-Caveat Lector-
Johannesburg, South Africa. March 29, 1999
Cold fusion's for real, says scientist
Ten years after its disputed 'discovery', cold fusion is a topic shrouded in
embarrassed silence. But one physicist continues to insist that it's for real --
and that he can prove it.
By CONNIE HARGRAVE, San Francisco
Daily Mail & Guardian
USS George has worked steadily as an independent scientist to unveil the
mystery of the cold fusion reaction announced ten years ago by chemistry
professors Fleischmann and Pons.
Last year George presented the first paper ever to be accepted on the
subject of cold fusion by the prestigious American Physical Society. His
photographic evidence, along with experiments at Stanford Research
Institute in California, proved to the scientific community that cold fusion
exists as a controlled nuclear reaction. He is very close to developing
simple and practical applications using this reaction as a source of low-
cost energy. Here, Connie Hargrave interviews him for Share International.
Share International: If cold nuclear fusion can produce infinite amounts of
heat using easily accessible materials under normal conditions, why is
there not more interest in this potential new source of energy? Why do we
not, for instance, read about it more often?
Russ George: The concept of cold fusion does not fit into the existing
framework of modern science and threatens its most basic foundations.
The number of people working in this field around the world has in fact
declined from about 1,000 to around 100, because the reaction is very
elusive. Cold nuclear fusion is not an invention, but a phenomenon of nature
which is very energetic. Nature, however, does not seem to use it on a very
large scale, and the reaction is not normally seen as very robust or easily
reproducible. For this reason, producing scientific evidence has been
problematic.
Most scientists are narrow specialists and are trained in 'cook-book'
methods to alter the ingredients of known 'recipes'. The work with cold
fusion is, by contrast, classic frontier activity, where you are dealing wit h
new, mostly unknown territory. Perhaps it takes a generalist like myself,
who has no academic tenure, salary or reputation to protect, to make
headway in this field.
Before cold fusion, mankind had harnessed nuclear fusion only in nuclear
weapons. In order to cause a fusion reaction, as in the hydrogen bomb, it is
necessary to have temperatures equal to those of the centre of the sun.
Understandably, fusion scientists laugh at the possibility of a nuclear
reaction occurring at room temperature.
SI: If that is so, how did Fleischmann and Pons know that their discovery
was in fact nuclear energy, and not just a chemical reaction?
RG: The people observing these reactions for the first time were good
chemists who understood that the principles of chemistry did not apply.
They were seeing excess heat: they put in 10 watts of electrical power and
things would heat up as if they were putting in 11 watts. With normal
chemical reactions the production of heat ceases when the fuel is used up,
but Pons and Fleischmann knew that theirs was not a chemical reaction,
because the energy produced far exceeded anything known in chemistry,
and therefore they reasoned that the reaction was nuclear.
SI: Why do so many other scientists disagree? Why are these findings
being treated as an aberration?
RG: A nuclear reaction is considered synonymous with the presence of
radiation, and the scientific mind set does not allow for a nuclear reaction
which emits no measurable radiation.
Scientists have said: "Where there is nuclear fire there have to be nuclear
ashes," and everyone knows that the "ashes" of a nuclear reaction is
radiation. Cold fusion produces intense alpha radiation, which is totally
different: it takes only a few atoms to shield you from it, whereas it takes
three feet of lead to shield you from the nuclear radiation produced by an
atom bomb explosion. In sum, because cold fusion does not produce
energetic, penetrating nuclear radiation, scientists have disclaimed it as
not being nuclear.
This view is now totally entrenched, a bit like the flat-earth concept was at
the time of Copernicus.
When science acknowledges cold fusion, nuclear and atomic physics will
have to be reconsidered. Scientists will have to ask themselves: "Have we
made other assumptions that are wrong? What else have we missed?" The
discovery of cold fusion pulls three legs out from every chair of
contemporary physics, so to speak.
SI: I thought scientists were in essence curious people and would be
delighted with such a possibility.
RG: Some are, but not the last few generations of scientists who are now
the leading authorities in physics. Consider the position of the individuals
who are at the top of their field, who have written the definitive text books,
who are in their 50s and 60s and have tenure at prestigious universities.
What these early cold fusi
