HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jonesse@physc1.byu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Nuclear detection offer to Henny Penny
Date: 8 Oct 92 18:44:07 GMT
Organization: Brigham Young University

Tom Droege asks for help in turning off his heat-producting cell.
Reversing the current may do it, since this will drive deuterium out of the
cathode.
Before he does this, however, I would like to propose an experiment to Henny
Penny.
At BYU, we have a laboratory in a tunnel in the Wasatch mountains just 10 km
from campus which is dedicated to "cold fusion" measurements.  We currently
have three neutron detectors operating in the laboratory, two of the type
described in our Nature paper in April 1989.  The third is of the type
developed by Howard Menlove at Los Alamos, with 16 helium-3 filled proportional
counter tubes embedded in polyethylene moderator.  We have added a cylindrical
plastic scintillator in the core as a fast neutron counter.  And we have added
cosmic-ray veto paddles.  All signals are digitized using fast transient
digitizers.  We are tring to eliminate ways in which we could be fooled by
spurious signals.  The background in the modified Menlove counter is about 0.4
neutron-like signals per hour (singles), while the efficiency for single
neutron detection is about 15% for 2.5 MeV neutrons.  By comparison, the
Kamiokande neutron-detection system has a background of 0.25 h-1 with neutron
detection efficiency of 20%.  We feel confident that the Provo Canyon Lab is
the most sensitive in the western hemisphere for low-level neutron studies.

I would like to invite Tom to come here for experiments.  We can also look for
x-rays, gamma-rays, energetic particles.  The invitation is open to other
serious researchers as well.

This trip asks much of Henny Penny (Tom's term), so I add another offer to
help:  I would like to learn whether the heat is nuclear in origin or not.  We
are completing a PORTABLE (pardon the capital letters) x-ray detector with
about 10% intrinsic efficiency and 20% resolution at 21 keV (the energy of the
k-alpha x-ray from palladium).  It runs at room temperature and the detector
and pre-amp fit into a 3cm diam X 3cm long can, that may fit next to or even
INTO an electrolytic cell which is producing heat.  (Doing so may also be a way
to turn off the cell, if the quantum mechanicians on the net have their way.) 
Better x-ray detectors are available, when liquid-nitrogren cooled, etc.  This
one is designed to permit intrusion into a working cell hopefully.  And it is
lunch-box-size computer-based and portable.

What do you think, Tom?

Sincerely,
Steven E. Jones
Brigham Young University
From: quest@iowegia.uucp (Steve J. Quest)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: The H-Bomb secret is out
Date: 13 Oct 92 04:53:53 GMT
Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.

jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:

> the US by several different measures.  And since when was Mendeleev (or 
> Curie or Einstein or Fermi or Nobel or Rutherford or Hahn or Meitner) an 
> AMERICAN name?  Only Bk, Cf, Lr and Am fit that description.   
> 

Jim,

        True, Curie, Einstein, Fermi, and Nobel were not native to 
the United states, they were not born here- but they CAME here to 
do their research and to become great.  Just remember as you 
disagree with the things I say- medical professionals of the time 
laughed at Flemming as he was developing Penicillin.  They openly 
called him "stupid" and other demeaning remarks.  They said things 
like " Penicillin is such a weak antiseptic it is not even worth 
persuing".  They put their faith in Mercuric compounds like 
Mercurichrome as the salvation for mankinds war against infection 
and disease.  As you know, Flemming was right- and so am I.....sq

(today we say "how could anyone be so stupid to use Mercury based 
chemicals as anti-infectives in the human body!  Mercury is 
poisonous!  And yet so it was.....)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: Misc.
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 22:12:24 GMT

Thomas H. Kunich comments on the UPS problem.  The type of UPS I use takes
advantage of the holding time in the power supplies and only switches in when
the line drops out.  Everything in my ststem stands this just fine.  The 
computer is the most sensitive thing.

Conin Henderson attempts therapy for my floppy disk collection.  Most of the 
disks are never looked at.  So it is not so bad.  It is a good way to store 
data, nice written label that is keyed to my log book.  This way I do not have
to learn what XSYS means.  If any of you ever want a pile of data then I can
send you a pile of floppies and you can worry about XSYS.  I am sorry I ever
griped!

I suppose I am as close to a radiation instrumentation expert as there is.  I
have certainly built electrons for just about every known type of detector, and
in the process had to learn a little about the fundamental process.  If there
is as much as 100 mw of heat, then the required radiation flux is so large that
something should be seen.  (that should be electronics above - I have not yet 
built an electron).  Possibly if all the energy escaped as neutrinos they 
would not be noticed, but the flux would have to be so large that enough of 
them would probably interract in the basement walls so that secondary particles
could be seen.  Everything else but very low energy photons and neutrons is 
easy.  But enogh neutrons would leave me with a stiff cat.  So we are left with
low energy photons.  As I posted before, I have a small suspicion that there 
might be some.  But certainly not enough to explain the heat.  So I am left 
with the conclustion that any radiation that is see i.e. tritium, must be an
accident from some obscure branch from the primary process.  So what I am 
saying is that it looks like there "ain't no ash".  This in turn means that 
either there "ain't no heat", or that something new and wonderful is 
happening.  I vote for the latter.

Tom Droege

P.S. Remember that low energy photons are IR and thus heat.  Eventually we
will have to build detectors to look for light and heat in a cell.  Enough
people have run open cells to pretty well rule out light.  This leaves us 
with trying to put IR scanners in a cell.
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: The H-Bomb secret is out
Date: 12 Oct 92 21:11:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: murdoch.1992Oct12.211107.25083
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1992Oct12.190350.24311@netcom.com> noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) writes:
>In article houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle) writes:
>>
>>	Probably the only isotope separation technology that should scale
>>down well is laser isotope separation,  but that is still kinda blue-skyish.
>>Yet,  if it could be made to work,  there is no reason why one couldn't
>>build a rather small isotope separation system that might even scale to
>>basement operation size.  Now,  it might take you forever to make enough
>>high-enriched U235 to do anything interesting with it.  If we assume that
>>35 kg is "enough",  and that U235 is about %1 by weight,  then we would
>>need something like 3.5 metric tons of uranium to get it.  I suppose that
>>you could fit all that in a basement,  but it would be hard.  A really
>>high-tech laser enrichment system might continuously process metallic
>>natural U (most efficient for storage) into UF6,  run one-pass separation
>>to ~90% U235,  and then recycle the F at the end of the cycle which
>>might barely make this into something you could run at home.  Building
>>it in your basement might be harder;  and it all depends on developments
>>in technology which are certainly not known to the public...  Although it
>>is almost certain that somebody has done classified work on it.
>
>It is true that LIS (Laser Isotope Separation) could be scaled down in size
>and still work efficiently.  However, it requires VERY precisely tuned lasers
>of high power (even for small sizes), which are (at the present) VERY
>expensive.  At this time, I do not see anybody tinkering in their basement
>and build a cheap and workable LIS (even a micro-LIS in a test-tube).  And
>you're right, there's been a lot of classified work done on it, and, like the
>H-bomb, there are many not-so-obvious subtleties in the design of a working
>LIS system that even a well-funded program ($100+ million/year) would take
>several years to find them all out.  LIS, though simple at first glance, is
>not a trivial process to implement.

      Expensive?    Do you know of a scalable, reasonably efficient laser 
      for LIS work at any price that offers enough throughput to produce
      kilogram quantities of U-235 (unless you're willing to wait a hundred
      years for the isotopic product) ?

      By the way, your numbers for developing LIS are a mite low without
      preexisting national technical means.   As far as I know no one has
      production facilities, and the most promising one as far as
      production goes (in Europe) will lose its funding in 1993.

                             dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
Subject: Re: ash
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 17:05:26 GMT

In article <1bd6dbINN86n@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Hittinger) writes:
>
>
>Suppose that the ash is something ordinary that is already present?
>
>You'd miss it.
>
>It would probably be enviro-friendly - wouldn't that be great?  And if
>Tom has a party and buys beer with the profits on his futures contracts?

Yeh, let's say that duterium is being converted to duterium and that
all of the energy being released is from this reaction! Why didn't
we all think of this! :-)

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: If that fails, what's next
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:14:34 GMT

To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG

Steven Jones writes:

"I want to know why looking for secondary x-rays could not be a crucial
experiment to determine whether the "excess heat" is nuclear or not.  

I can accept difficulty of reproducibility in a new field as representative of
nascent science (as opposed to pathological science). But if an idea or field
cannot be falsified by any experiments, then this is not good science. It is
metaphysics."

Amen. I agree with all points. Let me add that X-rays may be a little tricky
to look for, but I knows some people who are using a fresh approach, not
dental film. I hope that I can persuade them to share their ideas. Let me
outline where I feel we would stand if a concerted effort to find secondary x-
rays was to fail:

1.   We would know that CF is not due to experimental error because it has
been too widely replicated for that to be possible. The basis of science, and
the history of science, demonstrates that when experimental evidence is widely
replicated at very high levels of confidence, is must be real.

2.   We would know that CF is not chemical, because it has been shown to
output thousands of times more heat than any possible chemical reaction.

3.   We would know that CF is "somewhat" nuclear. Obviously, it triggers some
nuclear reactions, because nuclear products and radiation have been measured
at high levels in many laboratories; again, this cannot be all due to
experimental error.

4.   By the same token, we would know it is "somewhat" not nuclear, because
there are no x-rays.

It would add up to a very weird mystery. The strangest thing I have ever heard
of. But it would not go away! We cannot back down, rewind, and erase point #3,
#2 and #1. We cannot throw away superb experimental results, like McKubre's,
just because they don't make any sense. It is too late, the results are too
firm. This phenomenon is not going to pop and vanish like a soapbubble, or
like polywater. If there are insufficient x-rays, all we can do is add that to
the pile of unsolved mysteries, and press on. Another new mystery will not
make the old ones void, or make them automatically, retroactively,
experimental errors.

In other words, if you don't find x-rays, that will not mean that CF is false,
it will mean that CF is not a mistake, not chemistry, not nuclear, and your
work is not finished.

- Jed
From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: The H-Bomb secret is out
Date: 13 Oct 92 00:48:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: nmt.1992Oct13.004837.17469
Organization: New Mexico Tech

In article <1992Oct12.190350.24311@netcom.com> noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) writes:

>It is true that LIS (Laser Isotope Separation) could be scaled down in size
>and still work efficiently.  However, it requires VERY precisely tuned lasers
>of high power (even for small sizes), which are (at the present) VERY
>expensive.  At this time, I do not see anybody tinkering in their basement
>and build a cheap and workable LIS (even a micro-LIS in a test-tube).  And
>you're right, there's been a lot of classified work done on it, and, like the
>H-bomb, there are many not-so-obvious subtleties in the design of a working
>LIS system that even a well-funded program ($100+ million/year) would take
>several years to find them all out.  LIS, though simple at first glance, is
>not a trivial process to implement.

	Actually I wasn't thinking of this being done in the near future.
I was thinking of this on an anticipatory level;  as something that might
be possible ~100 years from now.  It seems impossible that advancements in
technology will shrink a gas diffusion plant to home size...  There would
be hard physical limits in the way,  but if diode-pumped dye lasers become
powerful,  efficient,  and inexpensive.  I don't see any physical limits
to scaling the technology down to that size,  but it certainly isn't something
that is likely to happen soon.

-- 
Xref: sparky sci.physics.fusion:2441 sci.physics:16312
From: quest@iowegia.uucp (Steve J. Quest)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Re: The H-Bomb secret is out
Date: 10 Oct 92 17:40:36 GMT
Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.

crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

>       for the Soviets to reproduce.  Do you actually think that the Soviets
>       were *better* than us at military-scientific research?
> 
>       Finally, the Rosenbergs were executed because they were convicted as
>       traitors.  If Stalin had managed to attain control of the 
>       world through treachery, I suspect you would not feel so
>       benignly about traitors.  I put selling out this country
>       with mass murder as one of the most abhorent and intolerable of 
>       crimes.
> 
> >        For example, I have a periodic chart that lists proposed 
> >russian names for elements that they "claim" to have synthesized, 
> >but only in fine print.  The actual names are generic and labeled 
> >by americans pending "verification" that they actually *WERE* the 
> >first to synthesize them.  And so it continues............sq
> 
>       Controversy notwithstanding, fabrication of transuranic elements 
>       in accelerators pales in comparison with the military-scientific
>       achievements necessary in constructing atomic weaponry for the 
>       first time.
> 
>                               dale bass

Dale,

        I don't necessarily feel that the soviets are "better" 
than we are, just that given the same money to spend on equipment, 
they are EQUAL in intelligence as we.  We are not "genetically" 
superior, only financially superior to other countries.  The 
soviets have been the originators of many industrial ideas which 
WE have taken without credit- which is also unfair (e.g. Titanium 
plating technique on twist-steel drill bits).

        I have to say that no matter WHO is in control, bad as 
well as good things will happen.  It doesn't seem to make much 
sense, but to an american Vietnam vet, Ho Che Minh (sp?) was NOT a 
good fellow- but to the north Vietnameese, he is a hero.  Saigon 
was renamed after him to prove this is so.  America considered him 
a terrorist and likened him to Hitler, but to the Viet Cong, he 
was a god!  By the way, Hitler was loved by HIS people too...

        Don't you just love politics?  The winner always writes 
the history books to THEIR slant!  My history teacher loved me 
when I spoke glowingly of Hitler, the man who took Germany out of 
economic chaos, and made it (for a short number of years) the most 
powerful country in the world!  I view the world through unbiased 
eyes.

        We refuse to give the Soviets credit for elements 104 
through 106 (I believe) and if I remember correctly, we have 
proposed OUR OWN AMERICAN names for these elements should we one 
day "catch up" and synthesize them ourselves (this may have 
already taken place however).  American equates with ego, 
something that is very very hard to swallow..............sq
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: blue@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu
Subject: Efficiency of Droege TEC?
Reply-To: blue@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 15:54:29 GMT

I have been trying to digest everything Tom Droege has been telling us
about the course of his current experiment.  As I recall the present
run started Sept 7 with a day or two to determine the balance of an
empty calorimeter, a day with the cell in but not operating, and then
a chargeing period which showed a negative heat.  There followed 2
days in which the data was lost and then a long period indicating
a gradually increasing positive heat averaging to some 80 mW
surplus relative to 10.151 W flow across the TEC device which is
servoed to remain with a zero temperature difference.  I have two
questions: (1)What is the efficiency of the TEC in the sense of
how much heat is generated by the current flow relative to the
10.151 W transported, and (2)What happens to the calorimeter balance
if that efficiency should change during the course of an experiment?

Dick Blue
NSCL @ MSU
Xref: sparky sci.physics.fusion:2452 sci.physics:16335
From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Re: The H-Bomb secret is out
Date: 11 Oct 92 19:07:39 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Followup-To: sci.physics.fusion
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University


 [... description wherein Steven J Quest compares extracting Pu-239 
      from used fuel rods and machining same into parts for a fission 
      weapon to rebuilding his automatic transmission deleted ...]

 heh heh heh

 Can you spell R-A-D-I-A-T-I-O-N ?

 There is a difference between the technical difficulty of certain steps 
 in a procedure and the difficulty of doing something very dangerous on 
 an industrial scale.

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Lawson criteria
Date: 15 Oct 92 15:36:33 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <15OCT199209064543@lims02.lerc.nasa.gov> edwlt12@lims02.lerc.nasa.gov (MIKE JAMISON) writes:
>John McCauly (sp?) laments about the amount of paperwork generated in the 
>definition/design of fusion research reactors.  Well, John, if you gathered 
>all the paperwork generated by Space Station Freedom's design and *refined* 
>it get all the trace radioactive contaminants, you could run a small town 
>for years from the fissionable materials.

     Really?  Let's assign the paper the ordinary crustal abundance of
     Uranium (a likely very very conservative assignment since Uranium
     is probably selected against by plants) of 2.7 mg/kg.
     U-235 runs at about 0.7% natural abundance, but let's assume that
     we only need natural abundance (again a very conservative assignment
     since our production reactors run on enriched).  The average nuclear 
     power plant needs roughly 200 tons/year of fuel (~200,000 kg).

     In order to refine *one* year's fuel needs for *one* plant 
     one would thus need to use 

              2 x 10^5 kg Uranium/ (2.7 mg Uranium / 1 kg paper) * 10^6 mg /kg

             ~ 0.75 x 10^11 kg of paper

             = 75 million metric tons of paper.

      Even assuming that there are 10 million NASA employees( far too high). 
      I doubt even NASA employees can produce 7.5 metric tons of paper per
      person per year.  The paper cost alone would run into the tens of
      billions a year (at substantial volume discount).

      Yet, even if they could, that is only enough to run *one* plant
      for *one* year under these very very conservative assumptions.

>The other 99.999999999% could be used to power the rest of the world's 
>converted coal fired plants for another century or so (this must be where 
>they get the "there'll be a shortage in another [fill in your favorite 
>number] of years").

      Where did you get your calculations?

                               dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion