From: bsherman@genome.lbl.gov (Brad Sherman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Text of WSJ Article, 27 July (long)
Followup-To: sci.physics.fusion
Date: 28 Jul 1992 03:40:02 GMT
Organization: Institute of Forest Genetics DataBase
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[Typos are probably mine --bks]

_The Wall Street Journal_, 27 July 1992, p.B5, writes:

U.S. Researcher Claims to Replicate Japanese Experiment in 'Cold Fusion'
   By Jerry E. Bishop and Jacob M. Schlesinger

A scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said he
successfuly replicated a Japanese "cold fusion " experiment that is
claimed to produce more energy than it consumes.

Materials scientist Edmund Storms reported in a paper submitted to a
scientific journal that he has measured 20% more power coming out of his
experiment as heat than was put into it electrically.  The experiment was
almost identical to a  heat-producing cold-fusion type of experiment
described earlier this year by Akito Takahashi of Osaka University.

This market the first time that one laboratory has claimed to have
reproduced a cold fusion experiment in another laboratory and obtained
the same positive results.  A major cloud hanging over claims of cold
fusion has been the inability of reserarchers to describe to others how
to build and operate a cold fusion experiment that, as is claimed,
releases more energy that it consumes.  Skeptics say they won't believe
claims of cold fusion until they see the phenomenon for themselves, and
most fusion physicists believe claims of excess heat from cold fusion
arise from scientific error and delusion.

In Japan, meanwhile, representatives of several Japanese companies
gathered in a closed meeeing last week with Japanese scientist doing cold
fusion experiments and with the two chemists who made the original cold
fusion claim, B. Stanley Pons of the U.S. and his British colleague,
Martin Fleischmannn.  Reached at a hotel in Sapporo, Dr. Fleischmann
would not reveal the purpose of the meeting.  A Japanese scientist who
attended said the two chemists presented "some interesting data,
convincing us to accept that cold fusion is taking place."

The meeting was in the offices of Imra Japan Inc, a new energy research
company that is indirectly affiliated with Toyota Motor Corp.  The
meeting came as the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry
considers funding a special effort in what it is cautiously calling "new
hydrogen energy,"  A MITI representative also attended the meeting.

Much of the new interest in Japan has been fueled by Dr. Takahashi's
experiment.  In January Dr. Takahashi said he was getting an average of
70% more power, in the form of heat, out of his cold-fusion type of
experiment than was being put into it electrically.  The experiment, he
said, was continuously producing more energy than it was consuming, and
during a typical week might produce 50 megajoules (14 kilowatt-hours) of
excess energy.  

As in almosts all cold fusion experiment, Dr. Takahashi was running an
electric current through two elecrodes -- a piece of palladium encircled
by a platinum wire -- that were immersed in "heavy" water.  The
controversial claim has been that as the heavy water is elecrolyzed, the
heavy hydrogen, called deuterium, from the water is absorbed by the
palladium metal.  Energy is released, according to cold fusion
enthusiasts, when the deuterium atoms fuse inside the palladium metal.

Dr. Takahashi's bench-top experiment uses a small thin plate or sheet
of palladium as the electrode instead of a a thin cylindrical rod of the
metal as others have used.  Dr. Storms used palladium sheets obtained
from the same Japanese metals company, Tanaka Kikinozoku Kogyo, that
supplied Dr. Takahashi.

Both researchers also "cycled" the elecric current, running it at a high
level for a few minutes to a few hours, and then shifting to a low level
of the same duration.  Until now, other researchers have applied a steady
current to their experiments.

In his paper submitted to Fusion Technology, a monthly jounal published
by the American Nuclear Society, Dr. Storms said his experiment began
putting out an excess of power after about 90 hours of operation and
continued to produce excess power whenever the current was raised above
a certain level.  At its peak, the experiment put out 7.5 watts more
power than was put in. The experiment was stopped after 295 hours when
the device for recombining the oxygen and hydrodgen gases into water
failed.

Dr. Storms said that a key finding was made when a second experiment,
using a sheet from another batch of palladium, failed to produce excess
power.  Under the microscope this non-working palladium was found to be
studded with microscopic cracks, whereas the palladium sheet that worked
was relatively free of such cracks.  The scientist theorized that
cracks prevent the palladium from holding endough deuterium to begin a
nuclear reaction.

At least two other attempts are under way to replicate Dr. Takahashi's
experiment.  At the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati,
Francesco Celani said he was getting about 10% excess power from an
improved version or Dr. Takahashi's experiment.  But he said the
experiment was stopped when copper from an exposed wire contaminated
the palladium,  Because of the contamination problem Dr. Celani said he
isn't asserting any claims of excess power.  A new experment will get
under way this week, he said.

In Japan, Hideo Ikegami at the National Institute for Fusion Science in
Nagoya said he also is running a simialr experiment.  "I'm not quite sure
yet" whether the experiment is producing excess heat, he said. "I'm
getting a very high temperature ... but I can't say definitely" that it
is excess heat until detailed calculations are made, he said.
---------
    --Brad Sherman

 `Never forget, gentlemen,' he said, to his astonished hearers,
 as he held up a copy of the `Authorized Version' of the Bible,
 `never forget that this is not the Bible,' then, after a moment's
 pause, he continued, `This, gentlemen, is only a translation of
 the Bible.'
    --Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion