Why isn't cold fusion readily available today?

Question

I thought that a couple of scientists discovered it almost 30 years ago? By now we should have cold fusion cars!

Answer 1

It was attributed to mistakes - but some thought it was an outright hoax. Either way, 'cold fusion' - so far - doesn't yet exist.

Answer 2

Likely classified. Especially the kind of economic impact it would have on our Energy Businesses. Do not expect it to be released until there is a serious supply problem of our Hydrocarbon resources and a VITAL "last resort" is needed---then a "Savior" will "Invent" it and save the world.

Answer 3

Discovered process was found to be false information.

Scientists believed that they trapped nuclei of deuterium into electrodes crystal structure as they discovered heat being produced.

However, it was later discovered that heat was coming from different source and no true fusion took place.

Therefore, cold fusion was a hoax, and that's why we have no cold fusion.

Answer 4

Global warming.

Answer 5

Overunity water heater uses cavitation.



ECAT generates excess heat. for heating water commercially, operates using the rossi effect and puts out 1 Mw with an input of under 200 Kw.There is also a "hotcat" which operates at a much higher temperature

US patent, number 9,115.113 B1 August 21 2015

Answer 6

I'm not a true scientist, just sort of by nature. I got the paper they published and even I could see the flaws in it.

Answer 7

It wasn't fusion.



When they put palladium into water, the temperature of water increased significantly. And when they eliminated chemical and external factors, the only logical conclusion they came to was that it was nuclear -- specifically nuclear fusion.



But many scientists noticed that there were no other byproducts of the alleged fusion process like neutrons, gamma rays, or even helium which would have been an obvious byproduct of hydrogen fusion.



But how do you explain the temperature increase?



Here is what I believe, meaning no real science behind it, it was actually the de-ionization of water and palladium was actually a catalyst. You see water isn't just H2O, it also has hydrogen ions (H+) and hydroxide ions (OH-), and the de-ionization process generated heat.



The reason for this belief is several years ago I watched something on the Discovery Channel where a "battery" was put into flowing water and the electrode captured an electron from ionized particles and flowed down to the other end that both deionized the water and generated electricity. What I saw may have been a salt water battery developed by Aquion Energy.



But even if it were fusion, you need tonnes and tonnes of water and have to find a way to extract the heat efficiently to power a turbine, which would make it unfeasible as a power source. Plus I think it was deionization, not fusion.

Answer 8

It's more of a pipe dream than anything else (at least for now). People want it to be true, including me, but the supposed breakthrough that happened back in the late 80's is highly suspicious and has never been duplicated. It's "theoretically" possible but in the real world the only fusion that we know about happens at very high temperatures.

Answer 9

These transformations take time

Answer 10

The two scientists *thought* they had discovered it back then as well....



They were mistaken; it's never been recreated by anyone else, or even in any separate experiments by the original people as far as I can remember.

Answer 11

Cold fusion was a mistake. It didn't happen. It just produced a lot of NEWS and Noise in the scientific community.

Answer 12

Energy from radiation was discovered by the Curies. It was only the impetus of the war that gave us atomic weapons.

And a lot more again to get a controlled fission reaction.

We can make a hydrogen bomb. But trying to control the reaction remains elusive.



Just because something is "theoretically" possible does not mean that it will ever be practical.

"Cold fusion" is a lot less likely than the normal fusion where 70 years has provided limited progress.



So how long could you reasonably expect to wait?

Answer 13

Most people accept (believe?) that the process did not actually do what was claimed. This is what I believe as well because the system was so simple to make that many others would have replicated the work, and that hasn't happened. People definitely tried and failed. However, there were some who claimed to also get similar results but not always. There was definitely something happening but it appears that the reactions were chemical rather than nuclear. But maybe not, because:



There is a conspiracy theory about that, if your interests go that way. Some people believe that the idea of "free" energy was just unacceptable to the moneyed oil and gas interests and got firmly suppressed. These people even sometimes link 9-11 into the conspiracy. Stephen E Jones has a prominent place in both Cold Fusion and 9-11 debunking, and is seen by many as a villain, a player for the conspiracy side of things. That may not be a rabbit hole you would like to go down.