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Cold Fusion: It's Back—Just in Time for the Great Energy Debate
By Keith Johnson
Wall Street Journal Blog

Monday, April 20, 2009

Wasn't cold fusion supposed to be a myth? Apparently not-"60 Minutes" ran a story Sunday night arguing that so-called cold fusion is "hot again."

The thrust of the "60 Minutes" piece is that laboratories around the world have managed to do what scientists could not in the wake of the now-infamous 1989 announcement of cold fusion: replicate the results.

Well, sort of anyway. Laboratories in the U.S., Italy, and Israel have all run experiments dunking palladium in deuterium and then zapping it with electric current. The promise of cold fusion is that that mix creates more energy than it consumes. The problem with cold fusion is nailing down if that's true.

In the "60 Minutes" segment, even some skeptics of cold fusion, such as the University of Missouri's vice chancellor Rob Duncan, come away convinced that excess heat is indeed being generated in the lab tests. The U.S. Navy has also apparently concluded that cold fusion works—in one test anyway.

Other long time critics, such as hydrogen-bomb architect Richard Garwin, insist people are still getting the measurements wrong. (Some folks suspect Dr. Garwin is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, after he apparently told the Pentagon that cold fusion does seem to work in the 1990s.)

One big problem: Nobody is exactly sure what kind of reaction takes place among the lattice-work structure of the palladium that would explain the seemingly miraculous creation of excess heat and energy. That makes it hard, if not impossible, to determine when or how much energy should be created. And even if several laboratories have replicated to different degrees the experiment, the amounts of energy never seem to be the same, giving more ammunition to critics and confounding cold-fusion boosters.

Still, as if regular nuclear power weren't fodder enough for the energy debate, the revival of talk about cold fusion should get some vitriol flowing.

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