NASA-Langley: new energy source


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There was a presentation on this at AIAA in March. If this pans out....whoa....

The Widom Larsen LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) is designed to use low speed neutrons to join nuclei and generate energy from the weak nuclear force, as opposed to conventional fission/fusion which generates power using the strong nuclear force. Previous attempts had failed, but Langley is using a new approach.

Advantages are portable, scalable (milliwatts to gigawatts), high density power sources with little or no need for radiation shielding. The amount of material used is also miniscule.

Next Big Future....

New Energy Times....

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oooh baby, if this works....hmmm hmmm the implications! coupled with the new stuff we're about to learn about anti-matter and dark matter...yum, the future's so bright, you better have some mighty shades!

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wow scalable from milli to giga? that's pretty big as most nuclear reactors are usually starting out in large range out power output just due to the heat output... but to get milliwatts... thats pretty big, wonder how large the smallest device can be, possible replacement for space power source? or even batteries?

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This will never take off for the same reasons electric cars didn't take off: too much disruption and competition to the current energy/car monopolies.

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It definitely wouldn't dome to Europe very fast, if at all as the French have spent a huge amount of money on developing current Nuclear technology, they will want to milk it for as long as they possibly can before any new tech is considered.

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It definitely wouldn't dome to Europe very fast, if at all as the French have spent a huge amount of money on developing current Nuclear technology, they will want to milk it for as long as they possibly can before any new tech is considered.

they've put a lot into Fusion reactors (which are completely different then the current fission reactors), why wouldn't they research this too?

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ok how long untill this gets commercial? 50 years?

Thinking way too long. Just think, what a person of roughly the age of 100 has seen the last century. At max i'd say 10-15 years.

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whats this thing about 'Rossi replication' again? apparently this Rossi guy already got it working but refused to tell anyone else how, so now everyone else is trying to figure it out after him?

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low speed neutrons to join nuclei and generate energy from the weak nuclear force

I smell a scam right here. We have been doing the same thing in all our Light-Water Reactor. We basically slow down neutrons (or thermalize them) and use them to induce reactions.

The key here would be chain reactions to make the reactions sustaining. I have never heard of any self-sustainable reactions for this "weak nuclear force."

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I smell a scam right here. We have been doing the same thing in all our Light-Water Reactor. We basically slow down neutrons (or thermalize them) and use them to induce reactions.

The key here would be chain reactions to make the reactions sustaining. I have never heard of any self-sustainable reactions for this "weak nuclear force."

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/35/SR35913widomlarsen.shtml

you might have a hard time reading that if you are not a scientist, specifically a certain type of chemist or physicist

you have to slow down your neutrons in your example with water and stuff, because they were not 'low energy' to begin with , they came from fission reactions... 'induce reactions' is a very broad term, it could be anything from lighting a fire to splitting an atom, neither which is what this article is about

this here is something different, the neutron is created not from splitting an atom, but by combining an electron with a proton under certain atomic-scale conditions, and this makes the neutron with a low enough energy to be captured by basically anything, and this includes elements which decay by giving more low-energy neutrons, with none of the harmful radiation or radioactive by products that we associate with nuclear reactions

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in fact , it might not even be a nuclear-style chain reaction ... and what i wrote about elements decaying and giving off low energy neutrons is nonsense, because that is a strong nuclear force thing and neutrons which decay from atomic nuclei will always have high energy

this is talking about net energy gain, as in you will be actively pumping some form of energy into it , and it will give you more energy than you put into it

how it works is that, hydrogen or deuterium atoms 'stick' to the surface of a metal... the electrons on the surface of the metal can then be made, by absorbing some energy, to react with the hydrogen or deuterium atomic nuclei, which are protons ... this results in the low energy neutron which is what all this is about, being captured by an atom, and resulting in a nuclear reaction which gives you a stable reaction product and the energy being released as heat

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carmatic, i indeed tried reading that and they lost me quick :laugh: but i'm all for progress, anything that gets us colonizing space so we can abuse others instead of each other has my blessing :whistle:

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The weak interaction is a nuclear process involving the W and Z bosons, though not the strong force processes we're usually discussing as regards nuclear power. W and Z bosons are massive force carriers, about 100x as massive as a proton and more massive than an iron arom. Lots of energy hiding in there....if you can unlock it.

Without weak force interactions a lot of stuff that depends on beta decay (a W boson effect) goes away; carbon 14 dating for one. So does the suns power production.

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Thinking way too long. Just think, what a person of roughly the age of 100 has seen the last century. At max i'd say 10-15 years.

hopefully the tech gets pushed, I think the likes of emerging super economies such as India/China will want this... Hopefully it wiggle it way to Africa, sure would help out RSA

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whats this thing about 'Rossi replication' again? apparently this Rossi guy already got it working but refused to tell anyone else how, so now everyone else is trying to figure it out after him?

anyone?

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The Rossi Replication was an attempt to replicate the cold fusion experiment. Basically, cold fusion advocates tried to use Widom-Larsen theory to explain their "results."

By saying they weren't attempting a confirmation of Rossi NASA-Langley is stressing that they were not going down the cold fusion road.

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The Rossi Replication was an attempt to replicate the cold fusion experiment. Basically, cold fusion advocates tried to use Widom-Larsen theory to explain their "results."

By saying they weren't attempting a confirmation of Rossi NASA-Langley is stressing that they were not going down the cold fusion road.

Thanks for the explanation! :)

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