They haven't really invented cold fusion have they?
Sophie ~Oohie~
Posts: 10,395 Forum Member
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I think there's an extremely large scam going on HERE, as this would surely be all over the news if true? I'm sure it was proved impossible a while back as well. Mind you I don't know if NASA scientists would risk their reputations if they were not at least fairly sure something worked.
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It hasn't been proven impossible, but then it hasn't been demonstrated to BE possible yet.. it remains theoretical.
I dont understand why you think it's a scam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Cat
Rossi and Focardi say the device works by infusing heated hydrogen into nickel, transmuting it into copper and producing heat.
Which if true could be interesting, more for heating than electricity generation though. I'm not convinced though and suspect the heat shown in experiments is more likely due to chemistry rather than any kind of fusion.
Nope, that's not happened and any such claims should be ignored.
:eek:
The heat makes steam which turns a turbine which makes elecricity
My money is on this one also being a lemon because there are, as far as I can tell, no reputable peer reviewed published scientific papers on this device and its underlying technology.
In the meantime, we've just got to wait for confined tokamak or laser induced fusion or thorium fission reactors to supply Earth's future energy needs.
Various approaches for cold fusion got some publicity and then were debunked by peers. It's a dubious and oft-discredited area of research that most scientists would prefer not to be associated with. But none of that proves conclusively that there isn't some other possible approach that may work.
In general it doesn't pay to follow bleeding edge research too closely unless you happen to be a scientist working in that field. There is a lot of noise, bad reporting, and errors. If anything of that magnitude really does check out, you can guarantee you'll see it reported very widely and it will be hard to miss.
...but, crucially, no serious science publication or website is going anywhere near Rossi and his E-cat and that's a very bad sign indeed.
The use of Thorium as a nuclear fuel of the future is a far more credible scenario: http://www.howstuffworks.com/thorium-info.htm
The intent for the E-cat seems to be more about heating rather than power generation though. It's an interesting idea and revolutionary if it works, but needs truly independent testing before I'd invest.
If it was possible they would have done it by now.
We should really be looking into Thorium fision reactors that are 100s of times safer and more efficient than the the current generation of Uranium based nuclear reactors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY
Technology that was discovered to work in the 60's but was ignored cause uranium was "proven" and had the added benefit of generating useful plutonium for cold war nuclear stockpiles.
Thorium based molten salt reactors could produce electricity cheaper than coal, and at the same time be used to desalinate sea water for drinking water, produce fertilizer for crops, and produces some really nifty substances that can be used in medical treatments for cancer etc
Why not just push on with one or more of these?
Following that line of reasoning, all technology progress is done and we won't ever do anything else new because we would have done it already. There are lots of things we haven't done yet by now, yet we still manage to keep accomplishing new things that haven't been done before. I'm not sure cold fusion is the most practical line of research to be pursuing, but "we would have done it by now" is a poor argument.
If they make a breakthrough with it then other countries will very quickly catch up I hope.
But the reality is, energy companies could care less, they are too busy swimming in money, and the government doesn't just want renewable, sustainable energy, they want it on the cheap, which just isn't going to happen
They might play the green card when it comes to taxing carbon emissions but they themselves are tied to financial apron strings, which in turn has probably set us back a couple decades in regards to where the technology should be
Its obviously of lesser importance.. but another way to look at it is think about the tobacco industry and E-Cigs, and how they are essentially pushing governments to ban them (even if it means telling porkies to get their own way)
As a comparitive example of how much power industry holds over actual progress ofc
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/23/fusion-power-is-it-getting-closer
:rolleyes:
It doesn't matter what kind of fusion it is, it ain't going to happen. If it can be done it would have been done by now.