I have been following the discussion about nuclear cooling and I think I see
another direct way it can be achieved if the W&L process is real. I have my
doubts as to whether or not that is true, but if it is then I think the
following might occur.
We first start with a system that includes a proton, electron and a Beryllium
9 atom. We use a W&L process to make a neutron which takes 781.915 keV. Of
course it requires a lot of metal to actually have a W&L process perform, but I
have broken it into the least parts to make the cooling process stand out.
Now, this low momentum neutron can find its way into the nucleus of the Be9
atom freely and binds there. At this point we have an unstable isotope
Beryllium 10 which eventually beta decays (1.51 * 10 ^6 years) into Boron 10
which is stable. The electron emitted by the decay carries 202.63 keV while an
electron antineutrino escapes with 353.43 KeV of energy. The escaping neutrino
carries off a significant amount of the energy and would be extremely difficult
to capture and return to the system.
The final tally is that we put 781.915 keV + 353.43 keV = 1135.385 keV into the
system but appear to only see 202.63 keV of heating energy returned. It is
interesting to note that the neutron energy is held tightly within the Be9
nucleus until the decay occurs so heat is immediately absorbed from the test.
This process would definitely do a great job of cooling that far exceeds
chemical methods if a better subject metal is chosen.
I chose this simple case for demonstration purposes and I realize that a
million years is a long time, but the effect should be real for other metals
with shorter time constants. In this particular example it appears
advantageous for the neutron to be held by the nuclei for a long period before
the decay.
Perhaps a test of the W&L type of process can be constructed by choosing the
appropriate metal to use for the test and then measure the cooling. The test
would be capable of determining whether or not the neutrons were formed by that
process. If no neutrons are formed, then the entire theory would be suspect.
What do you guys think?
Dave
