Tabletop cold fusion achieved!

[pyesetz]

A team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy NY) has achieved fusion of deuterium atoms using a battery-powered device.  The official press release avoids talking about exactly what the "pyroelectric crystals" are made of.

EE Times dishes up the dirt: the device uses dilithium crystals!  Yes, the crux of the fusion reactor is a pair of lithium tantalate crystals.  Naturally the article leads off with a Star Trek reference (they know their audience).

Keep calm, folks: the device does *not* produce more energy than it consumes.  The device achieves fusion without million-degree temperatures and it might be useful in medical applications where locally-created high-energy particles are desired, but it is not a power generator.  Still, it is a gigantic step forward for science.

*Update* Today's Newsweek has an article about a guy who has invented a flying car.  He says his next project will be "a desktop nuclear-fusion reactor".  Apparently he hasn't heard yet that it's been done already.

Comments

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think they are pretty much all PIR sensors now. Actually, you would only need ONE motion detector, since a motion detector needs TWO crystals in it to work. However, not all have lithium tantalite crystals, some have tri-glycine sulphate, so those might not work as well. Then there's questions of geometry and size, which I don't know. I sort of meant cannibalising the motion detector in a McGuyverish sense. ;-)

If you only used hydrogen from tap water, then the reaction would only be (1/6500)^2 as strong, 2E-8! The D+D->He3+n reaction has 2 deuterium nuclei going into it, so the rate of this reaction is proportional to the square of the deuterium abundance. And I don't think any of the other possible nuclear reactions could take place, except possibly D+T.