Safe, Less
Costly Nuclear Reactor Decommissioning and More
How weak
interaction LENRs can take us out of the nuclear safety
and economic black hole Lewis Larsen
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LENR ULM neutrons for cleaning up current nuclear and
ultimately replacing fossil fuel power generation
Low
Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs) based on weak
interactions and their ultra low momentum (ULM) neutrons
not only have the potential to be used for an entirely
new source of green, clean energy (see [1]
Low Energy
Nuclear Reactions for Green Energy
and [2]
Widom-Larsen
Theory Explains Low Energy Nuclear Reactions & Why They
Are Safe and Green in SiS
41), they may also solve many serious public safety and
environmental problems associated with current nuclear
fission and fossil-fuel power generation technologies,
and at the same time, dramatically reduce the risks of
nuclear weapons proliferation and significantly improve
long-term profitability for the global power generation
industry.
LENRs
have the potential to offer revolutionary business and
environmental opportunities such as green low-cost,
distributed power generation systems and/or large
grid-connected power plants based solely on weak
interactions and gamma-shielded neutron captures (see
[3]
Portable and Distributed Power Generation from LENRs
SiS 41), as well as substantial savings on
nuclear waste cleanup costs (see [4]
LENRs for Nuclear Waste Disposal
SiS 41). In this article we shall explore how
LENRs could reduce costs and the time it takes for
decommissioning old reactors; and the potential for
retrofitting certain types of nuclear reactors with
safer, cheaper LENR-based subcritical fission heat
sources that can replace existing reactor cores. In the
next and final article in this series, we shall discuss
retrofitting existing coal-fired power generation plants
with green LENR-based boilers, an attractive economic
option for commercial power plant operators.
ULM neutrons are efficient ‘triggers’ for nuclear
fission and neutron capture reactions
As discussed
previously [4], compared with neutrons at thermal and
higher energies, ULM neutrons generated by LENRs could
be extraordinarily effective in triggering nuclear
fission in fissile isotopes, and 3 – 4 orders of
magnitude more efficient at releasing nuclear binding
energy via neutron capture on various 1/v target
fuels/isotopes. That is one way in which LENRs could
help improve existing fission power technologies.
Strong
interaction fission reactions produce extremely
energetic products that are much more hazardous than
‘simple’ alpha decays or weak interaction beta decays.
Nevertheless, LENR ULM neutron-triggered fission
reactions do produce substantially larger
total energy releases than the most energetic weak
interactions. When 1/v fissile heavy elements [4]
such as uranium and/or plutonium serve as target fuels
for LENR ULM neutrons, asymmetric heavy element fission
releases ~190 – 200 MeV per reaction.
Nuclear
binding energy released from fissile target fuels is
~243 to 512 times breakeven energy cost for producing
ULM neutrons, depending on whether protons or deuterons
are the base fuel for making ULM neutrons. U-235 fission
produces a much larger multiple of breakeven than the
~16 MeV released by the green LENR lithium-8 beta decay
reaction [2]. Fission releases much more energy than
energetic beta and/or alpha decays that occur in LENR
systems; also more than ULM neutron captures that
typically occur on various isotopes of ‘green’ target
fuels such as nickel, titanium, calcium, or even
dysprosium (such captures typically release binding
energies of ~7–8 MeV [5]; any energetic gammas produced
are converted directly into heat by nearby heavy
electrons).
Onsite cleanup of nuclear wastes from spent fuels with
LENRs and ULM neutrons
Spent
fuel now stored in cooling ponds located at nuclear
power stations is generally acknowledged to be a source
of major hazards [6]
Close-up on Nuclear Safety (SiS
40). Developing a technology for the cleanup of
high-level nuclear wastes using LENR-based transmutation
reactors [4] would remove the hazard of storing them
locally and/or shipping them cross-country to secure
storage sites such as Yucca Mountain in the US [7].
Nuclear weapons proliferation and environmental risks
would be sharply reduced because fissile and/or highly
radioactive isotopes would never have to leave
commercial reactor sites.
Nuclear power finance: cost structures of PWRs and BWRs
are heavily front-loaded
Most
existing commercial nuclear power plants are light-water
reactors (LWRs), with pressurized-water (PWRs) [8, 9] or
boiling-water (BWRs) [10, 11]. In PWRs and BWRs, a
nuclear reactor core containing fuel rods and related
assemblies is enclosed within a thick, solid steel-alloy
reactor vessel inside a thick steel-reinforced concrete
containment building. These massive structures contain
the radiation and protect the physical integrity of the
reactor.
Of 439
nuclear power plants currently operating worldwide, 264
of them are uranium-fueled PWRs, now the most common
type in service; and 94 are uranium-fueled BWRs, the
second most common type. Light water PWRs and BWRs
comprise 82 percent of operating reactors and provide 88
percent of global nuclear power generation capacity
[12].
Nuclear
power plants cost much more to build than to operate
over their entire 20 – 60 year lifetimes. Some 60
percent of total, fully-burdened power generation costs
are actually initial capital investment costs
[13], exclusive of upstream mining and enrichment or
downstream decommissioning and cleanup. In other words,
the greater part of the economic costs is required to
design, construct, license all of the necessary physical
facilities, load the first round of fuel assemblies, and
connect to the electrical grid. A financier would say
that nuclear power plant facilities have very
front-loaded cost structures. By comparison, ongoing
variable costs of operation (staff, nuclear fuel,
maintenance, regulatory compliance, etc.) are modest. If
the costs of upstream mining and enrichment processes
are included, the reactor vessel itself and its contents
only averages about 18 percent of the total capital cost
or roughly 11 percent of the total fully-burdened power
generation cost [13].
LENR technology for reducing the cost of decommissioning
nuclear reactors
When
present-day commercial nuclear fission reactors are
finally retired from decades of service, they must be
decommissioned in approved ways to minimize health and
environmental hazards [14] (see [15]
The Nuclear Black Hole, SiS
40). Worldwide, primarily three strategies are utilized
for decommissioning nuclear plant facilities [14]. They
are:
· Immediate
dismantling and cleanup (in the US, this option is
called ‘Early Site Release/Decon’).
· Safe enclosure of
the facility for 40 – 60 years (in the US, this is
called “Safestor”). The entire facility is placed in
long-term ‘safe storage configuration’ awaiting
deconstruction and nuclear waste cleanup at some future
date.
· Entombment
(most drastic alternative). The facility is placed in a
safer physical condition such that radioactive materials
can remain sequestered onsite without ever having to be
totally removed. This last-ditch technique was used to
isolate the ruins of the Chernobyl power reactor [16,
17].
In
decommissioning after permanent reactor shutdown ~99
percent of the radioactivity that is of greatest concern
to human health and the environment is associated with
fuel rods and fuel assemblies [14]. The remaining 1
percent of post-shutdown radioactivity comprises the
following: water that may be contaminated with
radioisotopes; ‘activation products’ mainly found in
steel-alloy structural components that were heavily
irradiated with neutrons during a reactor’s operating
life, including iron-55, cobalt-60, nickel-63, and
carbon-14; and trace amounts of radioactive gases that
may still be present. Spent fuel removal and disposal is
thus a major part of the cost in decommissioning
reactors.
Reactor
decommissioning costs can be very tricky to forecast. In
the USA, many utilities now estimate average costs of
US$325 million per reactor (1998 $). In France,
decommissioning of the Brennilis Nuclear Power Plant, a
fairly small 70 MW power plant, cost 480 millions euros
so far (20x initially estimated costs), and cleanup is
still ongoing after 20 years. Despite huge investments
in ensuring safe dismantlement of the reactor,
radioactive elements such as plutonium, cesium-137 and
cobalt-60 accidentally leaked out into a surrounding
lake, further increasing costs and time. In the UK,
decommissioning of the Windscale Advanced Cooled Reactor
(WAGR), a 32 MW power plant, cost 117 million euros. In
Germany, decommissioning of Niederaichbach nuclear power
plant, a 100MW power plant, cost about 90 million euros
[18].
I have
already mentioned that radioactive nuclear waste in
spent reactor fuel rods and assemblies could potentially
be processed onsite with LENR technology to
transmute waste into complex arrays of non-radioactive
stable elements and isotopes [4]. Exactly the same
approach could be used to get rid of fuel remaining in
nuclear reactors after permanent shutdown. In such
cases, using LENRs for cleanup might significantly lower
costs and time for decommissioning, and avoid using the
‘safe enclosure’ and entombment options.
Potential for retrofitting LENR fission technology to
existing nuclear power plants
Nuclear
power’s unusually front-loaded cost structure opens up a
potential future business opportunity for plant
operators to retrofit and improve existing PW and BW
reactors for substantially safer, much less costly
subcritical LENR fission power generation that,
furthermore, would not produce large quantities of
highly radioactive waste. This could be done by
replacing current reactor cores with new heat sources
based on LENR ULM neutron-triggered nuclear fission.
In a
capital-conserving strategy, the majority of the global
power generation industry’s enormous financial
investment in infrastructure for commercial fission
reactors (land, licensing, containment buildings,
reactor vessels, steam generators, electrical
generators, monitoring and control systems, etc.) could
be protected and redeployed with limited economic and
technological disruption. Plant operators that took
advantage of retrofitting existing reactors with LENR
technology would be rewarded with more profitable
businesses that have intrinsically lower liability
risks; the public and the environment would be rewarded
with much safer, less hazardous LENR-based fission power
plants that could continue to supply low-cost
electricity to regional grids that supply billions of
people worldwide.
LENR-based sub-critical fission reactors
safer, cheaper and cleaner for the same power
The
production rates of ULM neutrons from LENR reactions, to
be used for triggering nuclear fission, range from 1011
up to 1016/cm2/s [3]. Amazingly,
these large fluxes were obtained from small, poorly
optimized laboratory systems. Yet they are comparable to
neutron fluxes that occur in commercial fission reactor
cores, which typically range from 1012 to 1014/cm2/s
[19].
A
‘subcritical’ fission process [20] is one in which the
total flux of fission neutrons during reactor operation
is deliberately controlled so as to be insufficient to
maintain ‘criticality.’ Put another way, in the absence
of another external source of neutrons, there simply
aren’t enough fission neutrons produced locally to
achieve and maintain self-sustaining fission chain
reactions [21] inside the reactor. Importantly, a
fission reactor that is running below ‘critical’ will
automatically fizzle out within a relatively short
period of time.
As ULM
neutrons can be used to trigger fission, we have
developed proprietary concepts for LENR-based
subcritical fission reactors. If successfully
developed, potentially retrofitable LENR-based ‘cores’
might provide safety and environmental advantages over
existing types of uranium-based fission reactors, or
even some concepts for advanced thorium-based reactors
[22], all of which depend on criticality to sustain
nuclear reactions.
As large
fluxes of ULM neutron-triggered high-energy fission
neutrons and significant fluxes of energetic gammas
would be released during reactor operation, subcritical
ULM neutron-triggered fission reactors would still
require the same types of radiation shielding and
related containment structures needed in today’s
reactors. In relying on fission to produce heat, LENR-based
subcritical reactors could never be as environmentally
green and safe as ‘pure’ weak interaction LENR-based
systems that create their heat using substantially less
energetic, non-fissile/fertile target fuels that produce
heat via a combination of beta/alpha decays and
gamma-shielded neutron captures. Nonetheless, LENRs
could still improve on existing fission technologies as
well as leverage the power generation industry’s
existing capital investments in plant infrastructure.
Safer subcritical fission reactors have been discussed
since 1994, but none built yet
The idea of
developing safer subcritical fission reactors for
producing power and transmuting nuclear waste is
not new; it has been theoretically discussed by
physicists for years. Perhaps the first well-publicized
subcritical concept was invented by Italian Nobel
laureate Carlo Rubbia in 1994. It was called an “energy
amplifier” [23, 24] and consisted of a proton cyclotron
accelerator combined with a thorium-based nuclear
reactor cooled with liquid lead.
Conceptually, subcritical fission reactors depend on a
very tightly controlled external neutron source to
provide additional neutrons that are absolutely required
to keep fission reactions going continuously in reactor
fuel. Similar to Rubbia’s earlier energy amplifier,
current subcritical concepts [25-31] typically integrate
fission reactors with some sort of external particle
accelerator to speed up protons. Those protons are then
directed at a special target that produces a flux of
energetic neutrons via spallation reactions. The neutron
flux created by the accelerator beam is then allowed to
come into contact with the reactor fuel, adding to
neutron fluxes produced by local fission reactions in
the fuel. These subcritical reactor designs are called
Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS). No large scale ADS has
ever been built, possibly because of the additional
expense and complexity of developing and integrating a
large, external high-current particle beam accelerator.
The overall
rate of fission in an ADS subcritical reactor is
controlled by simply altering the accelerator beam
current, which in turn controls the required external
supply of neutrons. Power generation in the reactor’s
fuel goes up or down in tandem with changes in total
neutron fluxes (which are the sum of locally produced
fission neutrons and moderated neutrons derived from
energetic spallation neutrons produced by the
accelerator).
A key
advantage of subcritical fission reactors is their
inherent controllability and safety: if an accelerator
producing spallation neutrons is simply turned-off, the
rate of fission in reactor fuel slows down and stops
reasonably quickly. Uncontrollable ‘runaway’ criticality
accidents like the Chernobyl Reactor #4 in the Ukraine
(1986) [32] or the Three Mile Island TMI-2 reactor in
the US (1979) [33] are all but impossible with
subcritical reactors. Importantly, extremely
complex, expensive real-time monitoring, control
systems, and operating procedures that are necessary for
current nuclear reactors to help prevent criticality
accidents, would be unnecessary with LENR-based
subcritical reactors. This should reduce initial
construction costs and ongoing operating and maintenance
costs.
Subcritical
fission reactors by themselves will not necessarily
solve radioactive waste problems. However, LENR-based
fission technologies that combine subcriticality with
complete waste burnup could potentially solve both
problems at once. Given dramatically improved safety and
tremendously reduced quantities of ‘hot’ radioactive
waste, LENR-based systems might have much lower
intrinsic liability risks, reducing insurance costs.
LENR-based subcritical fission reactors incorporate
novel design concepts
Our
proprietary concepts for LENR ULM-based subcritical
fission reactors eliminate the cost and complexity of a
large external, integrated particle accelerator,
replacing it with a lower-cost, better method of
‘in-core’ neutron generation that produces large, highly
controllable fluxes of ULM neutrons created in close
proximity to target fuels and subsequent nuclear
reaction products. This LENR-based approach also handles
the post-shutdown residual ‘decay heat’ issue as an
integral part of the subcritical reactor design.
While using
mainly LENR ULM neutrons to trigger fission would not
suppress emissions of high-energy MeV neutrons that
normally occur during fission processes (massive
radiation shielding and containment structures would
still be needed), the approach could still help solve
many of today’s nuclear waste remediation and
proliferation problems.
Fluxes of
LENR ULM neutrons, working together with concurrent
fluxes of fission neutrons, would be used to essentially
burn up every isotope in fissionable nuclear fuel that
is capable of capturing neutrons, including
fissile/fertile isotopes, radiologically ‘hot’ fission
fragments, and transuranic elements. By carefully
controlling and dynamically adjusting the ratio of ULM
neutron fluxes to concurrent fluxes of much
higher-energy neutrons generated by fission processes,
as well as to the isotopic composition and current
numbers of available target nuclei, there would be
essentially no radioactive waste remaining after fuel
burnup; nuclear waste remediation would then cease to be
a costly problem for plant operators.
Achieving
effectively 100 percent burnup down to stable isotopes
could also solve most reactor decommissioning
radioactivity issues, because storage and disposal of
radiologically ‘cold’ spent fuel remaining in an LENR-based
fission reactor after permanent plant shutdown would not
pose any serious safety or environmental hazards.
In LENR-based
fission reactors, time needed to burn new,
nanoparticulate fuels down to stable isotopes would
vary, depending on the target fuel, operational and
design details of a given reactor, and anticipated power
demand over some time interval. It would likely require
less than a few weeks for complete fuel burnup; not
months or years.
Nanoparticulate nuclear fuels enable LENR-based reactors
with new capabilities
Another important distinction between our LENR-based
fission concepts and present reactor technologies is the
physical form of nuclear fuel. Instead of being
fabricated in the form of macroscopically large,
cylindrical fuel rods [34] or ‘pebbles’ [35] (see [36]
Safe
New Generation Nuclear Power?,
SiS 29), LENR target fuels would be in the form
of specially designed and fabricated nanoparticulates
(dispersed in gases or liquids) that have extremely high
surface-to-volume ratios. By employing nanotechnology,
this new type of nuclear fuel could be mass-produced
inexpensively and would enable very rapid, complete
burnup of target fuels down to ‘cold’ spent fuel
comprised of stable isotopes.
Nanoparticulate target fuels utilized in commercial
versions of LENR-based subcritical fission reactors
would be loaded into and stored in separate nearby,
deeply buried, secure underground fuel repositories.
Although nanoparticulate fuels and hydrogen isotopes
stored in such repositories would be densely packed,
their composition and placement would be designed such
that even densely packed masses of fresh fuel would
remain very far from criticality under any conceivable
scenario.
Compared to
macroscopically large fuel rods or ‘pebbles’, high
surface-area nanoparticulate fuels and LENR ULM neutrons
should be able to produce much more complete energy
release from target fuel before being ‘spent.’ This
would substantially increase heat production from a
given quantity of fissile material (e.g., uranium-235),
thus improving plant profitability. Essentially 100
percent burnup of fissiles in LENR-based reactors would
also eliminate any need to reprocess spent fuel to
recover and burn valuable fissile isotopes. That should
ease nuclear proliferation risks, as significant
quantities of weapons-usable fissile isotopes would not
be present in LENR-based reactors’ spent fuel.
At any given
time, today’s commercial fission reactors may contain
anywhere from 1 to 3 years worth of unburned uranium-235
fuel, as well as substantial quantities of other fissile
isotopes (e.g., plutonium-239) and dangerous nuclear
wastes. By contrast, use of nanoparticulate fuels in
LENR-based subcritical fission reactors could eliminate
the need to have large quantities of unburned fissile
fuel and ‘hot’ wastes present inside LENR fission
reactors during normal operation; nanoparticulates
create this new capability because they enable dynamic
injection of fuel into reactors.
Dynamic on-demand ‘fuel injection’ in LENR-based
subcritical fission reactors
The ‘heart’
of an LENR-based fission reactor could be conceptualized
as a ‘nuclear combustion chamber’ in which: large
concurrent fluxes of LENR ULM, moderated, and ‘fast’
fission neutrons are produced; neutron captures occur,
triggering nuclear fission and a broad array of
different transmutation reactions; and raw heat is
generated for transfer and conversion into electricity
by a system’s integrated thermal generators.
Akin to a
combustion chamber in an IC engine, LENR-based
subcritical fission reactors would be able to
dynamically inject intentionally limited quantities of
nanoparticulate target fuels and hydrogen isotopes into
the ‘working region’ of a reactor. Such periodic
injections would deliver only the minimum amount of fuel
necessary to meet anticipated power demand during a
period of a few days to perhaps a week or two.
When
additional nuclear fuel is required to continue to
generate power, necessary quantities of target fuel
would be very quickly and securely conveyed from
undergoing repositories and injected into an LENR-based
reactor’s ‘combustion chamber.’
Unlike
today’s nuclear plants, long-term refueling of LENR
reactors would not involve a significant plant shutdown;
it could be accomplished simply by unloading
nanoparticulate target fuels and hydrogen isotopes
directly from transport containers into secure
underground repositories located at reactor sites.
Current PWRs/BWRs
and most future ‘Gen-4’ nuclear reactor concepts (likely
deployment would be circa 2030) typically have years’
worth of unburned fuel and waste products present in a
reactor at any given time. By contrast, LENR subcritical
reactors’ separate secure underground storage of fresh
nuclear fuel, dynamic 'on-demand' injection of just
enough fuel into reactors to satisfy relatively
‘near-term’ power demands, and complete fuel burnup, are
revolutionary features unattainable in today’s reactors.
LENR-based subcritical fission reactors could be
‘omnivorous’ consumers of fuel
Unlike
comparatively inflexible fuel requirements of today’s
nuclear reactors, commercial LENR-based power plants
could be extraordinarily ‘fuel-flexible.’ They could be
designed to be able to utilize and switch between
nanoparticulate fissile and/or fertile target fuels
comprised of uranium, uranium-plutonium mixtures (MOX),
and/or thorium isotopes. Uranium at any level of
enrichment could be burned. Using integrated mass
spectrometers, real-time computer modeling of fuel
burnup, and digital sensor systems to dynamically
monitor and control fuel burnup processes, LENR-based
power plants could safely burn a variety of target fuels
and reaction products down to a complex array of stable
isotopes [4].
Use of
nanoparticulate target fuels and LENR ULM neutrons could
provide nuclear fuel suppliers and plant operators with
unprecedented economic flexibility to dynamically vary
and blend least-cost fuel mixtures in response to
energy-equivalent market prices of alternative fissile
and even non-fissile ‘target fuels.’ Unlike
today’s nuclear plants, LENR-based reactors could switch
among a variety of competing fissile or non-fissile
target fuels or reasonable combinations thereof. When
burning non-fissile, non-fertile target fuels,
large fluxes of energetic neutrons and hard gammas would
not be produced in LENR-based nuclear reactors; in that
situation, massive shielding and containment structures
are superfluous. In that case, the plants’ operating
safety margins would be even higher.
As world
uranium supplies decrease over time, there may come a
day when the energy-equivalent economic price of fissile
uranium or MOX becomes substantially higher than the
price of alternative, less energetic non-fissile
target fuels. In that event, LENR-based subcritical
fission reactors could switch to burning less expensive
fuel to reduce costs; today, certain non-nuclear
‘multi-fuel’ power plants [37] can readily burn a
variety of fossil fuels.
Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel as it exists today
could eventually cease to exist
If LENR-based
subcritical fission reactors were successfully developed
and deployed, fissile and/or fertile nanoparticulate
target fuels (uranium, thorium, or MOX mixtures) would
be transported under guard in thick bomb-proof casks
from limited numbers of secure, government-licensed
nuclear fuel production facilities to commercial power
plants. Target fuels would then be ‘burned’ down to
‘cold’ stable isotopes in plants’ reactors.
As
recoverable fissile isotopes and high-level radioactive
waste would not be present in spent fuel from LENR-based
reactors, further transport of spent fuel to physically
distant sites for subsequent reprocessing to recover
fissile or fertile isotopes would be unnecessary.
Spent fuel
waste products comprising almost entirely stable
elements could be readily stored or buried locally in
other types of secure repositories that prevent
contamination of groundwater. Alternatively, ‘cold’
spent fuel could be shipped from commercial reactors out
to other locations for processing and recovery of
valuable transmutation products such as palladium,
platinum, gold, silver, etc. or simply buried in
government-certified landfills.
LENR-based subcritical fission reactors would be much
more terrorist-resistant
Terrorists
could do little to compromise integrity of underground
fuel repositories short of using gigantic explosions to
open them up. Assuming that such an objective was even
achievable, such acts would create little additional
mayhem, as releases of unburned nanoparticulate reactor
fuel from repositories would be comparatively benign
events.
Today’s
criticality-based fission reactors are potential
terrorist targets because large quantities of
‘hot’ radioactive waste are almost always present in
fissioning fuel rods during reactor operation and/or in
spent fuel assemblies stored in onsite cooling ponds. In
contrast, future LENR-based subcritical fission reactors
would contain only comparatively limited quantities of
unburned fuel and very little hazardous waste in their
‘combustion chambers’ or stored onsite (cooling ponds
are unnecessary as final LENR-based fission waste
is ‘cold’). This characteristic would drastically reduce
health and environmental risks associated with
successful acts of terrorism on LENR reactors.
In a worst
case terrorist attack scenario (e.g., crashing a very
large aircraft into key containment buildings or
striking them from the air with a small tactical nuclear
weapon or large conventional 'bunker buster' bomb), this
unique characteristic of LENR subcritical fission
reactors means that a well-designed system could be
totally destroyed during operation, yet would still
release only minuscule amounts of hard radiation
and ‘hot,’ long-lived isotopes into the environment.
Compared with today’s systems, LENR-based reactors could
greatly reduce the likelihood and consequences of
nuclear terrorism.
Subcritical LENR-based fission vs. Gen-2 uranium and a
Gen-4 thorium reactor
A number of
different concepts for ‘Gen-4’ fission reactors have
been promoted by advocates of nuclear power. Two popular
Gen-4 reactor concepts are the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR)
[38] developed at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho
National Laboratory and the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium
Reactor (LFTR) [39], which was explored in the US from
the 1950s to 1970s.
Table 1 is
adapted from a chart presented in a talk on LFTRs given
by Dr. Joe Bonomettis at Google.org on 18 November 2008
[40]. The modified chart compares selected
characteristics of a typical Gen-2 LWR with a Gen-4
thorium LFTR as well as our concept for a subcritical
LENR-based fission reactor. Assuming that Lattice’s
concepts can be successfully developed as envisioned,
Table 1 reveals that LENR-based fission reactors could
be very attractive:
· Significantly safer
and more terrorist-resistant than today’s uranium Gen-2
PWRs/BWRs or even Gen-4 thorium LFTRs;
· Producing much smaller
quantities (close to zero) of ‘hot’ nuclear waste than a
thorium Gen-4 reactor, let alone today’s uranium-fueled
Gen-2s;
· Producing ‘cold’ waste
of almost entirely stable isotopes (least costs for
waste storage and remediation);
· Limiting risks of
nuclear weapons proliferation (also true for LFTRs)
because they do not produce large quantities of fissile
weapons-usable isotopes;
· Much more efficient at
burning nuclear fuel, like LFTRs, and would have almost
twice the heat-to-electricity thermal efficiencies of
Gen-2 LWRs;
· Costing less to build,
operate, and insure, with vastly greater fuel choices,
and much lower cradle-to-grave cost structures than
either Gen-2s or Gen-4 LFTRs.
Table 1.
Comparing
Uranium (LW),Thorium
(LFT), and LENR Fission Power Reactors
|
Important Characteristics |
Reactors utilize criticality to burn fuel |
Subcritical |
|
Gen-2
U-235 LWR |
Gen-4
Thorium LFTR
(U-233, MOX) |
LENR
Subcritical |
|
Need
massive shielding/containment? |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Overall
plant safety |
Better
Than Gen-1 |
>>
Better than Gen-2 |
Best (subcritical) |
|
Burn
existing nuclear waste? |
Limited |
Yes |
Yes
|
|
Radioactive waste volume (relative) |
1 |
1/30th
of Gen-2 |
Almost
zero |
|
Waste
storage requirements |
10 000+
years |
~200 -
300 years |
~0
years |
|
Produce
large amounts of fissile isotopes? |
Yes |
No
|
No |
|
High
value nuclear by-products? |
Limited |
Extensive |
Even
more extensive |
|
Operating pressures / op. temperatures
|
High /
Lowest |
Low /
Higher |
Low /
Highest. |
|
Fuel
type |
Solid
Rods |
Liquid |
Nanoparticulate solids dispersed in gases or
liquids |
|
Fuel
burning efficiency |
<25% |
>95% |
~98
-100% est. |
|
Can
reactor burn non-fissile/fertile fuels? |
No |
No
|
Yes |
|
Fuel
flexibility |
Limited
|
Much
Higher |
‘Omnivorous’ |
|
Fuel
fabrication/qualification |
Expensive/Long |
Cheap/Short |
Cheaper/Shorter |
|
Fuel
mining waste volume (relative) |
1 000 |
1 |
< 1 |
|
Fuel
reserves - global (relative) |
1 |
> 1 000 |
> 1 000
000 est. |
|
Can
reactor have dynamic fuel injection? |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Plant
cost |
1 (high
pressure) |
<1 (low
pressure) |
<<1
(many reasons) |
|
Plant
thermal efficiency |
~35%
(low temp.) |
~50%
(higher temp.) |
>60%
(highest temp.) |
|
Cooling
requirements |
Water |
Water
or Air |
Water
or Air |
|
Retrofit to existing nuclear power plants?
|
Not
Applicable |
Unclear |
Yes –
can design for it |
|
Terrorists totally destroy reactor |
Nuclear
Disaster |
Lot
Less Disastrous |
Limited
Local Effects |
|
Development status |
Deployed |
Demo’d.
1950-1970 |
Concept
Stage |
Adapted from
chart in [40]; other data estimated or compiled by
Lattice Energy LLC
The
author declares his commercial interest as President and
CEO of Lattice Energy LLC.
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ppt/LFTRGoogleTalk_Bonometti.ppt
LENRs Replacing Coal for
Distributed Democratized Power
Low energy nuclear reactions
have the potential to provide
distributed power generation
with zero carbon emission and
cheaper than coal
Lewis Larsen
A
fully referenced version
of this article is posted on
ISIS members’ website.
Details here
An
electronic version of the full
report can be downloaded from
the ISIS online store.
Download Now
Cost of grid electricity from
today’s power sources
Today, in
a world with little or no
imposition of carbon emission
taxes by major governments, coal
remains the least expensive,
most abundant primary source of
energy. It is also perhaps the
dirtiest energy source from an
environmental perspective, which
is why carbon capture and
storage technology has been much
touted to make coal ‘clean’ [1]
(see
Carbon Capture and Storage A
False Solution,
SiS 39). Natural gas,
though much cleaner than coal,
costs substantially more.
Proponents claim that nuclear
power is only ~10 percent more
expensive than coal; though that
is disputed by critics who point
out that the ‘true’ cost of
nuclear power is actually much
higher when proper cost
accounting is done [2], which
includes both upstream (mining,
extraction and enrichment of
uranium fuel) and downstream
(waste disposal, cleanup and
decommissioning) processes.
Nevertheless, everyone agrees
that nuclear power is more
expensive than coal; the only
question is by exactly how much.
In fortunate areas where the
wind blows with enough force and
regularity, wind power is
presently almost
cost-competitive with nuclear
and coal power generation,
however the accounting is done.
At the
moment, solar photovoltaic (PV)
technology is a long way from
being cost-competitive with any
of the other alternatives. That
having been said, a combination
of technological improvements
and mass production of solar
panels will probably drastically
reduce the cost of solar PV
power generation in the near
future [3] (see
Solar Power to the Masses,
SiS 39).
Modern electricity grids require
dispatchable power generation to
insure availability
Like wind power, energy from the
sun intrinsically fluctuates;
the sun does not shine with the
same ground-level intensity
every day, and not at all at
night. Furthermore, current
electrical energy storage
technologies are too expensive
and too limited in capacity to
provide rapid response to
changes in grid electricity
demand when the sun is not
shining, or the wind is not
blowing, in the absence of other
‘dispatchable’ sources of
grid-connected power generation
such as coal, nuclear, or
natural gas power plants.
Modern electricity grids require
a substantial percentage of
online power generation that is
dispatchable at very short
notice. As economically feasible
grid-capacity electricity
storage technologies do not
exist (nor are they anywhere on
the horizon), today’s grids
cannot possibly operate at
accustomed levels of greater
than 99 percent availability
with only wind and solar energy
sources. Therefore,
grid-connected sources of
readily dispatchable power
generation will still be needed
for the foreseeable future.
Carbon-free LENR-based power
sources competitive against
coal-fired power
In [4] (Safe,
Less Costly Nuclear
Decommissioning and More,
SiS 41) I suggested that
dispatchable Gen-4
Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor
and LENR-based subcritical
reactors would be considerably
less expensive than today’s
Gen-2 Light Water Reactors.
Perhaps more importantly, LENR-based
fission or green non-fission
reactors could someday provide
significantly cheaper
electricity than coal-fired
power generation plants.
As green non-fission LENR
reactors could generate
electricity more cheaply than
LENR-based subcritical
fission reactors; the
former, if successfully
developed, would most likely be
able to compete directly against
coal-fired power generation on
market forces alone, with or
without carbon taxes being
imposed by the government.
Another factor favouring LENR-based
power generation is that the
cost of coal-fired power
generation is likely to rise
significantly, due to efforts
devoted to reducing carbon
emissions from burning coal.
For many years, large R&D
efforts have been dedicated to
‘advanced clean coal’
technologies, with some success.
Current-generation coal-fired
power plants being built today
are much cleaner than those
built 20 years ago. However,
today’s environmentally
friendlier coal plants are also
much more expensive to
license and build because
of legally mandated installation
of anti-pollution technologies.
In addition, there have been
recent accelerated R&D efforts
to integrate ‘advanced clean
coal’ technologies with even
more costly CO2
capture and sequestration
capabilities [1].
As a result of incorporating
new, progressively more
expensive improvements to
further ‘clean up’ coal plant
emissions, future
construction and operating costs
of purportedly ‘greener’
coal-fired power generation
plants are likely to increase
substantially in many countries.
If economically significant
carbon emissions taxes are also
imposed to further ‘level the
playing field’, there may be a
historic opportunity for
alternative carbon-free energy
technologies like LENRs, wind,
and solar PVs to compete very
effectively with coal as
low-cost primary energy sources.
Start up with small-scale LENR-based
distributed power generation
Green LENRs have intrinsic
energy densities thousands of
times larger than any chemical
power source such as coal,
natural gas, gasoline, or diesel
fuel. But even with the gigantic
energy density advantages, LENR
technologies will probably not
be able to immediately compete
with coal-fired grid power
generation systems that have
been optimized for decades.
In fact, LENRs will probably
first enter the commercial
market as small-scale,
integrated battery-like portable
power sources and small backup
power generation systems for
residential homes or remote
facilities; with electrical
outputs ranging from under 100 W
to 1 – 5 kW. Those market entry
points are more advantageous for
LENRs because the market price
for electricity in portable and
small backup power systems
ranges from tens to hundreds of
dollars per kWh, compared to
$0.05 to $0.10/ kWh for grid
electrical power coming from a
wall socket.
Small-scale LENR systems might
seem to be light years away from
competing with 500 – 1 000 MW
coal-fired behemoths. But please
recall the history of personal
computers versus mainframes.
When PCs were first introduced
30 years ago, mainframe computer
manufacturers regarded them as
toys; information processing
‘jokes’ of little consequence.
Less than 10 years later,
mainframe companies weren’t
laughing any more. Today, except
for a handful of survivors like
IBM, most mainframe and
minicomputer ‘dinosaurs’ have
disappeared. In fact, most of
today’s ‘mainframes’ actually
contain internal arrays of
commodity PC microprocessors.
Google, arguably one of the
largest consumers of
computational power on the
planet today, does not even use
mainframes; it processes vast
amounts of information with
thousands upon thousands of
low-cost PCs ‘lashed together’
by special software.
PCs and microprocessors won
their long market battle with
mainframes using a strategy of
ultra high-volume manufacturing
that drastically decreased the
cost of distributed (as opposed
to centralized) computation. PCs
democratized human access to
distributed computational power;
LENRs can potentially do the
same for energy.
Using a similar business
strategy that combines
high-volume manufacturing,
aggressive pricing and
distributed generation, the
economic costs of electric power
generation with coal and with
LENRs could potentially converge
in the very near future. LENR
technologies would then begin
competing directly with ‘king
coal’ as a primary energy
source.
Follow with high-volume
manufacturing and scale-up
Similar to advanced lithium
batteries, ‘green’ portable LENR
heat sources that use
non-fissile/fertile target fuels
(such as lithium, or low cost
metals like nickel and titanium)
could be fabricated in very high
volumes using advanced nanotech
manufacturing processes.
Importantly, such high volume
production would enable LENR
power generation technologies to
leverage the ‘experience curve
effect’ [5] to dramatically
reduce costs over time, as
proven so successfully in the
cases of personal computers,
microprocessors, memory chips,
cellphones, and small electronic
devices like iPods.
As pointed
out in [6]
Portable and Distributed Power
Generation from LENRs
(SiS 41), LENR heat
sources are intrinsically
upwardly scalable via
straightforward increases in
working area and/or volume,
choice of target fuel(s), and
selected integrated energy
conversion subsystem. This
implies that almost all of the
many cost and technological
improvements that might be
developed for portable and small
backup power generation
applications could readily be
scaled-up and rapidly applied to
the development of much more
powerful LENR-based heat sources
and power generation systems
based on different types of
target fuels (including fissile
isotopes) and energy conversion
technologies.
If LENRs can successfully
compete against chemical battery
power generation technologies
and deeply penetrate high volume
markets for portable power
sources and small stationary
systems, green LENR-based
systems with much larger power
outputs could follow rapidly,
further lowering costs.
Multi-megawatt LENR heat sources
with lithium target fuel could
be used with large boilers for
many applications.
Retrofit coal-fired power plants
with scaled-up, carbon-free
‘green’ LENR boilers
While entirely new types of
large, totally green (no fissile
or fertile target fuels) LENR-based
power plants could be designed
and built from scratch, it would
make greater economic sense and
be much more capital-efficient
to leverage the global power
industry’s huge, growing
investment in coal-fired power
generation infrastructure as
much as possible.
Not surprisingly, the energy
heart of a coal-fired power
generation system is its boilers
[7], where coal is burned to
create heat that makes hot steam
that is in turn used to spin a
steam turbine that makes
electricity. Analogous to
retrofitting new LENR-based
cores in existing fission power
plants, boilers in coal-fired
power plants could simply be
retrofitted with green LENR-based
boilers with lithium as target
fuel, for example. This could
eliminate carbon emissions from
retrofitted plants while
continuing to supply low-cost
electricity to regional grids
all over the world.
This objective could be
accomplished at reasonable
economic cost either by adapting
existing proven designs for
coal-fired plants and then
constructing brand new ‘ground
up’ plants based on such altered
designs; or by retrofitting LENR-based
boilers to pre-existing coal
power generation facilities. The
second alternative may be more
financially attractive and
capital-efficient for the power
generation industry. It would
permit the bulk of fixed capital
investment in infrastructure
surrounding coal-fired power
generation (land, licensing,
buildings, steam turbine
electrical generators,
monitoring and control systems,
etc.) to be financially
protected and fully utilized
with minimal economic and
technological disruption.
Similar to heat sources in
nuclear power plants, boilers
alone comprise a small
percentage of the total economic
cost of coal-fired power
generation.
LENR distributed power
generation systems could
democratize access to low cost
green energy
At system power outputs of just
5 - 10 kW, green LENR-based
distributed power generation
systems could potentially
satisfy the requirements of most
urban and rural households and
smaller businesses worldwide.
If such a
future scenario is realised,
nowhere near as many new, large
fossil-fired and/or non-LENR
fission generation systems would
have to be built to supply
low-cost electricity to regional
grids serving urban and many
rural areas. In that case,
grid-based centralized power
generation could be displaced by
large numbers of much smaller,
distributed systems. A bold
vision of the future of
distributed power generation, ‘Micropower:
the Next Electrical Era,’
was published by the Worldwatch
Institute eight years ago [8]. A
similar vision was proposed more
recently in [9]
Which Energy?
(ISIS Report); and in [10]
Perfect Power: How the Microgrid
Revolution will Unleash Cleaner,
Greener, and More Abundant Energy.
At electrical outputs of just 50
- 200 kW, LENR-based systems
could begin to power vehicles,
breaking the stranglehold of oil
on transportation, and giving
new-found ‘energy sovereignty’
to many countries.
Although they could very likely
be designed and built, megawatt
LENR systems are not needed to
change the world for the better.
High-volume manufacturing of 5
kW - 200 kW LENR-based
distributed stationary and
mobile systems could potentially
do an even better job by
democratizing access to low-cost
green energy for consumers
worldwide.
Empowering the powerless,
improving the lives of billions
worldwide
Today, there are an estimated
1.6 billion people living in
mostly rural areas of the world
that have no access to
electricity via grids or other
means. With LENRs, this
situation could potentially be
rectified in less than 20 years.
Deployment of low-cost, LENR-based
distributed power generation
systems in rural areas currently
without electricity would
eliminate the massive capital
investments needed for expanding
existing power grids to serve
such areas. It would free up
scarce global financial
resources for better use in
improving rural citizens’
quality of life, healthcare, and
educational opportunities.
As Thomas Friedman writes in his
new book [11], Hot, Flat, and
Crowded:
“… we have not found that magic
bullet – that form of energy
production that will give us
abundant, clean, reliable cheap
electrons. All the advances we
have made so far in wind, solar,
geothermal, solar thermal,
hydrogen, and cellulosic ethanol
are incremental, and there has
been no breakthrough in any
other energy source. Incremental
breakthroughs are all we’ve had,
but exponential is what we
desperately need.
“No single solution will defuse
more of the Energy-Climate Era’s
problems at once than the
invention of a source of
abundant, clean, reliable, and
cheap electrons. Give me
abundant clean, reliable, and
cheap electrons, and I will give
you a world that can continue to
grow without triggering
unmanageable climate change ...
I will eliminate any reason to
drill in Mother Nature’s
environmental cathedrals … and I
will enable millions of the
earth’s poor to get connected,
to refrigerate their medicines,
to educate their women, and to
light up their nights.”
The author declares his
commercial interest as President
and CEO of Lattice Energy LLC. |
|
|
Lattice
Energy LLC-Technical Overview-June 25 2009 -
Presentation Transcript
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs)
Widom-Larsen theory, weak interactions,
transmutations, nanoscale evidence for
nuclear effects, and the road to
commercialization Technical Overview Lewis
Larsen, President and CEO “Energy, broadly
defined, has become the most important
geostrategic and geoeconomic challenge of
our time.” Thomas Friedman New York Times,
April 28, 2006 June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 1
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Summary - I This presentation is a
technically oriented overview of Low Energy
Nuclear Reactions or LENRs, an exciting new
energy technology with a controversial
history dating back 20 years. Herein we will
cover some history, the Widom-Larsen theory
of LENRs, evaluate experimental evidence in
the context of that theory, and outline
Lattice’s approach and roadmap to
commercialization. Aside from continued
controversy, an expanding body of varied
experimental data and major theoretical
breakthroughs now position LENRs to
potentially be developed into a carbon-free,
environmentally ‘green’ source of low cost
nuclear energy. LENRs differ sharply from
fission and fusion technologies in that
their unique distinguishing features are
dominated by weak interactions rather than
the strong interaction. June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
Reserved 2
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Summary - II Dominance of weak
interactions is a crucial difference that
enables LENRs to release large amounts of
nuclear binding energy over long periods
under moderate conditions (no star- like
temperatures or pressures needed) without
producing large fluxes of deadly energetic
neutron or gamma radiation or
environmentally significant quantities of
long-lived radioactive isotopic waste.
Lacking serious radiation and radioactivity
problems, onerous and expensive shielding,
containment, and waste disposal requirements
that have endlessly plagued fission and
fusion power generation could be non-issues
for commercial versions of LENR
technologies. Thus, LENRs have the potential
to be vastly less costly than competing
nuclear energy technologies. ‘Weak
interactions’ are not weak energetically. In
fact, they have the potential to produce
just as much energy as fusion reactions.
June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy
LLC All Rights Reserved 3
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Summary - III In a 2006 paper
published in the respected, peer reviewed
European Physical Journal C – Particles and
Fields, we outlined a practical LENR fuel
cycle based on low-cost ordinary Lithium
that can produce a net ~27 MeV of energy.
This is roughly comparable to energy
releases from D-D and D-T fusion reactions.
Herein, readers will see how even larger
energy releases from LENR nucleosynthetic
paths may be possible. If commercialized,
LENR-based power generation systems could
potentially be much better than fusion. Such
a development would have a major impact on
global energy markets. Selected technical
references and URLs to Internet resources
have been provided herein for readers who
may wish to learn more about LENRs, explore
reported experimental data for themselves,
and draw their own independent conclusions
about the subject matter and ideas contained
in this document. June 25, 2009 Copyright
2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved
4
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Contents History
………………………………………………….. 6 - 8 Widom-Larsen
theory of LENRs …………………… 9 - 27 Experimental
evidence in context of theory …….. 28 - 72
Lattice’s road to commercialization ……………….
73 – 78 Note: Slides # 60 – 67 were added on
July 14, 2009 June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 5
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy History June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 6
-
Lattice Energy LLC Anomalies observed in
many LENR experiments Since 1989, LENR
researchers have reported a In 1831, Michael
Faraday was pilloried as variety of
anomalies in different types of heavy a
charlatan by fellow scientists when he and
light hydrogen (e.g., D2O and H2O) claimed
that he could generate an electric
experimental systems, all involving
‘heavily- current simply by moving a magnet
in a loaded’ metallic hydrides. Have
observed coil of wire. Stung by these
vicious accusations, Faraday said, "Nothing
is electrical current-, laser-, RF-, and
pressure- too wonderful to be true if it be
consistent driven triggering of various
types of anomalous, with the laws of
nature." arguably nuclear effects as
follows: Experimental example of laser
triggering Calorimetrically measured excess
heat effects – Sharp increase in excess
power/temp after applying laser wide range
of values from just milliwatts to tens of
Watts in some cases Production of helium
isotopes (mostly He-4, rarely He-3); rarely
detect tritium, H-3 unstable H isotope
Production of modest fluxes of MeV-energy
alpha (α) particles and protons as well as
minuscule emissions of low energy X- and
gamma ray photons Temp of Temp of (no large
fluxes of MeV-energy gammas/neutrons)
Electrolyte Electrolyte Apply Apply Temp of
Temp of Laser Laser Bath Bath Production of
arrays of different stable isotopic Artist’s
rendering – black hole magnetic fields
transmutation products (e.g., different
elements) Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole Source:
Violante et al (ENEA – Italy), Asti
Conference, 2004 Source: June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
Reserved 7
-
Lattice Energy LLC Some scientists remain
skeptical about LENR anomalies Status of
reported LENR experimental anomalies by
type: Calorimetrically measured macroscopic
excess heat effects – remain extremely
contentious: still very hard to reproduce
--- nobody can “boil tea” yet; many
physicists still distrust calorimetry as
chemists’ ‘black art’ measurements
Production of gaseous helium isotopes –
difficult to detect reliably and be able to
unquestionably exclude external
contamination as a possibility; still only
accurately measured in a handful of LENR
experiments. Most researchers do not look
for gaseous He-4 due to expense/skill
necessary for good measurements Production
of modest fluxes of MeV-energy alpha
particles and protons – readily reproduced
and reported by number of LENR researchers;
some such results published in lesser
mainstream journals. While supportive, not
conclusive Production of a broad array of
different transmutation products – widely
reported in many experiments by LENR
researchers located all over the world;
unlike excess heat, transmutations are much
easier to reproduce. Difficult for skeptics
to argue with competent mass spectroscopy
and like measurements; when pressed, they
still invoke the ‘external contamination’
red herring, which is disingenuous
considering large number and significant
reliability of such results June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
Reserved 8
-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs June 25,
2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All
Rights Reserved 9
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory successfully
addresses longstanding issues Widom-Larsen
developed theory after careful evaluation of
a large body of experimental data on LENRs;
it addresses longstanding issues about LENRs
that “cold fusion” theorists have been
unable to answer to satisfaction of
mainstream physicists, e.g., Huizenga
(1993): Overcoming the Coulomb energy
barrier: weak interaction-based W-L theory
posits that ultra low momentum neutrons and
neutrinos are created from protons and
heavy-mass surface electrons in very high
electromagnetic fields found on surfaces of
‘loaded’ metallic hydrides. Unlike charged-
particle D-D fusion, no Coulomb barrier to
ultra low momentum (ULM) neutron absorption
by nuclei; neutrons have no charge Absence
of large emissions of dangerous high-energy
neutrons: ULM neutrons of the W-L theory
have extraordinarily low energies and huge
absorption cross sections --- are therefore
very efficiently captured by nearby nuclei.
Consequently, ULMNs are very difficult to
detect directly Absence of large, dangerous
emissions of gamma radiation: in condensed
matter LENR systems, heavy-mass surface
plasmon polariton (SPP) electrons have a
unique ability to absorb gamma rays and
convert them directly to lower-energy
infrared photons. In LENR systems, gammas
produced during neutron captures and beta
decays are thus absorbed and converted to
heat internally rather than being emitted to
the outside Source of Graphic: Nature, 445,
January 4, 2007 June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 10
-
Lattice Energy LLC Widom-Larsen theory is
based on established physics W-L theory is
based on accepted physics; no First observed
by Chadwick in 1932, a “new physics” is
postulated neutron is unstable as an
isolated ‘free’ neutral particle; outside of
a atomic Built upon well-established
‘bedrock’ of nucleus it has a half-life of
~13 minutes, half- electroweak theory and
many-body collective spontaneously decaying
into a proton effects; no ad hoc mechanisms
and an electron. If free neutrons or new
capture-products are observed in an capture-
Explains collective neutron production in
experimental system, it means that they
condensed matter with e + p, e + d, e + t
weak were either recently produced in some
sort of nuclear reaction(s), or released
interactions that occur in micron-scale H+
ion from nuclei via decay processes
‘patches’ having very high local electric
fields that form on ‘loaded’ metal hydride
surfaces Neutrons are extremely effective as
‘catalysts’ of nuclear reactions in that
Collectively produced neutrons have huge
being uncharged, there is no Coulomb
DeBroglie wavelengths and ultra low barrier
to their merging with another momentum
(energy); thus have gigantic nucleus, so
they are readily absorbed or capture cross
sections and are virtually all ‘captured’ by
atomic nuclei. Such absorbed locally. Cannot
be detected directly; captures are in fact
transmutation no external release of free
neutrons reactions that can produce new
chemical elements or isotopes that may
Explains unexpected absence of ‘hard’ MeV-
be stable or unstable (in which case they
energy gamma radiation in such systems
undergo some form of decay) Artist’s
rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines Around
Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 11
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory explains
anomalies in LENRs Widom-Larsen theory of
LENRs can: Explain absence of certain
‘normal’ nuclear products and abnormal
proportions compared to what is known about
D-D fusion reactions (as reported in
original work of Pons & Fleischmann and
thousands of other experiments since 1989) -
according to W-L, this is because LENRs
simply do not involve appreciable amounts of
D-D or D-T fusion processes Explain
insignificant production of dangerous
long-lived radioactive isotopes (as reported
in the original work of Pons & Fleischmann
as well as thousands of other LENR
experiments since 1989) Explain details of
the mechanism for laser triggering of excess
heat and transmutations in H or D LENR
systems (as reported by Letts, Cravens,
Violante, and McKubre) Calculate reaction
rates that are in agreement with the range
of rates (109 to 1016 cm2/sec) that have
been observed in different types of LENR
experimental systems (as reported by Miles,
McKubre, Miley and others) Source of
Graphic: Nature, 445, January 4, 2007 June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 12
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory also explains
many other aspects of LENRs Widom-Larsen
theory of LENRs also explains: Source of
excess heat seen in D and H (heavy and light
water) systems (e.g., Pons & Fleischmann,
McKubre, Miley, Miles, Focardi et al.) 4He
and 3He observed in D electrolytic systems
(e.g., McKubre, Miles) Unusual 5-peak stable
transmutation product mass spectra observed
in H and D systems (e.g., Miley, Mizuno)
Transmutation products frequently seen in H
and D LENR systems (e.g., Miley, Mizuno,
Iwamura, Violante, and many others) as well
as in certain types of high-current
exploding wire and vacuum diode experiments
(US, UK, Russia - in experiments back as far
as 1905) Variable fluxes of soft X-rays seen
in some experiments (e.g., Violante,
Karabut) Small fluxes of high-energy alpha
particles observed in certain LENR systems
(e.g., Lipson, 4, 2007 Source of Graphic:
Nature, 445, January Karabut) June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
Reserved 13
-
Lattice Energy LLC Basics of W-L theory in
condensed matter LENR systems Weak
interaction processes are very important in
LENRs No strong interaction fusion or 1. E-M
radiation on metallic hydride surface heavy
element fission occurring increases mass of
surface plasmon electrons below, only weak
interactions 2. Heavy-mass surface plasmon
polariton 1. ~ (radiation) + e− → e −
electrons ( ~ − ) react directly with
surface e protons (p+) or deuterons (d+) to
produce ultra ~ e − + p+ → n + ν low
momentum (ULM) neutrons (nulm or 2nulm, 2.
ulm e respectively) and an electron neutrino
(νe) ~ e − + d + → 2nulm + ν e 3. Ultra low
momentum neutrons (nulm) are captured by
nearby atomic nuclei (Z, A) 3. nulm + (Z ,
A) → (Z , A + 1) representing some element
with charge (Z) and Unstable or Stable
atomic mass (A). ULM neutron absorption
produces a heavier-mass isotope (Z, A+1) via
transmutation. This new isotope (Z, A+1) may
(Z , A + 1) → (Z + 1, A + 1) + e− +ν e
itself be stable or unstable 4. Unstable
Isotope New element – stable or unstable 4.
Certain unstable isotopes β- decay,
producing: transmuted element with increased
charge Weak interaction β- decays (shown
above), (Z+1), ~ same mass (A+1) as ‘parent’
nucleus; direct gamma conversion to infrared
(not shown), and α decays (not shown)
produce β- particle (e- ); and antineutrino
(ν ) most excess heat observed in LENR
systems e Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Widom-Larsen extend
collective effects to Standard Model Simple
two-body collision shown ~ in Feynman
diagram below: e − + p+ ⎯ ⎯→ n ulm + ν e Now
add collective υe nulm rearrangements from
photon uncharged condensed matter effects.
It is particle not just a two body collision
!!! W- Many body surface ‘patch’ of
collectively oscillating protons (p+) boson
~− e p+ charged particles Surface ‘sea’ of
collectively oscillating SPP electrons (e-)
June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy
LLC All Rights Reserved 15
-
Lattice Energy LLC Collective many-body
effects extremely important in LENRs
Collective effects lie at the heart of W-L
Surface Proton physics of condensed matter
LENRs ‘Sea’ of SPP LENRs can occur at modest
temperatures electrons and pressures in
condensed matter because of collective
electromagnetic When many electrons interact
with a proton, only one electron may pierce
into coupling (caused by a breakdown of the
the proton’s inside. That electron dies. All
Born-Oppenheimer approximation) that of the
other electrons have but donated a occurs
between two types of intrinsically little
energy. The SPP plasma modes are collective
oscillations found on metallic collective
and in synchronization hydride surfaces: –
Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) electrons
(determine colors of metals) – Contiguous,
coherent surface ‘patches’ of protons,
deuterons, or tritons that can It is not
difficult to throw a baseball at a form on
H, D, or T ‘loaded’ hydrides target with an
energy of 1023 electron volts, but one will
not see any nuclear Such coupling helps
create very high local transmutations. The
electrical currents electric fields > 1011
V/m that can must be collective and the
electrons renormalize masses of SPPs above
must transfer energy coherently and all
threshold for ULM neutron production Source
of Graphic: Nature, 445, January 4, 2007
together to trigger nuclear effects June 25,
2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All
Rights Reserved 16
-
Lattice Energy LLC Collective oscillations:
surface plasmon polariton electrons Confined
to surfaces and near-surface regions Surface
plasmons (SPs) are a collective oscillation
of free electron gas at optical frequencies.
Exist on all metallic surfaces; some
elements ‘fire-off’ SP excitations ‘easier’
than others (e.g., gold, silver) Surface
Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) are effectively
quasiparticles resulting from strong
coupling of electromagnetic waves with an
electric or magnetic dipole-carrying
excitation; under the right conditions, SPPs
can couple with laser light Play very
important role in Surface Enhanced Raman
Spectroscopy (SERS) and plasmonics Extremely
sensitive to the physical properties of
substrate materials on which they propagate
The rich dynamical behaviors, exquisite
spatial Interact very strongly with
nanoparticles located on sensitivity, and
complex energetics of SPP electrons in and
around ‘patches’ of hydrogenous ions found
on the surfaces: changes in relative
nanoparticle size, surfaces of ‘loaded’
metallic hydrides are in some ways
composition, and placement geometry can
create reminiscent of electrons involved in
vastly lower-energy lower- ‘chemicurrents,’
which are fluxes of “ … fast (kinetic huge
variations in local electric field strengths
energy ~> 0.5 – 1.3 eV) metal electrons
caused by moderately exothermic (1 - 3 eV)
chemical reactions over high work function
(4 – 6 eV) metal surfaces.” e.g., Pd Can be
conceptualized as a collectively oscillating
See: S. Maximoff and M. Head-Gordon,
“Chemistry of Head- ‘film’ of of Graphic:
Nature, 445, January the surface of metals
Source electrons covering 4, 2007 fast
electrons,” PNAS USA 106(28):11460-5, July
2009 106(28):11460- June 25, 2009 Copyright
2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved
17
-
Lattice Energy LLC Collective oscillations:
surface protons, deuterons, tritons Under
proper conditions, micron-scale many-body
‘patches’ Chatzidimitriou- For example, C.
A. Chatzidimitriou- Dreismann (Technical
University of Berlin) et comprising
many-body homogeneous collections of p+, d+,
al. have published extensively on this
subject or t+ ions will form spontaneously
on the surfaces of for years. In particular,
please see: hydrogen-‘loaded’ metals in
various sizes at variable “Attosecond
quantum entanglement in neutron Compton
scattering from water in numbers of sites
scattered at random across such surfaces the
keV range” - 2007; can be found at
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond- Protons,
deuterons, or tritons found within such
many-body mat/pdf/0702/0702180v1.pdf
‘patches’ spontaneously oscillate
coherently/collectively; “Several neutron
Compton scattering (NCS) their quantum
mechanical (QM) wave functions are
experiments on liquid and solid samples
containing protons or deuterons show a
effectively ‘entangled’ with each other and
w. SPP electrons striking anomaly, i.e. a
shortfall in the intensity of energetic
neutrons scattered by Unrelated to LENRs,
researchers in other fields have the
protons; cf. [1, 2, 3, 4]. E.g., neutrons
colliding with water for just 100 − 500
detected the presence of such entangled
many-body attoseconds (1 as = 10−18 s) will
see a ratio of quantum systems using various
techniques that include hydrogen to oxygen
of roughly 1.5 to 1, instead of 2 to 1
corresponding to the neutron and electron
Compton scattering experiments chemical
formula H2O. … Recently this new effect has
been independently confirmed by
electron-proton Compton scattering (ECS)
electron- Collective oscillation and
effective QM entanglement of from a solid
polymer [3, 4, 5]. The similarity protons
and electrons is widespread in nature: e.g.,
from a of ECS and NCS results is striking
because chemical perspective, water is
simply H2O. However, when the two
projectiles interact with protons via
fundamentally different forces, i.e. the
water molecules are ‘imaged’ with electron
and deep electromagnetic and strong forces.”
inelastic neutron Compton scattering
techniques, one Also, J. D. Jost et al.,
“Entangled mechanical instead ‘sees’ H1.5O.
Anomalously ‘fewer’ protons or oscillators”
Nature 459 pp. 683 – 685 4 June 2009, in
which “mechanical vibration of two deuterons
are observed by such methods because of B-O
ion pairs separated by a few hundred
breakdownof Graphic: Nature, QMJanuary 4,
2007 Source and related 445, entanglement of
particles micrometres is entangled in a
quantum way.” June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 18
-
Lattice Energy LLC Creation of ULM neutrons
on loaded hydride surfaces - I Part of a
longstanding Hydride forming elements, e.g.,
Palladium (Pd), Nickel mythology propagated
by “cold fusion” promoters is (Ni), Titanium
(Ti), etc. can be viewed as akin to metallic
that Palladium (Pd) is a ‘sponges’ that can
absorb significant amounts of uniquely
suitable material for hydrogen isotopes in
atom % via ‘loading’ mechanisms producing
LENRs; that idea been shown to be false
Analogous to loading a bone-dry sponge with
H2O by A number of different hydride-
hydride- gradually spilling droplets of
water onto it, hydrogen forming metals have
experimentally produced isotopes can
actually be ‘loaded’ into hydride-forming
substantial amounts of metals using
different techniques, e.g., various levels
of excess heat and nuclear DC electric
currents, pressure gradients, etc.
transmutations, including Nickel, Titanium,
and Tungsten, among others Just prior to
entering a metallic lattice, molecules of
Another such myth is that hydrogen isotopes
dissociate, become monatomic, and D/Pd LENR
systems typically then ionize by donating
their electrons to the metallic produce
excess heat and He-4 He- electron ‘sea,’
thus becoming charged interstitial lattice
whereas H/any-metal systems H/any- produce
little heat, mostly protons (p+), deuterons
(d+), or tritons (t+) in the process
transmutations. An array of reported results
demonstrate Once formed, ions of hydrogen
isotopes migrate to and otherwise; e.g., the
largest occupy specific interstitial
structural sites in metallic excess heat
flux ever reported came from an Italian H/Ni
gas- gas- hydride bulk lattices; this is a
material-specific property phase system in
1994 Artist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields
Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Creation of ULM neutrons
on loaded hydride surfaces - II When all
available interstitial sites in the interior
of a bulk lattice are occupied by
hydrogenous ions, a metallic hydride is
‘fully loaded,’ i.e., saturated. At that
point, a dynamic balance between loading and
deloading begins (so-called “breathing”
mode) during which some of those ions start
‘leaking back out’ of the bulk onto the
surface. This localized deloading is a
dynamic process, occurring in discrete,
island-like, micron-scale surface ‘patches’
or ‘droplets’ (scattered randomly across the
surface) comprised of many contiguous p+,
d+, and/or t+ ions (or admixtures thereof)
Homogeneous (limited % admixtures; large %
destroy coherence) collections of p+, d+, or
t+ found in many-body patches on loaded
metallic hydride surfaces oscillate in
unison, collectively and coherently; their
QM wave functions are effectively
‘entangled.’ Such coherence has been
demonstrated in many experiments involving
deep inelastic neutron- and High electric
fields electron-scattering measurements on
loaded hydrides surrounding “nanorice” – Au
coating on hematite core Electric fields
surrounding Collective oscillations of
hydrogenous ions in many-body surface
patches “nanorice” – Au coating on hematite
core set the stage for local breakdown of
the Born-Oppenheimer approximation; this
enables loose electromagnetic coupling
between p+, d+, or t+ ions located in
patches and nearby ‘covering’ surface
plasmon polariton (SPP) See: A. Bushmaker et
al., “Direct observation of electrons. B-O
breakdown creates nuclear-strength local
electric fields Born-Oppenheimer Born-
(above 1011 V/m) in and around such patches.
Effective masses of SPP approximation
breakdown electrons (e-) exposed to intense
local electric fields are thereby increased
in carbon nanotubes” in (e-*), enabling
neutron production via e-* + p+, e-* + d+,
e-* + t+ reactions Nano Lett. 9 (2) pp.
607-611 607- above key isotope-specific
threshold values for electric field strength
Feb. 11, 2009 June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 20
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Lattice Energy LLC Why are LENR neutrons on
surfaces ultra low momentum? Technically
detailed answer – adapted from S-W-L ACS
2009 “Primer” paper In condensed matter
LENRs the many-body ‘system’ of collective
interaction is a surface ‘patch’ of Np
collectively oscillating protons that are
electromagnetically coupled to many nearby
collectively oscillating SPP electrons Ne
via local breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer
approximation. After SPP electron mass
renormalization and neutron production via
the weak interaction occur, the final state
of such localized systems contains (Np − 1)
protons, (Ne – 1) SPP electrons and
according to the W-L theory, one freshly
produced neutron. Such a system’s final
state might be naively pictured as
containing an isolated free neutron at
roughly thermal energies with a DeBroglie
wavelength λ of ~2 Angstroms (2 x 10-8 cm) -
typical for thermalized free neutrons in
condensed matter. Here that is not the case:
in a many-body collective system’s final
state, a particular proton, say number k,
has been converted to a neutron. The
resulting many-body state together with all
the unconverted protons may be denoted by
the neutron localized k 〉 . However,
neutrons produced by a many-body collective
system are not created in a simple state.
Wave functions of such a neutron in a
many-body patch of Np identical protons is
in fact a superposition of many Np localized
states, best described by a delocalized band
state: N ψ 〉 ≈ N ∑ k 1 p k =1 Thus, the
DeBroglie wavelength λ of ULM neutrons
produced by a condensed matter collective
system must be comparable to the spatial
dimensions of many-proton surface ‘patches’
in which they were produced. Wavelengths of
such neutrons can be on the order of λ ≈ 3 x
10-3 cm or more; ultra low momentum of
collectively created neutrons follows
directly from the DeBroglie relation: h 2π h
h p= = = λ λ D June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 21
-
Lattice Energy LLC Local capture of ULM
neutrons on loaded hydride surfaces Ultra
low momentum Unlike energetic neutrons
produced in most nuclear neutrons have
enormous reactions, collectively produced
LENR neutrons are absorption cross-sections
on cross- effectively ‘standing still’ at
the moment of their creation in 1/v
isotopes. For example, condensed matter.
Since they are vastly below thermal Lattice
has estimated ULMN energies (ultra low
momentum), ULM neutrons have huge fission
capture cross-section cross- DeBroglie
wavelengths and commensurately large capture
on U-235 @ ~1 million barns U-
cross-sections on any nearby nuclei;
virtually all will be and on Pu-239 @ 49,000
Pu- locally absorbed; not detectable as
‘free’ neutrons barns (b), vs. ~586 b and
~752 b, respectively, for For the vast
majority of stable and unstable isotopes,
their neutrons @ thermal neutron capture
cross-section (relative to measurements
energies. A neutron capture of
cross-sections at thermal energies where v =
2,200 expert recently estimated ULMN capture
on He-4 @ He- m/sec and the DeBroglie
wavelength is ~ 2 Angstroms) is ~20,000 b
vs. value of <1 b directly related to ~1/v,
where v is velocity of a neutron in for
thermal neutrons m/sec. Since v is extremely
small for ULM neutrons, their capture
cross-sections on atomic nuclei will
therefore be By comparison, the highest
correspondingly large. After being
collectively created, known thermal capture
cross virtually all ULMNs will be locally
absorbed before any section for any stable
scattering on lattice atoms can elevate them
to thermal isotope is Gadolinium-157 @
Gadolinium- ~49,000 b. The highest kinetic
energies; per S. Lamoreaux (Yale)
thermalization measured cross-section for
cross- would require ~0.1 to 0.2 msec, i.e.
10-4 sec., a long time on any unstable
isotope is typical 10-16 – 10-19 sec.
time-scale of nuclear reactions rendering
Xenon-135 @Lines Around Black Hole Artist’s
Xenon- Fields ~2.7 million b : Magnetic June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 22
-
Lattice Energy LLC What suppresses gamma ray
emissions in LENR systems? SPP electron
masses are substantially increased by high
local electric fields in and around
‘patches’ of “In certain non-equilibrium
non- collectively oscillating protons,
deuterons, or tritons metallic hydride
systems, surface heavy electrons play a dual
role in Surface ‘patches’ of heavy-mass SPP
electrons exhibit: allowing both Eqs. (49)
for - No heavy electron photoelectric effect
– heavy SPP electrons are all catalyzing
LENR and Eq. (50) for conduction electrons.
They do not occupy bound core states because
their because absorbing the resulting hard
energy is much too high. Incident energetic
gamma photons < ~10 MeV prompt photons.
Thus, the heavy coming from any direction
cannot forcibly eject them from a ‘patch’
‘patch’ surface electrons can act as a -
Anomalously high local surface electrical
conductivity – this anomaly gamma ray
shield.” occurs as the threshold proton (or
deuteron or triton) density for neutron- for
neutron- catalyzed LENRs is approached (this
would be very difficult to observe) observe)
“… prompt hard gamma photons - Compton
scattering from heavy SPP electrons - when a
hard gamma get absorbed within less than a
photon is scattered from a heavy electron,
the final state of the radiation the
nanometer from the place wherein field
consists of many very ‘soft’ photons.
Conserving energy, a single high they were
first created.” W-L, W- energy gamma photon
can be converted directly into many
lower-energy lower- 2005 (from paper below)
infrared photons, sometimes with a small
‘tail’ in soft X-rays (this ‘tail’ has X-
occasionally been observed experimentally,
e.g., Violante, Karabut ) Karabut See:
“Absorption of Nuclear - Creation of heavy
SPP electron-hole pairs – in LENR systems,
energy electron- Gamma Radiation by Heavy
differences between electron states in heavy
electron conduction states Electrons on
Metallic Hydride increase “particle-hole”
energy spreads up into the MeV range.
Normally, “particle- Surfaces” arXiv:cond-
arXiv:cond- metals have particle-hole energy
spreads in the eV range near the Fermi
particle- surface, so they are relatively
transparent to gamma rays. Unusually large
Unusually mat/0509269 Widom and Larsen
energy spreads are what enable gamma
absorption in LENR systems June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Why do LENRs create few
long-lived radioactive isotopes? In
comparison to fusion and fission, LENR
systems typically emit While extensions of
otherwise short particles and photons at
much lower energies and produce end-product
end- half-lives have never been directly
half- nuclei that comprise mostly stable
isotopes; this distinguishing feature
observed in LENR systems, there are many
theoretical/experimental of LENRs has been
observed in thousands of experiments since
1989 1989 papers about atomic-environmental
atomic- density-of-states effects that can
density- of- This happens partly because
weak interactions are prominent in LENRs:
LENRs: alter effective half-lives of nuclei.
half- intermediate excited reaction
products’ ‘excess’ available energy can
energy Opposite retardation of continuum-
continuum- readily be ‘bled-off’ and rapidly
carried away from ‘patch’ reaction sites in
‘bled- state decay that likely occurs in the
form of MeV-energy neutrino photons, which
interact very little with MeV- LENR systems,
published work mainly covers decreasing
half-lives half- ordinary local matter and
simply fly off into outer space at c of
isotopes that decay via electron capture or
weak interaction β Under nonequilibrium
conditions in surface patches that are
‘cooked’ ‘cooked’ processes; this
encompasses topics with large fluxes of ULM
neutrons, over time, populations of
unstable, unstable, such as bound-state
beta-decay bound- beta- very neutron-rich
‘halo’ nuclei will tend to build-up; they
will continue to neutron- build- (which even
applies to neutrons): capture ULMNs as long
as the Q-values are favorable (capture
gammas Q- “Theory of bound-state beta
decay,” J. bound- are converted into
infrared by heavy electrons). This happens
because because Bahcall, Physical Review 124
pp. 495 1961 their half-lives are likely to
be much longer than those of isolated nuclei
if half- “Half-life measurement of the
bound-state “Half- bound- they are unable to
emit β- electrons or shed neutrons
(Fermions) into beta decay of 187Re75+,”
Nuclear Physics A621 pp. 297c 1997 (in this
remarkable experiment unoccupied states in
the local continuum. Thus, in ‘patches’
otherwise otherwise the measured half-life
of fully-ionized 187-Re half- fully- 187- -
short β or n decay half-lives ranging from
milliseconds to a few days half- decreases
from 4.4 x 1010 years to ~33 years) may be
temporarily increased (very difficult to
measure experimentally) experimentally)
“Electron-capture decay rate of 7Be
“Electron- encapsulated in C60 cages”, T.
Ohtsuki, K. Hirose, and K. Ohno, J. Nuclear
and When nonequilibrium energy inputs
creating large numbers of heavy heavy
Radiochemical Sciences 8 pp. A1 2007
electrons and ULM neutrons cease (e.g.,
electric current going into an into
“Observation of the acceleration by an LENR
electrolytic cell is turned-off completely),
large numbers of turned- electromagnetic
field of nuclear beta decay”, unoccupied
local states begin opening-up. This will
trigger serial opening- H. R. Reiss, EPL 81
42001 2008 cascades of fast beta decays from
neutron-rich into stable isotopes; few
neutron- “Continuum-state and bound-state β-
decay “Continuum- bound- long-lived
radioisotopes would remain after such a
process ended long- Artist’s rendering :
Magnetic Fields Lines Around Black Hole
rates of the neutron,” M. Faber et al.,
arXiv:0906.0959v1 [hep-ph] 4 June 2009 [hep-
June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy
LLC All Rights Reserved 24
-
Lattice Energy LLC Where does ‘excess heat’
come from in LENR systems? In LENRs, ‘excess
heat’ is generally measured “There’s no such
thing calorimetrically; where does such heat
come from? as a free lunch.” Milton
Friedman, famous LENRs do not involve “free
energy.” There is a ‘cost’ Nobel prize
winning in the form of input energy needed
to create neutrons economist, 1975 that
release nuclear binding energy from ‘fuel’
nuclei Depending on whether Produced ULM
neutrons act as catalytic ‘matches’ hydrogen
or deuterium is needed to ‘light the logs’
of ‘fuel’ nuclei, releasing used as a ‘base
fuel’ to nuclear binding energy stored in
those ‘logs’ since create ULM neutrons, it
they were created in stars many billions of
years ago ‘costs’ either 0.78 or 0.39 MeV to
produce a single Excess heat measured in
LENR systems comes from: ULM neutron –
Energetic charged particles (e.g., alphas,
betas, Depending on exactly protons,
deuterons, tritons) ‘banging into’ the
nearby which ‘target’ nucleus environment,
heating it by transferring kinetic energy
serves as fuel, a single ULM neutron can be
– Direct conversion of gamma photons into
infrared used to release up to ~20 photons
which are then absorbed by nearby matter MeV
in clean non-fission, Note: neutrino photons
do not contribute to excess non-fusion
nuclear heat; they bleed-off excess nuclear
energy into space binding energy Artist’s
rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines Around
Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 25
-
Lattice Energy LLC No free lunch: input
energy is required to initiate LENRs Input
energy is required to create non-equilibrium
conditions necessary for producing ULM
neutrons (0.78 MeV/neutron for H; 0.39 for
D; 0.26 for T); includes (can be used
together): – Electrical currents (i.e., an
electron ‘beam’) – Ion currents across the
interface on which SPP electrons reside
(i.e., an ion ‘beam’ that can be comprised
of protons, deuterons, tritons, and/or other
types of charged ions); one method used to
input energy is by imposing a pressure
gradient (Iwamura et al. 2002) – Coherent
incident photon ‘beams’ (under the right
conditions, SPP electrons can be directly
excited with a laser that is ‘tuned’ to emit
at certain wavelengths); discovered by Letts
and Cravens (2002) – Magnetic fields at
very, very high current densities In
condensed matter LENR systems, input energy
is mainly mediated by many-body SPP electron
surface ‘films;' they function as a system
‘transducer’ that helps transfer or Surface
Plasmon Fields Surface Plasmon Fields
transport energy to and from ‘patches’ of H,
D, orArtist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields
LinesNanoparticles Hole T atoms Around
Nanoparticles Around Around Black June 25,
2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All
Rights Reserved 26
-
Lattice Energy LLC Publications on the Widom-Larsen
theory of LENRs Since May 2005, we have
publicly released “When a new truth enters
seven papers on selected non-proprietary the
world, the first stage of basic science
aspects of this theory of LENRs: reaction to
it is ridicule, “Ultra Low Momentum Neutron
Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on the second
stage is violent Metallic Hydride Surfaces”,
Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107 (2006 – arXiv
Surfaces” opposition, and in the third in
May 2005) Widom and Larsen stage, that truth
comes to “Absorption of Nuclear Gamma
Radiation by Heavy Electrons on be regarded
as self- Metallic Hydride Surfaces”
arXiv:cond-mat/0509269 (Sept 2005) Surfaces”
arXiv:cond- Widom and Larsen evident.” -
Arthur Schopenhauer, 1800s “Nuclear
Abundances in Metallic Hydride Electrodes of
Electrolytic Chemical Cells” arXiv:cond-mat/0602472
(Feb 2006) Cells” arXiv:cond- Widom and
Larsen “[New] Theories have four
“Theoretical Standard Model Rates of Proton
to Neutron stages of acceptance: Conversions
Near Metallic Hydride Surfaces” arXiv:nucl-
Surfaces” arXiv:nucl- i) this is worthless
th/0608059v2 (Sep 2007) Widom and Larsen
nonsense; “Energetic Electrons and Nuclear
Transmutations in Exploding ii) this is an
interesting, Wires” arXiv:nucl-th/0709.1222
(Sept 2007) Widom, Srivastava, Wires”
arXiv:nucl- and Larsen but perverse, point
of view. iii) this is true but quite “High
Energy Particles in the Solar Corona”
arXiv:nucl- Corona” arXiv:nucl- th/0804.2647
(April 2008) Widom, Srivastava, and Larsen
unimportant. iv) I always said so.” “A
Primer for Electro-Weak Induced Low Energy
Nuclear Electro- Reactions” arXiv:gen-ph/0810.0159v1
(Oct 2008) Srivastava, Reactions” arXiv:gen-
- J.B.S. Haldane, 1963 Widom, of Graphic:
Nature, 445,LENR Sourcebook 2009 – in press)
Source and Larsen (ACS January 4, 2007 June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 27
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Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Experimental evidence in context of
theory June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice
Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 28
-
Lattice Energy LLC Brief recap of status of
LENR experimental anomalies Calorimetrically
measured macroscopic excess heat effects –
still strongly questioned by the skeptics
because no one has created a macroscopic
LENR device that can reliably “boil a cup of
tea” yet Production of gaseous helium
isotopes – rarely measured lately due to
expense and limited funding for such
difficult measurements Production of modest
fluxes of MeV-energy α particles and protons
– presently measured by many researchers
with CR-39 chips; however, only a few of
them have utilized the most rigorous
analytical protocols that can measure
approximate energies and discriminate
between different types of energetic charged
particles Production of a broad array of
different types of nuclear transmutation
products – reported in ICCF conference
proceedings by many LENR researchers. Since
it is difficult for skeptics to argue with
such data on a factual basis, they simply
sidestep the evidence or just ignore it.
Doubters still try to invoke ‘external
contamination’ red herring with little or no
substantive justification :for –doing Lines
Around Black Hole so Artist’s rendering
black hole magnetic fields Artist’s
rendering Magnetic Fields June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Further discussion of
LENR excess heat measurements Properly done
calorimetry measures the sum
Calorimetrically measured, device- total net
amount of heat being produced, if any, level
macroscopic ‘excess heat’ is at in a given
enclosed system over time. Such heat best
indirect evidence for nuclear can be created
by a variety of different physical
processes, both chemical and/or nuclear. As
effects in LENRs; heat production all such,
calorimetry is a relatively crude by itself
does not ‘prove’ a nuclear macroscopic
‘thermodynamic’ measurement that origin for
any observed heat says little about
underlying mechanisms One must argue that
measured “It is our view that there can be
little doubt that one ‘excess’ macroscopic
heat is so large must invoke nuclear
processes to account for the magnitudes of
the enthalpy releases, although the that it
greatly exceeds what could nature of these
processes is an open question at typically
be produced by prosaic this stage.” chemical
reactions - Fleischmann et al., J.
Electroanal. Chem., 287 p. 293 Electroanal.
Chem., 1990 Circa 2009, excess heat produced
by Largest amount and duration of excess
heat ever calorimetrically measured in an
LENR experimental LENR devices in highly
successful system, 44 Watts for 24 days (~
90 Megajoules) experiments (still generally
<< 1 – 2 occurred in a Nickel-Light Hydrogen
gas-phase Nickel- gas- Watts) remains small
relative to total system at the University
of Siena in Italy in 1994. input power. This
is not enough to Published in a respected
refereed journal, the then inexplicable,
spectacular results were ignored by “boil
tea,” so some skeptics continue everyone.
This particular experimental device most to
contend that most reports of LENR certainly
would have “boiled tea” for the skeptics
excess heat are erroneous - See Focardi et
al.,:Il Nuovo Cimento., 107 Around Black
Hole Artist’s rendering Magnetic Fields
Lines pp. 163 1994 Cimento., June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC Further discussion of
gaseous Helium-4 measurements Well accepted
‘normal’ D-D fusion reactions Detection of
significant gaseous He-4 produce products in
three branches with production,
unquestionably a nuclear ~1:1 ratio between
#1 and #2: product, provides excellent
evidence #1 [~ 50 %] d +d→ t + p that LENRs
are the result of some #2 [~ 50 %] d + d →
23He + n type of nuclear process d + d → 2
He + γ radiation #3 [~ 10-5 %] 4 However,
the devil is in the details … Contrary to
mainstream physicists, “cold fusion”
researchers simply assume that He-4 While
He-4 (= α) can be produced by production
observed in certain electrolytic fusion
reactions, it can also easily be experiments
only occurs via branch #3 of the produced in
other nuclear reactions, D-D fusion
reaction. They then ‘wave away’ including
minor alternative branches gamma emission
issue and ignore possibility of neutron
captures and various that He-4 can also be
produced via neutron alpha (α) particle
decays, e.g., Be-8 capture on lithium
isotopes present in LiOD found in
electrolytes of same experiments: Thus,
simply detecting gaseous He-4 production in
an LENR experiment does not say exactly
which nuclear process(es) actually took
place in it June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 31
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Lattice Energy LLC Helium-4 can be produced
by a variety of nuclear reactions In LENR
experiments, He-4 could be produced by a
variety of nuclear reactions and decays
besides fusion and Be-8 α-decay: σ(n,α) =
total cross-section for α decay with the
capture of a single neutron by a given
isotope cross- D-D fusion Li-6 + ULM neutron
Available neutron ‘pool’ Per W-L, little or
no fusion is W- Alternate neutron taking
place in LENR systems capture channel Per
W-L: tritons can be converted W- 6Li σ(n,α)
= 9.4 x 102 b σ( H-3 back into ‘pool’
neutrons via the Alternate minor α decay
(Tritium) weak interaction: e* + t => 3n +
νe 3n channels: channels: or β- decay ~2% of
B-12 He-3 decays via (n,α) He-4 + ULM
neutron Li-8 can also (α particle) decay via
(n,α) Alternate neutron capture channel 10 B
σ(n,α) = 3.8 x 103 b σ( Li-7 Be-8 (α-decay)
B-10 Per W-L, this can happen at Many
isotopes have minor Unstable isotopes of +
high rates using Li as a ‘fuel’ – (n,α)
decay channels w. tiny elements with atomic
ULM neutron cross sections (mb or less)
number > 83 commonly please see reaction
sequence that emit at least one α emission,
decay via α emission, e.g., ~3% of B-11
decays beginning with Li-6 on Slide #31 Pd-
particle, e.g., Pd-105 Th-232, U-238, Am-241
Th- 232, 238, Am- to Li-7 via (n,α) Li- (n
Presence of He-4 all by itself does not tell
us exactly what happened June 25, 2009
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Lattice Energy LLC Pons & Fleischmann
measured Helium-4 back in 1989 P&F’s claimed
gaseous Helium-4 measurements in Pd/LiOD At
the April 17, 1989, news cells were
questioned by other scientists, e.g. Lewis
conference, “Pons announced a new piece of
supporting evidence: P&F’s He-4 claim was
subsequently retracted because of mass
spectroscopy of the gases intense pressure
from Prof. Nathan Lewis (Caltech), who
evolving from a working fusion cell
contended that P&F had merely measured He-4
present in revealed the presence of 4He in
laboratory air. The logic behind Lewis’
criticism was that: (1) if quantities
consistent with the the reaction D + D ->
He-4 + gamma radiation (somehow reported
energy production, if all deuteron-deuteron
fusions produce deuteron- transformed into
excess heat) were assumed to be correct ;
4He rather than tritium and a proton then
(2) Pons’ mass spectrometer was not
sensitive enough or 3He and a [energetic]
neutron.” to detect the amount of He-4 that
would be produced in a P&F - Nature News 338
pp. 691 1989 cell that was generating 0.5
Watts of excess heat Since according to the
Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs D-D “Our cold
fusion experiments show a correlation
between the generation fusion was very
likely not taking place in their
experiments, of excess heat and power and
the Lewis’ criticism was in error. In
retrospect, P&F’s He-4 production of He,
established in the measurement was probably
a correct observation absence of outside
contamination. This correlation in the
palladium/D2O From 1989 through early 2000s,
other LENR researchers (e.g., system
provides strong evidence McKubre at SRI and
Miles at USN-China Lake) made improved, that
nuclear processes are occurring very well
documented measurements of He-4 production,
in these electrolytic experiments. mostly in
LENR heavy water LiOD Pd-cathode
electrolytic The major gaseous fusion
product in cells. They demonstrated rough
correlations between He-4 D2O + LiOD is He-4
rather than He-3.” He- He- and excess heat
production; however, their estimates of B.
Bush and J. Lagowski, J. Electroanal.
Lagowski, Electroanal. Source of Graphic:
Nature, 445, January 4, 2007 Chem. 304 pp.
271 – 278 1991 energy in MeV per He-4 atom
were inaccurate June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
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Lattice Energy LLC Further discussion of
LENR charged particle measurements
Measurements of charged particle production
and 2001 - 2002: A. Lipson (RAS – Moscow) et
al. their energy spectra can provide direct
evidence for report unambiguous detection of
small fluxes nuclear phenomena, especially
if measured particle of ~1.7 MeV protons and
13.5 + 2.5 MeV α energies exceed an MeV
(which cannot possibly be particles using
CR-39 plastic detectors in P-F the result of
purely chemical mechanisms in the eV type
H2SO4 light water electrolytic cells with
range). Commonly detected and measured heavy
thin-film Pd/Ni cathodes; clear evidence for
charged particles typically include protons,
nuclear processes taking place in system
deuterons, tritons, and/or alphas (He-4
nuclei). Light (He- (Lattice-supported work;
used very rigorous beta particles are almost
never measured during measurement protocols
to measure energies) LENR experiments, since
~80 – 90% of them involve 2002 - 2003: using
CR-39 detectors, small fluxes aqueous
electrolytic cells in which energetic of MeV-energy
protons and α particles with electrons are
very rapidly attenuated in water roughly the
same energies were also observed Several
different types of well-accepted, proven
well- by Lipson, Karabut, and others in a
number of measurement techniques can be used
to measure very different types of LENR
experiments that charged particles,
including various types of solid- solid-
included Ti -D2O glow discharge cells, laser
state electronic detectors and CR-39 solid
plastic CR- irradiation of TiDx and TiHx
targets, and detectors (which inherently
integrate particle counts controlled
deuterium desorption from over time and can
be used in electrolytic systems Pd/PdO:Dx
heterostuctures which are often unsuitable
for electronic detectors) 2003 – 2009: many
more LENR researchers During the past 8
years, plastic CR-39 detectors have CR-
began to measure and report charged
particles, become popular among LENR
researchers because mostly using CR-39
chips. Most notable effort of their low
cost, ‘built in’ count integration (which is
was at USN SPAWAR using electrolytic Pd-D2O
helpful for measuring small fluxes of
particles), and co-deposition; published
results in ease of integration into various
types of experimental Naturwissenschaften.
Unfortunately, SPAWAR systems. However, most
LENR researchers do not and other LENR
groups did not use protocols utilize the
much more rigorous protocols that are
Artist’s rendering – black hole magnetic
fields that can measure energies and
characterize required to measure energies,
accurately ‘score’ pits, Artist’s rendering
: Magnetic Fields Lines Around Black Hole
particles, i.e. protons vs. alphas and
characterize particles June 25, 2009
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Lattice Energy LLC Further discussion of
LENR transmutation measurements 1989 to
mid-1990s: reliable reports of nuclear While
qualitative and quantitative transmutations
seen in LENR experiments began measurements
of elements/isotopes in to surface in the
early 1990s; this work was done samples
obtained from LENR experiments by
researchers in Russia, Italy, U.S. (Bockris,
(e.g., metallic cathodes in electrolytic
cells) Dash), India, Japan (Mizuno, Ohmori)
requires specialized analytical skills and
lab Circa mid-1990s: Miley (US) observed a
equipment that can be quite expensive, done
distinctive 5-peak mass spectrum of stable
properly it provides extremely powerful
transmutation products comprising a wide
evidence for reality of LENR nuclear
effects. variety of elements not initially
present in light Production of new elements
that were not water electrolytic cells.
Mizuno subsequently previously present in an
experimental system, observed very similar
multi-peak mass spectrum, and/or significant
changes in isotopic ratios only in heavy
water LENR electrolytic cells. Such from
natural abundances, simply cannot be the
results were inexplicable at the time result
of prosaic chemical processes 2002: at
ICCF-9 in Beijing, China, Iwamura et al.
(Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan) report
on Well-accepted, uncontroversial techniques
and Well- very expensive, carefully executed
experiments equipment used for detecting and
measuring demonstrating transmutation of
selected ‘target’ transmutation products in
LENR experiments elements to other elements:
results clearly include, for example:
inductively coupled showed that Cs was
transmuted to Pr and Sr plasma-mass
spectroscopy (ICP-MS); plasma- (ICP- was
transmuted to Mo by some means secondary ion
mass spectroscopy (SIMS); neutron activation
analysis (NAA); scanning 2002 – 2009: using
a variety of different analytical electron
microscopes (SEM) integrated with
techniques, progressively greater numbers of
LENR researchers located all over the world
energy dispersive X-ray spectrometers (EDX);
X- began to measure and report reliable and
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-
Artist’s rendering – black hole magnetic
fields observations of LENR transmutation
products among others. All have various pros
and cons Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC LENR-related
transmutation measurements predate 1989
Early 1900s: from about 1905 - 1927 some of
the most See: J. J. Thomson (who discovered
the famous people in British science (J.J.
Thomson, Ramsay, electron in 1897), “On the
appearance of etc.) published a number of
experimental reports in Helium and Neon in
Vacuum tubes,” premier refereed journals,
e.g., Nature, Proceedings of the where he
says, “At the last meeting of Royal Society,
of what were with today's knowledge and
Society the Chemical society, William Ramsay
… describes some experiments which the W-L
theory, clearly nuclear transmutation
anomalies they regard as proving the that
were observed during a variety of different
types of transmutation of other elements
into electrical discharge experiments Helium
and Neon …” Nature 90 pp. 645 - 647 1913
1922: Wendt and Irion, chemists at the
University of "The energy produced by
breaking Chicago, reported results of
experiments consisting of down the atom is a
very poor kind of exploding tungsten wires
with a very large current pulse thing.
Anyone who expects a source of under a
vacuum inside of flexible sealed glass
'bulbs.' power from the transformations of
these atoms is talking moonshine."
Controversy erupted when they claimed to
observe -Ernest Rutherford, 1933 anomalous
helium inside sealed bulbs after the
tungsten wires were exploded, suggesting
that transmutation of More recently:
“Energetic Electrons and hydrogen into
helium had somehow occurred during the
Nuclear Transmutations in Exploding
"disintegration of tungsten." Their article
in Amer. Chem. Wires” in which we state
that, “It is Soc. 44 (1922) triggered a
response from the scientific presently clear
that nuclear transmutations can occur under
a much establishment in the form of a
negative critique of Wendt wider range of
physical conditions than and Irion's work by
Sir Ernest Rutherford that promptly was
heretofore thought possible,” published in
Nature 109 pp. 418 (1922). We have since
arXiv:nucl-th/0709.1222 Widom, arXiv:nucl-
Srivastava, and black hole2007 Artist’s
rendering – Larsen magnetic fields
determined that Rutherford was wrong – see
preprint Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC Any strong experimental
evidence for fusion in LENRs? Answer: no
P&F’s hypothesis of “cold” D-D fusion
immediately ran Well accepted ‘normal’ D-D
into trouble in 1989 because, although
Helium-4 was fusion reactions produce
detected, none of the other ‘normal’
products of D-D products in three branches
fusion were observed in the amounts and
proportions with ~ 1:1 ratio between 1-2:
that would be expected based on 50 years of
study on #1 [~ 50 %] d +d→ t +p nuclear
fusion reactions by thousands of scientists
#2 [~ 50 %] d + d → He + n 3 2 d + d → 2 He
+ γ radiation #3 [~ 10-5 %] 4 From 1989
through early 2000s, subsequent LENR
researchers (e.g., McKubre et al. at SRI and
Miles at As of 2009, there is still no USN-China
Lake) continued to improve and correlate
believable experimental measurements of Pd-D
loading, He-4, and excess heat. evidence or
theoretical Despite all such efforts, “cold
fusion” proponents have support for the idea
that the never been able to demonstrate
large fluxes of tritium, branching ratios of
the D-D protons, He-3, neutrons, and/or
gamma radiation that fusion reaction change
would be directly commensurate with measured
excess appreciably at low energies heat
according to well-accepted knowledge about
the three known branches of the D-D fusion
reaction As of 2009, “cold fusion” theories
have not achieved To address this issue,
some LENR theorists (e.g., any significant
degree of Hagelstein, Chubbs, etc.)
developed ad hoc theories of acceptance
amongst “cold fusion” invoking questionable
‘new physics’ to members of the mainstream
explain discrepancy with known D-D branching
ratios nuclear physics community Artist’s
rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines Around
Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
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Lattice Energy LLC Any strong experimental
evidence for fission in LENRs? Answer: no
Since heavy fissile nuclei like Uranium-235,
Fission product spectra of isotopes U-235,
Pu-239 U- Pu- Uranium-233, and Plutonium-239
never fission into two fragments at exactly
the same place every time, neutron-catalyzed
nuclear fission processes usually produce
complex mixtures of nuclear transmutation
products that form a characteristic two-peak
“fission spectrum” of isotopic products
statistically centered on the ‘average’ mass
of each fission fragment Two-peak product
mass spectra are unique Miley’s anomalous
transmutation product spectra ‘fingerprints’
of heavy element nuclear fission P roduction
R ate vs. M ass N um ber Researchers have
never observed two-peak 2 0/4 0 * 3 8/7 6* A
/X * = fission center po int m ass/co m p
lex nucleus m ass product spectra in any
LENR experiments, nor 97 /19 4* Pro du ct C
o n to u r have large fluxes of MeV-energy
neutrons or 1 55 /3 10 * Prod. Rate,
atoms/cc/sec gammas ever been reported in
LENR systems However, in 1990s Miley and
Mizuno reported 6 RUNS reliable measurements
of anomalous 5-peak product spectra in
different LENR experiments Artist’s
rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines Around
Black Hole M ass N u m ber A June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC Any experimental evidence
for other nuclear processes? Answer: yes,
for neutron production/capture and α and/or
β decays Question: Let us assume that a
hypothetical LENR experiment begins with
some array of stable isotopes, say on the
surface of a Pd cathode in a LiOD
electrolytic cell. Then, post-experiment
mass spectroscopy reveals the presence of
new elements and/or changed isotope ratios
on the cathode surface that were not present
when the experiment began; i.e.,
transmutation products are observed. If such
data were correct, i.e., it was not
contamination, then what could have happened
to initially stable isotopes that caused
nuclear transmutations to occur? Comment: If
fusion and heavy element fission processes
are not responsible for creating observed
transmutation products, then only a limited
number of other possibilities are reasonable
explanations: neutron production/capture
process(es); and/or weak interaction
process(es); and/or α / β- decays of
unstable isotopes Answer and more questions:
absorption of neutrons by stable isotopes of
elements can create new stable isotopes
(which may alter a given element’s ‘normal’
isotopic ratios) or, create unstable
isotopes that undergo beta decay producing
higher- atomic-number (i.e., higher Z)
elements as transmutation products; those
are well known phenomena. However, what sort
of process is capable of creating large
fluxes of neutrons that can be captured and
cause transmutations in LENR systems? Then
why aren't fluxes of energetic neutrons ever
detected? Why aren’t MeV-energy gammas from
beta decays and/or neutron captures ever
observed? Fields Lines Around Black Hole
Artist’s rendering : Magnetic June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC Why are transmutations
important? What do they tell us? Measurement
of nuclear products provides crucial
technical information Measurements of
transmutation products, so called “nuclear
ash,” if reliably observed upon the
conclusion of an LENR experiment, are
important because they indicate that new
chemical elements have somehow been produced
and/or isotopic ratios of some elements
previously present have been significantly
altered. This provides important evidence
that LENRs involve nuclear processes
because: Prosaic chemical processes cannot
cause transmutations Several types of well
understood nuclear processes can readily
produce transmutation products: strong
interaction fusion reactions (e.g., D-D or
D-T); strong interaction fission (e.g.,
fissile isotopes U- 235 or Pu-239); neutron
captures on nuclei that produce new elements
or isotopes; α and/or β decays; and/or weak
interaction neutron production via e + p ->
1n + υe, e + d -> 2n + υe, e + t -> 3n + υe
Accurate detection and analysis of whatever
types of transmutation products may be
produced during an LENR experiment can
potentially allow one to determine exactly
which type(s) nuclear process(es) occurred
and the reaction(s) that created the
products June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
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Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory explains
Miley’s transmutation product spectra
Production and capture of LENR ULM neutrons
and beta decays Five-peak transmutation
product mass spectra Production Rate vs.
Mass Number reported by Miley is extremely
anomalous; very different from 2-peak
fission mass spectra such 20/40 A/X* =
fission center point mass/complex nucleus
mass as for U-235 or Pu-239 (see Slide #38)
* 38/76* 97/194* Product Contour Miley
explained observed 5 spectral peaks as
155/310* being the result of fission
processes involving Prod. Rate, atoms/cc/sec
hypothesized unstable, very neutron-rich
compound nuclei at masses A = 40, 76, 194,
and 310, a conjectured superheavy element
Unanswered issues with Miley’s speculative 6
RUNS explanation were: (a.) since the
cathodes were Production Rate Nickel (A~58)
and Palladium (A~106), what nuclear
process(es) occurred that produced the
Atomic Mass = A (0 – 250) compound nuclei at
A=194 and 310 from Pd and/or Ni ?; (b.)
superheavy nuclei at A=310 have Mass Number
A never been observed experimentally Source:
“Possible Evidence of Anomalous Energy
Effects in H/D- Source: H/D- Loaded Solids -
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs),”
Journal (LENRs),” W-L theory: successive
rounds of in situ neutron of New Energy, 2,
No. 3-4, pp.6-13, (1997) 3- pp.6- production
and capture, coupled with β- decays Note:
Miley’s experiments used light water P-F
electrolytic cells. Note: P- to higher-A
elements, can explain this data; it is
Importantly, Mizuno observed a very similar
5-peak 5- similar to neutron catalyzed r-
and s-process transmutation product
spectrum, only with heavy water cells.
elemental nucleosynthesis in stars, but at
vastly This suggests same mechanism for both
datasets. Neither Miley nor Mizuno detected
any energetic gammas or neutrons lower
temperatures and more benign conditions June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 41
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Lattice Energy LLC Five-peak mass-spectrum
is a ‘fingerprint’ of ULM neutrons Miley’s
dataset is ‘smoking gun’ for ULM neutron
absorption by nuclei Top chart to right is
Miley’s raw data; chart Production Rate vs.
Mass Number below is same data only with
results of W- 20/40 38/76* A/X* = fission
center point mass/complex nucleus mass L
neutron optical potential model of ULMN *
97/194* neutron absorption by nuclei (yellow
Product Contour 155/310* peaks) superimposed
on top of Miley’s Prod. Rate, atoms/cc/sec
data; very close correspondence Model not
fitted to data: only ‘raw’ output 6 RUNS W-L
model only generates a five-peak resonant
absorption spectrum at the zero momentum
limit; neutrons at higher Mass Number A
energies will not produce the same result
This means that 5-peak product spectrum
experimentally observed by Miley and Mizuno
is a unique signature of ULM neutron
production/absorption in LENRs See: “Nuclear
abundances in metallic hydride “Nuclear
electrodes of electrolytic chemical cells”
arXiv:cond- cells” arXiv:cond- mat/0602472
(Feb 2006) A. Widom and L. Larsen June 25,
2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All
Rights Reserved 42
-
Lattice Energy LLC ULMN nuclear reaction
networks are complex and evolving According
to W-L theory, LENRs W- occur in
micron-scale ‘patches’ of micron-
collectively oscillating H ions found on
loaded metallic hydride surfaces Large
fluxes of ULM neutrons (ULMNs) may be
produced in electrolytic LENR systems; have
implicitly been measured at 109 - 1016
cm2/sec in certain well- well- performing
electrolytic cells. High- High- current
pulsed power systems may be able to achieve
neutron fluxes of 1018 – 1020 cm2/sec. By
contrast, H loading via pressure gradients
produces <<< smaller ULMN fluxes Over time,
large ULMN fluxes will produce complex,
rapidly evolving nuclear reaction networks
as illustrated to the right beginning with a
Ni ‘target’ (cut-off at A = 70) (cut- At
micron scales, neutron ‘dose histories’ can
have huge variations across an active
working surface Proximity counts: all nuclei
inside counts: micron-scale domain of ULMN
wave micron- function will ‘compete’ to
absorb it Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory explains
Iwamura et al. transmutation data - I
Production and capture of LENR ULM neutrons
and beta decays In 2002, Iwamura and
colleagues at Mitsubishi Heavy Iwamura et
al., Advanced Industries (Japan) first
reported expensive, carefully executed
Technology Research experiments clearly
showing transmutation of selected stable
Center, Mitsubishi Heavy ‘target’ elements
to other stable elements Industries,
“Elemental Analyses of Pd Complexes:
Experiments involved permeation of D2 gas
under 1 atm Effects of D2 Gas pressure
gradient at 343o K through a Pd:Pd/CaO
thin-film Permeation,” Japanese
heterostructure with Cs and Sr ‘target’
elements placed on the Journal of Applied
Physics outermost Pd surface; electric
current was not used to load 41 (July 2002)
pp. 4642-4650 4642- Deuterium into Pd, only
the applied pressure differential The
central result of this Result: Cs ‘target’
transmuted to Pr; Sr transmuted to Mo work
was as follows: Invoked Iwamura et al.’s
EINR model (1998) to explain data 133 55 Cs
→ 141 59 Pr Cs goes down 88 38Sr → 96 42 Mo
Isotopes on samples’ Iwamura et al. make an
interesting qualitative observation on pp.
pp. surfaces are 4648 in the above paper,
“…more permeating time is necessary to
analyzed in ‘real convert Sr into Mo than Cs
experiments. In other words, Cs is time’
during the easier to change than Sr.” course
of the The observation is consistent with
W-L theory neutron catalyzed W- experiments
transmutation; this result would be expected
because Cs-133’s Cs- with XPS neutron
capture cross-section of 29 barns at thermal
energies is cross- vastly higher than Sr-88
‘s at 5.8 millibarns. Ceteris paribus, Cs
Sr- Pr goes up transmutes faster because it
absorbs neutrons more readily Artist’s
rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines Around
Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 44
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory explains
Iwamura et al. transmutation data - II
Production and capture of LENR ULM neutrons
and beta decays Question: using W-L theory
of LENRs, are there plausible
nucleosynthetic pathways that have adequate
Q-value energetics, half-lives, and capture
cross-sections that can explain the central
result of Iwamura et al’s. transmutation of
133Cs and 88Sr ? Yes, two are as follows:
All numbers approximate; ULMN capture
cross-sections vastly higher than thermal;
not all cross-sections have been measured
133 55 Cs + 1 ulm n → 134 55 Cs + γ (Q = 6.9
MeV; 2.1 yrs; σ thermal = 140b) 88 38 Sr + 1
ulm n → 89 38 Sr + γ (Q = 6.4 MeV; 50.5
days) 134 55 Cs + 1 ulm n → 135 55 Cs + γ (Q
= 8.8 MeV; hl = 2.3 x 10 yrs; σ thermal =
8.9b) 6 89 38 Sr decays 100% via β − → 89 39
Y + X-rays (Q = 1.5 MeV; stable) 135 55 Cs +
1 ulm n → 136 55 Cs + γ (Q = 6.8 MeV; hl =
13.2 days; σ thermal = ?) 89 39 Y + 1 ulm n
→ 90 39 Y + γ (Q = 6.9 MeV; hl = 64hrs; σ
thermal = 6.5b) 136 55 Cs + 1 ulm n → 137 55
Cs + γ (Q = 8.3 MeV; hl = 30.1 yrs; σ
thermal = 0.25b) 90 39 Y + 1 ulm n → Y + γ
(Q = 7.9 MeV; hl = 59 days; σ thermal = ?)
91 39 137 55 Cs + 1 ulm n → 138 55 Cs + γ (Q
= 4.4 MeV; hl = 33.4 min; σ thermal = ?) 91
39 Y + 1 ulm n → Y + γ (Q = 6.5 MeV; hl =
3.5 hrs; σ thermal = ?) 92 39 138 55 Cs + 1
ulm n → 139 55 Cs + γ (Q = 6.6 MeV; hl = 9.3
min; σ thermal = ?) 92 39 Y + 1 ulm n → 93
39 Y + γ (Q = 7.5 MeV; hl = 10.2 hrs; σ
thermal = ?) 139 55 Cs + 1 ulm n → 140 55 Cs
+ γ (Q = 4.4 MeV; hl = 64 sec; σ thermal =
?) 93 39 Y decays 100% via β − → 93 40 Zr +
γ (Q = 2.9 MeV; hl = 1.5 x 106 yrs; σ
thermal = <4b) 140 55 Cs + 1 ulm n → 141 55
Cs + γ (Q = 5.5 MeV; hl = 25 sec; σ thermal
= ?) 93 40 Zr + 1 ulm n → 94 40 Zr + γ (Q =
8.2 MeV; stable; σ thermal = 0.05b) − 141 55
Cs decays 100% via β → 141 56 Ba + γ (Q =
5.3 MeV; hl = 18.3 min) 94 40 Zr + 1 ulm n →
95 40 Zr + γ (Q = 6.5 MeV; hl = 64 days; σ
thermal = ?) − 141 56 Ba decays 100% via β →
141 57 La + γ (Q = 3.2 MeV; hl = 3.9 hrs) 95
40 Zr decays 100% via β − → 95 41 Nb +
X-rays (Q = 1.1 MeV; hl = 35 days; σ thermal
= <7b) 141 57 La decays 100% via β → − 141
58 Ce + γ (Q = 2.5 MeV; hl = 32 days) 95 41
Nb + 1 ulm n → 96 41 Nb + γ (Q = 6.9 MeV; hl
= 23.4 hrs; σ thermal = ?) 141 58 Ce decays
100% via β − → 141 59 Pr + X-rays (Q = 580
keV; stable) 96 41 Nb decays 100% via β − →
96 42 Mo + γ (Q = 5.3 MeV; stable) Comments:
neutron-rich isotopes build-up; serial
neutron captures are interspersed with β-
decays. Neutron capture on stable or
unstable isotopes releases substantial
nuclear binding energy; much ends-up in
gamma emissions. Hard gamma and X-ray
emissions were not observed in any of these
experiments, indicating that W-L
gamma-conversion mechanism is operating; 1
atm pressure gradient will only produce
relatively small fluxes ofFields Lines
Around Black Hole Artist’s rendering :
Magnetic ULM neutrons June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory: heat and
transmutations with Palladium - I
Production/capture of LENR ULM neutrons on
Pd and related α decays to Ru 102 Palladium
(Pd) has a long history w. LENRs 46 Pd, 104
Pd, 105 Pd, 106 Pd, 108 Pd, 110 Pd are
stable 46 46 46 46 46 102 46 Pd + 1 ulm n →
103 46 Pd + γ (Q =7.6 MeV; 17 days; Q α =
5.3 MeV) Many “cold fusioneers” continue to
promote 103 46 Pd + 1 ulm n → 104 46 Pd + γ
(Q =10 MeV; stable; Qα = 7.4 MeV) a false
myth that Pd has special properties 104 46
Pd + 1 ulm n → 105 46 Pd + γ (Q =7.1 MeV;
stable; Q α = 4.2 MeV) that make it uniquely
suitable for LENRs 105 46 Pd + 1 ulm n → 106
46 Pd + γ (Q =9.6 MeV; stable; Q α = 6.3
MeV) 106 46 Pd + 1 ulm n → 107 46 Pd + γ (Q
=6.5 MeV; 6.5 x 106 yrs; Qα = 3 MeV) While
Pd readily loads large amounts of 107 Pd + 1
ulm n → 108 Pd + γ (Q =9.2 MeV; stable; Qα =
5.4 MeV) Hydrogen, other hydride-forming
metals, 46 46 108 Pd + 1 ulm n → 109 Pd + γ
(Q =6.2 MeV; 13.7 hrs; Qα = 2.1 MeV) e.g.,
Ni, Ti, W, can also perform well if LENR 46
46 device fabrication is done properly on a
109 46 Pd + 1 ulm n → 110 46 Pd + γ (Q =8.8
MeV; stable; Qα = 4.4 MeV) nanoscale
according to W-L theory; this is 110 46 Pd +
1 ulm n → 111 46 Pd + γ (Q =5.7 MeV; 23.4
min; Q α = 1.2 MeV) not presently being done
by CF researchers 111 46 Pd + 1 ulm n → 112
46 Pd + γ (Q =8.4 MeV; 21 hrs; Qα = 3.3 MeV)
112 46 Pd + 1 ulm n → 113 46 Pd + γ (Q =5.4
MeV; 93 sec; Qα = 161 keV) Pd has 6 stable
isotopes that are closely 113 46 Pd + 1 ulm
n → 114 46 Pd + γ (Q =7.9 MeV; 2.4 min; Qα =
1.9 MeV) spaced mass-wise. Besides being a
H- 114 Pd + 1 ulm n → 115 Pd + γ (Q =5 MeV;
25 sec; Q α = none) storing substrate and
surface where 46 46 115 Pd + 1 ulm n → 116
Pd + γ (Q =7.6 MeV; 12 sec; Qα = 727 keV)
collectively oscillating ‘patches’ of H ions
46 46 can form, Pd isotopes can also
potentially Note: neutron capture on 105 Pd
has a measured 46 capture ULM neutrons,
release nuclear Q α cross-section of 0.5
μbarns for 106 46 Pd → 102 46 Ru + He 4
binding energy, and help produce excess ULM
neutron capture on Pd isotopes can release
significant heat and He-4. This possibility
has been amounts of binding energy; all
stable Pd isotopes will have large large
ULMN capture cross-sections. Albeit having
relatively small, rarely cross- totally
overlooked by ‘CF’ researchers measured
cross-sections, α (He-4) decays have
positive Q-values cross- rendering (He-
Artist’s : Magnetic Fields Lines AroundQ-
Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 46
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory: heat and
transmutations with Palladium - II Capture
of LENR ULM neutrons on Pd, Ag, and Ru;
related β- and α decays Is there
experimental evidence for such In LENR
systems, neutron capture on stable
conjectures based on the W-L theory? Yes W-
Palladium isotopes and subsequent β- decays
of neutron-rich Pd isotopes, in conjunction
with W-L For example, Passell (ICCF-10)
analyzed virgin (ICCF- and reacted
particulate Pd taken from hollow direct
conversion of prompt neutron capture and β-
cores of Arata-Zhang-type cathodes with NAA
Arata- Zhang- decay gammas to locally
absorbed infrared energy, and TOF-SIMS and
found significant isotopic TOF- could easily
contribute to observed excess heat
enrichment of: Pd-110 vs. Pd-108; Li-7 vs.
Li-6; Pd- Pd- Li- Li- production as well as
to minor fluxes of He-4 and of Ag-109
(Ag-107 was not measured). This Ag- (Ag-
produced by small-cross-section α-decays is
evidence for ULM neutron captures β- decay
of neutron-rich Pd isotopes are dominant
While Ru is not often detected as an LENR
transmutation product as did K. Wolf at
Texas channels, leading to production of
Silver (Ag) A&M in 1992, several researchers
have reported which only has two stable
isotopes: Ag-107 observations of significant
amounts of Rh on Pd (natural abundance
51.8%) and Ag-109 (48.2%) surfaces in
various experiments On neutron capture, Ag
also has minor α-decay For example, Karabut
(Phys. Lett. A. 170 pp. 265 channels for
unstable neutron-rich Ag isotopes 1992)
detected unstable isotopes of Rh and Pd- Pd-
109, as well as He-3 and He-4, in an
experiment He- He- that lead to production
of Rhodium (Rh) which only involving an
electric discharge in gaseous has one stable
isotope, Rh-103 (σ n=134 b) thermal
deuterium with a Pd cathode ‘target’
Ruthenium (Ru) has 7 stable isotopes: Ru-96,
98, Ag often reported as transmutation
product on 99, 100, 101, 102, and 104. ULM
neutrons can Pd surfaces: e.g. Miley papers;
Zhang/Dash on capture on these; unstable
neutron-rich Ru Slide #69. All such
observations are evidence for isotopes β-
decay to Rh and then to Pd; this could ULM
neutron captures on Pd. Rh data suggests
that He-4 decay channels may sometimes have
He- readily convert Ru back into various Pd
isotopes Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole anomalously
higher cross-sections in LENRs cross- June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 47
-
Lattice Energy LLC He-4 production not
necessarily evidence for D-D fusion W-L
theory suggests substantial He-4 production
via non-fusion processes That having been
said, several things are presently Over the
past 20 years, vast majority (probably at
clear about Pd ‘targets’ used in most LENR
least 80%) of all LENR experiments conducted
experiments: worldwide used electrolytic
cells w. Pd cathodes ULM neutron captures on
Pd can produce In most LENR experiments to
date, the primary substantial amounts of
excess heat that will be included in
sensitive calorimetry measurements objective
was to produce and measure macroscopic
excess heat via calorimetry; serious post-
Minor decay channels of unstable Pd isotopes
experiment measurements of various types of
produced by neutron capture on Pd can also
produce He-4; there is some reported
experimental He- transmutation products were
pursued by only a evidence that these
typically minor decay channels relatively
small subset of LENR researchers may be
unexpectedly ‘wider’ in some LENR systems;
many pathways potentially produce He-4 He-
Only a relative handful of LENR researchers,
e.g., McKubre, Miles, De Ninno, etc., had
sufficient As seen in Slide #32, presence of
Li or B anywhere near an LENR-active surface
(e.g., in electrolyte or LENR- funding and
analytical skills to accurately measure
cathode) may result in significant
production of gaseous He-4 production in
their experiments excess heat and He-4 by
various non-fusion He- non- neutron capture
and related α, β - decay processes Only a
few LENR researchers, e.g., Bockris, Dash,
Miley, Mizuno and some others, made
strenuous If true, then McKubre, Miles, and
De Ninno’s attempts to exhaustively
detect/measure as many estimates of energy
in MeV per observed He-4 atom: He- ~21–31;
25–88; and 88-124, respectively, are ~21–
25– 88- transmutation products as
practically possible probably inaccurate
because their calculations (besides gaseous
He-4) post-experimentally assume that D + D
-> He-4 + heat is the ONLY He- nuclear
reaction taking place in their systems. If
Thus, reported experimental data on
transmutation neutrons are present, that
assumption is clearly products from LENRs is
spotty and non-systematic wrong; they all
overestimate energy in MeV/He-4 MeV/He- June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 48
-
Lattice Energy LLC Extensive evidence for
transmutations via W-L mechanism Utilizing
the W-L theory of LENRs, readers are There
is an extensive body of encouraged to
examine reported experimental experimental
data on LENRs. Some of data and evaluate
evidence for transmutations it can be found
via the following resources: and nuclear
energy releases in LENR systems – References
cited in publications In doing so, please be
aware that: by Widom, Larsen, and Srivastava
on the W-L theory of W- – Any element or
isotope present in LENR LENRs experimental
apparatus having an opportunity to – Go to
the free website move into close physical
proximity to surfaces or www.lenr-canr.org
Several www.lenr- nanoparticles on which ULM
neutrons are being hundred .pdf downloadable
.pdf created can potentially ‘compete’ with
other nuclei papers are available on site
(that are located within the same
micron-scale – Go to the free website
domains of spatially extended ULM neutron
wave www.newenergytimes.com functions) to
absorb produced ULMNs Investigative articles
and news, as well as number of – Some
reported transmutation products may
downloadable papers on site appear
mystifying until one determines exactly –
Query Internet search engines what
elements/isotopes were initially present in
like Google using various key the apparatus
when an experiment began. In many words such
as: “low energy cases, materials located
inside systems are nuclear reactions”, “cold
fusion poorly characterized; thus, ‘starting
points’ for energy –Adobe” , “cold fusion”,
ULMN captures on nuclei may be unclear and
so forth Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC β- chains: neutron-rich
nuclei decay into stable isotopes Cascades
of rapid, energetic β-decays are a feature
of LENR systems Representative examples of
β- decay cascades: Acc. to W-L theory, over
time, large fluxes of ULM neutrons 46Pd-117
47Ag-121 28Ni-68 will result in a build-up
of HL = 4.3 sec HL = 4.3 sec HL = 19 sec
large populations of unstable, very
neutron-rich isotopes β- Qv = 5.7 MeV β- Qv
=6.4 MeV β- Qv = 2.1 MeV At some point, all
such n-rich 47Ag-117 48Cd-121 29Cu-68
isotopes will decay, mainly by HL = 73 sec
HL = 73 sec HL = 31 sec series of rapid β-
cascades β- Qv = 4.2 MeV β- Qv = 4.9 MeV β-
Qv = 4.5 MeV β- decays release energetic β
48Cd-117 49In-121 30Zn-68 particles
(electrons) that HL = 2.5 hrs HL = 2.5 hrs
Stable transfer kinetic energy to local β-
Qv = 2.5 MeV β- Qv = 3.4 MeV Total Qv = 6.6
MeV matter, heating it up Sum of HLs = 50
sec 49In-117 50Sn-121 Depending on
half-lives, β- HL = 43 min HL = 27 hrs Using
Deuterium as a ‘base fuel’, it ‘costs’ a
total of 7 chains can rapidly traverse ULM
neutrons to make Pd- Pd- rows of the
periodic table, β- Qv = 1.5 MeV β- Qv = .39
MeV 117 from Pd-110 at 0.39 Pd- MeV/neutron
(total of 2.73 terminating in production of
MeV) – the cascade releases stable, higher-Z
elements. 50Sn-117 51Sb-121 13.9 MeV, a net
gain of ~11.2 Long-running experiments
Stable Stable MeV. It costs 12 ULMNs and 4.7
MeV to make Ag-121 Ag- with large ULMN
fluxes can Total Qv = 13.9 MeV Total Qv =
15.1 MeV from Ag-109; cascade Ag- produce
many elements Sum of HLs = 3.2 hrs Sum of
HLs = 29.5 hrs releases 15.1 MeV, etc. June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 50
-
Lattice Energy LLC Possibilities for energy
production with LENR devices - I Being
nuclear, future commercial versions of
LENR-based portable and stationary power
sources should be able to achieve effective
energy densities that are much higher than
competing chemical energy technologies: Eq.
30 in W-L’s 2006 EPJC paper provides an
example of a practical fuel cycle that can
produce substantial excess heat from a
series of LENR reactions beginning with
Lithium-6 as a 'target fuel‘ which is in
summary: Lithium-6 + 2 neutrons => 2
Helium-4 + beta particle + neutrinos + 26.9
MeV Value of ~27 MeV comparable to energy
releases from D-D or D-T fusion Conversion
of net energy release from above Li-6 based
reactions into Joules is: 26.9 MeV/cm2/sec =
4.28 x 10-12 J/cm2/sec (1 eV = 1.602 x 10-19
J) Assume that ‘haircut’ for energy losses
to neutrino emissions is fully compensated
by energy production from ULMN captures on
other ‘target’ elements that are present on
the surface of a hypothetical LENR device
Artist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines
Around Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright
2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved
51
-
Lattice Energy LLC Possibilities for energy
production with LENR devices - II Now assume
that: the 'base fuel' used to produce ULM
neutrons in a hypothetical LENR device is
deuterium and, the device has an active
working surface area of 1 cm2 : Assume that
there are ~ 1014 of these 26.9 MeV energy
releases taking place per second on the 1
cm2 LENR device; this value is consistent
with measured rates in some electrolytic
cells and W-L’s theoretical calculations
Total energy release is thus 4.28 x 10-12
J/cm2/sec x 1014 = 428 J /cm2/sec This
number represents 428 Watts/cm2 for the
device, a large power density At lower ULMN
production rate of 1 x 1012/cm2/sec, overall
rate of device heat production drops down to
4.28 J/cm2/sec or 4.28 W/cm2 At an even
lower ULMN production rate of 1 x
1011/cm2/sec, device heat production would
drop further to ~0.428 J/cm2/sec or 0.428
W/cm2; interestingly, this value is similar
to excess heat outputs that have in fact
been observed in some LENR experiments
toArtist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines
Around Black Hole date June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
Reserved 52
-
Lattice Energy LLC Large energy releases
have occurred in LENR experiments There have
been sporadic reports of dramatic energy C.
Beaudette, “Excess Heat – Why Cold Fusion
Research Prevailed,” on pp. 35-37 in a
subsection 35- releases in LENR experiments,
the first being Pons and titled, “The
meltdown,” 2nd Edition, Oak Grove
Fleischmann’s unattended overnight
experiment in 1985 Press, LLC, South
Bristol, ME 2002 that ended-up melting
entirely through the apparatus and a
laboratory bench on which it rested (see C.
Beaudette) T. Mizuno, “Nuclear Transmutation
– The Reality of Cold Fusion,” on pp. 66-70
in a subsection titled, 66- “An anomalous
heat burst,” Infinite Energy Press, In his
1998 book, Mizuno describes a D/Pd P&F-type
Concord, NH 1998 electrolytic experiment
that occurred in 1991, “An S. Smedley et
al., “The January 2, 1992, Explosion in
Anomalous Heat Burst,” that ultimately
produced a roughly a Deuterium-Palladium
Electrolytic System at SRI Deuterium-
estimated 1.14 x 108 Joules of excess heat
International,” Frontiers of Cold Fusion;
Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. Cold Fusion, Nagoya,
1992, Universal In 1992, a violent energy
release occurred in an experiment Academy
Press, Tokyo, 1993 at SRI that was later
explained as a hydrogen-oxygen X. Zhang et
al., “On the Explosion in a Deuterium-
Deuterium- recombination explosion ignited
by hot Pd metal Palladium Electrolytic
System,” Frontiers of Cold Fusion; Proc. 3rd
Int. Conf. Cold Fusion, Nagoya, Rapid,
anomalously large macroscopic energy
releases 1992, Universal Academy Press,
Tokyo, 1993 occurring in 1991 and 2004 were
reported by Zhang and J-P. Biberian,
“Unexplained Explosion During an Biberian,
respectively. USN SPAWAR even reported
Electrolysis Experiment in an Open Cell Mass
Flow evidence for frequent micro-explosions
(circa 2003) Calorimeter, “ J. Cond. Mat.
Nuc. Sci. 2 pp. 1 – 6 May Cond. Nuc. Sci.
2009 While most of the large-scale, rare
macroscopic events PowerPoint presentation
by S. Szpak et al. of USN were sketchily
documented at best and could not be SPAWAR
dated May 2009 and titled, “Twenty Year
reproduced, Mizuno saw a large heat release
in a 2005 History in LENR Research Using
Pd/D Co- Co- deposition” in slide titled,
“Piezoelectric Response: “Piezoelectric
electrolytic experiment with tungsten
cathode/K2CO3 light Evidence of
Mini-Explosions and Heat Generation” Mini-
Generation” water cell that he was able to
document and report. We will
http://research.missouri.edu/vcr_seminar/U%20of%2
Artist’s rendering – black hole magnetic
fields briefly analyze his observations in
the light of W-L theory Artist’s rendering :
Magnetic Fields Lines Around Black Hole
0Mo/spawar.ppt June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 53
-
Lattice Energy LLC Implications of W-L
theory on small length scales - I According
to W-L theory, LENRs are a surface and See:
T. Mizuno and Y. Toriabe, “Anomalous
near-surface phenomenon on substrates energy
generation during conventional
electrolysis,” on pp. 65 - 74 in “Condensed
Nuclear-active sites on loaded metallic
hydrides occur Matter Nuclear Science –
Proceedings of the at locations in which
there are many-body 12th International
Conference on Cold Fusion,” homogeneous,
collectively oscillating ‘patches’ of A.
Takahashi, K. Ota, and Y. Iwamura, eds.,
protons, deuterons, or tritons World
Scientific 2006 A free version of this
interesting paper along Therefore, all other
things being equal, the larger the with
additional PowerPoint slides is available
at: effective surface area, the greater the
opportunity will http://www.lenr-
http://www.lenr- be for hydrogenous
many-body patches to form
canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTanomalouse.pdf
spontaneously on such surfaces Importantly,
on a nanoscale the surfaces of When enough
input energy, say in the form of an LENR
devices, e.g., metallic cathodes in electric
current, has been ‘injected’ to drive local
electrolytic cells, are fractal. That being
the fractal. electric fields in micron-scale
patches past required case, effective
working surface area can be thresholds for
ULM neutron production, neutron much larger
than a very smooth surface when captures on
nearby nuclei and direct conversion of
viewed on larger length-scales. Area of a
fractal length- prompt-capture gammas can
begin surface a la Mandelbrot described by:
All of these W-L effects are nanoscale,
occurring in A ≈ A0 l − ( Ds − 2) and around
certain types of surface features and where
A is the area, A0 a constant, l the length
nanoparticles on length scales ranging from
a few scale, and Ds the fractal dimension
(~2.5 for Pd) nanometers to perhaps as much
as 100 microns or so; that being the case,
effective surface area relevant Nanoscale
surface roughening, as occurs to LENRs is
much larger than it would be for a during
normal electrolysis, can dramatically
Artist’s rendering – black hole magnetic
fields Artist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields
Lines cathodes Hole increase reactive
surface area of Around Black perfectly
smooth surface June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 54
-
Lattice Energy LLC Implications of W-L
theory on small length scales - II To date,
no LENR researchers have used both Two
papers and one US patent application are
advanced nanotech fabrication techniques and
relevant to our discussion of Mizuno’s heat
event: types of experimental systems (most
have used A. Arvia, R. Salvarezza, and W.
Triaca, “Noble metal aqueous electrolytic
environments that are surfaces and
electrocatalysis – Review and vastly more
difficult to keep in the ‘sweet spot’
perspectives,” J. New. Mat. Electrochem.
Systems 7 of the nuclear-active LENR
parameter space pp. 133-143 2004. They note
that, “… the comparison 133- of the
voltammetric charge for rough and massive
than gas-phase systems) in which they have
palladium confirms the substantial increase
in surface truly had nanoscale control over
geometry and area for roughened palladium.”
composition of surfaces and relevant
operating X. Cui et al., “Electrochemical
deposition and parameters during fabrication
as well as during characterization of
conducting polymer the course of extended
experimental runs polypyrrole/PSS on
multichannel neutral probes,” Sensors and
Actuators A 93 pp. 8-18 2001 8- That having
been said, many experimentalists Dao Min
Zhou, ELECTRODE SURFACE COATING AND
occasionally get lucky and wind-up with a
well- METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING THE SAME,
United performing device in which key
parameters have States Patent Application
No. US 2007/0092750 A1 spontaneously
‘lined-up’ at random in such a filed August
17, 2006, and published April 26, 2007, in
which the abstract reads, “ An electrode
surface manner that a significant portion of
the surface coating and method for
manufacturing the electrode area is
nuclear-active for sufficient time to
surface coating comprising a conductive
substrate; generate significant fluxes of
excess heat and one or more surface coatings
comprising one or more of the following
metals titanium, niobium, tantalum,
ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, palladium, or
Mizuno was very fortunate in this case and
gold, or an alloy … or metal layers thereof
having an importantly, managed to document
the event increase in the surface area of 5
times to 500 times of well-enough so that
further analysis and some the corresponding
surface area resulting from the Artist’s
rendering – black hole magnetic fields
simple calculations could be done on his
results basic geometric shape.” Fields Lines
Around Black Hole Artist’s rendering :
Magnetic June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 55
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Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory sheds light on
Mizuno’s large energy release - I For
details on the heat event, see paper by 1
Joule = 6.2415 x 1012 MeV; 1.3 x 105 J =
8.2388 x 1017 MeV Depending on lattice
structure Mizuno & Toriabe cited in Slide
#54 exposed at a surface, ‘virgin’ W metal
will average ~6 x 1014 tungsten atoms per
cm2 of surface area Summarizing: over ~25
seconds, a 1.5 mm Summarizing: Isotopically
weighted-average Q-value for ULM neutron
captures on stable W isotopes is ~6.0
weighted- Q- dia. tungsten cathode wire with
3 cm of it MeV; for stable K isotopes it is
~7.8 MeV (this will be further discussed in
the next slide) being exposed to 0.2 M K2CO3
electrolyte, Fractal increase in effective W
cathode surface area is conservatively
estimated at 10 times. conservatively
released an estimated total of ~132,000 In
Table 2 of cited patent application by D.
Zhou, five experiments with electrolytically
experiments Joules (1.32 x 105 J) as heat.
roughened Pd produced surface area increases
of 10, 56, 73, 70, and 60x; Zhou claims 5x
minimum. Note that substantial surface
roughening and ablation (loss of material)
are clearly (loss Nominal surface area for 3
cm of exposed visible in the post-explosion
image of the W cathode in Fig. 9 of Mizuno’s
paper and additional post- W cathode as a
perfectly smooth cylinder SEM images of the
cathode at:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTanomalouse.pdf
http://www.lenr- was ~0.1021 cm2. However,
per citations on the previous slide,
effective reactive Mizuno estimated the
event‘s heat release at 8.2388 x 1017 MeV.
Simply assuming that all such heat resulted
from neutron captures on surface W atoms
would imply that (dividing 8.2388 x imply
surface area for LENRs on Mizuno’s W 1017
MeV by 6.0 x 100MeV) about 1.373 x 1017
tungsten atoms reacted with neutrons; at
least cathode is estimated to be ~10x
larger: that number of neutrons would have
to be produced over the 25 second period.
Since second 1.021 cm2, i.e. roughly one
square cm effective surface area of Mizuno’s
W cathode was ~1 cm2, dividing 1.373 x 1017
by .25 x 102 sec implies ULMN production
rate of 5.49 x 1015 cm2/sec., which is
theoretically reasonable and See
assumptions/calculations to right consistent
with the range of experimentally measured
rates in LENR electrolytic cells LENR Using
W-L theory, we calculate a rough W- Per W-L,
neutron capture on W atoms can produce
intense local heating to > 4,000 - 6,000o K,
W- orders-of-magnitude agreement with
orders- of- which drastically reworks and
roughens cathode surfaces on a nanoscale,
increasing nanoscale, Mizuno’s estimated
heat release. This effective surface area
and removing reacted W atoms from the
surface by ablation. Thus surface suggests
that his estimates were likely ‘fresh’
unreacted tungsten atoms are exposed on new
surface and can then react with more or less
correct; W-L may thus W- produced neutrons.
Dividing 1.373 x 1017 by 6 x 1014 surface W
atoms implies that 0.229 x 103 or ~229
atomic layers of tungsten atoms were reacted
and removed from the surface. Since provide
useful insights into dramatic W’s unit cell
is 3.165 Angstroms, this implies that on
average ~725 Angstroms (72.5 energy releases
occasionally seen in some nanometers or
0.00000725 cm) was removed from the ‘virgin’
tungsten cathode’s surface, tungsten LENR
systems. However, we still need to which is
very plausible when you view Mizuno’s SEM
images of the cathode in Slide #59 try to
resolve an apparent 100-fold 100-
discrepancy between the number of Lastly,
Mizuno independently very roughly estimated
input power for the heat event at ~300
Joules or 1.87 x 1015 MeV. According to W-L
theory, it ‘costs’ 0.78 MeV to produce one
ULM W- neutrons that can be made with 300 J
input neutron in a light water LENR system;
therefore 300 J would be enough energy to
make ~2.4 x enough power vs. the number of W
atoms that 1015 neutrons, which is a factor
of Artist’s renderingestimate of 1.373 x
1017 neutrons ~100 less than our – black
hole magnetic fields 1.373 apparently
reacted w. neutrons; that issue produced in
the event. How might one reconcile this
apparent difference? difference? will be
addressed in the next slide Artist’s
rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines Around
Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 56
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory sheds light on
Mizuno’s large energy release - II First
issue - Mizuno’s estimate of total input
Note: all of these neutron captures and beta
decays have positive Q-values Note: Q- power
of ~300 J may be low: examining his Begin
ULM neutron captures on K-39; most common
isotope Fig. 7 and text above it (“Input
power was (“Input supplied for 10 s …”), it
appears that he Natural abundance is 93.3%
counted/calculated input power only while V
Net cumulative Q-value = total sum of Q's in
nucleosynthetic chain minus 0.78 MeV 'cost'
per neutron and I were constant, which was
for ~ 10 Values for energy rounded to
nearest 10 th ; begin neutron capture to
create very neutron-rich K isotopes seconds.
In fact, power was supplied to the 39 19 K+1
ulm n → 40 19 K+γ (Q=7.8-0.78MeV; Qnet =7.0
MeV; stable nat.ab. ~0.01%;Qα = 1.4 MeV)
cell for a total of ~25 sec. If one accounts
for 40 K+1 ulm n → K+γ (Q=10.1-0.78 MeV; Q
net =16.3 MeV; stable nat. ab. 6.7%;Q α =
3.9 MeV) 41 19 19 added power input while
the current was 41 K+1 ulm n → 42 K+γ
(Q=7.5-0.78 MeV; Q net =23.0 MeV;hl =12.4hrs
;Qα = none) rising and falling (over
additional period of 15 19 19 sec), one
ends-up with somewhat larger 42 K + 1 ulm n
→ K + γ (Q=9.6-0.78 MeV; Q net =31.8 MeV; hl
=22.3hrs ;Q α = 425 keV) 43 ends- 19 19
estimate of input power of roughly 540 J 43
19 K + 1 ulm n → 44 19 K + γ (Q=7.3-0.78
MeV; Q net =38.3 MeV; hl =22.1 min;Qα =
none) 44 19 K + 1 ulm n → K + γ (Q=8.9-0.78
MeV; Q net =46.4 MeV; hl =17.3 min;Qα =
none) 45 19 Second issue – further analyzing
the ~100- ~100- 45 K + 1 ulm n → 46 K + γ
(Q=6.9-0.78 MeV; Q net =52.5 MeV; hl =105
sec;Qα = none) fold discrepancy noted on
previous slide; 19 19 46 K + 1 ulm n → 47 K
+ γ (Q=8.4-0.78 MeV; Q net =60.1 MeV; hl
=17.5 sec;Qα = none) several clues provide
hints toward a 19 19 resolution: (1) K was
observed on the 47 19 K + 1 ulm n → 19 K + γ
(Q=4.5-0.78 MeV; Qnet =63.8 MeV; hl =6.8
sec;Qα = none) 48 cathode surface - like Li,
significant 48 19 K + 1 ulm n → 49 19 K + γ
(Q=6.3-0.78 MeV; Q net =69.3 MeV; hl =1.26
sec;Qα = none) admixtures of K on cathode
surface would be 49 19 K + 1 ulm n → K + γ
(Q=3.1-0.78 MeV; Qnet =71.6 MeV; hl =472
msec;Qα = none) 50 19 expected; (2)
substantial amounts of Ca is Now begin β −
weak interaction decaycascade down to stable
elements: observed on cathode with mass spec
– this 50 K's β − decay has two branches:
(1) to 50 Ca (71%) and (2) to 49 Ca + n (
29% ) suggests transmutations via neutron 19
20 20 captures on surface K; (3) Ti is also
observed Because of densely occupied local
fermionic states, hard to emit a neutron via
branch #2 on cathode but in lesser amounts –
more Thus, in this situation we will assume
that branch #1 will be very strongly favored
evidence for neutron captures and beta-
beta- 50 19 K → 20 Ca + γ (Q=14.2-0.78 MeV;
Qnet =85.0 MeV; hl =13.9 sec) 50 decay
cascades of neutron-rich isotopes, i.e.,
neutron- 50 20 Ca → 50 Sc + γ (Q=5.0-0.78
MeV; Q net =89.2 MeV; hl =102.5 sec) 21 a
nucleosynthetic pathway that follows: K ->
50 Sc → 50 Ti + γ (Q=6.9-0.78 MeV; Q net
=95.3 MeV; stable) 21 22 Ca -> Sc -> Ti Over
~25 seconds, this energetic ULM
neutron-catalyzed nucleosynthetic chain: See
assumptions/calculations to right where
Stable 39 K +11 ulm neutrons → stable 19 Ti
+ 95.3 MeV 50 22 we explore a potential
sequence of nuclear If ULMN flux is high
enough, path can release net total of 95.3
MeV quickly reactions that may help resolve
our issue June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
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-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory sheds light on
Mizuno’s large energy release - III Per W-L
theory once ULM neutron production begins at
high W- Revised estimate of total energy
input: input: rates, populations of
unstable, very neutron-rich ‘halo’ neutron-
540 J = 5.4 x 102 isotopes build-up locally
on ~2-D surfaces. As explained in build- ~2-
Convert to MeV = (5.4 x 102) x (6.2415 x
1012) = 33.7 x 1014 Slide #24, such nuclei
likely have somewhat retarded decays (3.37 x
1015) divided by (0.78 x 100) = 4.32 x 1015
neutrons because they can have a difficult
time emitting beta electrons So, 540 J of
input energy can produce ~ 4.32 x 1015 ULMNs
or neutrons (both of which are fermions)
into locally unoccupied states.
Consequently, these unstable halo nuclei
Revised estimate of total number of atoms
that capture ULM will continue capturing ULM
neutrons (which is in fact neutrons:
neutrons: energetically favorable – see K
example in previous slide) until Previously,
we simply assumed that all neutron captures
took they finally get so neutron-rich, or a
previously occupied local neutron- place on
Tungsten nuclei and released an average ~6.0
MeV. state opens-up, that ‘something breaks’
and beta decay opens- Now, we will instead
assume that all neutron captures take place
cascades ending in stable isotopes can begin
on Potassium (K) and that subsequent nuclear
reactions proceed along the nucleosynthetic
path outlined in the previous slide.
Importantly, as one can see with K isotopes,
the neutron- neutron- capture phase can
release substantial amounts of nuclear
Recalling that Mizuno’s rough estimate of
total heat release was binding energy, much
of it in the form of prompt and delayed
~8.2388 X 1017 MeV. Dividing that number by
the estimated value gammas. Unique to LENR
systems and according to W-L W- for total
net energy release for neutron captures
starting with K- theory, those gammas are
converted directly to infrared by 39, we
take (8.2388 x 1017) divided by (0.95 x 102)
and obtain an estimated 8.7 x 1015 K atoms
that could have reacted with ULM heavy SPP
electrons present on surfaces in LENR
systems neutrons; this is within a factor of
two of 4.32 x 1015, which is the estimated
number of neutrons that could be created
with 540 J of As explained in Slide #50,
beta- decay cascades of unstable beta- input
energy; this would appear to be a reasonable
agreement. isotopes with short half-lives
can proceed very rapidly, release half-
Dividing (8.7 x 1015) by (.25 x 102) = ULMN
estimated production relatively large
amounts of energy, and can produce complex
rate of ~3.5 x 1014 neutrons/cm2/sec, which
is reasonable arrays of different
transmutation products that rapidly traverse
rows of the periodic table; Mizuno went from
K to Fe in <2 min Obviously, not all
produced neutrons captured on K atoms; the
point of this exercise is to show how it is
plausible that extremely extremely Please
see assumptions/calculations to the right
energetic nuclear reaction networks can be
taking place in LENR systems over very short
time spans. Importantly, there are hints in
the observed transmutation products that
suggest more such In the end, we have
reduced the apparent discrepancy from
processes occurred during Mizuno’s
experiment … there is some factor of ~100x
to roughly 2x. Considering all the
uncertainties fragmentary evidence for a
heavy element transmutation chain Ba and
unknowns in the experimental measurements,
this may be -> La -> Ce .> Pr -> Nd -> Pm ->
Sm; it is unclear where the ‘seed’ a
relatively reasonable agreement under the
circumstances, for this path came from. S
could have come from captures on Si
illustrating how W-L can help provide
insights into such data W- leached from
vessel walls or on F from PTFE sleeve on
cathode June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice
Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 58
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Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory sheds light on
Mizuno’s large energy release - IV Sometimes
a picture is truly worth a thousand words
Virgin W cathode (note smooth surface) SEM
image of tip of exploded W cathode Note huge
amount of surface roughening and ablation –
the surface is now clearly fractal with a
much larger surface area than at the
beginning of the experiment Post explosion W
cathode (note ablation) All four images are
taken from Mizuno’s paper and PowerPoint
slides Artist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields
Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC ULMN catalyzed LENR
network starting from 56Ba130 - I Dynamic
evolution and production of neutron-rich
isotopes followed by β-decays Applying W-L
theory, we will now outline a ULM
neutron-catalyzed LENR networks neutron-
hypothetical Barium-seeded ULM neutron-
occur in nuclear-active ‘patches’ that
nuclear- form spontaneously on surfaces
catalyzed LENR network model that has many
possible nucleosynthetic pathways through it
LENR networks are very dynamic: over time
they appear, run for a short while This LENR
network model will illustrate a matrix
producing/capturing neutrons and of
energetically permissible possibilities that
unstable/stable products, and then ‘die’
could occur in experimental systems; in the
‘real During course of a long experiment, a
world,’ nucleosynthetic pathways actually
taken given micron-scale surface location
may micron- through it and final stable
products produced can have had none, one, or
many local episodes of nucleosynthesis
taking vary greatly between experiments and
even on place on it. In case of multiple
episodes, micron-scales across a given
device surface each in turn ‘picks-up’ where
the ‘picks- previous LENR network left-off,
with the left- Hypothetical Barium-seeded
LENR network is transmutation products of
the prior only a static qualitative picture
of what could networks serving as input
‘target seeds’ for the next. They are born
and reborn happen; a dynamic quantitative
modeling approach having some degree of
predictive Thus, at the end of an
experiment, capability of what will happen
requires complex, depending on the
size/duration of ULM spatially-aware
computerized nuclear reaction neutron fluxes
and specifics of local nucleosynthetic
‘seeds,’ an LENR device network codes with
est. values for capture cross- surface may
have substantial variations sections and
half-lives, many of which have in final
stable products that are never been measured
for one reason or another distributed
randomly across its surface June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC ULMN catalyzed LENR
network starting from 56Ba130 - II
Neutron-driven nucleosynthesis in LENRs akin
to stars, but with differences In some ways,
LENR networks strongly resemble so-called r-
and s-processes thought to account so- r- s-
for nucleosynthesis of elements in stars
wherein large neutron fluxes also capture on
‘seed’ fluxes nuclei, creating a variety of
neutron-rich isotopes that ultimately decay
into stable elements neutron- In fact,
neutron fluxes of condensed matter LENRs and
stars appear to be comparable: appear
s-process - thought to occur in AGB stars,
e.g., red giants (105 to 1011 n/cm2/sec)
r-process - thought by astrophysicists to
occur in supernova explosions (~1022
n/cm2/sec) (~10 LENR electrolytic cells
(implicitly measured at 109 to 1016
n/cm2/sec) High-current pulsed,
magnetic-regime dominated LENR systems such
as exploding wires High- magnetic- and
apparatus such as Proton-21 in Kiev, Ukraine
(estimated to be ~1018 to 1020 n/cm2/sec)
Proton- Condensed matter LENR networks
differ significantly from stars in that
they: in Are much more ‘on-and-off’ than
stars, which burn more-or-less continuously
except in the ‘on- and- more- or- case of
supernova explosions that are thought to
take place over 1 to 100 seconds Typically
occur in smaller ‘natural’ spatial volumes
under much ‘milder’ physical conditions
Produce long-wavelength ULM neutrons that
have vastly larger capture cross-sections
long- cross- Suffer much less from (gamma,
n) photodissociation reactions, mainly
because heavy SPP mainly electrons absorb
gammas from ~0.5 MeV to ~10.0 MeV that are
produced in various types produced of
nuclear reactions, including most neutron
captures and some but not all, beta decays
but June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice
Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 61
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Lattice Energy LLC ULMN catalyzed LENR
network starting from 56Ba130 - III ULM
neutron capture on ‘seeds,’ neutron-rich
isotope production, and β-decays ‘Target’
seed nuclei on or very near surface: Ba-130,
Ba-132, Ba-134, Ba-135, Ba-136, Ba-137, and
Ba-138 Ba- Ba- Ba- Ba- Ba- Ba- Ba-
Increasing values of A 7.5 9.8 7.2 9.5 7.0
9.1 6.9 56Ba-130 56Ba-131 56Ba-132 56Ba-133
56Ba-134 56Ba-135 56Ba-136 Stable 0.1% HL=
11.5 days Stable 0.1% HL= 10.5 yrs Stable
2.4% Stable 6.6% Stable 7.9% Start with ULM
neutron captures on ‘seed’ nuclei 8.6 4.7
6.4 4.5 6.2 4.2 5.9 56Ba-137 56Ba-138
56Ba-139 56Ba-140 56Ba-141 56Ba-142 56Ba-143
Stable 11.2% Stable 71.7% HL= 1.4 hrs
HL=12.8 days HL= 18.3 min HL= 10.6 min HL=
14.5 sec β- Qv=2.3 MeV β- Qv=1.1 MeV β-
Qv=3.2 MeV β- Qv=2.2 MeV β- Qv=4.3 MeV
Increasing values of Z Increasing values of
Z Legend: 57La-139 5.2 57La-140 6.7 57La-141
5.2 57La-142 6.2 57La-143 4.8 Stable 99.9%
HL=1.7 days HL=3.9 hrs HL=4.3 sec HL=14.2
min ULM neutron captures proceed from left
to right; Q-value of capture Q- β- Qv=3.8
MeV β- Qv=2.5 MeV β- Qv=4.5 MeV β- Qv=3.4
MeV reaction in MeV is on top of green 7.5
5.4 7.2 5.1 6.9 horizontal arrow as follows:
56Ce-140 58Ce-141 56Ce-142 58Ce-143 Stable
88.5% HL=33 days Stable 11% HL=1.4 days Beta
decays proceed from top to β- Qv=0.6 MeV β-
Qv=1.5 MeV bottom; denoted w. blue vertical
β- Qv=2.3 MeV Mizuno reported arrow with
Q-value to right: Q- 5.8 7.4 5.8 fragmentary
observations of 59Pr-141 59Pr-142 59Pr-143
this LENR network; see my Stable 100% HL=4.3
sec HL=13.6 days Totally stable isotopes are
indicated comments on Slide #58 by green
boxes; some with extremely β- Qv=5.7 MeV β-
Qv=0.9 MeV long half-lives are labeled
“~stable”; half- 6.1 7.8 Note: beta decays
of 66Ba-131 and 66Ba-133 Note: Ba- Ba-
60Nd-142 60Nd-143 natural abundances denoted
in % Stable 27% Stable 12.2% and subsequent
nuclear reactions with their Unstable
isotopes are indicated by products are
omitted from chart because of purplish
boxes; when measured, Network continues to
next slide tiny abundances of 66Ba-130 and
66Ba-132 Ba- Ba- half-lives are shown as “HL
= xx” half- June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
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Lattice Energy LLC ULMN catalyzed LENR
network starting from 56Ba130 - IV ULMN
capture on products, neutron-rich isotope
production, and β-decays 5.9 5.9 3.7 5.7 3.7
5.5 3.5 5.2 3.3 56Ba-143 56Ba-144 56Ba-145
56Ba-146 56Ba-147 56Ba-148 56Ba-149 56Ba-150
HL= 14.5 sec HL= 11.5 sec HL= 4.3 sec HL=
2.2 sec HL= 0.9 sec HL= 0.6 sec HL= 0.3 sec
HL= 300 msec β- Qv=4.3 MeV β- Qv=3.1 MeV β-
Qv=5.6 MeV β- Qv=4.1 MeV β- Qv=6.3 MeV β-
Qv=5.1 MeV β- Qv=7.3 MeV β- Qv=6.4 MeV 4.8
4.8 6.2 4.2 5.8 4.4 5.8 4.3 5.3 57La-143
57La-144 57La-145 57La-146 57La-147 57La-148
57La-149 57La-150 HL=14.2 min HL=40.8 sec
HL=24.8 sec HL= 6.3 sec HL=4.0 sec HL=1.3
sec HL=1.1 sec HL=510 msec β- Qv=3.4 MeV β-
Qv=5.6 MeV β- Qv=4.1 MeV β- Qv=6.6 MeV β-
Qv=5.2 MeV β- Qv=7.3 MeV β- Qv=5.9 MeV β-
Qv=7.8 MeV 6.9 6.9 4.7 6.7 4.4 6.4 4.4 6.2
4.8 58Ce-143 58Ce-144 58Ce-145 58Ce-146
58Ce-147 58Ce-148 58Ce-149 58Ce-150 HL=1.4
days HL=285 days HL=3.0 min HL= 13.5 min
HL=56.4 sec HL=56 sec HL=5.3 sec HL=4.0 sec
β- Qv=1.5 MeV β- Qv=0.3 MeV β- Qv=2.5 MeV β-
Qv=1.1 MeV β- Qv=3.4 MeV β- Qv=2.1 MeV β-
Qv=4.4 MeV β- Qv=3.5 MeV 5.8 5.6 7.0 5.2 6.8
5.2 6.6 5.3 6.5 59Pr-143 59Pr-144 59Pr-145
59Pr-146 59Pr-147 59Pr-148 59Pr-149 59Pr-150
HL=13.6 days HL=17.3 min HL=6.0 hrs HL= 24.2
min HL=13.4 min HL=2.3 min HL=2.3 min HL=6.2
sec β- Qv=0.9 MeV β- Qv=3.0 MeV β- Qv=1.8
MeV β- Qv=4.2 MeV β- Qv=2.7 MeV β- Qv=4.9
MeV β- Qv=3.3 MeV β- Qv=5.4 MeV 7.8 7.8 5.8
7.6 5.3 7.3 5.0 7.4 5.3 60Nd-143 60Nd-144
60Nd-145 60Nd-146 60Nd-147 60Nd-148 60Nd-149
60Nd-150 Stable 12.2% Stable 23.8% Stable
8.3% Stable 17.2% HL= 11 days Stable 5.8%
HL=1.7 hrs ~Stable 5.6% β- Qv=0.9 MeV β-
Qv=1.7 MeV Note: Q- Note: in many cases,
Q-values for ULM neutron capture Q-
reactions are significantly larger than
Q-values for ‘competing’ 61Pm-147 5.9
61Pm-148 7.3 61Pm-149 5.6 61Pm-150 7.9 beta
decay reactions. Also, neutron capture
processes are HL=2.6 yrs HL=5.4 days HL=2.2
days HL=2.7 hrs much, much faster than beta
decays; if ULM neutron fluxes β- Qv=0.2 MeV
β- Qv=2.5 MeV β- Qv=1.1 MeV β- Qv=3.5 MeV
neutron- are high enough, neutron-rich
isotopes of a given element can build-
build-up (move along same row to right on
the above chart) 62Sm-147 8.1 62Sm-148 5.9
62Sm-149 8.0 62Sm-150 5.6 much faster than
beta decays can transmute them to different
~Stable 15% ~Stable 11.3% ~Stable 13.8%
Stable 7,4% chemical elements (move downward
to other rows on chart) Network continues to
next slide June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 63
-
Lattice Energy LLC ULMN catalyzed LENR
network starting from 56Ba130 - V 5.2
56Ba-150 3.3 56Ba-151 4.9 56Ba-152 3.1
56Ba-153 0.0 Neutron Network can continue
further capture on HL= 300 msec HL= 200 msec
HL= 100 msec HL= 2.2 sec Ba ends to even
higher values of A β- Qv=6.4 MeV β- Qv=8.5
MeV β- Qv=7.5 MeV β- Qv=9.3 MeV 4.3 57La-150
5.3 57La-151 3.9 57La-152 4.9 57La-153 3.5
57La-154 4.5 57La-155 0.0 Neutron HL=0.5 sec
HL=0.3 sec HL=150 nsec HL=150 nsec HL=100
msec HL=60 msec capture on La ends β- Qv=7.8
MeV β- Qv=7.2 MeV β- Qv=9.1 MeV β- Qv=8.4
MeV β- Qv=10.1 MeV β- Qv=9.6 MeV Note:
unlike stars, Note: 6.2 4.8 5.7 4.3 5.4 3.8
5.1 photodissociation or 58Ce-150 58Ce-151
58Ce-152 58Ce-153 58Ce-154 58Ce-155 HL=4.4
sec HL=1.0 sec HL=1.4 sec HL>150 nsec HL>150
nsec HL> 150 nsec photonuclear reactions by
energetic gammas from ~0.5 up β- Qv=3.5 MeV
β- Qv=5.3 MeV β- Qv=4.7 MeV β- Qv=6.3 MeV β-
Qv=5.5 MeV β- Qv=7.4 MeV ‘knock- to ~10.0
MeV that can ‘knock-off’ neutron- neutrons
from neutron-rich nuclei 5.3 6.5 5.1 5.9 4.6
5.7 4.2 (thus hampering their quickly
59Pr-150 59Pr-151 59Pr-152 59Pr-153 59Pr-154
59Pr-155 HL=6.2 sec HL=22.4 sec HL=3.2 sec
HL= 4.3 sec HL=2.3 sec HL=1 sec reaching
higher values of A) are not much of an issue
in certain β- Qv=5.4 MeV β- Qv=4.2 MeV β-
Qv=6.4 MeV β- Qv=5.7 MeV β- Qv=7.5 MeV β-
Qv=6.7 MeV LENR networks, thanks to gamma
conversion by heavy 7.4 5.3 7.3 5.3 6.4 4.9
6.1 electrons. This effect is very 60Nd-150
60Nd-151 60Nd-152 60Nd-153 60Nd-154 60Nd-155
~Stable 5.6% HL=12.4 min HL=11.4 min HL=
31.6 sec HL= 25.9 sec HL= 8.9 sec neutron-
important for neutron-rich isotopes,
especially those with β- Qv=2.4 MeV β-
Qv=1.1 MeV β- Qv=3.3 MeV β- Qv=2.8 MeV β-
Qv=4.5 MeV A>~140 of Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm,
Sm, and Eu that are present in 5.6 7.9 5.9
7.5 5.9 6.6 5.3 Ba- this Ba-seeded LENR
network 61Pm-150 61Pm-151 61Pm-152 61Pm-153
61Pm-154 61Pm-155 HL=2.7 hrs HL=28.4 hrs
HL=4.1 min HL=5.3 min HL=1.7 min HL=41.5 sec
For details on this issue please see:
“Photonuclear reactions for “Photonuclear β-
Qv=3.5 MeV β- Qv=1.2 MeV β- Qv=3.5 MeV β-
Qv=1.9 MeV β- Qv=4.0 MeV β- Qv=3.2 MeV
astrophysical applications,” B. S.
applications,” 8.0 5.6 8.3 5.9 8.0 5.8 7.2
Dolbilkin, which can be found at 62Sm-150
62Sm-151 62Sm-152 62Sm-153 62Sm-154 62Sm-155
http://nucl.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~ome Stable
7.4% HL=90 yrs Stable 26.7% HL=46.3 hrs
Stable 22.7% HL=22.3 min g07/pdf/Dobilkin-
g07/pdf/Dobilkin-084.pdf β- Qv=76.6 keV β-
Qv=0.8 MeV β- Qv=1.6 MeV 6.3 8.6 6.4 8.2 6.3
63Eu-151 63Eu-152 63Eu-153 63Eu-154 63Eu-155
~Stable 47.8% HL= 13.5 yrs Stable 52.2% HL=
8.6 yrs HL= 4.8 yrs 28% β- Qv=1.8 MeV β-
Qv=2.0 MeV β- Qv=0.3 MeV June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC Iwamura et al.
experiments with 56Ba130-138 ‘target seeds’
- I Reported results in 2004 claiming
transmutation of Ba to 62Sm149 and 62Sm150
Used experimental set-up very similar to
what was utilized See: Iwamura et al.,
Advanced See: Technology Research Center, in
the work reported in 2002 JJAP paper (see
Slide #44) Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,
“Observation of nuclear Natural abundance Ba
as well as Ba-137 enriched ‘targets’
transmutation reactions induced were
electrochemically deposited on the surfaces
of thin- by D2 gas permeation through Pd
film “Pd-complex” device heterostructures
complexes,” Condensed Matter Nuclear Science
– Proceedings of Ba ‘targets’ subjected to a
D+ ion flux for 2 weeks; flux the 11th
International Conference created by forcing
D2 gas to permeate/diffuse through the on
Cold Fusion, J-P. Biberian, ed., Fusion, J-
thin-film structure via a pressure gradient
imposed between World Scientific 2006 ISBN
981- 981- the target side and a mild vacuum
on the other 256-640-6 256- 640- This paper
is also available online Central results of
their LENR experiments were the in the form
of their original observations of Ba
isotopes being transmuted to Samarium
conference PowerPoint slides at: isotopes
62Sm149 and 62Sm150 over a period of two
weeks http://www.lenr- http://www.lenr-
canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYobserv (see
documents cited to the right for
experimental details) atioc.pdf XPS and SIMS
were used to detect elements and isotopes
and online as Proceedings paper published by
World Scientific at: Among other things,
they concluded that, “ … a very thin
http://www.lenr- http://www.lenr- surface
region up to 100 angstrom seemed to be
active canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYobserv
transmutation zone,” which is consistent
with W-L theory atiob.pdf June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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Lattice Energy LLC Iwamura et al.
experiments with 56Ba130-138 ‘target seeds’
- II Discussion of Mitsubishi’s published
results in light of LENR network model
Central results/conclusions of Iwamura et
al. XPS spectra Figure 4 from Iwamura et al.
paper cited on Slide #65 #65 consistent with
ULM neutron captures per W-LW- theory and
related Ba-seed LENR network model; it Ba-
is both feasible and energetically favorable
for Ba isotopes to be transmuted to 62Sm149
and 62Sm150 over two weeks by a flux of D+
ions produced by an externally imposed
pressure gradient XPS post-experiment
spectral scan of device post- surface with
‘natural’ Ba targets (see Figure 4 from
their paper to right) shows presence of Pd,
Ba, Sm, and C, but no other metallic
elements. Based on elements. LENR network
model, since La, Ce, Pr, Nd, and Pm
Post-experiment XPS spectral scan of surface
w. ‘natural’ Ba seed ‘target’ Post- ‘target’
were not detected/reported, their data
suggests Note: Iwamura et al. could not get
clear spectrum w. Ba-137 enriched seed Note:
Ba- that ULM neutron captures on Ba isotopes
reached at least as far as Ba-147 before
beta decays began Ba- Initially, there would
be very roughly 8 x 1014 atoms/cm2 on the
‘target’ surface of Iwamura et al’s.
experimental device. Thus, Hard to imagine
nuclear process besides ULMNs there could be
~5.6 x 109 atoms potentially involved in a
and production of neutron-rich Ba isotopes
that neutron- nuclear- hypothetical LENR
nuclear-active surface ‘patch’ that was 30
half- microns in diameter. Now the shortest
half-life of any Ba can explain stable
product ‘gap’ from Ba to Sm and isotope is
about 0.1 seconds (see model: it is Ba-152 @
100 Ba- lack of Pm; all Pm isotopes have
huge capture c-s msec). This means that an
ULM neutron flux of about 10 ULMNs/atom/sec
would be just sufficient to allow the model
Eu was not detected/reported; based on
network Ba- LENR network to produce Ba-153,
after which neutron capture model, their
published data would suggest that Ba- Ba- is
energetically unfavorable. Within the
reference frame of a 30 153 was probably not
produced in significant nuclear- micron
nuclear-active patch, this would imply an
effective quantities during Iwamura et al.’s
experiments ULM neutron flux of ~5.6 x 1010
/sec, which seems reasonable June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Iwamura et al.
experiments with 56Ba130-138 ‘target seeds’
- III Mitsubishi’s results consistent with
W-L theory and related LENR network model In
their paper, they comment, “The 138Ba for
“The SIMS spectra in Figure 5 from Iwamura
et al. paper cited on Slide #65 Slide unused
and used samples does not match. We assume
this is because the Ba deposition is not
uniform.” While this prosaic explanation is
very uniform.” reasonable, their data is
also consistent with ULM neutron captures on
lower-mass Ba isotopes, lower- which would
tend to increase 138Ba counts, exactly as
observed in their experiments Some SIMS
peaks attributed to BaO could well be Sm
isotopes besides 149-150Sm. For example, see
149- their Fig. 6 (a) and (b) where an
entirely new peak appears at A=152 (red
color in Fig.); this could SIMS spectra in
Figure 6 from Iwamura et al. paper cited on
Slide #65 Slide potentially be Sm-152, which
is a stable isotope Sm- While they could
well be BaO, significant post- post-
experiment increases in SIMS peak counts for
A = 150 (Fig.6b), 153 (Fig.6b) and 155 (Fig.
6b) are also consistent with production of
150Sm, 153Sm, and 155 Sm respectively,
according to LENR network model. In Fig. 5
(b), 149Sm is absent; however, significant
post-experiment increases occur in the post-
SIMS peak counts for A = 150, 151, 152, 153,
and 154 that could be Sm isotopes. Note:
such isotopic Note: variations between
experiments would in fact be expected w.
dynamic, evolving LENR networks June 25,
2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All
Rights Reserved 67
-
Lattice Energy LLC Experimental evidence for
W-L theory on small length scales According
to W-L theory, LENRs can See: “Theoretical
Standard Model Rates of . Proton to Neutron
Conversions Near Metallic produce huge
amounts of clean Hydride Surfaces”
arXiv:nucl-th/0608059v2 Surfaces”
arXiv:nucl- nuclear heat in tiny ‘hot spots’
(that (Sep 2007) Widom and Larsen .
correspond to nanometer up to There is
direct experimental evidence for the
existence of such hot spots in before-and-
before- and- micron-scale, collectively
oscillating after scanning electron
microscope (SEM) patches of protons,
deuterons, or images of the surfaces of
experimental LENR devices, many of which
also exhibit surface tritons) located on the
surfaces of transmutations. In
post-experiment SEM post- images, a host of
new, weird looking micron- micron- loaded
metallic hydride substrates scale structures
are observed scattered randomly across
metallic surfaces. Various W-L have
calculated the ‘noise researchers have
described these unusual surface structural
features as resembling temperature’ for LENR
‘hot spots’ to “craters”, “volcanoes”,
melted and cooled “puddles,” “gas holes”,
“ejecta from craters”, be ~4,000o to 6,000o
K, comparable “cauliflowers”, etc. Based on
their to temperature on the surface of the
morphology, some features appear to result
from explosive ‘flash’ melting or boiling of
the sun and above the boiling point of
surface in small sites at many locations any
known metal. This theoretical US Navy SPAWAR
imaged an operating cathode with a high
speed infrared camera: result is also
consistent with many tiny surface hot spots
looked like fireflies experimental
observations ‘blinking’ on and off in–a
field at night Artist’s rendering black hole
magnetic fields Artist’s rendering :
Magnetic Fields Lines Around Black Hole June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 68
-
Lattice Energy LLC Transmutation products
correlated with surface structures Nuclear
products associated with intense localized
heat production Please see Zhang and Dash
paper for details See: W. Zhang and J. Dash,
“Excess heat reproducibility and evidence of
anomalous With Palladium (Pd) as a 'target
element' present on elements after
electrolysis in Pd/D2O + H2SO4 Pd cathode
surface, Silver (Ag) is experimentally
electrolytic cells” in The 13th
International observed; likely to be direct
product of ULM neutron Conference on
Condensed Matter Nuclear captures on Pd with
beta decays to Ag isotopes Science, Sochi,
Russia 2007 Sochi, In a SEM image from their
paper (copied below) they directly correlate
LENR transmutation products with Free copy
of paper available at: http://www.lenr-
specific sites on post-experiment surface
structures:
canr.org/acrobat/ZhangWSexcessheat.pdf Note:
Their observations of Nickel (Ni) on the Pd
Note: cathode surfaces, if correct, may have
resulted from LENR ULM neutron captures on
Iron (Fe) that somehow 'leached-out’ of the
walls of the Pyrex 'leached- glass vessel
comprising the cell containing the
electrolyte. It is well known that metallic
elements that are compositionally present in
Pyrex can leach from glass during extended
exposure to hot electrolytes under such
experimental conditions. Fe is known to be a
minor constituent in many types of Pyrex,
e.g., Corning #7740 Fe2O3 = 0.04%. Such
embedded Fe could potentially leach out of
the walls of a Pyrex electrolytic cell into
the electrolyte and migrate to the cathode
surface, where it could provide yet another
local 'target element' able to absorb LENR
ULM neutrons and Fig. 8 on p. 14: “most
common finding is that Ag occurs in craters”
“most craters” be transmuted June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Can’t boil tea, but LENRs
can boil metals on a nanoscale While LENR
devices cannot “boil a cup of tea” yet, See:
D. Cirillo and V. Iorio, “Transmutation of
metal Iorio, at low energy in a confined
plasma in water" on pp. Cirillo and Iorio
have reported results wherein post- 492-504
in “Condensed Matter Nuclear Science – 492-
experiment SEM images show unusual surface
Proceedings of the 11th International
Conference structures that appear to have
resulted from flash on Cold Fusion,” J-P.
Biberian, ed., World J- boiling of Tungsten
cathodes (MP = 3,410 C; BP = Scientific 2006
5,666 C) in roughly circular 50 – 100 micron
patches Free copy of paper available at:
http://www.lenr- http://www.lenr-
canr.org/acrobat/CirilloDtransmutat.pdf With
W’s high boiling point, it is unlikely that
such features were produced by oxidative
chemical Note: unbeknownst to the
experimenters, they may Note: have had
either Barium (Ba) titanate and/or
processes, since the hottest known chemical
‘flames’ Dysprosium (Dy) as component(s) in
the (Dy) are cyanogen-oxygen under pressure
at 4,367O C; composition of the dielectric
ceramic sleeve that carbon subnitride
burning in pure O2 at 4,987O C was partially
covering the cathode immersed in the
electrolyte; Ba and/or Dy are often present
in such One might argue that such heating
was caused by ceramics. Under the stated
experimental local electrical discharges
(prosaic arcing). Perhaps, conditions, Ba
and Dy could easily 'leach-out' from 'leach-
but micron-scale arcing events result in
somewhat the surface of the ceramic into the
electrolyte, different surface morphologies
(see next slide). More creating yet another
'target' element that could migrate onto the
surface of their Tungsten cathode.
importantly, in the same experiments Rhenium
(Re), Since none of the potential
intermediate Osmium (Os), and Gold (Au) were
observed as nuclear transmutation products
such as Nd (Neodymium), transmutation
products on the cathode surface Sm
(Samarium), and Gd (Gadolinium) were
observed/reported, it is possible that there
may According to W-L theory, ULM neutron
production and have been LENR ULM neutron
captures starting successive ULM neutron
captures interspersed with with Dy -> Er
(Erbium) -> Tm (Thulium) ->Yb beta decays
would be expected to produce W -> Re ->
(Ytterbium) which are transmutation products
that Os -> Au, which are in fact observed
were in fact observed in their experiments
Artist’s rendering : Magnetic Fields Lines
Around Black Hole June 25, 2009 Copyright
2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved
70
-
Lattice Energy LLC Micro-arcing events
produce slightly different morphologies
Morphological features of micron-scale
‘beam’ discharges differ from LENRs While
electron/ion ‘beams’ and LENRs both heat and
melt ‘spots’ on metal surfaces, morphologies
differ. Jeanvoine et al.’s (2009) beams’
spots’ al.’ detailed simulation for creation
of such structures used an: ion beam with
mean energy 26-29 eV; surface E-field
strength of 1-5 x 109 26- E- 1- V/m; power
densities of 1010 – 1012 W/m2 over durations
of 0.1 – 10 μsec, found that spot
temperatures ‘saturated’ at 5,000 – 5,500o K
saturated’ N. Jeanvoine et al,
“Investigation of the arc and glow phase
fractions of ignition discharges in air and
nitrogen for Ag, Pt, Cu and Ni electrodes”
28th ICPIG, Prague, Czech electrodes”
Republic, July 15-20, 2007 15- Jeanvoine et
al. provide support for the idea that the
unusual structural features observed on LENR
device surfaces are N. Jeanvoine et al., N.
Jeanvoine and F. Muecklich, “FEM most likely
the result of intense local “Microstructure
characterisation Simulation of the
temperature heating of the surface in
micron-scale of electrical discharge craters
distribution and power density at using FIB/SEM
dual beam platinum cathode craters caused by
regions over very short time periods
Artist’s rendering – black hole magnetic
fields techniques” Adv. Eng. Materials
techniques” high voltage ignition
discharges” J. discharges” 10 pp. 973-977
2008 973- Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 42 035203
2009 June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice
Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 71
-
Lattice Energy LLC SEM images of LENR
post-experiment surface features View the
evidence and form your own conclusions about
such structures Readers encouraged to
examine reported SEM images of LENR surface
features To find more images, please go to
the free website: www.lenr-canr.org as noted
before, several hundred downloadable papers
are available thereon Here are additional
examples of SEM images from various LENR
researchers: Pd surface: image source is
Energetics Pd surface: image source is US
Navy SPAWAR W surface: image source is D.
Cirillo and V. Iorio, Iorio, Technologies,
Omer, Israel (San Diego, CA) Artist’s
Laboratorio M. Ruta, 81100, Caserta, Italy
rendering – black hole magnetic fields Ruta,
Caserta, Artist’s rendering : Magnetic
Fields Lines Around Black Hole June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Commercializing a
Next-Generation Source of Safe Nuclear
Energy Lattice’s road to commercialization
June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy
LLC All Rights Reserved 73
-
Lattice Energy LLC W-L theory helps enable
more productive R&D on LENRs Since 1989,
most “cold fusion” researchers have focused
primarily on the ‘holy grail’ goal of
creating macroscopic LENR devices that can
produce substantial fluxes of
calorimetrically measured excess heat Absent
a usable theory of LENRs and a detailed
understanding of nanoscale device physics,
achieving ‘success’ with such an approach is
at best a random, hit-or-miss proposition.
It is a bit like trying to fabricate modern
microprocessor chips with sub-micron feature
sizes on silicon dies using machinists’
T-squares, rulers and scribes rather than
utilizing advanced lithography and CMOS
process technologies Even when substantial
macroscopic excess heat is achieved in a 1
cm2 device, heat as the sole metric of
success provides little or no insight into
underlying mechanisms of heat production or
what one might do to improve the quantity
and duration of heat output in future
devices For example, exhaustive
detection/identification of all nuclear
reaction products to whatever extent
possible is crucial technical information
Unguided, random Edisonian exploration of
LENRs’ vast physics and materials parameter
space is very likely responsible for the
lack of readily reproducible experimental
results and limited R&D progress and Source
of Graphic: Nature, 445, January 4, 2007
that have characterized the field of LENRs
for the past 20 years June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
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-
Lattice Energy LLC Lattice’s unique approach
to LENR R&D is nanocentric At the present
stage of LENR technology (TRL-2), trying to
fabricate cm-scale and larger devices that
can reliably and controllably produce
macroscopically large fluxes of excess heat,
i.e., “boil a cup of tea,” is putting the
cart before the horse Unlike its
competitors, Lattice plans to use its unique
proprietary knowledge of LENR devices and
key operating parameters (e.g., achieving
and maintaining very high local surface
electric fields) to first get key LENR
effects --- such as excess heat,
transmutations --- working well
microscopically; that is, to be able to
cause them to occur reproducibly on specific
nanoparticulate structures with dimensions
ranging from nanometers to microns that are
fabricated using existing, off-the-shelf
nanotechnology techniques/methods and
deliberately emplaced, along with suitable
‘target fuel’ nuclei (e.g., Lithium) in
close proximity, at specific types of sites
located on loaded metallic hydride surfaces
Once this technical goal has been
successfully achieved, scaling-up total
device- level heat outputs could then be
achieved simply by increasing the total
number of nuclear-active LENR ‘hot spot’
sites per cm2 of effective working surface
area Lattice’s nanocentric approach to R&D
is unique in that it is highly
interdisciplinary, being guided by various
aspects of the W-L theory and applying
relevant knowledge derived of Graphic:
Nature, 445, January 4, 2007 science,
plasmonics, and nanotechnology Source from
advanced materials June 25, 2009 Copyright
2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved
75
-
Lattice Energy LLC Straightforward scale-up
of LENR system power outputs LENRs can
presently boil metals in relatively limited
numbers of localized 'hot spots' on
laboratory device surfaces. That being the
case, it is not a huge stretch to imagine
that, given further device engineering and
substantial R&D programs, it should
eventually be possible for Lattice to design
and manufacture optimized, high-performance
heat sources that can reliably and
controllably produce large fluxes of
device-level macroscopic excess heat that is
scaled-up by fabricating larger
area-densities of LENR 'hot spots' on
commercial device surfaces In LENR-based
power generation systems, nuclear reactions
would be used to produce environmentally
clean heat which could then be converted
into usable power by separate, integrated
energy conversion subsystems A variety of
off-the-shelf energy conversion subsystems
could be integrated with LENR-based heat
sources to meet application-specific
requirements for total system power output
and duty-cycle duration. They involve
various types of heat- to-electricity
conversion, heat-to-shaft-rotation, heating
of working fluids, etc. Available energy
conversion subsystems that could potentially
be used with commercial LENR heat sources
include: thermoelectrics or thermionics;
Stirling engines; steam engines; steam
turbines; microturbines; boilers and various
types of steam plants. Other more
speculative possibilities involve new types
of direct energy conversion445, January 4,
2007 still under development, e.g., IR
rectenna systems Source of Graphic: Nature,
technologies June 25, 2009 Copyright 2009
Lattice Energy LLC All Rights Reserved 76
-
Lattice Energy LLC Lattice Energy LLC’s road
ahead The company’s long term business goal
is to commercialize LENR-based integrated
power generation systems for a broad range
of important, high-unit-volume market
applications: Lattice’s unique understanding
of LENRs should enable the development of
safe, revolutionary nuclear power sources,
initially for use in distributed power
generation applications, including small
battery-like devices for portable
electronics Lattice’s proprietary
breakthroughs could enable a radically
different, better nuclear power generation
technology based mainly on environmentally
friendly weak interactions, not on strong
interaction fusion or heavy element fission
processes LENR-based power sources could
potentially have substantial competitive
advantages in energy density, longevity, and
cost/kWh over system duty cycles compared to
chemically- based batteries, fuel cells, and
fossil fuel microgenerators Source of
Graphic: Nature, 445, January 4, 2007 June
25, 2009 Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC
All Rights Reserved 77
-
Lattice Energy LLC The future of LENR
technology “No single solution will defuse
more of the Energy-Climate Era’s problems at
once than the invention of a source of
single solution abundant, clean, reliable,
and cheap electrons. Give me abundant clean,
reliable, and cheap electrons, and I will
give you a world that can continue to grow
without triggering unmanageable climate
change. Give me abundant clean, reliable,
and cheap electrons, and I will give you
water in the desert from a deep
generator-powered well. Give me abundant
clean, reliable, and cheap electrons, and I
will put every petrodictator out of
business. Give me abundant clean, reliable,
and cheap electrons, and I will end
deforestation from communities desperate for
fuel and I will eliminate any reason to
drill in Mother Nature’s environmental
cathedrals. Give me abundant clean,
reliable, and cheap electrons, and I will
enable millions of the earth’s poor to get
connected, to refrigerate their medicines,
to educate their women, and to light up
their nights.” Thomas Friedman in “Hot,
Flat, and Crowded” 2008 Source of Graphic:
Nature, 445, January 4, 2007 June 25, 2009
Copyright 2009 Lattice Energy LLC All Rights
Reserved 78
|
Further down below there are titles and URLs to our seven theoretical publications on LENRs, beginning with our peer-reviewed EPJC publication in March 2006. There are also links to six ‘plain English’ articles on LENRs that were published by I-SiS, as well as a public online MS-PowerPoint presentation that provides a concise high level historical and technical overview of LENRs as seen through the ‘lens’ of our theoretical work.
The Institute of Science in Society (I-SiS) is a nonprofit ‘green’ environmental organization headquartered in London, UK (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php ). Over the years, I-SiS has made notable contributions to efforts that aim to curtail the spread of genetically modified crops in Europe. Until recently, I-SiS (like Greenpeace) has also steadfastly opposed expanded use of nuclear (fission) power. However, after investigating LENRs in 2007, I-SiS changed its policy position on nuclear power. In fact, I-SiS now encourages commercial development and deployment of nuclear technology in the form of weak interaction LENRs (as opposed to strong interaction fission or fusion processes) as a truly ‘green,’ carbon-free nuclear energy technology.
In our theory, surmounting a high Coulomb barrier is a non-issue. As shown in our papers, LENRs in condensed matter systems do not involve any kind of Coulomb barrier-penetrating fusion, i.e., deuterium-deuterium, D-T, hot, “cold,” warm, or otherwise. Furthermore, LENRs did not begin with Pons & Fleischmann in 1989 — we have uncovered evidence in published peer-reviewed literature that heretofore unexplained, anomalous LENR-related phenomena have been seen episodically in certain types of experiments for at least 100 years.
None of our work includes the assumption of any new microscopic physics. What is novel about our new theoretical approach to LENRs is that, for the first time, we extend many-body collective effects to existing electroweak theory within the overall framework of the Standard Model. In a total of seven technical publications, we have developed a foundational theory of LENRs that weaves together all of the previously disparate threads of varied experimental evidence into a coherent whole. We have done so using rigorous, established, well-accepted physics.
In our view, the Widom-Larsen theory can explain all of the good experimental data in LENRs. Pons & Fleischmann were correct about excess heat being a real physical effect, albeit poorly reproducible because they were completely wrong on the underlying mechanism and had no appreciation whatsoever of crucial nanoscale device fabrication issues that are in the process of being solved by our company today. However, P&F were dead wrong about it being strong interaction, Coulomb barrier-penetrating D-D fusion that was producing the observed ‘excess’ heat. Unbeknownst to anyone back in 1989 and many people today, P&F’s experimental results were actually the result of condensed matter collective effects and weak interactions.
Posted February 14, 2009 (24 slides):
http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llchigh-level-historical-and-technical-overview-of-lenrsfeb-14-2009
#1. November 13, 2008
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions for Green Energy -
How weak interactions can provide sustainable nuclear energy and revolutionize the energy industry
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LENRGE.php
#2. December 4, 2008
Widom-Larsen Theory Explains Low Energy Nuclear Reactions &Why They Are Safe and Green -
All down to collective effects and weak interactions
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widom-Larsen.php
#3. December 10, 2008
Portable and Distributed Power Generation from LENRs -
Power output of LENR-based systems could be scaled up to address many different commercial applications
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/PortableDistributedPowerFromLENRs.php
#4. December 11, 2008
LENRs for Nuclear Waste Disposal -
How weak interactions can transform radioactive isotopes into more benign elements
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LENR_Nuclear_Waste_Disposal.php
#5. January 26, 2009
Safe, Less Costly Nuclear Reactor Decommissioning and More
How weak interaction LENRs can take us out of the nuclear safety and economic black hole
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/safeNuclearDecommissioning.php
#6. January 27, 2009
LENRs Replacing Coal for Distributed Democratized Power
Low energy nuclear reactions have the potential to provide distributed power generation with zero carbon emission and cheaper than coal
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LENRsReplacingCoal.php
******************* URLs to Technical Publications *************************
1. “Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on Metallic Hydride Surfaces”, Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107 (2006 – arXiv in May 2005)
http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library/2006Widom-UltraLowMomentumNeutronCatalyzed.pdf
2. “Absorption of Nuclear Gamma Radiation by Heavy Electrons on Metallic Hydride Surfaces” (Sept 2005) Widom and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0509/0509269v1.pdf
3. “Nuclear Abundances in Metallic Hydride Electrodes of Electrolytic Chemical Cells” (Feb 2006) Widom and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0602/0602472v1.pdf
4. “Theoretical Standard Model Rates of Proton to Neutron Conversions Near Metallic Hydride Surfaces” (Sep 2007) Widom and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/nucl-th/pdf/0608/0608059v2.pdf
5. “Energetic Electrons and Nuclear Transmutations in Exploding Wires” (Sept 2007) Widom, Srivastava, and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0709/0709.1222v1.pdf
6. “High Energy Particles in the Solar Corona” (April 2008) Widom, Srivastava, and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.2647v1.pdf
7. “Primer for Electro-Weak Induced Low Energy Nuclear Reactions” (Oct 2008) Srivastava, Widom, and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0810/0810.0159v1.pdf