Follow-up Q18: resonating with atoms to harvest their energy

Date: 2026-10-08. Investigator: STEP F follow-up investigator (Opus). Web time: about 5 minutes (timer 254 s at the last web call; Chrome plus scripted fetches of open APIs).

The question (owner's words)

Resonating with atoms: if someone could resonate with electrons or nucleons, could their energy be harvested? Resonance can only release energy already stored out of equilibrium. Which candidates are real: triggered nuclear isomers (Collins's hafnium-178m2 claim, 1999, and the failed repeats; the disputed molybdenum-93m result, Nature 2018), resonant photofission of uranium and thorium (Moray's U3O8 booklet), nuclear excitation by electron transition? What would each leave behind (radiation, fission products) that witnesses would have noticed?

Stance: STEP F, as the Investigator. This note reports what the sources say and the arithmetic that connects them; it does not issue verdicts on Moray's claims (that is the reviewers' job).

What Moray wrote that the question turns on

• Isotopes in Ionic Recovery of U3O8 (booklet, after 1959), p.3: "Transmutation, Activation, and Fission are essentially one in the same reaction depending on the condition of the material receiving the action and the emanation received", with neutron-capture reaction schemes (A + n = B + p; A + n = B + C + 2n) [read: _text p.3].
• Same, p.22: a figure labelled "1800 K.V. X-RAYS (GAMMA RAYS)", "40 KV X-RAYS", "10 KV X-RAYS" (Compton and photoelectric ionization, copied from Glasser's Medical Physics, see A08) [read: p.22].
• Same, p.23: "the frequency of the current and the wave length of the ray or rays must harmonize so as to blend or synchronize with the natural frequency or wave length of the substance treated", a "superultra sonic reaction" [read: p.23].
• Same, p.24: "By applying combinations of certain frequencies generated from specially constructed tubes and applying rays from other especially constructed tubes to the solution, a catalytic reaction is obtained similar to the action of meson from cosmic rays on fission materials" [read: p.24].
• Same, p.26: "By hastening nature's process the time of change may be shortened from many years to a few days and low grade ore matured into an ore of higher crystalline content" (the claimed process speeds up the uranium decay series) [read: p.26].
• Same, p.34: "This is not a refining method at all. The sylicate sand and foreign matter are not removed in this process" [read: p.34]. This is relevant to the mass-balance argument already in arbiter.md 5c: if nothing is removed, the reported rise from 0.047% to 21.9% U3O8 would require uranium to be made.
• 1968 Air Force proposal (Moray and Taylor), p.2: "The direct conversion electrical power cavity resonator is designed to operate on a minimal amount of excitation energy (between 2.5 Mev to 8 Mev)"; p.3: energy "from a radiation environment through resonance absorption and re-emission"; p.4: "This photo disintegration process could provide a source of the stimulus required ... energy may be released under the scheme proposed at a moderate rate and without fission taking place" [read: gov-Airforce text pp.2-4].

So the booklet frames the ore process as resonance-driven nuclear change of uranium (aging, transmutation, fission as one reaction), and the 1968 proposal frames the power device as a resonant, gamma-excited release of nuclear energy without fission. In modern terms the 1968 wording is closest to "induced gamma emission" from a stored nuclear state, the idea behind isomer triggering.

The governing principle (the question's premise, checked)

Resonance moves energy; it does not create it. A resonant drive can release energy only if the system sits above a lower state and something blocks the drop (a barrier, a selection rule). Then a small input can open the gate and a larger stored energy comes out. Examples: a nuclear isomer (spin selection rules block the decay), a fissile nucleus (the fission barrier blocks the split), a population-inverted laser medium. Ground-state electrons and nucleons in ordinary matter hold no extractable store: an atom in its ground state can only absorb what is given to it and re-emit it. The candidates below are therefore all of the form "trigger a stored nuclear energy", and the questions for each are: is the store present in ordinary materials, and does the trigger cost less than it releases?

What was searched

What was found

1. Triggered nuclear isomers: hafnium-178m2 (Collins, 1999)

• The store is real and large. 178m2Hf sits 2,446 keV above the ground state, half-life 31 years [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_hafnium]. "One gram of pure 178m2Hf contains approximately 1330 megajoules of energy, about 300 kilograms ... of TNT equivalent" [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy]; my check: 6.022e23/178 x 2.446 MeV x 1.602e-13 J/MeV = 1.33e9 J per gram [calc].
• The claim. Collins et al., PRL 82, 695 (1999): "A sample of 6.3x10^14 nuclei" was "irradiated with x-ray pulses from a device typically used in dental medicine" (end point 70 or 90 keV); "Intensities of selected transitions in the normal decay cascade ... were found to increase by about 4%", consistent with "an integrated cross section of 1x10^-21 cm^2 keV" [web https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.695, abstract via INSPIRE].
• The failed repeat. Ahmad et al., PRL 87, 072503 (2001), Argonne Advanced Photon Source, intense white x-ray beam: "No induced decay was observed. The upper limits ... over the range of energies of 20-60 keV x rays, are less than 2x10^-27 cm^2 keV, below the previously reported values by more than 5 orders of magnitude" [web https://zenodo.org/record/1233935].
• The Collins team (an interested party: its programme and reputation depended on the effect) went on publishing positive results from monochromatic beams at SPring-8 and SLS through 2006, and its supporters note that the null experiments used broad-band ("not monochromatic") x-rays [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy]. DARPA's SIER programme ran a TRiggering Isomer Proof (TRIP) experiment; the Wikipedia article (whose wording on this point reads as written from the Collins side) describes the TRIP final report (2008, distributed "for official use only") as having "independently confirmed" the "gold standard" Rusu dissertation result. The report itself was not seen in this search.
• The LLNL evaluation of TRIP (Hartouni et al., LLNL TR-407631, 9 Oct 2008), quoted on Wikipedia: "Overall, the X-ray 178m2Hf experiments by Collins et al. are statistically marginal and inconsistent. None of the reported positive triggering results were confirmed by independent groups, including those experiments performed by former collaborators (Carroll)"; and p.65: "the utilization of nuclear isomers for energy storage is impractical" [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy; OSTI record https://www.osti.gov (Hartouni 2008)]. The JASON report High Energy Density Explosives (JSR-97-110, 1997) also took testimony on isomer triggering [web, same page].
• Cost: Pereira et al. (2007) estimated about $1 per joule just for the electricity to store the energy in the isomer [web, same page]. The isomer does not occur in nature; it is made with accelerators (e.g. spallation of tungsten, or a 1.2 GeV electron accelerator, Kirischuk et al. 2013) [web, same page].
• Scale [calc]: the whole Collins sample stored 6.3e14 x 2.446 MeV = 247 J. Its natural decay power was 0.18 microwatt (decay constant ln2/31 y = 7.1e-10 per second); a 4% increase is 7 nanowatts. Even if triggering worked perfectly, a 5 kW load for one hour (18 MJ) needs 13.5 mg of pure isomer, which is far more than has ever been produced.

2. The disputed molybdenum-93m result (Nature, 2018)

• The store: 93m1Mo at 2,424.95 keV, half-life 6.85 hours [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_molybdenum]. A level only 4.85 keV higher is a gateway: excite the isomer to it and the nucleus cascades down, releasing about 2.43 MeV, with a 267.9 keV gamma that the natural decay does not have as the signature (Polasik et al., PRC 95 034312, 2017) [web, INSPIRE abstract].
• The claim. Chiara et al. (US Army Research Laboratory, Argonne and others), Nature 554, 216 (2018): "Here we report evidence of NEEC [nuclear excitation by electron capture] in molybdenum-93"; NEEC "was predicted in 1976 and has not hitherto been observed" [web https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29420479/]. The reported excitation probability was 1.0(3)% per ion [web, Guo 2022 abstract].
• Theory disagreed. Wu, Keitel and Pálffy, PRL 122, 212501 (2019): "our results disagree with the experimental data by approximately 9 orders of magnitude" [web https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.00809]. A 2021 Nature comment, "Possible overestimation of isomer depletion due to contamination", argued "the observed isomer depletion is significantly overestimated due to the contamination" [web https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03333-5, abstract via INSPIRE]. Rzadkiewicz et al. (2023), from the original collaboration's atomic-physics side, found that excited open-shell atomic states raise the NEEC probability "a factor of about 20" over earlier models, which is still far short of 1% [web https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.108.L031302].
• Experiment disagreed. Guo et al. (Lanzhou), PRL 128, 242502 (2022), with an isomer beam carried to a low-background station: "the signature of isomer depletion is not observed, and an upper limit of 2x10^-5 is estimated for the excitation probability" [web https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.242502; Europe PMC]. Ding et al., PRL (Feb 2026), purified isomer beam: depletion probabilities "2.0(2)x10^-5 in lead and 4.7(13)x10^-6 in carbon, agreeing well with the inelastic nuclear scattering calculations. We conclude that the observed isomer depletion in 93mMo arises from inelastic nuclear scattering rather than the previously proposed NEEC mechanism" [web https://doi.org/10.1103/kbf5-6fcl; Europe PMC]. A co-author's repository copy (Lawrie, UWC) is summarised in a Google snippet as "neither due to NEEC nor to ion-electron inelastic scattering" (that is, the trigger is the nucleus of the stopping foil, Coulomb excitation, not the electrons) [web snippet https://uwcscholar.uwc.ac.za; PDF not opened].
• So the effect is real at about 1e-5 per ion, about 500 times smaller than the 2018 figure, and by a different mechanism. Theory papers continue to propose better triggers (laser plasmas, x-ray free-electron lasers, electron vortex beams, inelastic electron scattering 2026) [web arXiv 1804.03694, 1910.05326, 2107.12448, 2605.05783]. None is an energy source: each needs the isomer made first in an accelerator, and 93mMo decays in hours.

3. Nuclear excitation by electron transition (NEET)

• In NEET an electron dropping into an inner-shell vacancy hands its energy to the nucleus instead of emitting an x-ray, when the two energies nearly match. Kishimoto et al., PRL 85, 1831 (2000): synchrotron x-rays ionized the K shell of gold; "At a photon energy of 80.989 keV, the NEET probability in 197Au was determined to be (5.0+/-0.6)x10^-8" [web https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.85.1831; Europe PMC]. The nuclear level excited is the 77.351 keV state [same].
• NEET and its inverse are real and measured, but tiny, and the energy that reaches the nucleus is the energy the x-ray put into the electron shell. In stable gold there is no store to release: the excited nucleus gives back 77 keV after an 81 keV photon was spent, at a probability of 5 in 100 million. Only a nucleus that already holds a store (an isomer) could give more out than went in.

4. Resonant photofission of uranium and thorium (Moray's U3O8 booklet)

• Photofission is real: discovered in 1940 at the Westinghouse atom smasher, with gamma rays of "modest energies (~10 MeV)"; Baldwin et al. measured about 5x10^-26 cm^2 for uranium and 2.5x10^-26 cm^2 for thorium with betatron x-rays [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photofission]. The strongest response is the giant dipole resonance, a collective "oscillation of all protons against all neutrons", driven by "gamma rays at energies from 7 to 40 MeV" [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_resonance]; it is the one genuine "resonance with the nucleons" that splits uranium. Modern measurements on 238U and 232Th in the giant dipole resonance region: Filipescu et al., PRC 109, 044602 (2024) [web, INSPIRE].
• Below the barrier it fades out. The lowest-energy quasi-monoenergetic measurements reach down to 4.3-6.0 MeV (Triangle Universities, HIgS); an earlier report of a deep "third minimum" in the 238U fission barrier was "identified as an accelerator-induced background" [web https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.98.054609]. The booklet's highest stated energy, "1800 K.V. X-RAYS" (p.22), is 1.8 MeV, well below the roughly 5-6 MeV fission barrier [memory, high: barrier heights of 238U and 232Th about 6 MeV], so it cannot photofission uranium at a measurable rate. 1.8 MeV does exceed the 1.67 MeV photoneutron threshold of beryllium-9 [memory, high], which matters only if beryllium were present.
• Energy balance [calc, with one memory figure]: one fission releases about 200 MeV. At the giant dipole peak the photofission cross section of 238U is about 0.16 barn [memory, medium], while the total photon attenuation of uranium near 10 MeV is about 20 barns per atom (mass attenuation about 0.05 cm^2/g [memory, medium]), so at best about 1 photon in 100-200 causes a fission in a thick target, and far fewer for a bremsstrahlung spectrum. That is roughly 1-2 MeV of fission energy per 10 MeV photon, before counting the electron accelerator's own losses (bremsstrahlung conversion is a few per cent [memory, medium]). Photofission of natural uranium is a net energy sink; only a fissile assembly with neutron multiplication (a reactor or subcritical driven system) gains.
• Cosmic-ray-induced fission, the booklet's "action of meson from cosmic rays on fission materials" (p.24), does exist (muon capture can fission uranium) but at natural cosmic-ray rates of order one muon per square centimetre per minute at sea level [memory, high], negligible as power.

5. Other real "resonances with the nucleus" (context, from this search)

• The thorium-229 nuclear clock: a nucleus excited by a tunable laser at 8.355733 eV (2024), frequency 2,020,407,384,335 kHz measured at JILA (Sept 2024) [web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_clock]. This is literal optical resonance with a nucleus. It stores only the 8.4 eV the laser supplies, so it is a clock, not a source.
• Neutron-induced fission of uranium-235 is the one triggered nuclear release that does give net energy at scale; neutron capture in 238U also has sharp resonances (the first near 6.7 eV) [memory, high]. It needs a neutron population and a critical (or driven) assembly, and it is the booklet's own "fission" equation (p.3).

What each candidate would leave behind (witness evidence)

What the record holds on radiation near Moray's devices: the device texts read for this project report no radiation survey of a running device; Perreault's inspection of surviving tubes is reported as showing no radioactivity, with no instrument or method given (claims.md, claim 4); the 1938 Utah Securities Commission inspection used electrical meters, not radiation counters (claims.md, claim 2). Moray himself handled radium (Cosray, radium chloride in the detector), so low-level radioactivity in his materials is expected and is not evidence of triggered release. Nobody among the dozens of named witnesses who stood beside the box for hours is reported to have suffered radiation injury; that silence fits a device that was not releasing kilowatts of nuclear energy, but no witness carried an instrument that would have measured it.

Reasoning and competing readings

1. Physics of the premise. The question's premise holds in every source found: each working "nuclear resonance" either releases a store that something else created (isomers made in accelerators; fissile 235U made in supernovae), or gives back only what was put in (NEET in stable gold, the 229Th clock). Ground-state electrons and nucleons in ordinary matter offer no store to tap.
2. Isomer triggering is the closest real analogue of the 1968 proposal's "resonance absorption and re-emission ... without fission". The best-documented attempts (Collins 1999; Chiara 2018) both reported efficiencies far larger than later independent tests found: Hf by more than five orders of magnitude, Mo by about 500 times, and the Mo mechanism was reassigned (Ding 2026). Reading A: the 1968 text is a 1960s restatement of the same hope, without a store. Reading B: the 1968 authors had in mind the radioisotope sources (2.5-8 MeV) of the proposal, i.e. ordinary radioactive decay converted in a semiconductor (a betavoltaic-type cell), where resonance plays no energy role. The proposal text supports B more directly ("used in conjunction with a low-energy radioactive isotope").
3. Photofission is real but cannot be the booklet's mechanism or a power source. The booklet's stated energies (10 kV to 1.8 MV) are below the barrier; above it, natural uranium gives back less than the photon beam costs; and any real fission rate at kilowatt scale would leave fission products and neutrons that the AEC and Bureau of Mines would have measured in the treated ore (they reported uranium concentration, and a Bureau of Mines note of an unidentified, possibly "artificial" substance, arbiter.md 5c, but no fission products were reported in the pages read).
4. The "artificial substance" in the 1956 Bureau of Mines report (arbiter.md 5c) is the one thread that could, in principle, connect to nuclear activity. Competing readings: (a) a chemical reagent or contaminant left by the process; (b) radium daughters out of equilibrium after chemical treatment, which a radiometric assay would misread; (c) a true nuclear product. Only (c) bears on Q18, and it would show up as specific gamma lines (fission products or activation products) in a gamma spectrum.

Open

• A gamma spectrum (germanium detector) of any surviving treated ore sample or Moray tube: fission products (Cs-137, Sr-90 daughters), activation products, or only natural U/Th/Ra series lines.
• The full 1956 Bureau of Mines report and the 1956 AEC correspondence: what instrument, what "artificial" signal.
• Whether any witness or inspector ever surveyed a running device with a Geiger counter or electroscope (Moray's notebooks; Utah Securities Commission 1938 file).
• The DARPA TRIP final report (2008, FOUO) and the LLNL evaluation in full (OSTI) for the hafnium record; the Lawrie 2026 repository text for Mo-93m.

Corrections to earlier documents

None found necessary. One note for the orchestrator: arbiter.md 5c already states the mass balance; booklet p.34 ("This is not a refining method at all. The sylicate sand and foreign matter are not removed") is Moray's own statement that nothing is discarded, which, if true, would put the reported grade increases on the "uranium created" side of the split verdict rather than the "concentration" side. Worth quoting there if it is not already.

Sources

• Moray, Isotopes in Ionic Recovery of U3O8, pp.3, 22-26, 34 (project _text).
• Moray and Taylor, 1968 Air Force proposal, pp.1-4 (project _text, gov-Airforce file).
• Wikipedia: Hafnium controversy; Isotopes of hafnium; Isotopes of molybdenum; Nuclear isomer; Nuclear clock; Photofission; Giant resonance; Photodisintegration (raw wikitext saved in research/pages/q18-wiki-*.txt).
• Collins et al., PRL 82, 695 (1999), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.695
• Ahmad et al., PRL 87, 072503 (2001), https://zenodo.org/record/1233935
• Chiara et al., Nature 554, 216 (2018), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29420479/
• Wu, Keitel, Pálffy, PRL 122, 212501 (2019), https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.00809
• Nature 594, E1 (2021) comment, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03333-5
• Guo et al., PRL 128, 242502 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.242502
• Rzadkiewicz et al., PRC 108, L031302 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.108.L031302
• Ding et al., PRL (2026), https://doi.org/10.1103/kbf5-6fcl
• Kishimoto et al., PRL 85, 1831 (2000), https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.85.1831
• Filipescu et al., PRC 109, 044602 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.109.044602
• Near-barrier photofission in 232Th and 238U, PRC 98, 054609 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.98.054609
• Hartouni et al., LLNL TR-407631 (2008), cited via Wikipedia and OSTI.