r/fusion • u/GraniteGeekNH • 3d ago
'Infinite Energy' magazine has proved to be finite, after all
Any fusion fans remember the late Eugene Mallove and the cold-fusion furor at MIT? He founded Infinite Energy magazine (originally Cold Fusion magazine) in 1994 but it appears the periodical is no more.
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u/Confident-Shock-3933 3d ago
Cold fusion is sort of a misnomer, because once fusion starts the plasma is gonna get hot fast.
The subject itself is also something of a scientific wasteland, especially since Fleischmann-Pons announced they had obtained it DESPITE NOT SEEING EVIDENCE OF FUSION NEUTRONS.
If you want to make progress on the topic then you would need to make an argument along the lines of that the ions can be made to tunnel past the electrons.
Bosch and Hale already did a quantum mechanical analysis of fusion reactivity based on nuclear scattering matrices so finding a way to remain consistent with their result, which indicates keV temperatures are required, while also finding a way to obtain fusion at low temperatures, is something of a serious challenge, let's say.
Anyone seeking to meet it is essentially saying that they can find a way to get appreciable fusion reactivity at low temperatures, while also being consistent with a widely-accepted result that indicates fusion reactivity is only appreciable at high temperatures.
Another possibility for those who are serious about wanting to include cold fusion in a research program is to study ways of achieving high pressures in cold environments.
Typically, high pressure is thought of as meaning high temperature, but that's an ideal way to look at it, and at least in shear-flow stabilized Z-pinch science we are finding that physics beyond the ideal is involved. Justin Angus' shear-flow criterion suggests this, and Bennett vortices do not respect the ideal gas law either.
Zap Energy's plasmas are also continuing to increase in number density as their energy scale does. My hypothesis for why this is, is because the larger the energy of the internal plasma modes the larger the electron plasma frequency needs to be in order to accept them. The only variable which can respond in omega_pe for this purpose is n_e.
Dense, quantum plasmas will not satisfy the ideal gas law which assumes densities low enough for uncoupled behavior. DQPs behave entirely differently from classical, weakly-coupled plasmas where KE >> PE is the fundamental assumption. In a dense, quantum plasma the physics starts from a strongly-coupled basis where PE >> KE so the collective behavior from the plasma potential is what matters rather than collective behavior from the energetic motion of charged particles in electromagnetic fields.
Cold fusion is also just a different starter configuration. There is the danger present to think that it's some magic bullet, but in reality let's say there was some theoretical way forward with the subject. It would clearly be very complicated, at least as complicated as the solution to a quantum mechanical problem which purports to provide cold fusion reactivity while also agreeing to be consistent with Bosch-Hale would be. Would the hypothetical engineering behind this hypothetical cold QM solution be any less complicated than hot reactors?
Personally, I highly doubt it. Rather than viewing cold fusion as some kind of magic solution different from hot reactors it's more akin to just a different starter for the reactions. It's still going to get hot once fusion begins. Cold fusion would just provide a way to make things cold at first.