Chemists discover new form of "hot" fusion

Three chemists at Brookhaven National Laboratory claimed last week to have achieved nuclear fusion by an entirely new method that involves bombarding a solid deuterium- containing target with what essentially are microscopic heavywater ice crystals. The fusion of two deuterium nuclei under these conditions, they said, occurs at a low level and is signaled by the production of high-energy protons and tritium and helium-3 nuclei. The Brookhaven chemists, Robert J. Beuhler Jr., Gerhart Friedlander, and Lewis Friedman, call their discovery "cluster impact fusion." It is not a form of "cold fusion," they note, because the nuclear events occur at energies corresponding to hundreds of thousands of degrees. Brookhaven has applied for a patent on the process, although commercial implications are uncertain. The scientific community's response has been cautious, no doubt tempered by the controversy earlier this year when University of Utah chemists claimed a fusion "breakthrough" at room temperature but were unable ...