Penny]

10. Such certainty based on no evidence is what gives science...

a bad name!

Their names were Fleischman and Pons and an MIT group famously debunked their work... though there have been some allegations that the MIT lot hushed up a few anomalous results.
A quick check in Wikipedia... and lo

Pons and Fleischmann's experiment

On March 23, 1989, the chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann ("P and F") at the University of Utah held a press conference and reported the production of excess heat that could only be explained by a nuclear process.

edited for added :sarcasm:

[northzax]

11. everyone tried to replicate Fleischman and Pons

noone could do it.

and what's up with Utah and Cold fusion?