Japanese Scientists Demonstrate Cold Nuclear Fusion

PhysicsWorld is reporting on a Japanese breakthough in energy generation with the apparent demonstration of cold fusion in front of a gathered audience.

Although it sounds like a dubious made for television spectacle, emeritus physics professor, Yoshiaki Arata, from Osaka University, Japan performed a demonstration of cold fusion on Saturday. In front of an audience of about 60 people from Japanese universities and companies, some foreigners and gathered media from six major newspapers and two TV stations, Prof. Arata created a heat generating reaction he claims to be due to cold fusion.

The process consisted of Arata and his co-researcher Yue-Chang Zhang, forcing deuterium gas under pressure into an evacuated cell. The cell contains palladium dispersed in zirconium oxide. Arata claims the deuterium is absorbed by the Palladium sample to produce dense or "pynco" deuterium. The deuterium nuclei are then close enough to fuse releasing heat and helium. After the injection of deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70 °C, which according to Arata was due to both chemical and nuclear reactions. With the gas turned off the temperature in the centre of the cell remained significantly warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours.