Cold Fusion Hot Again - 60 Minutes

Transcript

20 years ago it appeared for a moment that all of our energy problems could be solved it was the announcement of cold fusion nuclear energy like that which Powers the Sun but at room temperature on a tabletop it promised to be cheap Limitless and clean cold fusion would end our dependence on the Middle East and stop those greenhouse gases blamed for global warming it would change everything but then just as quickly as it was announced it was discredited so thoroughly that cold fusion became a catchphrase for junk science well a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Oblivion for many scientists today cold fusion is hot again we can wield the power of nuclear physics on a tabletop the potential is unlimited that is the most powerful energy source known to man Michael mcub says he has seen that energy more than 50 times in Cold Fusion experiments he's doing at SRI International a respected California Lab that does extensive work for the government mcub is an electrochemist who imagines in 20 years the creation of a clean nuclear battery for example the laptop would come pre-charged with all of the energy that you would ever intend to use you you're not decoupled from your charger and and and the wall socket automobiles same potential is for an energy source that would run your car for three four years for example and you take it in for servicing every four years and they'd give you a new power supply power stations you can imagine a one for one plug-in replacement for nuclear fuel rods and the difference only would be that at the end of the lifetime of that fuel Rod you didn't have radioactive waste that needed to be disposed of mbri showed us just how simple the experiment looks there are only three main ingredients first Palladium a metal in the Platinum family second a kind of hydrogen called dyum which is found in seawater deuterium is essentially unlimited there is 10 times as much energy in a gallon of seawater from the derium contained within it and there isn't a gallon of gasoline the Palladium is placed in water containing duum and the third ingredient is an electric current so the experiment's running inside this box that's correct can we open it up we can look inside the there's there's very little to see the experiment is wrapped in insulation and instruments they're looking for what they call excess heat in other words is more energy coming out than the electric current put puts in no one knows exactly how excess heat would be generated in the experiment but mbri shows us what he thinks is happening this is an artist's rendition of uh duum atoms appro at the atomic level padium looks like a lattice and the electricity drives the duum to the Palladium they sit on the surface and they pop inside the lattice mbri believes there is a nuclear reaction possibly a fusion process like what happens in the Sun but occurring inside the metal at a slower rate and without dangerous radiation what we're trying to do scientists today like to call it a nuclear effect rather than cold fusion at least 20 Labs working independently have published reports of excess heat heat up to 25 times greater than the electricity going in this little piece of padium metal has about a third as much energy as the battery in your Auto moile so very small volumes very small masses can produce large amounts of energy mcub has been working on this since that first discredited claim of cold fusion made headlines 20 years ago we demised an experiment Martin fman and Stanley ponds amazed the world in 1989 with their cold fusion news conference at the University of Utah fleshman in particular was one of the world's leading electrochemists and the announcement of room room temperature Fusion set the world on fire we have found the conditions where Fusion takes place immediately prestigious Labs at MIT and Caltech rushed to reproduce the experiment but they didn't get the same results as flashmen and ponds we have no evidence in our laboratory with any of our samples for Fusion the careers of flashmen and ponds were destroyed quick as a nuclear flash we worked for five years on this names once linked to a Nobel PR were forgotten by nearly everyone and most of the scientific world today is happy to leave it that way I'm still waiting for the water heaters I'm still waiting for the thing that will produce heat on demand Richard Garwin is one of the most respected physicists in the world and has been since the 1950s when he helped design the most successful Fusion experiment of all time the hydrogen bomb sort of the ultimate in hot Fusion yes it was uh unfortunately a very successful experiment this experiment has Garwin was a Critic of Martin fman back in 1989 and he has seen the reports on the research that has been done since you think mcub is mistaken yes after all the work that he's done yes I think so why I think probably he measures the input power wrong it's one of the most common criticisms of cold fusion experiments that the amount of electricity going in and the the heat coming out are simply mismeasured it's possible it is possible that I have been mismeasuring energy for for 20 years but I think it extremely unlikely very large number of people have been making these measurements and measurement of current voltage temperature resistance there's some of the simplest measurements that a physicist or physical scientists will measure but there's another problem that critics point out the experiments produce excess Heat at best 70% of the time it can take days or weeks for the excess heat to show up and it's never the same amount of energy twice I require that you be able to make one of these things replicate it put it here it heats up the cup of tea I'll drink the tea then you make me another cup of tea and I'll drink that too that's not it for you to be a believer it has to work 100% of the time uh pretty much our critics often complain that we boil water to make tea we could have in fact boiled 64 gallons of water and made a thousand Cups of Tea had we chosen to do so no unsure why the experiments can't be consistently reproduced mcub thinks it has something to do with how the padium is prepared thinks it has something to do with how the padium is prepared he's working with this Italian government lab called Ana where some of the most reliable Palladium is made with so many open questions we wanted to find out whether cold fusion is more than a tempest in a teapot so we ask the American physical Society the top physics organization in America to recommend an independent scientist they gave us Rob Duncan Vice Chancellor of research at the University of Missouri and an expert in measuring energy when we first called you and said we'd like you to look into cold fusion for 60 minutes what did you think when you hung up the phone I think my first reaction was something like well isn't that hasn't that been debunked we asked Duncan to go with us to Israel where a lab called energetics Technologies has reported some of the biggest energy gains yet we are delivering um Power into the cell when I got there I just kept asking about okay how do you know this how do you know that how do you get 30% I mean Duncan spent 2 days examining cold fusion experiments I mean I'm skeptical because I'm always skeptical and investigating whether the measurements were accurate do you measure that aluminum temperature directly or just assume it's equal and when you walked out of the Israeli lab you thought what I thought wow that've done something very interesting here he crunched the numbers himself and searched for an explanation other than a nuclear effect I found that the work done was carefully done and that the excess heat as I see it now is is quite real are you surprised to hear yourself saying this very much I never thought i''d say that and we found that the Pentagon is saying it too the defense Advanced research projects agency known as DARPA did its own analysis and we obtain this internal memo that concludes there is quote no doubt that anomalous excess heat is produced in these experiments do you feel Vindicated after all these years I don't have any real need for Vindication I know what I've seen that was a pretty big smile on your face though it's good it's not bad certainly it's good now the Pentagon is funding more experiments at the naval research lab in Washington DC and at mcc's lab in California we wondered what Richard Garwin would think of the defense Department's appraisal the experiments leave no doubt that anomalous excess heat is produced well that's a statement you just don't buy that well I am living proof that there is doubt now they can say that there that an excess heat is being produced but they can't say there's no doubt all they can say is they don't doubt but I doubt if you ask me is this going to have any impact on our energy policy it's impossible to say because we don't fundamentally understand the process yet but to say that we don't fundamentally understand the process and that's why we're not going to study it is like saying I'm too sick to go to the doctor you know I wonder how you feel about going public endorsing this phenomenon on 60 Minutes when maybe 90% I'm guessing of your colleagues think that it's crackpot science I certainly was among those 90% before I looked at the data and I can see where they'll be very concerned when they see this piece all I have to say is read the published results talk to the scientists never let anybody else do your thinking for you there was one more scientist we wanted to find a man who left America in disgrace and retired with his wife to the English Countryside Martin fman the man who announced cold fusion to the world is hindered Now by years diabetes Parkinson's disease and maybe a little bitterness at home he pulled out an improved version of his experiment something that he was working on when he was hounded out of science when you hold that in your hand and you think back on what's happened these last 20 years what do you think wasted opportunity wasted because it was discredited at the time he told us he has two regrets calling the nuclear effect Fusion a name coined by a competitor if you loaded the cell with heavy and having that news conference something he says the University of Utah wanted now that you know that your experiments have been replicated and and improved upon in Labs all around the world I wonder do you see a day when homes will be powered by these cells when cars will be powered by these cells I think so it wouldn't take very long to implement this you make me feel that I should take a part in this I'm getting you interested again yes uh the potential is exciting the potential is exciting yes