Cold Fusion?

According to a report on '60 Minutes' which was broadcast on 4/19, some researchers are optimistic that this elusive energy production method could become a reality in our lifetime. View the video and article from CBS News here.


It's not a proven fact yet, so the possibilities are what I want to discuss. Does anyone see any negatives to this technology? How would you see it affecting the world we live in? What would you like to see done with it?

After doing my usual morning news run on the 'interwebs', this is the best news I could find!

 

I can't imagine any sort of energy source which would make energy accessible without any sort of negative result, be it waste, radioactivity or health concerns. If this works, though, at the very least it may be a more efficient alternative to what we're using now

 

These are exciting developments nonetheless and definitely worth investigating. There's a very informative video documentary called 'Cold Fusion:Fire From Water', hosted by none other than James Doohan (Scotty!) available here

 

I saw the thread and thought you were talking about the language, lol.

 

Does anyone see any negatives to this technology?

As I understand it, the fusion process does not produce radioactive waste products like fission does. It does generate high levels of radiation while the process is going on, but that really isn't much of a problem ... it's the radioactive waste from fission-based plants that is the real problem with current nuclear power sources.

If it works, I would think cold fusion would be great for electric generating plants, but wouldn't be useful for powering autos, unless they were electric-powered. Otherwise, cars would still be dependent on petroleum.

But even if fusion works as hoped, I still don't understand why the research effort isn't concentrated on solar and wind power. They're free, limitless, have no real bad side effects, and the technology is already known. Why fiddle around with exotic solutions that may or may not work, when there are solutions already available that do work???

 

paladium??

 

Solar is fusion, just displaced fusion, just like most electric cars are actually coal powered.

by bringing fusion down here, we are using less real estate, getting power 24/7 without the MASSIVE transmission losses involved in a world wide, or battery run night grid.

 

This technology should replace all the existing electric power plants that are powered by coal, gas, oil, and conventional nuclear. Not only would this mean a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but also a political shift away from the Middle East in terms of strategic importance.

In the transportation world, the most practical adjustment in strategy would be a further move in the direction of the plug-in hybrid, where the battery gets larger and the gasoline engine is only needed on longer trips. At a far lower rate of consumption, our petrolium reserves would last for centuries.

Unfortunately, there is already enough excess CO2 in the atmosphere to keep global warming going for the rest of our lifetimes. Benefits in this area would be seen by future generations.

 

Yes, I'm aware that solar is fusion, but it's certainly not cold fusion, which is the subject of this thread. The world is a lot closer to using solar as a viable energy source than it is to fusion, hot or cold.

It's not accurate to say that "electric cars are actually coal powered" ... they're powered from wherever the electricity came from. That could have been coal, or it could have been natural gas or nuclear or garbage or whatever.

I'm also aware that the sun doesn't shine at night. That's why I said more research is needed. Every energy source has its drawbacks. But surely figuring out a way to utilize solar power even when the sun isn't shining is easier than figuring out what to do with nuclear waste, or what to do about greenhouse gases.

 

A totally agree with you as far as the gains in real estate and infrastructure reduction if we could successfully implement cold fusion, due to the 'table top' nature of this process on scale with an ordinary chemical battery. I don't see it as necessarily competing with solar or wind or other renewables, but it does stand head and shoulders above anything were currently researching in terms of efficiency and as long as we've got seawater, we'd have electricity.

Thanks to all of you for your insights and opinions so far!

 

Palladium which is used in the cold fusion process is a rare earth element. While CF will have it's applications .. it is not the answer for the massive energy needs

 

How about we use the palladium currently employed in catalytic converters to reduce pollution in our internal combustion engines for the cold fusion process instead? Remember, we could think about doing away with most of the power grid in its current form because an efficient 'reactor' no larger than a compact refrigerator could supply the needs of the average household for years, including charging the electirc car in the driveway.

 

Cold fusion has been completely discredited, hasn't it?

 

I can go along with stop using the palladium as a plating process for catalytic converters, pretty sure it a thin plating at best.. not sure on if in the CF process if it a solid rod or plated onto another material..but no doubt if one were to add the numbers up from taking away from cars it would free up the use for CF

 

there has been a debate on if they really got what they said they did

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/coldfusion.html

i should look this guy Storms up... he's local... seemed like I read something in the newspaper here about him not long ago

 

Fascinating article, man! There's growing interest in alternative energies because we're doing so much damage to the environment. I'm not quite on board with the notion that human technology is the sole cause of global warming but we could do without tearing up the planet searching for fossil fuels IMHO.

Flieschmann and Pons didn't correctly present their findings and were excommunicated from the scientific community for reporting what many called 'junk science' at the time.

Recent Developments (from Wikipedia):
'On 22–25 March 2009, the American Chemical Society held a four-day symposium on "New Energy Technology", in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. At the conference, researchers with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of energetic neutrons in a palladium-deuterium co-deposition cell using CR-39, a result previously published in Die Naturwissenschaften. Neutrons are indicative of nuclear reactions.'

Imagine the possibilities...

 

Human technology definitely isn't the sole cause of global warming. Cow farts are a big part, too. I'm not kidding.

 

Well, if we could stop feeding them corn for five goddamn minutes and actually let them loose on a patch of grass, maybe we'd see a reduction in that...
Poor sickly cowzers.

 

Does it occur to you that the reason we have so many cows is because of the increase in wealthy nations that have suddenly developed a taste for beef? The grain (16 pounds) and water (5000 gallons) that it takes to produce one pound of beef could support a family for days in an impoverished nation. Like I said humans certainly bear some blame for the ecological damage to our planet and we need to do something to at least stem the tide before we incur more irreversible damage to the only known place in the fucking universe that will support our asses!

 

I think what you mean is that technology isn't the only source of greenhouse gases, and you are correct. CO2 gas and the others come from lots of man-made and natural sources, including, as you point out, animal dung. Volcanic vents are another natural source.

But that's not really the issue. It's irrefutable that greenhouse gases from whatever sources are being produced in enough quantity to upset the natural equilibrium in the atmosphere, which results in less heat being re-radiated from earth back into space, and therefore rising temperatures.

So the issue is ... are the human-generated greenhouse gases, when added to the naturally-generated ones, enough to upset the equilibrium?

If the overwhelming majority of atmospheric scientists are to be believed, then the answer is yes. There's almost a perfect correlation of the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Thousands and thousands of scientists around the world have been studying this for decades now. Barring some really weird unforeseen factor popping up, it's a done deal. There's no question that global warming is being caused by human actions.

To try and rationalize it away, or to sluff it off as being caused by "cow farts", is absurd.