In Japan, a government-owned lab has confirmed cold fusion experiments first announced by the University of Utah, creating further concerns that the international race to make fusion a practical energy source could be won abroad.
Scientists at Nagoya's National Institute for Fusion Science this week announced to the Japanese press that they have observed high levels of neutrons, a fusion byproduct, in their test-tube experiments.The government researchers said fusion had occurred spontaneously in their lab between two palladium electrodes in a flask filled with deuterium (heavy hydrogen) gas.
Japan's national effort to investigate the Utah-born experiment produced its first publicized reports in December when university research teams in Nagoya and Osaka claimed to have detected large bursts of neutrons - up to 100 million per minute - in their cold nuclear fusion experiments.
In the November issue of the English-language Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Nobuhiko Wada, an assistant professor of physics at Nagoya University, said a neutron detector monitored his team's experiment.
In the institute's experiments, a sophisticated procedure to check artifacts due to noise was added in the institute's experiments, giving researchers a more accurate report of unambiguous neutron emission. The device was not used at Nagoya University.
In December, Hideo Ikegami, a professor at the institute who was named last year to coordinate his country's fusion research, said the findings by the university scientists ended the debates over the possibility of cold fusion and verified it as a potential energy source.
He concluded that his countrymen's successful experiments were proof that Japan, while slow in releasing results, had taken the lead in the international fusion race. He also said the Japanese research would accelerate.
U. fusion discoverer B. Stanley Pons agrees.
"While we are simply planning it - due to lack of funds - they do it," Pons said Tuesday. "They are far ahead of us now in several areas. We are now dangerously behind in this type of research."
Pons said he and co-researcher Martin Fleischmann have been doing similar experiments with deuterium gas, as well as heavy water, for many months, and the experiments are covered by the U.'s broad fusion patents.
"The Japanese have been duplicating our experiments and improving upon them since late March," he said. "Scientists in India are doing the same thing. One group alone has submitted 14 scientific papers."
Similar fusion experiments are rumored to be conducted or are gearing up at Brigham Young University and Texas A&M University.
But according to Pons, who began 32 new experiments Tuesday at the U.'s National Cold Fusion Institute, fusion research at all of the universities has been crippled by insufficient funds, prohibiting scientists from purchasing sophisticated detection devices.
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Japan in the lead?
Japanese researchers say they have taken the lead in the international fusion race. Utah fusion discover B. Stanley Pons agrees. The Japanese research effrot reportedly involves 200 researchers at 30 institutions - and substantial government funding.