Re: Articles

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ben McMillen <spoonman534@xxxxxxxxx>

It appears that the article is much more straight forward than the 
online article, which I might add is IMPOSSIBLE to un-subscribe to 
(if you've signed up for EE Times, you may know what I mean.. )

The actual paper that was published makes no claims of sustainable 
cold fusion and merely states that they were able to produce neutrons..

Inetersting, yes.. not yet practical though.. (go figure, that's research.. )

Just my 2 cents ;)

Coiling In Pittsburg
Ben McMillen


Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Original poster: Jim Lux

At 01:40 PM 2/26/2006, Tesla list wrote:

>Supposedly fusion power has been demonstrated using piezo-electric
>crystals with HV excitation. Won't power a city (now) but may be a
>convenient source for penetrating charged and neutral particles.
>This is a reputable "e-zine" so adds considerable credibility.
>
>http://www.powermanagementdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180205456


They may be reputable, but there's so many typographical errors and
misleading statements in the article that it's amazing.


"
Traditional portable neutron sources are at least a foot long and
require a high-voltage power supply that can deliver 250,000 electron-volts
"

The particles are accelerated to 250,000 eV (250keV), but power
supplies are rated in "volts"

Hmm.. traditional sources a foot long and a couple inches in diameter
vs 15x15 cm for the new one. The switch between customary and
metric units obscures the fact that they're really about the same
volume. The traditional source is long and skinny to fit down a well casing.

A neutron source based on radioactive isotopes is much smaller than either.

"
we can use a battery to send just a few watts to heat the crystal to
get its high-voltage output
"

Sure, but you don't get a heck of a lot of neutrons for that few
watts. Most commercial applications of neutrons require reasonably
high neutron fluxes to make whatever it is you're doing detectable.
[each crystal heated with 10W for 350 seconds -> 7kJ to make an
average of 138 counts in 120 seconds, or roughly one count/second
(about 5-6 times the background) into a 7.6 cm detector 10cm away.
Even allowing for the 0.4 stated efficiency of the detector, and the
solid angle intercepted by the detector, you're not talking about a
huge neutron flux.

Not that these folks haven't done some interesting work, but this
sort of "breathless, excited" reporting of something that's really
pretty mundane doesn't benefit us much in the long run. It also
tends to make people cynical, so that when something really
interesting and va luable is reported, everyone goes, "oh yeah, same old hype".