Reopening the Cold Fusion Cold Case
Once considered to be the holy grail of energy solutions, “cold fusion” has turned into more of a mythical Big Foot concept, with claimed leads and developments by some researches but largely dismissed as ridiculous by mainstream science. In theory, cold fusion would allow for the nuclear fusion of atoms at almost room temperature. In the normal process of nuclear fusion, such reactions take place only under the extreme conditions found inside stars. Were the hopes and hard work of cold fusion optimists to come to fruition, our world would be blessed with an unlimited energy supply for the foreseeable future.While preliminary cold fusion work began as early as the 1920′s, cold fusion first became a widely publicized and talked about concept in 1989. In March of that year, highly regarded electro-chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have produced fusion through the use of electrolysis (a process requiring an electric current to drive chemical reaction) of heavy water (water with abnormally high proportion of deuterium isotopes) on a palladium electrode. The result was a wildly excessive output of heat, of such relative magnitude it could only be rationalized in terms of nuclear processes.The initial excitement that engulfed the scientific community shortly after Fleischmann and Pon’s work was made public sent scientists across the globe to test their own theories. When replication efforts fell short of the original experiment, and several skeptical scientists weighed in on why cold fusion is highly unlikely, cold fusion success was eventually discredited and other variables were attributed to Fleischmann and Pon’s results.Today however, the idea of cold fusion is undergoing somewhat of a revival as our dependence on energy combined with limited resources has led to a crisis. In hopes of paving the road towards infinite energy and alleviating our reliance on the sources that have failed us, researchers worldwide are reopening the cold fusion cold case to see if the decades-old theory was justifiably written off so quickly.