Its not called cold fusion its called Low energy nuclear reactions (LENR), and to be fair know one has a clue whats going on so that name is probably wrong for the phenomena thats occuring.mobbsey wrote:No it isn't!Lord Beria3 wrote:A cautiously optimistic article from a PO writer and somebody with a superb record in writing about PO for years now.
Worth taking seriously.
What all the cold fusion people ignore is the fact that any natural phenomena, especially one involving ambient conditions rather than specialised circumstances, will always exhibit itself naturally within the universe without human intervention. OK, so stars are an example of fusion, but long before humans even existed there was already a natural thermal fission reactor in existence in Africa producing heat.
In a universe that is relatively cold, you would expect that cold fusion would be popping up all over the place to present curious anomalies of energy accounting -- but it doesn't. For example, how likely was it that ancient cyanobacteria were able to develop photosynthesis?; and on that basis why is it that other ambient temperature physical phenomena such as "cold fusion" have not have been incorporated into living processes? If it were possible you can bet that nature would be there before us to naturally exploit the principle, particularly one which as a source of energy confers such a significant biological advantage.
On the basis that we don't find this phenomena cropping up naturally I think we can discount the idea of "cold" fusion.
For example robert godes (from brillouin) says that "cold fusion" definitely is not an accurate name for it, and neither is LENR. It does not involved conventional nuclear fission or hot nuclear fusion processes. He has renamed the process Controlled Electron Capture Reactions or CECR, or "phonon- moderated hydrogen reactions."
His theory goes like this: "A tiny amount of hydrogen protons are converted into neutrons. These newly produced neutrons are soon captured by hydrogen ions or other atoms in a metallic (e.g. nickel) lattice near to where the hydrogen ions were converted to neutrons. The captured neutrons generate heat because the new atoms that are one neutron heavier shed excess binding energy as heat to the lattice, resulting in a dramatically clean, low-cost, hi-quality heat output."
This could also be wrong, this is just one theroy out of the many out there. The point is know one really knows whats going on, weather this technology will or even can lead to successful commercialisation who knows, it might it might not.
Why don't you build the italian high schools athanor cell? See what happens.
O and "cold" fusion is not an idea its been successfully repeated and demonstrated time after time by reputable and independant scientists and big organisations like mitsibushi, toyota, nasa, us navy etc (also if its not to be taken serious then why are these big organisations taking it serious? especially Mitsubishi who seem to know/have more than what they are letting on). The only thing open for question is weather it can be 1 understood properly, 2 controlled and 3 become a useful energy form.
For the record i don't think LENR (even if can be commercialised) is a magic bullet that is going to "save us". I follow the story because its interesting and im courious to see whats going on in the said phenomena.