Crystal Fusion?

[thnkrx]

Apologies if somebody already posted this...<br /><br />Study: Nuclear Fusion Created In Lab<br /><br />AP<br />LOS ANGELES, California<br />Wednesday, April 27, 2005 <br />Posted: 2:32 PM EDT (1832 GMT) <br /><br />In the latest attempt to create nuclear fusion under laboratory conditions, scientists reported they achieved it in an experiment that uses a strong electric field generated by a small crystal.<br /><br />While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, this new way of making nuclear fusion could have potential uses in the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted the study.<br /><br />The experiment's results appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.<br /><br />For decades, scientists have sought to produce controllable nuclear fusion, the same power that lights the sun and stars. Fusion power has been touted as the ultimate solution to the world's energy needs and a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil, but even investigating potential ways of generating it requires building enormous reactors that cost millions of dollars.<br /><br />Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists.<br /><br />In one of the most notable cases, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England shocked the world in 1989 when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed.<br /><br />Fusion experts noted that the UCLA experiment was credible because, unlike the 1989 work, it did not violate basic principles of physics.<br /><br />"This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method," said David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "There's no mystery

 

[Saiph]

pretty neat stuff actually. I'm curious about the crystal they used to supply the electric field.<br /><br />And it's over in the technology forum as well. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>