Cold fusion

Cold fusion is the hypothetical effect resulting in excess heat that some scientists have claimed could be produced from nuclear fusion near room temperature. In 1989, electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah claimed to have produced such an effect by placing palladium electrodes in a glass of heavy water, and some speculated that this could become a source of cheap energy in the future. After Fleischmann and Pons made their claim, the effect initially was unable to be replicated by scientists, and the claim was generally discredited.

Research is ongoing in the US at SRI in California, in Italy at several universities, in Japan at Toyota and various universities, and in several other countries. Research funding sources in the US include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA), and the Department of Defense, Threat Reduction Agency.

The next international conference will be the 17th International Conference on Cold Fusion in Deajeon, Korea, August 12-17, 2012.

Pseudoscience

Pons and Fleischmann were actually doing low-quality real science, not pseudoscience. Most Current advocates, however, are well into the realm of the determined pseudoscientist. The effects are not reproducible under independent verification, or even consistently reproducible at all. Even among cold fusion researchers, reports of substantial excess heat are rare, as shown in the 2010 review. The existence of this effect, and especially the lack of gamma radiation, is contrary to the current understanding of nuclear physics, for which there is massive evidence. Proponents trumpet any paper concerning the subject that achieves peer review in any venue whatsoever, as if "peer reviewed" meant "solid verified and settled science" rather than "not-obviously-wrong request for comment." Proponents advocate cold fusion as an alternative energy source with imminent practical utility, despite the aforementioned lack of reproducibility. At the same time, proponents try to blame their lack of success on persecution from the establishment. The theories proposed to explain the supposed effect, outlined in the 2010 review, are little more than contrived rationalizations of the claimed observations. When considered in the context of what is already known about physics and chemistry, they border on the nonsensical. There is a continuing failure to find a setup that consistently (nearly 100% of the time) reproduces the supposed effect. The great majority of written-up experiments fail even to obtain excess heat.

Examples

Entrepreneur and inventor Andrea Rossi has announced the E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer), a device claimed to generate kilowatt-level heat from nickel and hydrogen. Rossi has explained this as involving the transmutation of nickel into copper, a reaction so ridiculously unfeasible it doesn't occur even in supernovae. Demonstrations of Rossi's devices have been controversial and insufficient details have been released for independent third-party verification. The claimed reaction has not been supported by independent observers, even by a physicist (Sven Kullander) who has supported the claims of excess heat. Even cold fusion proponents are skeptical of Rossi's claims.