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http://pesn.com/2006/03/24/9600253_Fleischmann_joins_D2Fusion/
You are here: PureEnergySystems.com > News > March 24, 2006

Cold Fusion instigator is still hard at it after all these years. Company expects a production prototype within a little more than a year.

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News

Dr. Martin Fleischmann presents his paper: "Case Studies of Experiments Carried out with the ICARUS Systems" at the Eighth International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF8); May 21-26, 2000, Lerici, Italy
Source: Infinite-Energy.com
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA -- 17 years ago, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann captured the imagination of the world with their announcement of fusion at room temperature. When duplicating the effect turned out to be difficult, the whirlwind of positive publicity quickly turned with a vengeance into a firestorm of negative publicity and ridicule, which continues to this day.

Despite the ridicule, there has remained a dedicated and growing core of scientists who have not only replicated room-temperature fusion, but also have improved on its performance and have broadened the number of methods for achieving it. In the midst of this academic pariah movement, Dr. Martin Fleischmann has continued his research, and regularly presents at conferences.

A couple of years back in Britain, he tried to retire, but could not stay away from his experimentation.

After its recent formation in California, the company D2Fusion has extended an invitation to Dr, Fleischmann to work with them as a senior research advisor, with the objective of bringing a commercial application of the technology to market. A California-based solid state fusion energy firm with engineering centers in Silicon Valley and Los Alamos, New Mexico, D2Fusion is a subsidiary of Solar Energy Limited (OTCBB:SLRE).

On Thursday (March 23rd), the seventeenth anniversary of the original announcement of cold fusion, the company announced that they will tap Dr. Fleischmann's experience and expertise to produce prototypes of solid-state fusion-heating modules for homes and industry.

David Kubiak, Communications Director for D2Fusion, expects that in a little more than a year the company will have a production prototype ready. Although the number and scale of potential applications is wide and diverse, they would like first to target the home-heating market.

Another market sector they are looking at is independent heaters for cars. As more hybrid technologies and fuel cells are introduced, engines will no longer be reliable sources of passenger compartment heat in cold climes. Kubiak said winter automotive heating makes serious BTU demands on these sophisticated engines that they cannot efficiently respond to, especially in idle mode. Their technology could address that shortfall and cover this ever widening market niche.

Also, they have been eyeing the WhisperGen device, presently on its maiden voyage in the London area with about 400 test installations. That system has their attention because it can use a wide variety of sources for input heat to generate electricity output. The WhisperGen is a Stirling engine technology, also called an "external combustion engine", inasmuch as the heat source operates from outside of the engine to effect the turning of components within it.

Kubiak says that the strategy for going to a home application at first is to garner grass-root support, which should help to unravel some of the entrenched political and scientific opposition to the technology. It's kind of hard to argue against the feasibility of a technology if it is already at work heating and powering homes.

The company website anticipates that eventually the commercialization of D2Fusion technology will have almost unimaginable economic, social and political impact on the world. (Ref.)

Fleischmann will actually be leading one of three labs at D2Fusion, each approaching the phenomenon from a slightly different angle. Fleischmann's lab will be pursuing an electrochemical approach. Another will be using the palladium-carbon catalytic process, and a third lab will be researching the glow discharge process, which uses a gas environment, rather than a liquid medium. The three will be in friendly competition with one another, Kubiak said.

The principal player at D2Fusion is Russ George, who has actually rubbed shoulders occasionally with Fleischmann down through the years, as both of them have been pursuing the cold fusion technology with a variety of techniques. More recently, George worked with Dr. Yoshiaki Arata at Osaka University utilizing nanoscale palladium particles to quantum vault the Coulomb barrier -- the classical electromagnetic plus-plus charge repulsion that allegedly precludes the type of fusion that is being observed.

Kubiak said that the sporadic reproducibility of most cold fusion techniques still plagues many researchers in the field, as the metal materials seem to be particularly temperamental. One batch will work, while the next will not. While that might frustrate impatient scientists who want to see instant impeccable reproducibility from new discoveries, it does not deter the cold fusion community. "Once you see it work, you realize a new frontier is opening and you're hooked," he said.

A company press release explains that, in brief, "cold" fusion involves the fusion of two nuclei of deuterium or heavy hydrogen into a single helium atom, accompanied only by a burst of heat. Unlike "thermonuclear hot fusion" that requires the plasma-inducing inferno temperatures of the sun or a hydrogen bomb, solid-state fusion reactions can be produced at normal temperatures in certain hydrogen-loving metals without unleashing hot fusion's dangerous radiation.

Many experimental reports suggest the importance of nano-scale reaction sites and the occurrence of coherent quantum electrodynamic (QED) states that circumvent the strong mutual repulsion of positively charged deuterium nuclei. The QED features are markedly similar to processes now familiar in solid-state physics, such as superconductivity, and have led the company to conclude that "solid-state fusion" is a more accurate and fruitful characterization of the field than the term "cold fusion"

Before his historic work at Utah University with his associate Dr. Stanley Pons, Professor Fleischmann taught electrochemistry at the University of Southampton, Britain's equivalent to MIT. There he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society, and served as Council president of the International Society of Electrochemistry.

Initially inspired by Alfred Coehn's groundbreaking work on proton conduction in the late 1920s, Dr. Fleischmann labored privately and tirelessly in the early eighties to deepen his understanding of quantum electrodynamics, which, he believed, should allow low-temperature coherent fusion phenomena. After his demonstration of this effect in Utah and the March '89 announcement, he continued his QED work - in obscurity as far as the media was concerned, but with excellent backing. First, Toyota's research and development institute funded his efforts in France, and subsequently he worked in Italy with the support of several prestigious Italian energy labs.

At D2Fusion, Prof. Fleischmann will work in conjunction with Dr. Thomas Passell, the firm's CTO and a former manager in the Electric Power Research Institute's Nuclear Power Division, who directed the North American power industry's investigations of "cold fusion" phenomena for five years. Fleischmann will also aid and consult with top Los Alamos physicists at D2Fusion's New Mexico R&D laboratory.

D2Fusion CEO Russ George notes, "Dr. Fleischmann's genius inspired a generation of audacious researchers, and there are now thousands of scientific reports confirming the reality, safety and stunning promise of solid-state fusion energy. Aided by his insight and most recent discoveries, we believe it is time to start delivering that potential to the world.

"True, our theoretical grasp of all the processes in play remains imperfect, but neither can we fully explain the workings of aspirin, acupuncture or high-temperature superconductivity. Unresolved questions about their mechanisms have not stopped us from enjoying their respective benefits, which are pale indeed compared to what solid-state fusion offers. We are now certain that heat generation from this process is copious, safe, inexpensive and reproducible, and in terms of commercialization that seems like a perfect place to start."

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Sources

* Phone interview with David Kubaik, D2Fusion Communications Director, March 24, 2006.
* D2Fusion press release (BusinessWire; March 23, 2006)

Contact
D2Fusion, Inc.
W. David Kubiak, Communications Director
650-638-1976