Cold thermonuclear fusion - what is it? Myth or reality? This direction of scientific activity appeared in the last century and still worries many people. scientific minds. Many gossip, rumors, speculation are associated with this view. He has his fans, who avidly believe that one day some scientist will create a device that will save the world not so much from energy costs, but from radiation exposure. There are also opponents who ardently insist that, meanwhile, in the second half of the last century, the most intelligent Soviet man Filimonenko Ivan Stepanovich almost created such a reactor.

Experimental setups

The year 1957 was marked by the fact that Filimonenko Ivan Stepanovich brought out a completely different option for creating energy using nuclear fusion from deuterium to helium. And already in July of the sixty-second year, he patented his work on processes and systems of thermal emission. The basic principle of operation: a type of warm where the temperature regime is 1000 degrees. Eighty organizations and enterprises were allocated to implement this patent. When Kurchatov died, the development began to be pressed, and after the death of Korolev, the development of thermonuclear fusion (cold) was completely stopped.

In 1968, all Filimonenko's work was stopped, since since 1958 he had been conducting research to determine the radiation hazard at nuclear power plants and thermal power plants, as well as testing nuclear weapons. His forty-six-page report helped stop a program that was proposed to launch nuclear-powered rockets to Jupiter and the Moon. Indeed, in any accident or upon the return of the spacecraft, an explosion could occur. It would have had six hundred times the power of Hiroshima.

But many did not like this decision, and persecution was organized against Filimonenko, and after a while he was fired from his job. Since he did not stop his research, he was accused of subversive activities. Ivan Stepanovich received six years in prison.

Cold fusion and alchemy

Many years later, in 1989, Martin Fleishman and Stanley Pons, using electrodes, created helium from deuterium, just like Filimonenko. Physicists made an impression on the entire scientific community and the press, who painted in bright colors the life that will be after the introduction of a facility that allows thermonuclear fusion (cold). Of course, physicists around the world began to check their results on their own.

At the forefront of testing the theory was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its director, Ronald Parker, criticized fusion. "Cold fusion is a myth," said the man. The newspapers denounced the physicists Pons and Fleischmann as quackery and fraud, since they could not test the theory, because the result was always different. Reports spoke of a large amount of heat being generated. But in the end, a forgery was made, the data was corrected. And after these events, physicists abandoned the search for a solution to Filimonenko's theory "Cold thermonuclear fusion".

Cavitation nuclear fusion

But in 2002, this topic was remembered. American physicists Ruzi Taleiarkhan and Richard Leikhi talked about how they achieved the convergence of the nuclei, but applied the cavitation effect. This is when gaseous bubbles form in a liquid cavity. They can appear due to the passage of sound waves through the liquid. When the bubbles burst, a large amount of energy is released.

Scientists were able to detect high-energy neutrons, which produced helium and tritium, which is considered a product of nuclear fusion. After verification this experiment falsification was not found, but they were not going to recognize it yet.

Siegel Readings

They take place in Moscow and are named after the astronomer and ufologist Siegel. These readings are held twice a year. They are more like meetings of scientists in psychiatric hospital because scientists come forward with their theories and hypotheses. But since they are associated with ufology, their messages go beyond the reasonable. However, sometimes interesting theories are expressed. For example, Academician A.F. Okhatrin reported his discovery of microleptons. These are very light elementary particles that have new properties that defy explanation. In practice, its developments can warn of an impending earthquake or help in the search for minerals. Okhatrin developed such a method of geological exploration, which shows not only oil deposits, but also its chemical component.

Trials in the north

In Surgut, an installation was tested at an old well. A vibration generator was lowered to a depth of three kilometers. It set in motion the microlepton field of the Earth. After a few minutes, the amount of paraffin and bitumen in the oil decreased, and the viscosity also became lower. The quality went up from six to eighteen percent. Foreign firms are interested in this technology. And Russian geologists still do not use these developments. The government of the country only took note of them, but the matter did not advance beyond this.

Therefore, Okhatrin has to work for foreign organizations. Recently, the academician has been more engaged in research of a different nature: how the dome affects a person. Many argue that he has a fragment of a UFO that fell in the seventy-seventh year in Latvia.

A student of academician Akimov

Anatoly Evgenievich Akimov is in charge of the intersectoral scientific center"Vent". His developments are as interesting as those of Okhatrin. He tried to draw the attention of the government to his work, but this only made the enemies more. His research was also classified as pseudoscience. A whole commission was created to combat falsification. Even a draft law on the protection of the human psychosphere was presented for review. Some deputies are sure that there is a generator that can act on the psyche.

Scientist Ivan Stepanovich Filimonenko and his discoveries

So the discoveries of our physicist did not find continuation in science. Everyone knows him as an inventor who moves with the help of magnetic traction. And they say that such an apparatus was created that could lift five tons. But some argue that the saucer does not fly. Filimonenko created a device that reduces the radioactivity of certain objects. Its installations use the energy of cold thermonuclear fusion. They render radio emissions inactive and also produce energy. Waste from such plants is hydrogen and oxygen, as well as high pressure steam. A cold fusion generator can provide an entire village with energy, as well as clean up the lake on the shore of which it will be located.

Of course, Korolev and Kurchatov supported his work, so experiments were carried out. But it was not possible to bring them to their logical conclusion. The installation of cold thermonuclear fusion would make it possible to save about two hundred billion rubles every year. The activity of the academician was resumed only in the eighties. In 1989, prototypes began to be made. A cold fusion arc reactor was created to suppress radiation. Also in the Chelyabinsk region, several installations were designed, but they were not in operation. Even in Chernobyl, they did not use an installation with thermonuclear fusion (cold). And the scientist was fired from his job again.

Life at home

In our country, they were not going to develop the discoveries of the scientist Filimonenko. Cold fusion, the installation of which was completed, could be sold abroad. It was said that in the 1970s someone had taken documents on Filimonenko's installations to Europe. But scientists abroad did not succeed, because Ivan Stepanovich deliberately did not complete the data, according to which it was possible to create a cold thermonuclear fusion reactor.

He was given lucrative offers, but he is a patriot. It would be better to live in poverty, but in your own country. Filimonenko has his own vegetable garden, which produces four crops a year, as the physicist uses a film that he himself created. However, no one puts it into production.

Avramenko's hypothesis

This ufologist has devoted his life to the study of plasma. Avramenko Rimliy Fedorovich wanted to create a plasma generator as an alternative to modern energy sources. In 1991, in the laboratory, he conducted experiments on the formation of ball lightning. And the plasma that was fired from it consumed much more energy. The scientist suggested using this plasmoid for defense against missiles.

The tests were carried out at a military training ground. The action of such a plasmoid could help in the fight against asteroids that threaten disaster. The development of Avramenko also did not continue, and why - no one knows.

Life's fight with radiation

More than forty years ago, there was a secret organization "Red Star", led by I. S. Filimonenko. He and his group carried out the development of a life support complex for flights to Mars. He developed thermonuclear fusion (cold) for his setup. The latter, in turn, was to become the engine for spaceships. But when the cold fusion reactor was verified, it became clear that it could help on Earth as well. With this discovery, it is possible to neutralize isotopes and avoid

But Ivan Stepanovich Filimonenko, created by his own hands, refused to install cold thermonuclear fusion in underground cities of refuge for the party leaders of the country. The crisis in the Caribbean shows that the USSR and America were ready to get involved in a nuclear war. But they were held back by the fact that there was no such installation that could protect against the effects of radiation.

At that time, cold thermonuclear fusion was firmly associated with the name Filimonenko. The reactor produced clean energy, which would protect the party elite from radiation contamination. By refusing to give his developments into the hands of the authorities, the scientist did not give the leadership of the country a “trump card” if it had begun. Thus, Ivan Stepanovich protected the world from a global nuclear war.

Oblivion of a scientist

After the refusal of the scientist, he had to endure more than one negotiations about his developments. As a result, Filimonenko was fired from his job and stripped of all titles and regalia. And for thirty years now, a physicist who could have deduced cold thermonuclear fusion in an ordinary mug has been living with his family in a country house. All Filimonenko's discoveries could contribute huge contribution in the development of science. But, as happens in our country, his cold thermonuclear fusion, the reactor of which was created and tested in practice, was forgotten.

Ecology and its problems

Today Ivan Stepanovich deals with environmental problems, he is concerned that a catastrophe is approaching the Earth. He believes that the main reason deterioration environmental situation- This is the smoke of large cities in the airspace. In addition to exhaust gases, many objects emit harmful substances for humans: radon and krypton. And they have not yet learned how to dispose of the latter. And cold fusion, the principle of which is to absorb radiation, would help protect environment.

In addition, the features of the action of a cold fusion, according to the scientist, could save people from many diseases, would extend many times over. human life, eliminating all foci radiation. And there are a lot of those, according to Ivan Stepanovich. They are found literally at every step and even at home. According to the scientist, in ancient times people lived for centuries, and all because there was no radiation. Its installation could eliminate it, but, apparently, this will not happen soon.

Conclusion

Thus, the question of what cold thermonuclear fusion is and when it will defend humanity is quite relevant. And if this is not a myth, but a reality, then it is necessary to direct all efforts and resources to the study of this area of ​​nuclear physics. After all, in the end, a device that could produce such a reaction would be useful to everyone and everyone.

In short, cold fusion usually refers to the (supposed) nuclear reaction between the nuclei of hydrogen isotopes at low temperatures. Low temperature is about room temperature. The word "suggested" is very important here, because today there is not a single theory and not a single experiment that would indicate the possibility of such a reaction.

But if there are no theories or convincing experiments, then why is this topic so popular? To answer this question, one must understand the problems of nuclear fusion in general. Nuclear fusion (often referred to as "thermonuclear fusion") is a reaction in which light nuclei collide to form one heavy nucleus. For example, heavy hydrogen nuclei (deuterium and tritium) are converted into a helium nucleus and one neutron. This releases a huge amount of energy (in the form of heat). So much energy is released that 100 tons of heavy hydrogen would be enough to provide all of humanity with energy for a whole year (not only electricity, but also heat). It is these reactions that occur inside the stars, thanks to which the stars live.

A lot of energy is good, but there is a problem. To start such a reaction, you need to strongly collide the nuclei. To do this, you will have to heat the substance to about 100 million degrees Celsius. People know how to do it, and quite successfully. This is exactly what happens in a hydrogen bomb, where heating occurs due to the traditional nuclear explosion. The result is a thermonuclear explosion great power. But constructively use energy thermonuclear explosion not very comfortable. Therefore, scientists in many countries have been trying for more than 60 years to curb this reaction and make it manageable. To date, they have already learned how to control the reaction (for example, in ITER, holding hot plasma with electromagnetic fields), but about the same amount of energy is spent on control as is released during synthesis.

Now imagine that there is a way to run the same reaction, but at room temperature. This would be a real revolution in the energy sector. The life of mankind would change beyond recognition. In 1989, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah published a paper claiming to observe nuclear fusion at room temperature. Anomalous heat was released during the electrolysis of heavy water with a palladium catalyst. It was assumed that the hydrogen atoms were captured by the catalyst, and somehow the conditions for nuclear fusion were created. This effect is called cold nuclear fusion.

Pons and Fleischmann's article made a lot of noise. Still - the problem of energy is solved! Naturally, many other scientists have tried to reproduce their results. However, none of them succeeded. Next, physicists began to identify one error after another in the original experiment, and the scientific community came to an unambiguous conclusion about the failure of the experiment. Since then, there has been no progress in this area. But some liked the idea of ​​cold fusion so much that they are still doing it. At the same time, such scientists are not taken seriously in the scientific community, and to publish an article on the topic of cold fusion in a prestigious scientific journal most likely won't work. So far, cold fusion remains just a beautiful idea.

The scientists who made the sensational statement seemed to have a solid reputation and were quite trustworthy. Martin Fleishman, a Fellow of the Royal Society and ex-President of the International Society of Electrochemists, who immigrated to the United States from Great Britain, enjoyed international fame earned by his participation in the discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering of light. Co-discoverer Stanley Pons led chemical faculty University of Utah.

Pyroelectric cold fusion

It should be understood that cold nuclear fusion on desktop devices is not only possible, but also implemented, and in several versions. For example, in 2005 researchers from University of California in Los Angeles reported in Nature that they were able to start a similar reaction in a container of deuterium, inside which an electrostatic field was created. Its source was the tip of a tungsten needle connected to a pyroelectric lithium tantalate crystal, upon cooling and subsequent heating of which a potential difference of the order of 100–120 kV was created. A field with a strength of about 25 gigavolts / meter completely ionized deuterium atoms and accelerated its nuclei so that when they collided with a target of erbium deuteride, they gave rise to helium-3 nuclei and neutrons. The measured peak neutron flux in this case was about 900 neutrons per second (which is several hundred times higher than the typical background value).
Although such a system has certain prospects as a neutron generator, it does not make any sense to speak of it as an energy source. Both this installation and other similar devices consume much more energy than they generate at the output: in the experiments of the University of California, about 10 ^ (-8) J was released in one cooling-heating cycle lasting several minutes. This is 11 orders of magnitude less than necessary, to heat a glass of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Source of cheap energy

Fleishman and Pons claimed that they caused deuterium nuclei to fuse with each other at ordinary temperatures and pressures. Their "cold fusion reactor" was a calorimeter with an aqueous solution of salt through which an electric current was passed. True, the water was not simple, but heavy, D2O, the cathode was made of palladium, and lithium and deuterium were part of the dissolved salt. Through the solution for months non-stop passed D.C., so that oxygen was released at the anode and heavy hydrogen at the cathode. Fleishman and Pons supposedly found that the temperature of the electrolyte periodically increased by tens of degrees, and sometimes more, although the power supply provided stable power. They explained this by the inflow of intranuclear energy released during the fusion of deuterium nuclei.

Palladium has a unique ability to absorb hydrogen. Fleischman and Pons believed that inside the crystal lattice of this metal, the deuterium atoms approach so strongly that their nuclei merge into the nuclei of the main helium isotope. This process goes with the release of energy, which, according to their hypothesis, heated the electrolyte. The explanation was captivating in its simplicity and completely convinced politicians, journalists, and even chemists.

Heating accelerator. A setup used in cold fusion experiments by UCLA researchers. When a pyroelectric crystal is heated, a potential difference is created on its faces, creating an electric field of high intensity, in which deuterium ions are accelerated.

Physicists bring clarity

However, nuclear physicists and plasma physicists were in no hurry to beat the timpani. They knew perfectly well that two deuterons could, in principle, give rise to a helium-4 nucleus and a high-energy gamma-ray quantum, but the chances of such an outcome are extremely small. Even if deuterons enter into a nuclear reaction, it almost certainly ends with the birth of a tritium nucleus and a proton, or the appearance of a neutron and a helium-3 nucleus, and the probabilities of these transformations are approximately the same. If nuclear fusion really takes place inside palladium, then it should generate big number neutrons of a well-defined energy (about 2.45 MeV). They are easy to detect either directly (with the help of neutron detectors) or indirectly (because the collision of such a neutron with a heavy hydrogen nucleus should produce a gamma-quantum with an energy of 2.22 MeV, which again can be detected). In general, the Fleischman and Pons hypothesis could be confirmed using standard radiometric equipment.

However, nothing came of it. Fleischman used connections at home and persuaded the staff of the British nuclear center in Harwell to check his "reactor" for neutron generation. Harwell had ultra-sensitive detectors for these particles, but they showed nothing! The search for gamma rays of the corresponding energy also turned out to be a failure. Physicists from the University of Utah came to the same conclusion. Massachusetts staff Institute of Technology tried to reproduce the experiments of Fleishman and Pons, but again to no avail. Therefore, it is not surprising that the claim for a great discovery was crushed at the conference of the American Physical Society (APS), which was held in Baltimore on May 1 of that year.

Schematic diagram of a pyroelectric fusion setup, showing a crystal, equipotential lines, and deuterium ion trajectories. A grounded copper mesh shields the Faraday cup. The cylinder and target are charged up to +40 V to collect secondary electrons.

Sic transit gloria mundi

From this blow, Pons and Fleishman never recovered. In the newspaper New York Times a devastating article appeared, and by the end of May, the scientific community came to the conclusion that the claims of chemists from Utah were either a manifestation of extreme incompetence or an elementary scam.

But there were also dissidents, even among scientific elite. Eccentric Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger, one of the creators of quantum electrodynamics, so believed in the discovery of chemists from Salt Lake City that he canceled his membership in the AFO in protest.

However academic career Fleishman and Pons ended - quickly and ingloriously. In 1992, they left the University of Utah and continued their work in France with Japanese money, until they lost this funding as well. Fleishman returned to England, where he lives in retirement. Pons renounced his American citizenship and settled in France.

Acad. Evgeny Alexandrov

1. Introduction.
The release of energy during the fusion of light nuclei is the content of one of the two branches of nuclear energy, which has so far been implemented only in the weapons direction in the form hydrogen bomb- in contrast to the second direction associated with chain reaction fission of heavy nuclei, which is used both in the weapon incarnation and as a widely developed industrial source thermal energy. At the same time, the process of fusion of light nuclei is associated with optimistic hopes for the creation of peaceful nuclear energy with an unlimited raw material base. However, the project of a controlled thermonuclear reactor, put forward by Kurchatov 60 years ago, today seems to be an even more distant prospect than it was seen at the beginning of these studies. AT fusion reactor it is planned to carry out the synthesis of deuterium and tritium nuclei in the process of collision of nuclei in a plasma heated to many tens of millions of degrees. The high kinetic energy of the colliding nuclei should ensure that the Coulomb barrier is overcome. However, in principle, a potential barrier to the flow exothermic reaction, can be overcome without the use of high temperatures and/or high pressures, using catalytic approaches, as is well known in chemistry and even more so in biochemistry. Such an approach to the implementation of the reaction of fusion of deuterium nuclei was implemented in a series of works on the so-called "muon catalysis", a review of which is devoted to a detailed work. The process is based on the formation of a molecular ion consisting of two deuterons bound instead of an electron by a muon, an unstable particle with an electron charge and a mass of ~200 electron masses. The muon pulls together the nuclei of deuterons, bringing them closer to a distance of about 10 -12 m, which makes it highly probable (about 10 8 s -1) that the tunneling overcome the Coulomb barrier and the fusion of nuclei. Despite the great successes of this direction, it turned out to be a dead end in relation to the prospects for extracting nuclear energy due to the unprofitability of the process: the energy obtained in these ways does not pay off the costs of producing muons.
In addition to the very real mechanism of muon catalysis, over the past three decades, reports have repeatedly appeared about the allegedly successful demonstration of cold fusion under the conditions of the interaction of nuclei of hydrogen isotopes inside a metal matrix or on the surface of a solid body. The first reports of this kind were associated with the names of Fleishman, Pons and Hawkins, who studied the features of the electrolysis of heavy water in a facility with a palladium cathode, continuing electrochemical studies with hydrogen isotopes undertaken in the early 80s. Fleischman and Pons discovered the excess heat generated during the electrolysis of heavy water and wondered if this was a consequence of nuclear fusion reactions in two possible schemes:

2 D + 2 D -> 3 T(1.01 MeV) + 1 H(3.02 MeV)
Or (1)
2 D + 2 D -> 3 He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV)

These works generated great enthusiasm and a series of verification work with variable and unstable results. (In one of the recent works of this kind () it was reported, for example, about the explosion of a facility, presumably of a nuclear nature!) However, over time, the scientific community got the impression that the conclusions about the observation of "cold fusion" were dubious, mainly due to the lack of neutron output or their too small excess above the background level. This did not stop supporters of the search for "catalytic" approaches to "cold fusion". experiencing great difficulties in publishing the results of their research in respectable journals, they began to meet at regular conferences with offline publication of materials. In 2003, the tenth international conference on "cold fusion" took place, after which these meetings changed their names. In 2002, under the auspices of the SpaceandNavalWarfareSystemsCommand (SPAWAR), a two-volume collection of articles was published in the United States. In 2012, Edmund Storm's updated review "A Student's Guide to Cold Fusion" was republished with 338 references and is available online. Today, this line of work is most often referred to by the abbreviation LENR - LowEnergyNuclearReactions.

It should be noted that public confidence in the results of these studies is further undermined by individual propaganda releases in the media of reports of more than dubious sensations on this front. In Russia, there is still mass production of so-called "vortex generators" of heat (electro-mechanical water heaters) with a turnover of about billions of rubles a year. Manufacturers of these units assure consumers that these devices produce on average one and a half times more heat than they consume electricity. To explain the excess energy, they resort, among other things, to talk about cold fusion, supposedly taking place in cavitation bubbles that occur in water mills. There are currently very popular reports in the media about the Italian inventor Andrea Rossi (“with a complex biography,” as S.P. Kapitsa once said about V.I. Petrik), who demonstrates to television people an installation that catalyzes the conversion (transmutation) of nickel into copper due to, allegedly, the fusion of copper nuclei with hydrogen protons with the release of energy at the kilowatt level. The details of the device are kept secret, but it is reported that the basis of the reactor is a ceramic tube filled with nickel powder with secret additives, which is heated by current under conditions of cooling by flowing water. Hydrogen gas is fed into the tube. In this case, excessive heat generation with a power at the level of units of kilowatts is detected. Rossi promises in the near future (in 2012!) to show a generator with a capacity of ~ 1 MW. Some respectability to this venture (with a distinct flavor of scam) gives University of Bologna where it all unfolds. (In 2012, this university ceased cooperation with Rossi).

2. New experiments on "metal-crystal catalysis".
Over the past decade, the search for conditions for the occurrence of "cold fusion" has shifted from electrochemical experiments and electrical heating of samples to "dry" experiments, in which deuterium nuclei penetrate into the crystal structure of transition element metals - palladium, nickel, platinum. These experiments are relatively simple and appear to be more reproducible than those previously mentioned. Interest in these works was attracted by a recent publication in which an attempt is made to theoretically explain the phenomenon of excess heat generation during the deuteration of metals by cold nuclear fusion in the absence of the emission of neutrons and gamma quanta, which would seem to be necessary for such fusion.
In contrast to the collision of "bare" nuclei in a hot plasma, where the collision energy must overcome the Coulomb barrier that prevents the fusion of nuclei, when a deuterium nucleus penetrates into the crystal lattice of a metal, the Coulomb barrier between the nuclei is modified by the shielding action of electrons atomic shells and conduction electrons. A.N. Egorov draws attention to the specific "friability" of the deuteron nucleus, the volume of which is 125 times greater than the volume of the proton. An electron of an atom in the S-state has a maximum probability of being inside the nucleus, which leads to the effective disappearance of the charge of the nucleus, which in this case is sometimes called a "dineutron". It can be said that the deuterium atom is part of the time in such a "folded" compact state in which it is able to penetrate into other nuclei - including the nucleus of another deuteron. An additional factor, influencing the probability of approaching nuclei in the crystal lattice, are fluctuations.
Without reproducing the considerations expressed in , let us consider some of the available experimental substantiations of the hypothesis about the occurrence of cold nuclear fusion during the deuteration of transition metals. There are quite detailed description experimental techniques of the Japanese group led by Professor Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University). Arata's setup is shown in Fig. 1:

Fig1. Here, 2 is a stainless steel container containing "sample" 1, which is, in particular, a backfill (in a palladium capsule) of zirconium oxide coated with palladium (ZrO 2 -Pd); T in and T s are the positions of the thermocouples that measure the temperature of the sample and the container, respectively.
The container before the start of the experiment is warmed up and pumped out (degassed). After it is cooled to room temperature, a slow inlet of hydrogen (H 2) or deuterium (D 2) from a cylinder with a pressure of about 100 atmospheres begins. In this case, the pressure in the container and the temperature at two selected points are controlled. During the first tens of minutes of puffing, the pressure inside the container remains close to zero due to the intensive absorption of gas by the powder. In this case, a rapid heating of the sample occurs, reaching a maximum (60-70 0 C) after 15-18 minutes, after which the sample begins to cool. Shortly after this (about 20 minutes), a monotonous increase in gas pressure inside the container begins.
The authors draw attention to the fact that the dynamics of the process is noticeably different in the cases of hydrogen and deuterium injection. When hydrogen is injected (Fig. 2), the maximum temperature of 610C is reached in the 15th minute, after which cooling begins.
When deuterium is injected (Fig. 3), the maximum temperature turns out to be ten degrees higher (71 0 C) and is reached a little later - at ~ 18 minutes. The cooling dynamics also reveals some difference in these two cases: in the case of hydrogen purge, the sample and container temperatures (Tin and Ts) begin to approach earlier. So, 250 minutes after the start of hydrogen injection, the sample temperature does not differ from the container temperature and exceeds the ambient temperature by 1 0 C. In the case of deuterium injection, the sample temperature after the same 250 minutes noticeably (~ 1 0 C) exceeds the temperature container and approximately 4 0 C ambient temperature.

Fig.2 Change in time of pressure H 2 inside the container and temperatures T in and T s .

Rice. 3 Change in time pressure D 2 and temperatures T in and T s .

The authors claim that the observed differences are reproducible. Outside of these differences, the observed rapid heating of the powder is explained by the energy of the chemical interaction of hydrogen/deuterium with the metal, which forms hydride-metal compounds. The difference between the processes in the case of hydrogen and deuterium is interpreted by the authors as evidence of the occurrence in the second case (with a very low probability, of course) of the reaction of fusion of deuterium nuclei according to the scheme 2 D+ 2 D = 4 He + ~ 24 MeV. Such a reaction is absolutely improbable (of the order of 10 -6 compared with reactions (1)) in the collision of "naked" nuclei due to the need to satisfy the laws of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. However, under conditions of a solid state, such a reaction may be dominant. It is essential that this reaction does not produce fast particles, the absence (or deficiency) of which has always been considered as a decisive argument against the hypothesis of nuclear fusion. Of course, the question remains about the channel for the release of fusion energy. According to Tsyganov, under the conditions of a solid body, processes of crushing a gamma quantum into low-frequency electromagnetic and phonon excitations are possible.
Again, without delving into theoretical background hypothesis, let us return to its experimental substantiation.
As additional evidence, graphs of cooling of the "reaction" zone in more late time(outside 250 minutes), obtained with a higher temperature resolution and for different "filling" of the working fluid.
It can be seen from the figure that in the case of hydrogen puffing, starting from the 500th minute, the temperatures of the sample and container are compared with room temperature. In contrast, when deuterium is injected, by the 3000th minute, a stationary excess of the sample temperature over the temperature of the container is established, which, in turn, turns out to be noticeably warmer than room temperature (~ 1.5 0 C for the case of the ZrO 2 -Pd sample).

Rice. 4 The countdown starts from the three hundredth minute of the previous charts.

Another important evidence in favor of the occurrence of nuclear fusion should have been the appearance of helium-4 as a reaction product. Considerable attention has been paid to this issue. First of all, the authors took measures to eliminate traces of helium in the admitted gases. To do this, we used H 2 /D 2 inlet by diffusion through the palladium wall. As is known, palladium is highly permeable to hydrogen and deuterium and poorly permeable to helium. (Inlet through the diaphragm additionally slowed down the flow of gases into the reaction volume). After the reactor cooled down, the gas in it was analyzed for the presence of helium. It is stated that helium was detected during the injection of deuterium and was absent during the injection of hydrogen. The analysis was carried out by mass spectroscopy. (A quadrupole mass spectrograph was used).

On Fig. 7 shows the results of the analysis. When H 2 was admitted, neither helium nor deuterium was found in the gas or in the working substance (left column). When filling in D 2, helium was found both in the gas and in the working substance (top right - in the gas, bottom right - in the solid). (Mass spectrometrically, helium almost coincides with molecular ion deuterium).

The next slide is taken from Arata's presentation (to non-English speakers!). It contains some numerical data related to experiments and estimates. This data is not entirely clear.
The first line, apparently, contains an estimate in moles of heavy hydrogen absorbed by the powder D 2 .
The meaning of the second line seems to be reduced to an estimate of the adsorption energy of 1700 cm 3 D 2 on palladium.
The third line, apparently, contains an estimate of the "excess heat" associated with nuclear fusion - 29.2...30 kJ.
The fourth line clearly refers to the estimate of the number of synthesized atoms 4 He - 3*10 17 . (This number of created helium atoms should correspond to a much greater heat release than indicated in line 3: (3 * 10 17) - (2.4 * 10 7 eV) = 1.1 * 10 13 erg. = 1.1 MJ.).
The fifth line represents an estimate of the ratio of the number of synthesized helium atoms to the number of palladium atoms - 6.8*10 -6 . The sixth line is the ratio of the number of synthesized helium atoms and adsorbed deuterium atoms: 4.3*10 -6 .

3. On the prospects for an independent verification of reports on "metal-crystalline nuclear catalysis".
The described experiments seem to be relatively easy to replicate, since they do not require large capital investments or the use of ultra-modern research methods. The main difficulty, apparently, is related to the lack of information about the structure of the working substance and the technology of its manufacture.
When describing the working substance, the expressions “nano-powder” are used: “ZrO 2 -nano-Pd sample powders, a matrix of zirconium oxide containing palladium nanoparticles” and, at the same time, the expression “alloys” is used: “ZrO 2 Pd alloy, Pd-Zr -Ni alloy. One must think that the composition and structure of these "powders" - "alloys" play a key role in the observed phenomena. Indeed, in fig. 4, one can see significant differences in the dynamics of late cooling of these two samples. They find even greater differences in the dynamics of temperature changes during the period of their saturation with deuterium. Below, the corresponding figure is reproduced, which must be compared with similar figure 3, where ZrO 2 Pd alloy powder served as “nuclear fuel”. It can be seen that the heating period of the Pd-Zr-Ni alloy lasts much longer (almost 10 times), the temperature rise is much less, and its decline is much slower. However, a direct comparison of this figure with Fig. 3 is hardly possible, bearing in mind, in particular, the difference in the masses of the "working substance": 7 G - ZrO 2 Pd and 18.4 G - Pd-Zr-Ni.
Additional details regarding working powders can be found in the literature, in particular in.

4. Conclusion
It seems obvious that an independent reproduction of experiments already done would have great importance with any result.
What modifications of the experiments already done could be made?
It seems important to focus primarily not on measurements of excess heat release (since the accuracy of such measurements is not high), but on the most reliable detection of the appearance of helium as the most striking evidence of the occurrence of a nuclear fusion reaction.
An attempt should be made to control the amount of helium in the reactor over time, which was not done by the Japanese researchers. This is especially interesting considering the graph in Fig. 4, from which it can be assumed that the process of helium synthesis in the reactor continues indefinitely after the introduction of deuterium into it.
It seems important to study the dependence of the described processes on the reactor temperature, since the theoretical constructions take into account molecular vibrations. (You can imagine that as the temperature of the reactor rises, the likelihood of nuclear fusion increases.)
How does Yoshiaki Arata (and E.N. Tsyganov) interpret the appearance of excess heat?
They believe that in the crystal lattice of the metal there is (with a very low probability) the fusion of deuterium nuclei into helium nuclei, a process almost impossible in the collision of "naked" nuclei in the plasma. A feature of this reaction is the absence of neutrons - a pure process! (the question of the mechanism of conversion of the excitation energy of the helium nucleus into heat remains open).
Looks like it needs to be checked!

Cited Literature.
1. D. V. Balin, V. A. Ganzha, S. M. Kozlov, E. M. Maev, G. E. Petrov, M. A. Soroka, G. N. Schapkin, G.G. Semenchuk, V. A. Trofimov, A. A. Vasiliev, A. A. Vorobyov, N. I. Voropaev, C. Petitjean, B. Gartnerc, B. Laussc,1, J. Marton, J. Zmeskal, T. Case, K. M. Crowe, P. Kammel, F. J. Hartmann M. P. Faifman, High precession study of muon catalyzed fusionin D 2 and HD gases, Physics elementary particles and atomic nucleus, 2011, v. 42, issue 2.
2. Fleischmann, M., S. Pons, and M. Hawkins, Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium. J. Electroanal. Chem., 1989. 261: p. 301 and errata in Vol. 263.
3. M. Fleischmann, S. Pons. M.W. Anderson. L.J. Li, M. Hawkins, J. Electroanal. Chem. 287 (1990) 293.
4. S. Pons, M. Fleischmann, J. Chim. Phys. 93 (1996) 711.
5.W.M. Mueller, J.P. Blackledge and G.G. Libowitz, Metal Hydrides, Academic Press, New York, 1968; G. Bambakadis (Ed.), Metal Hydrides, Plenum Press, New York, 1981.
6. Jean-Paul Biberian, J. Condensed Matter Nucl. sci. 2 (2009) 1–6
7. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEastudentsg.pdf
8. E.B. Aleksandrov “Miracle mixer or a new coming perpetual motion machine”, collection “In Defense of Science”, No. 6, 2011.
9. http://www.lenr-canr.org/News.htm; http://mykola.ru/archives/2740;
http://www.atomic-energy.ru/smi/2011/11/09/28437
10. E.N. Tsyganov, COLD NUCLEAR Fusion, NUCLEAR PHYSICS, 2012, volume 75, no. 2, p. 174–180
11. A.I. Egorov, PNPI, private communication.
12. Y. Arata and Y. Zhang, "The Establishment of Solid Nuclear Fusion Reactor", J. High Temp. soc. 34, P. 85-93 (2008). (Article on Japanese, abstract in English). A summary of these experiments in English is available at
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET29-8dd54geg.shtml#...
Under the Hood: The Arata-Zhang Osaka University LENR Demonstration
By Steven B. Krivit

April 28, 2012
International Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Symposium, ILENRS-12
The College of William and Mary, Sadler Center, Williamsburg, Virginia
July 1-3, 2012
13. Publication regarding the technology of obtaining a working powder matrix:
"Hydrogen absorption of nanoscale Pd particles embedded in ZrO2 matrix prepared from Zr-Pd amorphous alloys".
Shin-ichi Yamaura, Ken-ichiro Sasamori, Hisamichi Kimura, Akihisa Inoue, Yue Chang Zhang, Yoshiaki Arata, J. Mater. Res., Vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 1329-1334, June 2002
Such an explanation seems to be initially untenable: nuclear fusion reactions are exothermic only under the condition that the mass of the nucleus of the final product remains less than the mass of the iron nucleus. For the synthesis of heavier nuclei, energy is required. Nickel is heavier than iron. A.I. Egorov suggested that in A. Rossi's installation, the reaction of helium synthesis from deuterium atoms, which are always present in hydrogen as a small impurity, takes place, with nickel playing the role of a catalyst, see below.

Alexander Prosvirnov, Moscow, Yuri L. Ratis, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, Samara

So, seven independent experts (five from Sweden and two from Italy) tested Andrea Rossi's high-temperature E-Cat apparatus and confirmed the declared characteristics. Recall that the first demonstration of the E-Cat apparatus, based on the low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) of Nickel to Copper transmutation, took place 2 years ago in November 2011.

This demonstration again, like the famous Fleischman and Pons conference in 1989, stirred up the scientific community, and renewed the debate between LENR adherents and traditionalists who vehemently deny the possibility of such reactions. Now an independent examination has confirmed that low-energy nuclear reactions (not to be confused with cold nuclear fusion (CNF), by which experts mean the fusion of nuclei in cold hydrogen) exist and allow generating thermal energy with a specific gravity 10,000 times greater than petroleum products.

2 tests were carried out: in December 2012 for 96 hours and in March 2013 for 116 hours. Next in line are six-month tests with a detailed elemental analysis of the contents of the reactor. A.Rossi's E-Cat device generates thermal energy with a specific power of 440kW/kg. For comparison, power density the energy release of the VVER-1000 reactor is 111 kW/l of the active zone or 34.8 kW/kg of fuel UO 2 ., BN-800 - 430 kW/l or ~140 kW/kg of fuel. For gas reactor AGR Hinkley-Point B - 13.1 kW/kg, HTGR-1160 - 76.5 kW/kg, for THTR-300 - 115 kW/kg. Comparison of these data is impressive - already now specific characteristics prototype LENR-reactor surpass similar parameters of the best existing and projected nuclear fission reactors.

At the Cold Fusion Section of the National Instruments Week held in Austin, Texas from August 5 to 8, 2013, greatest impression produced two golden spheres immersed in a layer of silver beads (see Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Golden spheres that release heat for days and months without external energy supply (Exemplary sphere on the left (84°C), control sphere on the right (79.6°C), aluminum bed with silver beads (80.0°C).

No heat is supplied here, there are no water flows, but the whole system remains hot at 80 0 C for days and months. It contains activated carbon, in the pores of which there is some alloy, magnetic powder, some material containing hydrogen and gaseous deuterium. It is assumed that the heat comes from the fusion D+D=4He+Y . To keep strong magnetic field the sphere contains a crushed Sm 2 Co 7 magnet, which retains its magnetic properties when high temperatures. At the end of the conference, in front of a large crowd, the sphere was cut open to show that it did not contain any tricks such as a lithium battery or burning gasoline.

More recently, NASA has created a small, cheap and safe LENR reactor. The principle of operation is the saturation of the nickel lattice with hydrogen and excitation by vibrations with frequencies of 5-30 terahertz. According to the author, the vibrations accelerate the electrons, which turn the hydrogen into compact neutral atoms that are absorbed by the nickel. In the subsequent beta decay, nickel turns into copper with the release of thermal energy. key point are slow neutrons with energies less than 1 eV. They don't create ionizing radiation and radioactive waste.

According to NASA, 1% of the world's proven reserves of nickel ore are enough to cover all the energy needs of the planet. Similar studies were carried out in other laboratories. But were these results the first?

A bit of history

Back in the 50s of the 20th century, Ivan Stepanovich Filimonenko, working at the NPO Krasnaya Zvezda in the field of space technology, discovered the effect of heat release in an electrode with palladium additives during the electrolysis of heavy water. When developing thermionic energy sources for spacecraft two directions fought: the traditional reactor based on enriched uranium and the hydrolysis unit of I.S. Filimonenko. The traditional direction won, I.S. Filimonenko was fired for political reasons. More than one generation has changed in the NPO Krasnaya Zvezda, and during a conversation of one of the authors in 2012 with the Chief Designer of the NPO, it turned out that no one knows about I.S. Filimonenko at the present time.

The topic of cold fusion resurfaced after the sensational experiments of Fleishman and Pons in 1989 (Fleishman died in 2012, Pons is now retired). The Foundation, headed by Raisa Gorbacheva, in 1990-1991 ordered, but already at the Luch pilot plant in Podolsk, the manufacture of two or three thermionic hydrolysis power plants (TEGEU) by I.S. Filimonenko. Under the leadership of I.S. Filimonenko, and with his direct participation, working documentation was developed, according to which the production of units and assembly of the installation immediately proceeded. From the conversations of one of the authors with the Deputy Director for Production and the Chief Technologist of the pilot plant (now both retired), it is known that one installation was manufactured, the prototype of which was the well-known TOPAZ installation, but I.S. Filimonenko with a low-energy nuclear reaction. Unlike Topaz, in TEGEU the fuel element was not a nuclear reactor, but a nuclear fusion unit at low temperatures (T = 1150 °), with a service life of 5-10 years without refueling (heavy water). The reactor was a metal tube 41 mm in diameter and 700 mm long, made of an alloy containing several grams of palladium. On January 17, 1992, the subcommittee of the Moscow City Council on environmental issues industry, energy, transport studied the problem of TEGEU I.S. Filimonenko, visited the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Luch, where she was shown the installation and documentation for it.

A liquid metal stand was prepared for testing the installation, but the tests were not carried out due to financial problems of the customer. The installation was shipped without testing and was kept by I.S. Filimonenko (see Fig. 2). “In 1992, the message “Demonstration thermionic installation for nuclear fusion” was born. It seems that this was the last attempt by a remarkable scientist and designer to reach out to the minds of the authorities.” . I.S. Filimonenko died on August 26, 2013. at the age of 89. The further fate of his installation is unknown. For some reason, all working drawings and working documentation were transferred to the Moscow City Council, nothing was left at the plant. Knowledge was lost, technology was lost, but it was unique, since it was based on a very real TOPAZ apparatus, which, even with a conventional nuclear reactor, was 20 years ahead of world developments, since advanced, even after 20 years, materials were used in it and technology. It's sad that so many great ideas don't make it to the end. If the fatherland does not appreciate its geniuses, their discoveries migrate to other countries.

Rice. 2 Reactor I.S. Filimonenko

Not less than interesting story happened with Anatoly Vasilyevich Vachaev. An experimenter from God, he conducted research on a plasma steam generator and accidentally obtained a large yield of powder, which included elements of almost the entire periodic table. Six years of research made it possible to create a plasma installation that produced a stable plasma torch - a plasmoid, when distilled water or a solution was passed through it in large quantities, a suspension of metal powders was formed.

It was possible to obtain a stable start-up and continuous operation for more than two days, to accumulate hundreds of kilograms of powder of various elements, to obtain melting of metals with unusual properties. In 1997, in Magnitogorsk, a follower of A.V. Vachaeva, Galina Anatolyevna Pavlova defended her thesis on the topic "Development of the fundamentals of the technology for obtaining metals from the plasma state of water-mineral systems." An interesting situation arose during the defense. The commission immediately protested as soon as they heard that all the elements are obtained from water. Then the entire commission was invited to the installation and demonstrated the whole process. After that, everyone voted unanimously.

From 1994 to 2000, the Energoniva-2 semi-industrial plant was designed, manufactured and debugged (see Fig. 3), intended for the production of polymetallic powders. One of the authors of this review (Yu.L. Ratis) still has samples of these powders. In the laboratory of A.V. Vachaev, an original technology for their processing was developed. At the same time, purposefully studied:

Transmutation of water and substances added to it (hundreds of experiments with various solutions and suspensions that were subjected to plasma exposure)

transformation harmful substances into valuable raw materials (wastewater from hazardous industries containing organic pollution, petroleum products and difficult to decompose organic compounds)

The isotopic composition of the transmuted substances (always received only stable isotopes)

Decontamination of radioactive waste ( radioactive isotopes become stable)

Direct conversion of the energy of a plasma torch (plasmoid) into electricity (operation of the installation under load without using an external power supply).


Rice. 3. Scheme of A.V. Vachaev "Energoniva-2"

The setup consists of two tubular electrodes connected by a tubular dielectric, inside which an aqueous solution flows and a plasmoid is formed inside the tubular dielectric (see Fig. 4) with a constriction in the center. The plasmoid is launched by transverse full-bodied electrodes. From measuring containers, certain doses of the test substance (tank 1), water (tank 2), special additives (tank 3) enter the mixer 4. Here the pH value of the water is adjusted to 6. From the mixer, after thorough mixing with a flow rate that ensures the speed of the medium in within 0.5 .. .0.55 m/s, the working medium is introduced into the reactors 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, connected in series, but enclosed in a single coil 6 (solenoid). The products of treatment (water-gas medium) were poured into a hermetic sump 7 and cooled to 20°C by a coil cooler 11 and a stream of cold water. The water-gas medium in the sump was divided into gas 8, liquid 9 and solid 10 phases, collected in appropriate containers and transferred to chemical analysis. A measuring vessel 12 determined the mass of water that passed through the refrigerator 11, and mercury thermometers 13 and 14 - the temperature. The temperature of the working mixture was also measured before it entered the first reactor, and the flow rate of the mixture was determined by the volumetric method from the emptying rate of the mixer 4 and the readings of the water meter.

During the transition to the processing of waste and effluents from industries, human waste products, etc., it was found that new technology of obtaining metals retains its advantages, allowing to exclude mining, enrichment, redox processes from the technology of obtaining metals. It should be noted the absence of radioactive radiation, both during the implementation of the process and at the end of it. There are also no gas emissions. The liquid product of the reaction, water, at the end of the process meets the requirements for fire and drinking. But it is advisable to reuse this water, i.e. it is possible to perform a multi-stage unit "Energoniva" (optimally - 3) with the production of about 600-700 kg of metal powders from 1 ton of water. Experimental verification showed the stable operation of a sequential cascade system consisting of 12 stages with a total yield of ferrous metals of the order of 72%, non-ferrous - 21% and non-metals - up to 7%. Percentage chemical composition powder roughly corresponds to the distribution of elements in the earth's crust. Initial research it was found that the output of a certain (target) element is possible by regulating the electrical parameters of the plasmoid power supply. It is worth paying attention to the use of two operating modes of the installation: metallurgical and energy. The first, with the priority of obtaining metal powder, and the second, - obtaining electrical energy.

During the synthesis of metal powder, electrical energy is generated, which must be removed from the installation. The amount of electrical energy is estimated at approximately 3 MWh per 1 m3/cu. water and depends on the mode of operation of the installation, the diameter of the reactor and the amount of accumulated powder.

This type Plasma combustion is achieved by changing the shape of the discharge stream. When the shape of a symmetric hyperboloid of rotation reaches, at the pinch point, the energy density is maximum, which contributes to the passage of nuclear reactions (see Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Plasmoid Vachaev

The processing of radioactive waste (especially liquid) in Energoniva facilities can open a new stage in the technological chain of nuclear energy. The Energoniva process runs almost silently, with minimal heat and gas phase release. An increase in noise (up to a crackle and a "roar"), as well as a sharp increase in the temperature and pressure of the working medium in the reactors, indicate a violation of the process, i.e. about the occurrence instead of the required discharge of a conventional thermal electric arc in one or all reactors.

A normal process is when an electrically conductive discharge occurs in the reactor between the tubular electrodes in the form of a plasma film, which forms a multidimensional figure such as a hyperboloid of revolution with a pinch with a diameter of 0.1 ... 0.2 mm. The film has a high electrical conductivity, translucent, luminous, up to 10-50 microns thick. Visually, it is observed during the manufacture of the reactor vessel from plexiglass or through the ends of the electrodes, plugged with plexiglass plugs. The aqueous solution "flows" through the "plasmoid" in the same way as " fireball» passes through any obstacles . A.V. Vachaev died in 2000. The installation was dismantled and the "know-how" was lost. For 13 years, the initiative groups of Energoniva followers have been unsuccessfully storming the results of A.V. Vachaev, but "things are still there." Academic Russian science declared these results "pseudo-science" without any verification in their laboratories. Even samples of powders obtained by A.V. Vachaev were not examined and are still stored in his laboratory in Magnitogorsk without movement.

Historical digression

The above events did not happen suddenly. On the way to the discovery of LENR, they were preceded by major historical milestones:

In 1922, Wendt and Airion studied the electric explosion of a thin tungsten wire - about one cubic centimeter of helium was released (at normal conditions) in one shot.

Wilson in 1924 suggested that conditions sufficient to start a thermonuclear reaction with the participation of ordinary deuterium contained in water vapor can form in the lightning channel, and such a reaction proceeds with the formation of only He 3 and a neutron.

In 1926, F. Panetz and K. Peters (Austria) announced the generation of He in a fine powder of Pd saturated with hydrogen. But due to general skepticism, they withdrew their result, admitting that it could not have been out of thin air.

In 1927, the Swede J. Tandberg generated He by electrolysis with Pd electrodes, and even filed a patent for obtaining He. In 1932, after the discovery of deuterium, he continued experiments with D 2 O. The patent was rejected, because. the physics of the process was not clear.

In 1937, L.U. Alvarets discovered electronic capture.

In 1948 - a report by A.D. Sakharov "Passive mesons" on muon catalysis.

In 1956, a lecture by I.V. Kurchatova: “Pulses caused by neutrons and X-ray quanta can be accurately phased on oscillograms. It turns out that they occur simultaneously. The energy of X-ray quanta, which appear during pulsed electrical processes in hydrogen and deuterium, reaches 300 - 400 keV. It should be noted that at the moment when quanta with such great energy, the voltage applied to the discharge tube is only 10 kV. Assessing the prospects various directions, which can lead to the solution of the problem of obtaining thermonuclear reactions of high intensity, we cannot now completely exclude further attempts to achieve this goal by using pulsed discharges.

In 1957 in nuclear center in Berkeley, under the leadership of L.U. Alvarets, the phenomenon of muon catalysis of nuclear fusion reactions in cold hydrogen was discovered.

In 1960, a review by Ya.B. Zeldovich (academician, three times Hero socialist labor) and S. S. Gershtein (academician) under the title "Nuclear Reactions in Cold Hydrogen".

The theory of beta decay into a bound state was created in 1961 by

In the laboratories of Philipps and Eindhoven, it was noticed in 1961 that the radioactivity of tritium is greatly reduced after absorption by titanium. And in the case of 1986 palladium, neutron emission was observed.

In the 50s-60s in the USSR, within the framework of the implementation of Government Decree No. 715/296 dated July 23, 1960, I.S. Filimonenko created a hydrolysis power plant designed to obtain energy from “warm” nuclear fusion reactions occurring at temperature of only 1150 °C.

In 1974 the Belarusian scientist Sergey Usherenko experimentally established
that impact particles 10-100 microns in size, accelerated to a speed of about 1 km / s, pierced through a steel target 200 mm thick, leaving a melted channel, while energy was released an order of magnitude greater than the kinetic energy of the particles.

In the 80s, B.V. Bolotov, while in prison, created a reactor from a conventional welding machine, where he obtained valuable metals from sulfur.

In 1986, Academician B.V. Deryagin and his colleagues published an article in which the results of a series of experiments on the destruction of heavy ice with a metal striker.

On June 12, 1985, June Steven Jones and Clinton Van Siclen published an article "Piezonuclear fusion in isotopic hydrogen molecules" in the Journal of Phvsics.

Jones had been working on piezonuclear fusion since 1985, but it wasn't until the fall of 1988 that his group was able to build detectors sensitive enough to measure the weak neutron flux.

Pons and Fleischmann, they say, began work at their own expense in 1984. But it wasn't until the fall of 1988, after enlisting student Marvin Hawkins, that they began to study the phenomenon in terms of nuclear reactions.

By the way, Julian Schwinger supported cold fusion autumn 1989 after numerous negative publications. He submitted "Cold Fusion: A Hypothesis" to Physical Review Letters, but the paper was so rudely rejected by the reviewer that Schwinger, feeling offended, left the American Physical Society (publisher of PRL) in protest.

1994-2000 - A.V. Vachaev's experiments with the Energoniva installation.

Adamenko in the 90s - 2000s conducted thousands of experiments with coherent electron beams. Within 100 ns during compression, intense X-ray and Y-rays are observed with energies from 2.3 keV to 10 MeV with a maximum of 30 keV. The total dose at energies of 30.100 keV exceeded 50.100 krad at a distance of 10 cm from the center. Synthesis of light isotopes was observed1<А<240 и трансурановых элементов 250<А<500 вблизи зоны сжатия. Преобразование радиоактивных элементов в стабильные означает трансмутацию в стабильные изотопы 1018 нуклидов (e.g., 60Со) с помощью 1 кДж энергии .

At the end of the 1990s, L.I. Urutskoev (the RECOM company, a subsidiary of the Kurchatov Institute) obtained unusual results of the electric explosion of titanium foil in water. The working element of Urutskoev's experimental setup consisted of a strong polyethylene beaker, into which distilled water was poured, and a thin titanium foil welded to titanium electrodes was immersed in the water. A current pulse from a capacitor bank was passed through the foil. The energy that was discharged through the installation was about 50 kJ, the discharge voltage was 5 kV. The first thing that caught the attention of the experimenters was a strange luminous plasma formation that appeared above the lid of the glass. The lifetime of this plasma formation was about 5 ms, which was much longer than the discharge time (0.15 ms). It followed from the analysis of the spectra that the basis of the plasma is Ti, Fe (even the weakest lines are observed), Cu, Zn, Cr, Ni, Ca, Na .

In the 90s-2000s, Krymsky V.V. studies of the effect of nanosecond electromagnetic pulses (NEMI) on the physical and chemical properties of substances have been carried out.

2003 - publication of the monograph "Interconversions of chemical elements" by V.V. Krymsky. with co-authors, edited by academician Balakirev VF with a description of the processes and installations of transmutation of elements.

In 2006-2007 the Italian Ministry of Economic Development established a research program for energy recovery around 500%.

In 2008 Arata, in front of an astonished audience, demonstrated the release of energy and the formation of helium, not provided for by the known laws of physics.

In 2003-2010 Shadrin Vladimir Nikolaevich. (1948-2012) at the Siberian Chemical Plant carried out induced transmutation of beta-active isotopes, which represent the greatest danger in radioactive waste contained in spent fuel rods. The effect of an accelerated decrease in the beta activity of the studied radioactive samples was obtained.

In 2012-2013, the group of Yu.N. Bazhutov received a 7-fold excess of the output power during plasma electrolysis.

In November 2011, A. Rossi demonstrated a 10 kW E-Cat apparatus, in 2012 - a 1 MW installation, in 2013 his apparatus was tested by a group of independent experts.

Classification LENR installations

Currently known settings and effects with LENR can be classified according to Fig. 5.

Rice. 5 Classification of LENR installations

Briefly about the situation with each installation, we can say the following:

E-Cat Rossi installation - a demonstration was carried out, a serial copy was made, a brief independent examination of the installation was carried out with confirmation of the characteristics, then a 6-month test, there is a problem of obtaining a patent and a certificate.

Hydrogenation of titanium is carried out by S.A. Tsvetkov in Germany (at the stage of obtaining a patent and searching for an investor in Bavaria) and A.P. Khrishchanovich, first in Zaporozhye, and now in Moscow at the NEWINFLOW company.

Saturation of the crystal lattice of palladium with deuterium (Arata) - the authors do not have new data since 2008.

TEGEU installation by I.S. Filimonenko - disassembled (I.S. Filimonenko died on 26.08.2013).

Hyperion installation (Defkalion) - a joint report with PURDUE University (Indiana) at ICCF-18 with a description of the experiment and an attempt at theoretical justification.

Piantelli installation - April 18, 2012 at the 10th International Seminar on Anomalous Dissolution of Hydrogen in Metals, the results of the experiment with Nickel-hydrogen reactions were reported. With a cost of 20W, 71W was obtained at the output.

Brillion Energy Corporation Plant in Berkeley, California - Demonstration Unit (watts) built and demonstrated. The company officially announced that it had developed an industrial heater based on LENR and submitted it for testing to one of the universities.

Mills plant based on hydrinos - about $500 million was spent from private investors, a multi-volume monograph with theoretical justification was published, the invention of a new energy source based on the conversion of hydrogen into hydrinos was patented.

Installation "ATANOR" (Italy) - "open source" project (free knowledge) LENR "hydrobetatron.org" based on the installation Atanor (similar to Martin Fleishman's project) was opened.

Celani installation from Italy - demonstration at all recent conferences.

Kirkinsky's deuterium heat generator - dismantled (needed a room)

Saturation of tungsten bronzes with deuterium (K.A.Kaliev) - an official expert opinion was obtained on the detection of neutrons during saturation of tungsten bronze films at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and a patent in Russia. The author himself died several years ago.

Glow discharge by A.B. Karabut and I.B. Savvatimova - experiments at NPO Luch have been stopped, but similar studies are being carried out abroad. So far, the advance of Russian scientists remains, but our researchers are redirected by the leadership to more mundane tasks.

Koldamasov (Volgodonsk) went blind and retired. Studies of its cavitation effect are carried out in Kyiv by V.I.Vysotsky.

The group of L.I.Urutskoev moved to Abkhazia.

According to some information, Krymsky V.V. conducts research on the transmutation of radioactive waste by the action of nanosecond high-voltage pulses.

The generator of artificial plasmoid formations (IPO) of V. Kopeikin burned down and no funds are foreseen for restoration. Tesla's three-circuit generator, assembled by the efforts of V. Kopeikin to demonstrate artificial ball lightning, is in working order, but there is no room with the required energy supply of 100 kW.

Yu.N. Bazhutov's group continues experiments with its own limited funds. F.M.Kanarev was fired from the Krasnodar Agrarian University.

A.B. Karabut's high-voltage electrolysis plant is only in the project.

Generator B.V. They are trying to sell Bolotov in Poland.

According to some reports, Klimov's group at NEWINFLOW (Moscow) received a 6-fold excess of output power over costs at their plasma-vortex installation.

Recent events (experiments, seminars, conferences)

The struggle of the commission on pseudo-science with cold nuclear fusion has borne fruit. For more than 20 years, official works on the topic of LENR and CNS were banned in the laboratories of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and refereed journals did not accept articles on this topic. However, “the ice has been broken, gentlemen, jurors,” and articles have appeared in refereed journals describing the results of low-energy nuclear reactions.

Recently, some Russian researchers have managed to obtain interesting results that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. For example, a group from FIAN conducted an experiment with high-voltage discharges in air. In the experiment, a voltage of 1 MV, a current in air of 10–15 kA, and an energy of 60 kJ were achieved. The distance between the electrodes was 1 m. Thermal, fast neutrons and neutrons with energy > 10 MeV were measured. Thermal neutrons were measured by the reaction 10 B + n = 7 Li (0.8 MeV) + 4 He (2 MeV) and tracks of α-particles with a diameter of 10-12 μm were measured. Neutrons with energies > 10 MeV were measured by the reaction 12 C + n = 3 α+n' Simultaneously, neutrons and X-rays were measured by a scintillation detector 15 x 15 cm 2 and 5.5 cm thick. Here, neutrons were always recorded together with X-rays (see Fig. 6).

In discharges with a voltage of 1 MV and a current of 10-15 kA, a significant flux of neutrons from thermal to fast was observed. At present, there is no satisfactory explanation for the origin of neutrons, especially with energies greater than 10 MeV.


Rice. 6 Results of the study of high-voltage discharges in air. (a) neutron flux, (b) oscillograms of voltage, current, x-rays and neutrons.

A seminar was held at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research JINR (Dubna) on the topic: “Are those who consider the science of cold nuclear fusion a pseudoscience right?”

The report was presented by Ignatovich Vladimir Kazimirovich, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Senior Researcher. Laboratory of Neutron Physics JINR. The report with discussions lasted about an hour and a half. In the main, the speaker made a historical review of the most striking works on the topic of low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) and gave the results of tests of A. Rossi's installation by independent experts. One of the goals of the report was an attempt to draw the attention of researchers and colleagues to the LENR problem and show that it is necessary to start research on this topic at the JINR Laboratory of Neutron Physics.

In July 2013, the international conference on cold fusion ICCF-18 was held in Missouri (USA). The presentations of 43 reports can be found, they are freely available, and the links are posted on the website of the Association for Cold Transmutation of Nuclei and Ball Lightning (CNT and CMM) www. lenr . seplm.ru in the "Conferences" section. The main leitmotif of the speakers was that there was no doubt left, LENR exists and a systematic study of physical phenomena discovered and hitherto unknown to science is required.

In October 2013 in Loo (Sochi) the Russian Conference of Cold Transmutation of Nuclei and Ball Lightning (RKCTNaiSMM) was held. Half of the submitted reports were not presented due to the lack of speakers for various reasons: death, illness, lack of funds. Rapid aging and the lack of "fresh blood" (young researchers) will sooner or later lead to a complete decline in research on this topic in Russia.

"Strange" radiation

Almost all cold fusion researchers have obtained very strange tracks on targets that cannot be identified with any known particle. At the same time, these tracks (see Fig. 7) strikingly resemble each other in qualitatively different experiments, from which we can conclude that their nature can be the same.

Rice. 7 Tracks from "strange" radiation (S.V.Adamenko and D.S.Baranov)

Each researcher calls them differently:
"Strange" radiation;
Erzion (Yu.N. Bazhutov);
Neutronium and dineutronium (Yu.L. Ratis);
Ball micro lightning (V.T. Grinev);
Superheavy elements with a mass number of more than 1000 units (S.V.Adamenko);
Isomers - clusters of close-packed atoms (D.S. Baranov);
Magnetic monopoles;
Dark matter particles are 100-1000 times heavier than a proton (predicted by academician V.A. Rubakov),

It should be noted that the mechanism of the effect of this "strange" radiation on biological objects is unknown. No one did this, but there are many facts of incomprehensible deaths. I.S. Filimonenko believes that only the dismissal and termination of experiments saved him, all his work colleagues died much earlier than him. A.V. Vachaev was very ill, by the end of his life he practically did not get up and died at the age of 60. Of the 6 people involved in plasma electrolysis, five people died, and one remained disabled. There is evidence that electroplating workers do not live past the age of 44, but no one has separately investigated what role chemistry plays in this, and whether there is an effect from "strange" radiation in this process. The processes of the impact of "strange" radiation on biological objects have not yet been studied, and researchers must exercise extreme caution when conducting experiments.

Theoretical developments

About a hundred theorists have tried to describe the processes in LENR, but not a single work has received universal recognition. The theory of Erzion Yu.N. Bazhutov, the permanent chairman of the annual Russian conferences on cold transmutation of nuclei and ball lightning, the theory of exotic electroweak processes of Yu.L. .

In the theory of Yu.L.Ratis, it is assumed that there is a certain “neutronium exoatom”, which is an extremely narrow low-lying resonance in the cross section of elastic electron-proton scattering, due to a weak interaction that causes the transition of the initial state of the “electron plus proton” system into a virtual neutron -neutrino pair. Due to the small width and amplitude, this resonance cannot be detected in a direct experiment on ep- scattering. The presence of a third particle in the collision of an electron with a hydrogen atom leads to the fact that the Green's function of the hydrogen atom in an excited intermediate state enters the expression for the cross section for the production of "neutronium" under the integral sign. As a result, the width of the resonance in the cross section for neutron production in the collision of an electron with a hydrogen atom is 14 orders of magnitude greater than the width of a similar resonance in an elastic ep- scattering, and its properties can be investigated in the experiment. An estimate of the size, lifetime, energy threshold, and neutron production cross section is given. It is shown that the threshold for the production of neutrons is much lower than the threshold for thermonuclear reactions. This means that neutron-like nuclear-active particles can be created in the ultra-low energy region, and, therefore, cause nuclear reactions similar to those caused by neutrons, precisely when nuclear reactions with charged particles are forbidden by the high Coulomb barrier.

Place LENR installations in the general energy production

In accordance with the concept, in the future energy system, the main sources of electrical and thermal energy will be many points of small capacity distributed over the network, which fundamentally contradicts the existing paradigm in the nuclear industry to increase the unit capacity of a power unit in order to reduce the unit cost of capital investments. In this regard, the LENR installation is very flexible, and A. Rossi demonstrated this when he placed more than a hundred of his 10 kW installations in a standard container to obtain 1 MW of power. The success of A. Rossi in comparison with other researchers is based on the engineering approach of creating a commercial product on a 10 kW scale, while other researchers continue to "surprise the world" with effects at the level of several watts.

Based on the concept, the following requirements for new technologies and energy sources from future consumers can be formulated:

Safety, no radiation;
Waste-free, no radioactive waste;
cycle efficiency;
Easy disposal;
Proximity to the consumer;
Scalability and embeddability in a SMART network.

Can traditional nuclear power engineering on the (U, Pu, Th) cycle meet these requirements? No, given its shortcomings:

Required security is unattainable or leads to loss of competitiveness;

"Verigi" SNF and RW are dragged into the zone of non-competitiveness, the technology of SNF processing and RW storage is imperfect and requires irreplaceable costs today;

The efficiency of fuel use is no more than 1%, the transition to fast reactors will increase this coefficient, but will lead to an even greater increase in the cost of the cycle and loss of competitiveness;

The efficiency of the thermal cycle leaves much to be desired and is almost 2 times lower than the efficiency of steam-gas plants (CCGT);

the “shale” revolution can lead to a decrease in gas prices on world markets and move nuclear power plants to the non-competitive zone for a long time;

NPP decommissioning is unreasonably expensive and requires a long holding time before the NPP dismantling process (additional costs are required for maintaining the facility during the holding process until the NPP equipment is dismantled).

At the same time, taking into account the above, we can conclude that LENR-based plants meet modern requirements in almost all respects and sooner or later will force traditional nuclear power plants out of the market, as they are more competitive and safer. The winner will be the one who enters the market with commercial LENR devices earlier.

Anatoly Chubais joined the board of directors of the American research company Tri Alpha Energy Inc., which is trying to create a nuclear fusion plant based on the reaction of 11 V with a proton. Financial magnates already "feel" the future prospects of nuclear fusion.

“Lockheed Martin caused quite a stir in the nuclear industry (though not in our country, as the industry remains in the “holy ignorance”) when it announced plans to begin work on a fusion reactor. Speaking at the Google "Solve X" conference on February 7, 2013, Dr. Charles Chase of Lockheed Skunk Works said that a prototype 100-megawatt nuclear fusion reactor would be tested in 2017, and that the plant should be fully plugged into the grid. After ten years"
(http://americansecurityproject.org/blog/2013/lockheed-martin...on-reactor/). A very optimistic statement for an innovative technology, one can say fantastic for us, given that in our country a power unit of the 1979 project is being built in such a period of time. However, there is a public perception that Lockheed Martin generally does not make public announcements about "Skunk Works" projects unless there is a high degree of confidence in their chances of success.

So far, no one guesses what kind of "stone in the bosom" is kept by the Americans, who came up with the technology for extracting shale gas. This technology is operable only in the geological conditions of North America and is completely unsuitable for Europe and Russia, as it threatens to infect water layers with harmful substances and completely destroy drinking resources. With the help of the "shale revolution" Americans win the main resource of our time - time. The "shale revolution" gives them a break and time to gradually transfer the economy to a new energy track, where nuclear fusion will play a decisive role, and all other countries that are late will remain on the outskirts of civilization.

The American Security Project Association (AMERICAN SECURITY PROJECT -ASP) (http://americansecurityproject.org/) has released a white paper with the promising title Fusion Energy - A 10-Year Plan for Energy Security. In the preface, the authors write that America's (USA) energy security is based on a fusion reaction: “We must develop energy technologies that enable the economy to demonstrate America's power for next-generation technologies that are also clean, safe, reliable, and unlimited. One technology offers great promise in meeting our needs - this is the energy of fusion. We are talking about national security, when within 10 years it is necessary to demonstrate prototypes of commercial installations for fusion reactions. This will pave the way for a full scale commercial development that will drive American prosperity over the next century. It is still too early to say which approach is the most promising way to realize the energy of fusion, but having multiple approaches increases the likelihood of success.”

Through its research, the American Security Project (ASP) found that more than 3,600 businesses and suppliers support the fusion energy industry in the United States, in addition to 93 research and development institutions located in 47 of the 50 states. The authors believe that $30 billion over the next 10 years is enough for the United States to demonstrate the practical applicability of nuclear fusion energy in industry.

To speed up the process of developing commercial nuclear fusion facilities, the authors propose the following activities:

1. Appoint a nuclear fusion energy commissioner to streamline research management.

2. Start building Component Test Facility (CTF) to accelerate progress in materials and scientific knowledge.

3. Conduct research on fusion energy in several parallel ways.

4. Dedicate more resources to existing fusion energy research facilities.

5. Experiment with new and innovative power plant designs

6. Fully cooperate with the private sector

This is a kind of strategic action program, akin to the "Manhattan Project", because these tasks are comparable in terms of the scale and complexity of its solution. In their opinion, the inertia of state programs and the imperfection of regulatory standards in the field of nuclear fusion can significantly delay the date of the industrial introduction of nuclear fusion energy. Therefore, they propose that the Commissioner for Fusion Energy be given the right to vote at the highest levels of government and that his functions be the coordination of all research and the creation of a system of regulation (norms and rules) for nuclear fusion.

The authors state that the technology of the international thermonuclear reactor ITER in Cadarache (France) cannot guarantee commercialization before the middle of the century, and inertial thermonuclear fusion not earlier than in 10 years. From this, they conclude that the current situation is unacceptable and there is a threat to national security from developing areas of clean energy. “Our energy dependence on fossil fuels poses a national security risk, restricts our foreign policy, contributes to the threat of climate change and undermines our economy. America must develop fusion energy at an accelerated pace."

They argue that the time has come to repeat the Apollo program, but in the field of nuclear fusion. Just as the once fantastic goal of landing a man on the moon sparked thousands of innovations and scientific achievements, so now it is necessary to exert national efforts to achieve the goal of commercialization of the energy of nuclear fusion.

For commercial use of a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction, materials must withstand months and years, rather than seconds and minutes as currently mandated by ITER.

The authors assess the alternative directions as highly risky, but immediately note that significant technological breakthroughs are possible in them, and they must be funded on an equal basis with the main areas of research.

They conclude by listing at least 10 monumental US benefits from the Apollo fusion energy program:

"one. A clean energy source that will revolutionize the energy system in an era when fossil fuel supplies are declining.
2. New sources for basic energy that can solve the climate crisis in a reasonable timeframe to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
3. Creation of high-tech industries that will bring huge new sources of income for leading American industrial enterprises, thousands of new jobs.
4. Creating exportable technology that will allow America to capture a portion of the $37 trillion. investment in energy in the coming decades.
5. Spin-off innovations in high-tech industries such as robotics, supercomputers, and superconducting materials.
6. American leadership in exploring new scientific and engineering frontiers. Other countries (eg China, Russia and South Korea) have ambitious plans to develop fusion power. As a pioneer in this emerging field, the US will increase the competitiveness of American products.
7. Freedom from fossil fuels, which will allow the US to conduct foreign policy in accordance with its values ​​and interests, and not in accordance with commodity prices.
8. An incentive for young Americans to receive a science education.
9. A new source of energy that will ensure America's economic viability and global leadership in the 21st century, just as America's vast resources helped us in the 20th.
10. An opportunity to finally de-dependence on energy sources for economic growth, which will bring economic prosperity.”

In conclusion, the authors write that in the coming decades, America will face energy problems, as part of the capacity at nuclear power plants will be decommissioned and dependence on fossil fuels will only increase. They see a way out only in a full-scale nuclear fusion research program, similar in scope to the goals and national efforts of the Apollo space program.

Program LENR research

In 2013, the Sidney Kimmel Institute for Nuclear Renaissance (SKINR) was opened in Missouri, aimed entirely at researching low-energy nuclear reactions. The research program of the institute, presented at the last July 2013 conference on cold fusion ICCF-18:

Gas reactors:
-Celani replication
-High temperature reactor / calorimeter
Electrochemical cells:
Development of cathodes (many options)
Self-Assembling Pd Nanoparticle Cathodes
Pd-coated carbon nanotube cathodes
Artificially structured Pd cathodes
New alloy compositions
Doping additives for nanoporous Pd electrodes
Magnetic fields-
Local ultrasonic surface stimulation
glow discharge
Hydrogen penetration kinetics
Radiation detection

Relevant Research
neutron scattering
MeV and keV bombardment D on Pd
Thermal shock TiD2
Thermodynamics of Hydrogen absorption at high pressure/temperature
Diamond radiation detectors
Theory
The following possible preferences for low-energy nuclear research in Russia can be suggested:
To resume after half a century research by the group of I.V. Kurchatov on discharges in a hydrogen and deuterium medium, especially since research is already being carried out on high-voltage discharges in air.
Restore the installation of I.S. Filimonenko and conduct comprehensive tests.
Expand research on the Energoniva installation by A.V. Vachaev.
Solve the riddle of A. Rossi (hydrogenation of nickel and titanium).
Investigate the processes of plasma electrolysis.
Investigate the processes of the Klimov vortex plasmoid.
To study individual physical phenomena:
Behavior of hydrogen and deuterium in metal lattices (Pd, Ni, Ti, etc.);
Plasmoids and long-lived artificial plasma formations (IPOs);
Shoulders charge clusters;
Processes in the installation "Plasma focus";
Ultrasonic initiation of cavitation processes, sonoluminescence.
Expand theoretical research, search for an adequate mathematical model of LENR.

At one time at the Idaho National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s, 45 small test facility facilities laid the foundation for the full-scale commercialization of nuclear power. Without such an approach, it is difficult to count on success in the commercialization of LENR installations. It is necessary to create test facilities like Idaho as the basis for future energy at LENR. American analysts have proposed the construction of small CTF experimental facilities that study key materials under extreme conditions. Research at CTF will increase understanding of materials science and may lead to technological breakthroughs.

The unlimited funding of the Minsredmash in the era of the USSR created inflated human and infrastructure resources, entire single-industry towns, as a result, there is a problem of loading them with tasks and maneuvering human resources in single-industry towns. The monster of Rosatom will not feed only the electricity sector (NPP), it is necessary to diversify activities, develop new markets and technologies, otherwise, layoffs, unemployment, and with them social tension and instability will follow.

The huge infrastructural and intellectual resources of the nuclear industry are either idle - there is no all-consuming idea, or they are performing private small tasks. A full-fledged LENR research program can become the backbone of future industry research and a source of downloads for all existing resources.

Conclusion

The facts of the presence of low-energy nuclear reactions can no longer be dismissed as before. They require serious testing, rigorous scientific proof, a full-scale research program and theoretical justification.

It is impossible to predict exactly which direction in nuclear fusion research will “shoot” first or will be decisive in future energy: low-energy nuclear reactions, the Lockheed Martin facility, the Tri Alpha Energy Inc. reversed field facility, the Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc. dense plasma focus, or electrostatic plasma confinement from the Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC 2). But it can be confidently asserted that the key to success can only be a variety of directions in the study of nuclear fusion and transmutation of nuclei. The concentration of resources in only one direction can lead to a dead end. The world in the 21st century has changed radically, and if the end of the 20th century is characterized by a boom in information and communication technologies, then the 21st century will be a century of revolution in the energy sector, and there is nothing to do with the projects of nuclear reactors of the last century, unless, of course, you associate yourself with backward third world tribes.

There is no national idea in the field of scientific research in the country, there is no pivot on which science and research would rest. The idea of ​​controlled thermonuclear fusion based on the Tokamak concept with huge financial injections and zero return discredited not only itself, but the very idea of ​​nuclear fusion, shook faith in a bright energy future and serves as a brake on alternative research. Many analysts in the United States predict a revolution in this area, and the task of those who determine the strategy for the development of the industry is not to "miss" this revolution, as they have already missed the "shale" revolution.

The country needs an innovative project similar to the Apollo program, but in the energy sector, a kind of "Atomic Project-2" (not to be confused with the "Breakthrough" project), which will mobilize the country's innovative potential. A full-fledged research program in the field of low-energy nuclear reactions will solve the problems of traditional nuclear energy, get off the “oil and gas” needle and ensure independence from fossil fuel energy.

"Atomic Project - 2" will allow based on scientific and engineering solutions:
Develop sources of "clean" and safe energy;
To develop a technology for industrial cost-effective production of the required elements in the form of nanopowders from various raw materials, aqueous solutions, industrial waste and human life;
Develop cost-effective and safe power generating devices for direct electricity generation;
To develop safe technologies for the transmutation of long-lived isotopes into stable elements and solve the problem of radioactive waste disposal, that is, solve the problems of the existing nuclear energy.

source proatom.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&...