Cold Fusion, Again

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https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.07245v2

Cold nuclear fusion is real!  But it’s also extremely lame.  Apparently when deuterium gas is put in contact with solid palladium metal the gas can find its way into the crystalline metal structure and fill voids in the lattice of palladium atoms and the structure of the metal lattice can somehow shield the deuterium nucleii from each other’s positive charges in order to fuse into a helium atom (²H + ²H → ⁴He).

Unfortunately, the rate of fusion is so low that it’s barely detectable.  And if energetic means such as lasers are used to enhance the rate then the energy balance is extremely poor with much more energy put in to speed up the reaction than is produced by the fusion reaction.  As a practical energy source this would be described by the technical term “lousy.”

But all is not yet lost.  The authors of the paper speculate if three separate accelerating processes are employed simultaneously there is the potential to produce the forty orders of magnitude improvement needed to make cold fusion a useful energy source.

Forty orders of magnitude.   Hmm.  That’s a lot of orders of magnitude you know.  That’s 1040.  That’s a really, really big number.  If I had 1040 pennies I’m pretty sure it would form a black hole of pennies.  It’s a lot.

So somehow they think they can increase the fusion rate that much?  Hmm.

So I really like the idea of cold fusion.  The fact that you can take palladium and heavy hydrogen at ambient temperatures and somehow get a nuclear reaction that produces really clean energy is extremely appealing to me.  It sounds like what E. E. “Doc” Smith used as his source of energy for interstellar flight in the “Skylark” series of space operas.  It’s amazingly exciting.  But  1040 anything is a lot.  So I’ve decided not to hold my breath or invest heavily in the technology or rip the oil burner out of my basement just yet.

The good thing about cold fusion research is that you don’t need billions or even hundreds of millions of dollars to work on it.  You don’t need magnetic containment to avoid your nuclear plasma from eating through the metal walls of your reactor.  And you don’t need giga-watt lasers to blast a pellet of boron hydride or anything else that would break the budget of any second world nation.  It can all be done in a lab with all the stuff found in MIT or even Brooklyn College for that matter.  So I’m all for research into this avenue of science.  After all twenty years ago cold fusion was declared a hoax and that turned out to be wrong.  Who knows what else they’ll find.  Maybe if you use alloys of several of the platinum group elements the geometry of the spaces in the lattice will make the process run at some phenomenally faster rate.  Maybe not 1040 times faster but something reasonable and that would be enough to throw the whole thing into the range of practical applications.  But to reiterate I won’t be holding my breath.

But it is something cool to think about.  Or even write into an sf story!  But instead of palladium I’m going to make it tantalum.  It’s just cooler.

15JAN2025 – Quote of the Day

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In an age when national greatness depends not on numbers or on territory, but on intelligence, the development of intelligence is a duty the neglect of which will hazard our national position. In a day when thought, not force, is the ruler of mankind, and when in domestic government numbers are more powerful than wealth, it is of the most vital importance to the stability of our institutions that that thought should be sound and those numbers enlightened.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil

ArthurinCali Has an Article on Realpolitik and Trump

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ArthurinCali has a very interesting interesting discussion about how Trump looks at the ways and means of running the American Empire.

“From time to time, the mask slips and the broader public catches a glimpse into the inner machinations of the Global American Hegemon. This can be a striking blow to the ideals and platitudes usually presented as representation of the Liberal international order.”

 

Is That So Much to Ask?

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Recently I posted, “Cut and Paste Anglo-America.”  The post was linked by my favorite news aggregation site, “Whatfinger” and got a lot of visibility with folks who aren’t usually on the site.  One was a Canadian named Linn who wasn’t thrilled with my tongue in cheek idea of rearranging the two English speaking North American countries into a blue country and a red country.  Here’s what he had to say:

“I think it is offensive to assume Canadians would be blithely willing to give up their history and identity to become a part of the United States. It is ironic that President Trump ran on a patriotic campaign of Make America Great Again, but other Americans think that Canadians do not have the same patriotic feelings about their country even though the government had been usurped by the foul socialist left. Hopefully, Pierre Poilievre will make great strides in Making Canada Great Again.”

When I read his comment, my first thought was, “I’m glad not all Canadians hate Trump.”  Linn sounded like a Canadian patriot who wanted to get back his country from the Leftists.  Bravo!

And it made me think of how long ago it was when I thought we could win back the country just by electing Republicans.  How long ago I felt that the majority of Americans thought like me.  I guess it was in 2004; more than twenty years ago.  Wow, it seems even longer.  And I thought of all the disappointments and waking up to just how useless and dishonest the Republican establishment actually was.  Until Trump showed up it was Bushes, McCain and Romney all the way down.  So now even when we win, I find myself pessimistic.  After all the globalists control the whole apparatus of the modern world and do untold damage day in and day out.

But Linn’s comment got me thinking, there are good conservative people in most of the Western world.  Look at the right-wing parties growing larger in Canada, England, France, Germany, Holland and Italy.  Even Sweden and Denmark are beginning to come around.  And look how the Right has already taken control in Austria and Hungary.  And I’m sure there are conservative parties growing in every country in Europe.

Maybe it isn’t too late.  Maybe things will come to a head while Trump is in office.  Maybe we’ll see actual progress not just lip service to fixing the things that are broken.  What would make a big difference would be if Trump’s deportation effort worked well and became a template for the Europeans to follow.  Imagine if the French or the Italians were inspired to follow his lead and sent all the freeloaders packing.  Now that would be a miraculous sight.

I guess what I’m thinking is that maybe Trump is a leader for our side not only in America but around the world.  Maybe his example will rally people to the parties that want to take back their countries from the invaders.  His stubborn determination to get the job done is kind of a big deal and if he succeeds here other countries might follow his lead.  Everyone is always saying that America is the leader of the “free” world.  Well, why does free have to be code for leftist?  After all the leftists don’t want freedom anymore, except the freedom to define their sexuality in increasingly twisted and dysfunctional ways.  We want freedom of speech, thought, action and association.  We want freedom from being invaded by people who don’t like us or the way we live.  We want our country back.  Is that so much to ask?

How Will We Know?

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So, we’ve had a lot of fun.  Since November 5th most people on our side have had a real holiday from grief.  We got to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas buoyed by the knowledge that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been relegated to the ash heap of history.  What a wonderful phrase that is.  What an image.  There’s this enormous pile of cinders and burnt garbage and jumbled among these things are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris laying there covered with debris and looking extremely sad and confused.  So evocative of a better world!

But it’s best not to forget that this victory is just the beginning of a very long and difficult struggle to wrest control of the federal government from the horde of awful bureaucrats that make everything about our government expensive, inefficient and destructive.  It will be up to Trump’s cabinet to force a monkey wrench into the gears of government and wreck it.  And the question remains; will they do it?

I get the impression that Kash Patel really means to do just that.  And the fact that he was a prosecutor leads me to believe that he might have a good idea how to accomplish his goal of disemboweling the FBI.  I think of his tenure as the test case.  How long will it take for him to get going on the job?  And how long will it take before someone like me can tell that it’s working?  I’m guessing I’ll be able to tell if he’s having the desired effect if the New York Times and NPR are screaming that he’s destroying the FBI.

Maybe a bigger fish to fry is the purview of the Secretary of Defense.  Assuming Pete Hegseth is approved by the Senate he’s going to have an enormous job clearing out all the woke generals and other officers that Biden and Obama plunked down in the military.  But almost as important will be his implementation of Trump’s plan to end the Ukraine war.  I assume it’s going to be necessary for Hegseth to micromanage the defense department personnel to prevent them from continuing to supply the Ukrainians with endless weapons and money to keep the killing going until the last Ukrainian is dead.  He’s going to have to replace the existing supply chain personnel with people loyal to himself.  That’s going to take some doing.  There’s an enormous amount of money that gets distributed from the billions that go to Ukraine.  Shutting off that spigot is going to anger hordes of people and it might even trigger violence.  Hegseth will have his hands full.  I guess I’ll know that Hegseth is succeeding if the number of Ukrainians being killed falls drastically.  Probably the best indicator will be peace negotiations breaking out between Ukraine and Russia.

And finally Trump himself has a big part to play.  He has to get involved in the negotiations on the budget.  What I’m secretly craving is to hear that he’s managed to slip into the budget the elimination of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  If this could be eliminated it would put an enormous hole in the funding for PBS and NPR.  The elimination of those two toxic waste sites would in one fell swoop elevate the public discourse in this country immensely.  Think of it.  I might never see Jonathan Capehart’s homely face ever again.  For that alone I would consider Donald Trump’s second term in the White House a thunderous success.