Cold Fusion

Generally speaking, fusion reactions involve the joining of two deuterium atoms (hydrogen atoms with an extra neutron) into an isotope of helium. This reaction creates an enormous amount of energy. Fusion is the reaction responsible for the power of hydrogen bombs and the magnitude of the energy released by the sun.

Because of the obvious benefits of these reactions such as an almost limitless source of basically non-polluting energy, methods of fusion is a subject of intense research. A serious drawback to fusion reactions as they are normally understood is the exorbitant amount of energy required to start the reaction, making it hard to contain and sustain the reaction, thus impractical given the current level of our technology, even as of the year 2000. So, it seems for the time being that we won't be able to play online bingo or watch TV using power from fusion power stations. Back in the late 1980s however, it looked that things were about to change.

In March of 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, chemists at the University of Utah, claimed that they produced a fusion reaction at room temperature. Pons and Fleischmann claimed that palladium rods placed in a solution of Lithium Hydroxide (with deuterium in place of the hydrogen) and "heavy water" (water with deuterium replacing the hydrogen as well) produced excess energy. They reported that neutrons and gamma rays were detected, which suggested a nuclear reaction rather than some kind of chemical reaction.

This experiment has been re-created many times since then, however the results have not been duplicated to the point where the claims of Pons and Fleischmann could be validated. A large part of the scientific community maintains that the experiements were not well documented or well designed, and that the results themselves are in serious doubt. The reputations of Pons and Fleischmann suffered greatly as a result, and little has been heard from them since.

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