New Cold Fusion Device Successfully Generates Heat -- What does it mean? 

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." -Richard Feynman

I have the same degree of confidence in this demonstration that I have in those videos on Facebook where an Indian gentleman demonstrates multiple free energy machines that he has built with lightbulbs, a fan and a few random components.

I can generate heat with pure hydrogen as well if I just light it on fire

You can look at it all you want as a physicist, but I look at their demonstration as an electrical hobbyist and I can tell you right away that those power meters are /not/ precision instruments. They don't have the guaranteed stability or calibration for the measurements they claim. There's an easy way to handle that though: A switch between the meters and test rig that can transpose the connections, so you can quickly switch the meters around. Any error from the meters will be easily revealed that way. You still have to construct all the electrical connections with care to ensure equal resistance on each side too.

My first thought: is it a mystery box that no one is allowed to look inside?

"they should consult some chemists". In my time studying physics, nothing was more abundantly clear than that practically every physics research team needed a chemist.

So, they put hydrogen in and measure excess heat and conclude it must be nuclear fusion. I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on RU-vid, but even my feeble mathematician brain immediately said, Show me the Helium! Hey, maybe they'll find a new way to compute pi.

I was at the original Pons & Fleischmann "cold fusion" announcement (the video of the announcement seems to have disappeared from the internet, so I don't have to tell you which one in the audience was me). None of the people in the first generation were scammers by any means. In the case of P&F, it was a combination of hubris, the unexpected difficulty of measuring accurately the heat output of their device, and their unfamiliarity with the techniques used to measure the high-energy radiation and neutrons that would have been produced by any fusion reaction. Under normal circumstances, the D+D reaction produces 3He and tritium in basically equal amounts. But in the case of "LENR," no neutrons were observed. In the end, they concluded that they were observing D+D -> 4He. The problem with *that* hypothesis (I mean besides the lack of any plausible explanation for how a chemical interaction can affect the branching ratio of a nuclear reaction) is that the excess energy in D+D -> 4He is given off as a gamma ray - and the gamma rays were not observed (at least not by anyone who knew how to measure gamma rays). So the "cold fusion" supporters had to invoke not one, but two miracles - that the branching ratio of the reaction was mysteriously affected by the Pd, and that despite the limitations that Special Relativity places on how fast the energy from the reaction could dissipate, all of the excess energy from the nuclear reaction magically went into phonons. The other first generation CF / LENR researchers of whom I am aware were likewise not scammers, but like P&F had deluded themselves and were not competent to make the measurements they claimed to be making - some of the original reports of alleged helium detection by mass spectrometry were quite obviously ludicrous to anyone who knew anything about mass spectrometry. At the time, P&F claimed that they had a prototype water heater based on "cold fusion." 35 years later, we're still waiting to see it. As for the term "cold fusion," at the time of P&F's announcement, the term was already in use to describe an actual phenomenon that really occurs at room temperature, namely, muon-catalyzed fusion. The problem (still unsolved) is that the muons do not catalyze enough fusion reactions before they decay to compensate for the energy necessary to produce them.

I am an Indian and I hate it when people like this crop up. We put in incredible amounts of effort to publish in good journals because we are constantly second guessed! And just as we become credible, another blow comes from quacks. Hate these guys with a passion.

In the 1980's there was a guy who'd go to all the electronics shows and demonstrate a device which would double the processing speed of any computer, without requiring more energy. He couldn't explain how the device worked, as he barely spoke English (I think he was from Singapore), but it worked! All speed tests which were run, would finish in half the time than they took on the same setup without this device! That is, until someone tried running the tests while measuring time on an external clock. It turned out that the guy had discovered that effect when putting voltage on an input port of the CPU board, which he had no idea what it was for -- it was a flag telling the board's internal clock to run at half the normal frequency....

I wouldn't bet they are 100% honest. Too much money to "find" in the promise of free energy.

Reminded me of a indian dude some years ago that also had a free energy engine that he started with hitting it with a hammer on a specific place. All of these are the same.... a magic box that "works" but they always need some more money to improve it and no, you cant see the inside of the box, it works bro ! are you calling me a liar ?

Nothing is more refreshing thn a cold bath, thank you Sabine. Seriously though, just going by a temperature a few degrees higher than expected and not even over a prolonged period is a bit thin to use as evidence of cold fusion.

I haven't studied these guys carefully but I know the field. Obviously the way they know it's not mostly hydrogenation heat is they run the experiment much longer than it takes to fully load the metal matrix with hydrogen. Unless you believe in magical teleportation, there can't be significant hydrogenation heat. These experiments routinely make orders of magnitude more energy than combustion with available chemicals, or hydrogenation energy, during their closed operation. You don't learn much glancing at the power meter for moment, any more than you can measure a car's MPG by noting that it's making 500 horsepower.

Just need a hot fusion reactor to supply enough electricity to split H2O's to make enough 99.9% pure H's for the cold fusion reactor warm up and some party balloons to recycle the excess helium.

As a chemist, I appreciated the last comment. Physicists tend to never even consider the option of talking to a chemist, and I'm pretty sure that if anyone mentioned "high temperature + Palladium + heat" to a chemist, they would never even think of nuclear fusion...

For a Hydrogen-Hydrogen fusion it's actually really easy to find out if fusion took place. Just measure the radioactivity, this reaction throws out neutrons. Only Proton(Hydrogen)-Boron fusion doesn't make neutrons, every other plausible fusion makes neutrons. And radioactivity is very easy to detect unlike any trace materials especially non reactive ones like Helium.

Thanks and an interesting way to decipher. Incidentally, we also measured helium and hence the conclusion that it’s a fusion. Happy to discuss further.

it can also just be that there are two different exotherm reactions in the two chambers that are just purely chemical, and no fusion at all.

I checked, a few groups are working on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) that are considered to be scientifically valid: ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy): This U.S. government agency has funded several LENR projects, indicating a level of scientific credibility. European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF): Researchers here study LENR using advanced techniques like palladium nanoparticles. George Washington University: Researchers, including David Nagel, actively participate in LENR research and believe in its potential. There are some genuine LENR research ongoing that has been done by reputable groups.

It's quite easy to measure the power generated : this is the 3457th publication on LENR. Giving an average of 4.5 man-month per paper. And giving an average of 80 W per scientist, this makes DW=3457x4.5x30x0.5x86400x80 = 1.5 TJ...

Dr. Randell Mills from ex-blacklightpower, now bright light power has been doing that from more than 20 years ago. He even sells the machines. It's not called cold fusiones, he said it's just a calalytic reaction that reduces hidrogen atoms to a lower energy state and he call the result "hydrinos". Chemistry of the byproducts is also very interesting. In the begginig he even gave samples worldwide to study.

I have seen *many* of this type of conference before and I get the distinct impression that they know full well what is actually happening but they are choosing to present it as 'cold fusion' anyway. It's a so-called 'grift'. It's hard to quantify but everything, including the specific setup, they way they present it, and the interview is just 'right' for this type of deliberate misrepresentation and I have seen it many times. Usually the goal is to get some funding out of the whole thing. I want to add that many, many times groups who do this will attempt to present it as legitimate reasearch/technology and very often there *will* be people on the team who are genuinely trying to achieve what the stated goal is, but there is likely to be this underlying feeling of something not being 'right' and that comes from the people in control knowing that the way they're choosing to go about it will not work and/or is not ethical. We saw this exact same thing play out with Theranos, for example. This is just on a smaller scale.

This reminds me of the cold fusion claim in the 1990s where it almost certainly wasn't fusion, but there seemed to be a warming (reproducible by some but not all experiments) most likely caused by radioactive decay rather than fusion. They did this at room temperature too.

Andrea Rossi e-cat has announced a similar device ... since 2012 ... but always failed to proof it worked.

As a reader of LCD displays, I can confirm they are indeed displaying fusion is taking place behind the box.

they certainly do generate a lot of hot air

Sometimes the best inventor is the person who doesn't know that it's not possible. I applaud their attempts and your clarification about how it works. Great Video.

I remember getting all excited about fusion energy systems in high school physics. Our class will hold its 50th reunion next summer. I don't have a lot of time left to waste on this one.

Sabine is one of the best comedians on youtube. Kudos to her for managing to keep a straight face during this video, and for not coming down *too* hard on the "non-scammers"at Hylenr, lol.

There are careful researchers who have addressed many of the concerns here. Not sure about these guys specifically.... But a few things need to be carefully disentangled before looking at the LENR field. First, the idea that whatever is happening is actually "fusion" as we understand it is seriously in question. Whatever's going on, it almost certainly produces no measurable radiation that can be detected outside the device, certainly not at the massive levels required for producing even 1 W of fusion power from (say) a DD reaction. (this is the "dead grad student" problem). Second on chemical effects -- certain researchers in the field have attempted to carefully disentangle this. For instance, you can look at the amount of heat produced per H atom reactant, and sometimes (as with research done by the Clean Planet group in Japan) this can be keV's or even MeV's per H atom -- way above what's possible with chemistry. These experiments aren't easy to do "right", and usually require skills and funds beyond the ambit of the typical "garage tinkerers" who are attracted to LENR... But if you read closely and study the work that's been done in the field, I think an intellectually honest scientist would admit that *something* interesting is going on.

Don't forget the Farnsworth fusor. Room-temperature fusion is possible and easy; the problem is the amount of energy required exceeds any release from the fusion. This generates neutrons, which can be used to transmute other elements. If their "cold fusion" device is fusing common hydrogen, it must be creating neutrons as well, and then assembling 2p2n to form He.

Excellent presentation because anyone should be able to comprehend it. I learned for the first time about hydrogenation.

From checking the Wikipedia article on neutron generators (including the Neutristor), it sounds like this should not really be called cold fusion, because it depends upon high speed deuterium or tritium nuclei impacting on additional deuterium or tritium nuclei that are trapped in the target metal matrix. The overall temperature is not very high, but the equivalent temperature of the impacting ions is high enough to overcome the electrostatic repulsion of the nuclei. The system is not in thermal equilibrium.

Wait until you hear about Andrea Rossi's magical LENR machine...

Thanks for respectfully and professionally addressing their claims, I think there's something to be learned from those experiments even if they might not be exactly what they claim it to be.

The issue is always recuperation of heat. We need 1000-1200° C to generate at 60-70%. LENER does work but temperature, not to mention economic efficiency is too low. Note that hot fusion has the same heat recuperation problem, just in the other direction.

It's *not-catalyzed* hydrogenation that requires high temperature. With palladium catalyst it can occur at room temperature, it's done all the time in organic chemistry. Although here we would mean the hydrogenation of some inorganic matter, which isn't really the main point if the Wiki article, I believe

Tepid fusion?

Good job on the explanation part. Thanks!

Always nice when you can't be sure if you understand the demo correctly, but are supposed to be impressed by it

That explanation from that Indian smart Scammer, i mean, scientist, was incredibly detailed, words from a genius.

Okay sure once its peer reviewed I'll believe it.

A very measured and diplomatic reaction by Sabine ... impressively done!

wait a second, they measure the temperature of the material? so in fact they are not quantifying the actual energy released as radiation but only the energy stored by the probe in equilibrium IMHO the small difference of temperature is explained by the fact that the no-hydrogen probe is a bit more electromagnetic emissive (infrared) - that could be shown with simple very cheap infrared sensors

Wow. Your explanation is absolutely great!!! Thanks for all the details.

You have to detect positron or gama rays or helium, yes.

Excellent explanation, Sabine. Thank you.

Speaking as a chemist, hydrogenation *does not* occur with metals, it is a chemical reaction that normally occurs with organic compounds and it literally alters the chemical make-up of the organic compound (and does not alter any atomic structures like generating Helium), often adding hydrogen atoms to carbohydrate chains. A lot of industrial processes use hydrogenation but I sincerely doubt that is what is going on here. Palladium in that case is just a catalyst, usually needs to be extremely finely divided (usually this is done with palladium-on-carbon), and the metal serves to bond the hydrogen and break H2 into atomic hydrogen. I don't think hydrogenation is the cause of the heat here, unless they have a large amount of organic material in their vessel, but I don't know what would generate it instead, off the top of my head.

Brilliant explanation, thank you

The so called excess heat seems to be well within the bounds of measurement error.

For some reason, I always thought it was gluons that did something to create excess energy in hot fusion. It's like all the quarks lost their brains and recombined in such a way that any excess mass is ejected at high velocity or converted directly to photons. Now it's like, well, why should any energy be released, ever, if certain nuclei can spontaneously fuse after enough hydrogenation and chuck out slow moving neutrons, so that no one hardly notices? So why does it take a lot of energy to create a lot of energy? What does the Feynman diagram / quantum interaction puzzle actually show differently with the high kinetic energy of superhot plasma/nuclei that is different, than when they're all coherently racing around the LHC at near light speed, and presumably also with very high kinetic energy, and smashing into each other? You'd think a fundamental and useful prediction for any quantum theory would be to predict the temperature and/or conditions at which various nuclei fuse.

Elizabeth Shue had the formula figured out in the late 90s.

Thank you for posting this. The methodology of getting "cold" fusion to work is easy to explain, and the requirement to add heat is a vital part of it. As you explained, hydrogenation must first occur. A metal crystal, palladium, or platinum, is filled up with hydrogen atoms. Then the metal is heated. As the crystal vibrates more and more as it is heated, it pushes out hydrogen. But that's at the edges. Inside, it also pushes hydrogen into itself, thus causing fusion. The problems of this method are numerous, including, Metal crystal posioning, where further fusion that produces higher elements disrupts the crystalicity of the metal. The symptom will be a marked drop-off of power producted over time. Another is the sheer volume needed to produce a lot of fusion, because that's limited by the physical volumetric limits of hydrogenation. A further problem could be a run-away reaction, where the fusion reaction heats the metal, heats the metal, heats the metal, until it melts or explodes. A further, and most likely, scenario is that the producers of the "cold" fusion device have no idea of what they're actually doing, and therefore, have no idea of what the crystals are doing. That is, they fail to know what the size, orientation, "graininess", imperfections, of the metal crystals. I believe that this last issue is the number one issue preventing "cold" fusion from being successful, as the experimenters tend to be chemists, not physicists. 'Nuff said.

Sabine has misunderstood the proton - proton Fusion reaction that starts with Hydrogen. It starts with H + H → D + β^+ + ν and DOES NOT directly go to 4He. The Deuterium from the 1st step then fuses with another H making 3He and also releasing a gamma. That fuses with another 3He releasing 2 Hydrogen atoms making 4He. You can't make 4He from Hydrogen without releasing a positron (which annihilates producing two gammas), a neutrino, and a high energy gamma. If this cell really was really fusing Hydrogen, there would be EASILY detectable radiation coming out. Since they have not demonstrated any radiation coming out of the putative fusion reaction, Sabine is wrong; it IS a scam.

I've seen several reports of devices that produce a little excess energy. Unfortunately, even if they work, these gizmos are not going to revolutionize large-scale energy production, for two reasons. The first is physical: small temperature differences lead to small thermodynamic efficiencies. This is why real power plants run very hot. The second and more important is financial: you need a massively high output to generate the income required to service the loan on the plant you are building. As my thesis advisor Fast Eli once said, there is no market for warmth.

Independent Testing and review would be nice.

It might be interesting to see some longer term saturation testing of the supposed device to see if it's regular level hydrogenation. However that process may be part of one form of cold fusion, basically the atoms squash together if they happen to jam into a hole in some molecular sieve. Some catalyst materials may have the right properties to do that as well. However it also seems like there's a very small margin in heat gained (would it be enough vs. efficiency loses of anything converting that heat to a more usable form of energy?), so it might not have too many obvious uses.

At least the phone scammers are getting more sophisticated in their technique. 🤷‍♂️

Well. Thanks for the update Sabine. I’m really wondering what’s going on with the gov funded studies at several universities, good to see you again and really really appreciate the info, I’ve been in a bit of a Faraday cage recently so it’s great to get an update

LMAO - what nonsense; glad you get to evaluate this laughable and totally false claim about any real measurable energy from fusion. By the way, Pb absorbs hydrogen much better at higher temperature. Measuring neutrons or gamma rays is trivial and extremely inexpensive compared to most high end equipment. Such devices are easy to obtain under $2000. Sorry, they are intentionally lying - they could easily measure neutrons or gamma's if they produced any significantly measurable fusion caused heat..

Excellent explanation...thanks!

I would bet my house that they've got it wrong. I would also advise everyone I know to do the same.

Pons and Fleischman. Cold fusion some time ago, but people were unable to duplicate. I saw a book discussing low temperature fusion. Apparently there's something called muon catalyzed fusion, but muon generators were prohibitively expensive. A probable source of excess heat is chemical reaction or physical phenomena. Hydrogen reportedly gets hotter when you reduce pressure. Joule Thompson coefficient is a search term for those who are interested. This property, coupled with flammability, is one of the problems with hydrogen as a motor fuel.

I went through all this before with Andrea Rossi's claims. He certainly was a scammer!

Hydrogenation is a standard chemical process where, for instance, you change a double bond to a single bond in an organic compound: you add hydrogen to the double bond, so to speak. The process needs a catalyst, usually Pd supported on carbon powder. The reaction is usually carried out at room temperature, not at high temperature. Unless you use a high pressure device for difficult to react substrates. Maybe one of the cells they use is containing unsaturated "impurities"...

When I was at MIT in the late 80s we did several larger scale COLD FUSION tests along the lines of what P&F claimed and we did measure excess heat....afterwards the lab and work was shut down and the prof was told that he would never get any funding if he continued with this work.... Eugene Maloff continued to push this topic until he met his "untimely" death in 2004 under strange circumstances....

4:44 -- Whenever someone recommends avoiding electrical discharges near some object, I know that this is a very interesting thing to do and definitely worth trying once. Kind of like those "no swimming" signs around the most favorite highly popular swimming holes. That's how you know that people LOVE doing something, when it has become a real problem for administrators. Thanks for the prohibitions, and you just hold on, I'll be right back!!

Now give us billions in funding

As someone that got their Nuclear Engineering degree when Ponds and Fleishman were saying they did it and having professors that were involved in Manhattan and other projects (like NERVA) and hearing them call into question cold fusion through use of Palladium or some other material, I don't see it. The only cold fusion I've ever seen work, and it took too much input for the creation of muons and getting the pressure just right in the container, was muonic replacement cold fusion. Muonic replacement works, but it sucks up more energy than it makes.

There are a number of fusion devices that work very well indeed. They generate heat as well. But the electricity going in is much more than the useful energy coming out. We also did this 'cold fusion' thing back in 1989 - if you put Hydrogen into a receptacle with a Palladium catalyst and there happens to be some trace Oxygen, it burns. Generating heat - no fusion required.

This seems like the flea experiment: if you cut its legs and you tell it to jump, he doesn't jump because he cannot hear you.

No way we have seen this in the 90s

Shouldn't you be able to detect the neutron flux, if it is indeed fusion? Or the induced radioactivity, if the neutrons get absorbed by materials. If someone get's this right cold fusion thing to really work one day, will they end up dead from the neutron radiation?

Before watching: the thumbnail gives me little hope of authentic success.

I think you were very gentle on these guys, which is a nice gesture of course. But after listening to their claims I would have personally chosen a much blunt assessment.

Let's see....

Simply measuring the voltage and current fed into both systems on a constant basis, along with the temperature, would answer your question. Create a meta-material of nickel, palladium and platinum such that the physical spaces in the material accentuate the probability of contact between hydrogen atoms.

how many times have we heard this before wise up people⚛

If that little thing generating power by fusion I wouldn't want to be standing anywhere near it. "Neutrons ain't your friends".

There's an old saying in Tennessee-I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee-that says, 'Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me-you can't get fooled again.'

I remember being fooled by cold fusion hype in the 1980s. Not gonna fall for that again.

wow, that was an awesome explanation. Sabine is freaking brilliant as usual.

*Our God indeed is a covenant keeping God. Has he said a thing and not perform it? I watch how things unfold in my life, from penury to $356,000 every three months and I can only praise him and trust him more. Hallelujah 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻*

@5:50 Exactly. Fusion generates neutrons, fast or hot doesn't matter. That they aren't showing a neutron count as proof means they are FOS one way or another.

Given that this comes out of India (again) safe to assume this is just another "Free energy" 'pseudo scam.

well done. thanks doc

It's always good to be skeptical, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised. After Pons and Flieschman got shot down with everyone saying CF was impossible, you had to hunt to discover several governments were quietly investigating it and finding tantalizing hints it was real. India would be a good spot to work on it as well since the country is not in thrall to Big Oil either and CF reactors would be a godsend to a still-mostly undeveloped country. Cold Fusion might be finally heating up...

It's possible to fuse elements at room temperature with minimal basic materials that can fit inside a very small container... like a soda can. Too many people are trying to bash the elements together when it's much easier to... twist them together.

Indian Company. Didn’t need to hear anything after that

Ever since the cold fusion fiasco in the late 1980s, I am always highly skeptical of anyone producing net energy in significant amounts from cold fusion. Your summation Sabine appears to be spot on. Thank you for creating nuclear clarity in this plug up event. What has ticked me off ever since, is all the wasted money that was poured into the cold fusion hoax. Apparently for some reason the money continues to flow. What was it that PT Barnum used to say?

Rabinowitz writes (of Nobel Prizewinner) Schwinger was a pioneering theorist in cold fusion. He felt that the bias of the physics community against cold fusion was based on inferences from hot fusion that are not valid in this new regime. He argued that the defense of cold fusion can be simply stated, "The circumstances of cold fusion are not those of hot fusion." He first submitted the results of his theoretical analysis of cold fusion to journals of the American Physical Society. He received such harsh treatment in the denial of publication of this work that as a symbolic gesture, he resigned his membership from the American Physical Society. This was no small step for someone who had been a leading member for over 50 years. In doing so he said, "The pressure for conformity is enormous. I have experienced it in editors' rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science."

This is what they measure: When you cool hydrogen to make it a liquid and wait for a while, it will heat up a bit all by itself and become gas again. This is due to the ortho-para hydrogen equilibrium. The spins of H in H2 are either aligned or not. Because of the weak coupling between these spin states and the thermal energy of H2, this is a slow process. To speed it up one needs to catalyse this energy transfer, this is a well known aspect of making liquid H2. And the catalysts are: platina, palladium etc. So, this is the excess heat they measure, the catalytic process of the H2 spin state toward the equilibrium. Nothing mysterious. That's why it works with H and not with deuterium (spin = 1 with D, would absorb energy). And, no neutrons, no fusion.

3:15 you don't need expensive equipment to analyse Helium in a gas, any simple and small sector-field mass spectrometer can do that. These devices are actually used in gas leak detection systems of pumps and vacuum devices. The sensitivity would be sufficient to analyse one Helium (4-2 He) atom in 10^8 Hydrogen (1-1, 2-1, and 3-1, as in Protium, Deuterium, and Tritium) atoms or better. The only issue would be to get the connections absolutely gas tight to be able to achieve a good vacuum, which is difficult when a lot of Hydrogen is present. But it's not impossible.

Ooh I can't wait for the video on neutrinovoltaics!

A few years ago NASA published some research about "lattice confined fusion". If I remember correctly, it was inducing deuterium fusion in a lattice with high energy photons (like X rays and maybe gamma rays).

I'm afraid Sabine will soon use gen z words. "Pause! This fussion thingy is low key cap"

They did this before. I was in my twenties and they missed a 50Hz component from a nearby fridge (so I remember😊) that got in the experiment. Everybody was excited, for a while.

Nice segway to your sponsor! Very smooth.

I have 2 points. 1. Simple hydrogen nucleus aka proton has extremely low chance to fuse with another proton. It has to release a neutrin which has a very low probability. 2. The 400 celsius grade tempreture means seriously oscillating palladium atoms. These can result collisions between protons what overpowers the coulomb barrier.