WILSON OGG

Cold fusion is not necessarily cold and fusion is probably not involed. There is really no convincing evidence that thermonuclear fusion, or the fusion of two light nuclei to form a heavier one actually takes place. The phenomena termed cold fusion were discovered by Professors Maretin Fleischmann and Stanle Pons in the mid-1980`s, and were announced by them at a press conference on March 23, 1989 at the University of Utah. The result was that a major controversy in the history of science took place almost immediately. At the time, it was generally not believed that nuclear reactions could take place, with the exception of radioactiove decay, under modest temperature conditions. It is unclear whether nuclear reactions took place at all, but it is clear that energy was emitted during cold fusion experiments. The emission of energy itself was of great significance and not whether the energy was nuclear or not. It is likely, however, that the atoms of diatomic hydrogen do enter into combinations with atoms of other elements and, in this sense, would be nuclear in nature.

Using a small, vacuum-insulated glass cell, Fleischmann and Pons had electrically split heavy hydrogen, or dueterium, from oxygen in the molecules of a heavy-water solution. The heavy hydrogen was compresseds into a palladium mental electrode, and cold fusion effects were believed to have emerged after days and weeks of careful measurement.

President George H.W. Bush directed the convening of a "Cold Fusion Panel,"or the Energy Research Advisory Board (ERAB) of the U. S. Department of Energy. The panel unfortunately relied heavily on misleading reports from the California Institute of Technology, from Harwell (England), and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reports from all three of these sources were negative, and the ERAB advised against any government investment in "cold fusion." This advice impeded but did not stop scientific experiments involving cold fusion. Whether or not cold fusion experiments established the release of nucleaz energy, the results were of considerable importance and public funding of research would have been highly desirable. Clearly energy was being formed by processes previously unknown to the general community of scientists.

The Pons-Fleishmann discovery has now been confirmed by more than a decade of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), or Chemically-Assisted Nuclear Reactions experiments, with a new class of reactions, believed to be nuclear, having emerged. These hyrogen reactions occur in metals that are greatly loaded with heavy or normal hydrogen. Another process, pioneered by BlackLight Power, Inc., produces what are considered to be catalytically-altered hydrogen atoms. It is believed by some scientists that what these proccesses have in common is the "release" of intense, nuclear-scale energies without damaging radiation and radiosactive by-products. The reactors used are small scale and require only simple apparatus and common materials and the use of hydrogen as the fuel. However, these experiments have not proved the release of nuclear-scale energies but only that these experiments that focus on centifugal forces instead of centripertal forces lead to the formation of energy by the interactions of these centrifugal forces. Necessarily radiation and radioactive by-products could not be produced in these experiments. However, radiation and radioactive by-products might thereafter occur by the transfer of energy between centrifugal forces. It is very difficult to setup an experiment that would clearly distinguish between the release of prior existing nuclear energy and the formation of so-called nuclear energy.

As explained in the article on the Hydrogen Molecule, the Enfolding Universe and the Unified Theory necessarily require the hydrogen molecule to be diatomic and to be composed of unlike atoms that attract one another. The cold fusion experiments rely on the unlike atoms of the hydrogen molecule and their atttraction for one another in the formation of energy from the ingredient and synchronous forces of the hydrogen molecule. It is the attraction between these unlike synchronous forces that lead to the formation of energy. The energy clearly does not come from a nuclear disintegration of the hydrogen molecule.

Not only do the cold fusion experiments show how synchronous centripetal forces can produce energy but also how transmutations of metal cathode materials are produced. Where radioactive materials, such as uranium and thorium are used in the cells, these are rapidly transmuted into harmless by-products. Thus, radioactive waste from our present formation of energy by centrifugally forces could, in principle, be deactivated without the immense expense of burial. In fact, the importance of cold fusion processes might be, at least in the short run, of greater significance in the deactivation of radiation than in producing energy itself. In the long run, cold fusion processes would probably lead to a very inexpensive source of energy.

The inherent nature of the enfolding universe and synchronous folds provide a nearly unlimited source of energy. Emerging technologies not only will give mankind a nearly unlimited source of energy from centripetal forces but also the means of deactivating the harmful consequences of our prior reliance on centrifugally produced energy. Cold fusion processes do not require resources controlled by corporate entities or by national governments but only require resources readily available to all peoples.

The opposition of vested interest in industry and government must be overcome. The U. S. Patent Office is now blocking arbitrarily patent applications in the area of cold fusion. Without public fundung of cold fusion processes and with the immense influence of industry dependent on "hot fusion" processes, the protection of patents is requiredf to further the advances already nade in cold fusion.

© Wilson Ogg