Some reasons behind Cold Fusion's controversy

[JMBuilder]

As many of you know, Cold Fusion is one of the most controversial scientific discoveries ever made. Here are some reasons for all that controversy.

Experiment flaws:

1. Flaws in the Palladium. The main component of a Cold Fusion reactor is a strip of pure Palladium. Any impurities in the Palladium and the entire reaction is hampered.

2. Mistaking water electrolysis for Cold Fusion. Many people post videos of their "homemade Cold Fusion reactors." Most of them are small electrodes in a jar that split the water into its hydrogen and oxygen components, a process called electrolysis, and make them combust. While electrolysis is one of the first steps of a Cold Fusion reaction, it is not actually the fusion process.

Political scares:

1. Many people think that Cold Fusion would put many fossil fuel companies out of business. That's not necessarily true. We'll always need fossil fuels for things like plastics.

2. Cold Fusion uses water, and there's going to be several people saying "We'll use up the world's water!" Not true. Water is not destroyed in the reaction. The byproducts can be combusted back into water.

Miscellaneous controversy:

1. Most people know Cold Fusion as "quackademic research." They think that it breaks the laws of physics. The more I read about it, the more it seems possible.

[DaveofDefeat]

Was it ever really "discovered"?

[LaydeeDem]

Do you got any sources for that? Seeing as the Cold Fusion experiment has been only been pulled of by one guy and all attempts at replicating it have failed, it is "quackademic research."

[OdinYggd]

Not only that, but there are actually multiple completely unrelated 'cold fusion' technologies.

The one I am familiar with is muon catalyzed fusion, wherein muons are used to significantly lower the kinetic energy required for fusion to take place thus giving it the name 'cold' fusion.

It doesn't work in that the muons are notoriously difficult to obtain, and don't last long enough for enough reactions to take place with them to make up the energy it takes to produce them.

[Nuke]

i think it actually works but is a very poor candidate for net energy production. (this is based on something robert w bussard said in an interview which i read awhile back but i cant seem to find it again*).

*fount it, page 7:

http://www.askmar.com/Robert%20Bussard/2007-10%20Robert%20Bussard%20Interview.pdf

Edited September 24, 2013 by Nuke

[jwenting]

there's no "controversy", except that of course there's the usual conspiracy theorists claiming that the fraud that every "cold fusion" "project" is are actually suppressed by "big oil" or whatever.

[JMBuilder]

I'm still obsessed. I'm determined to create a reactor.

As for sources, they're all over the place. Google it.

[lajoswinkler]

For something to be discovery, it first has to be proven to actually exist or work. This, sadly, doesn't.

Palladium is expensive as hell. The whole experiment is very expensive. I'd use the money to buy candy before I spend it on this. Candy is better.

[KOCOUR]

As for sources, they're all over the place. Google it.

Thats not how it works!

You are claiming something, you have to provide sources and proofs. Untill that i assume that all you said you just made up.

[Nuke]

I'm still obsessed. I'm determined to create a reactor.

As for sources, they're all over the place. Google it.

there are better, more credible, better researched, better funded, and cheaper fusion concepts out there (without stepping into the realm of nonsense that is cold fusion). most of the money goes to big fusion like iter/demo, which is a very expensive long term project that might work in 50 years (thats not counting the time it will take to design and build commercial fusion power plants). but i kinda think that one of the alternative approaches will come to fruition a lot sooner if properly funded. things like polywell, dense plasma focus, or the thing that the skunk works is working on. unlike tokamak based reactors these are relatively small devices that can be worked on without needing to build new multibillion dollar facilities, and allow for rapid turnaround on experiments. with what iter costs you could fund all of them. but i guess those funding fusion like to put all their eggs in one basket.

[JMBuilder]

Okay, so it hasn't been "discovered," but how do you guys know that it won't work?

[Rockhem]

Okay, so it hasn't been "discovered," but how do you guys know that it won't work?

How do we know there isn't a sunbug living in the sun's core?

We have no proof that it doesn't exist, but all our current theories say it is impossible.

So it does not exist as far as we know.

So the reason why we don't say that is...

Because it is absurd.

[JMBuilder]

Why would you compare Cold Fusion to a "sunbug?"

[DaveofDefeat]

Okay, so it hasn't been "discovered," but how do you guys know that it won't work?

How do you know that it can work?

[JMBuilder]

I don't. But I can find out.

[lajoswinkler]

You can, but it will cost you at least few tens of thousands of dollars to check it out. As I've said - buy candy. And toothpaste.

(I actually dig the sunbug idea. It sounds so cute, unless it's disgusting kind of bug.)

[KOCOUR]

Okay, so it hasn't been "discovered," but how do you guys know that it won't work?

It is the basic presumption. If you can not provide evidence that something exist, you have to consider it dont exist untill proper evidence proves othervise.

Same thing is used in law: It is called presumption of innocence, and it says that untill you can prove someones guilty, he is presumed innocent.

In other words if you cant prove that man did something, you have to assume he did not.

[Camacha]

(I actually dig the sunbug idea. It sounds so cute, unless it's disgusting kind of bug.)

The lifegiving maggot! With its wriggling it brought us into this world, by pupating the sun into a red giant it will destroy us.

Somehow I tend to picture the sunbug more as Catbug from Bravest Warriors.

[JMBuilder]

It is the basic presumption. If you can not provide evidence that something exist, you have to consider it dont exist untill proper evidence proves othervise.

Same thing is used in law: It is called presumption of innocence, and it says that untill you can prove someones guilty, he is presumed innocent.

In other words if you cant prove that man did something, you have to assume he did not.

At least in can be tested.

[lajoswinkler]

The lifegiving maggot! With its wriggling it brought us into this world, by pupating the sun into a red giant it will destroy us.

Somehow I tend to picture the sunbug more as Catbug from Bravest Warriors.

That's actually quite poetic. I like it.

At least in can be tested.

True. Falsifiability is something that must exist in order for an idea to be tested.

Don't worry, it has been tested over and over again. It failed every time. The only reason it still lives is because people like to cling to such stuff, aggravated by the greed of fossil fuel companies.

[Awaras]

2. Mistaking water electrolysis for Cold Fusion. Many people post videos of their "homemade Cold Fusion reactors." Most of them are small electrodes in a jar that split the water into its hydrogen and oxygen components, a process called electrolysis, and make them combust. While electrolysis is one of the first steps of a Cold Fusion reaction, it is not actually the fusion process.

Political scares:

2. Cold Fusion uses water, and there's going to be several people saying "We'll use up the world's water!" Not true. Water is not destroyed in the reaction. The byproducts can be combusted back into water.

I'm sorry, but how do these two statements fit together? Either you have simple electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen that turn back into water when burned OR you have fusion. If "the byproducts can be combusted back into water" than there is no fusion occuring...

[Drunken Hobo]

I always find it amusing that people claim to have discovered cold fusion/free energy etc, have been "silenced" by big oil yet are willing to sell the plans for just $50 over the internet.

Bargain of the century!

[JMBuilder]

I meant after the fusion process occurs. The Helium produced in the reaction has no neutrons, so it decays back into Hydrogen.

[Kryten]

Nuclei with multiple protons and no neutrons are physically impossible. Cold fusion a la Fleishmann and Pons uses heavy water, and is supposedly deuterium-deuterium and/or deuterium-protium.

[Anton P. Nym]

The Helium produced in the reaction has no neutrons, so it decays back into Hydrogen.

If that's true then there's absolutely no way you could get more energy out than you put in; if the reactants return to what they were before the reaction, then no net mass was converted to energy, and so there's no energy released by the fusion. All the energy would have to come from elsewhere... likely any heat coming off such a cell would be from the power used to drive the hydrolysis.

-- Steve