Cold Fusion:
Some Thoughts on How to Make it Practical

And then it was all "exposed" as a hoax. "False alarm!" said the scientific community. "Fusion can't be done in a jar!"

It turns out that the scientists who "debunked" the "hoax" fudged their data! The government chose "hot fusion" scientists to do the investigation. The scientists did actually get valid results! But to protect the big budgets their own projects were getting, they fudged the data to "debunk" the "hoax."

And so today the scientists have high paying jobs managing experiments at large, expensive facilities, doing research that, if EVER successful, would be practical only on a huge scale. The only fusion research the government will fund is to develop technology such that a single reactor would supply the entire USA!

Highly centralized! No energy independence for anyone! "Subscribe to our system, or be left in the cold!"

Meanwhile, about 100 scientists are laboring away is small, scattered labs, working on how to make cold fusion reliable and practical. These scientists are mostly retired, or have already received tenure from their universities. The only scientists who can afford to work on cold fusion are those who are already financially secure, whose careers cannot be taken away for seeking truth.

And even then, they have to work with small budgets; certainly not the multi-million dollar budgets their hot fusion counterparts get! They're struggling to carry on with amounts like fifty thousand a year, a mere pittance in scientific circles.

Even so, they're getting results. They're getting heat coming from their vessels that cannot be accounted for by anything but fusion. Plus, they're finding the helium that is produced by the reaction.

But the results are spotty. Slight impurities can stop the entire reaction. So, until that problem can be solved, cold fusion will remain a laboratory curiosity. It must be reliable to be practical.

Here are my suggestions for further research:

Why does the deuterium have to be captured in palladium? Is there any other material that can hold the atoms close together?

The slightest amount of normal water can stop the reaction. Water (the hydrogen in the water) absorbs neutrons. (That's why we have "swimming pool" reactors. In addition to its usefulness as a coolant, the water acts as a shield, absorbing stray neutrons.)

If siphoning off just a few of the neutrons stops the reaction, wouldn't adding a few more help it? I suggest putting some uranium or plutonium in close proximity to the palladium rod.

Perhaps fusion could be best done in conjuntion with fission. Better than just a little uranium would be an ongoing chain reaction, supplying plenty of neutrons to help the fusion!

Also, neither article said anything about tritium. Perhaps an extra neutron in the hydrogen itself would help the reaction.

Those are my suggestions. I am making them available to cold fusion researchers for the benefit of mankind. Imagine a world where we have an inexhaustible supply of pollution-free energy! Where relatively small suppliers can compete with the big ones who want to force everyone to be dependent on them!

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