Nature reports more sonofusion results

[Jed Rothwell]

[I have never heard of Impulse Devices http://www.impulsedevices.com/index.html. - JR]

From Nature, 432, 940-1, 23/30 ~Dec. 2004

Bubble-based fusion bursts onto the scene

[WASHINGTON] A company in California is launching an experimental power reactor based on 'bubble fusion', despite reservations within the scientific community over whether the effect exists.

Impulse Devices in Grass Valley hopes to sell its sonofusion research reactors for about US$250,000. It claims they use ultrasound to generate bubbles in 'heavy' water, made up of hydrogen's heavier isotope deuterium. The bubbles can be imploded rapidly, generating a high temperature that allows deuterium nuclei to undergo fusion reactions, it says. "The technology could produce enough energy for electricity production in ten years," claims Mark Ludwig, chief executive of Impulse.

But many scientists are not convinced. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee claimed to have achieved fusion with a similar technique in 2002. But an internal review by other Oak Ridge scientists questioned the group's results, and the work remains in limbo (see Nature 416, 7; 2002).