More on Cold Fusion

[LongTomH]

I missed the 60 Minutes segment on 'Cold Fusion' referred to in an earlier DU post; but, I have seen quite a bit of discussion around the blogosphere recently.

There's an interesting post on the Next Big Future blog, which has links to article and video interviews on the current state of 'Cold Fusion' research, which is now being called 'Low Energy Nuclear Reactions' (LENR). It's worth following the link to the New Energy Times article on the 60 Minutes report. It has some interesting material on the current state of LENR research in Europe.

After having said all this, I have to add that most of the comments on the Next Big Future post were skeptical to varying degrees. I'm also going to add that I'm skeptical that LENR can be scaled up to the pilot plant stage. By 'pilot plant' I mean a plant actually producing commercial amounts of electricity. I'm especially skeptical, given that the process requires rare materials like platinum and palladium. Even if the process uses more energy than goes into starting the reaction (the 'break-even point'), there's a big question as to whether it will produce more energy than goes into producing the the platinum and palladium elements, and the heavy water used in the reaction. Both platinum and palladium are 'refractory' materials requiring high temperatures to separate from their ores and to work into usable forms.

I'm open-minded enough to say that the LENR researchers should be allowed to prove their process can be a usable energy form; at the same time, I'm skeptical enough to say they should be required to prove LENR can produce usable amounts of energy.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. They should be required to show that they can produce ANY amount of energy.

& that's quite unlikely.

[FreakinDJ]

2. I'm hearing 10 years away from Commercial Fusion energy

Which frankly - is the only way we could ever reduce carbon footprints around here