Your calculation does not take into account the fact that the activation energy barrier releases the energy added to overcome it during the reaction. In this case once coulomb repulsion is overcome, the energy is added back to the system by attractive nuclear force. The 3.41MeV is the change in mass energy balance after the reaction, what happens in between is not important to the calculation. Analogously, If a person descends from the 3rd to second floor of a building, they are just as close to the ground as if they climb from the 3rd to the 53rd floor before climbing back down the the second floor to end their journey. This is the nature of all "activation energy barriers".
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]: Proton Fusion Ni58 to Cu59 Endothermic? From: dlrober...@aol.com Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 13:35:41 -0400 I have been researching the cold fusion reaction that is suggested by Rossi and Focardi in their recent paper http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/files/Rossi-Focardi_paper.pdf and have a couple of questions. The authors suggest that 3.41 MeV of energy is released by the fusion of a proton with a nickel 58 nucleus into copper 59. I can obtain this value if I calculate the mass difference between a copper 59 atom and a nickel 58 atom plus the mass of the proton and the mass of the extra electron. So far their calculations are in line with mine. The problem arises when I consider the amount of energy required to overcome the coulomb barrier in order to activate the fusion. The two authors seem to overlook this entirely when they calculate the energy available from their proposed reaction. The chart on page 5 of their paper shows that 3.41 MeV is released at the conclusion to the reaction but no allowance is given to the energy needed to initiate it. They do mention the activation energy in their theoretical interpretation on page 7. In this section they calculate that it takes 5.6 MeV to overcome the barrier. The authors use assumed values for the closeness required and thus energy barrier in their example. With these two numbers available I make the assumption that there is a net energy requirement of 5.6 MeV – 3.41 MeV or 2.19 MeV for the fusion. Is there a reason that my calculation is in error? Does the 3.41 MeV have hidden within it the activation energy? I can see no good reason to suspect that this is the case since it would be possible for a device to send high speed protons into a target made of copper. The copper would then shed the 3.41 MeV by some means and that would obviously not repay the debt. Of course I understand that the following beta plus decay would release an additional significant amount of energy as the copper transforms into nickel 59. I calculate this energy as 5.8 MeV when the released positron is annihilated. This value matches that of the two authors which I assume is correct. A recap of the question is: Is the fusion of nickel 58 with a proton and electron into copper 59 an endothermic reaction? Dave
