What ever happened to the idea of cold fusion? Isn't is supposed create energy without pollution?

Question

10 to 15 years ago there was alot of discussion about cold fusion powering everything. It was said you would fill a tank up in your car with water and that would be the fuel. It also was supposed to be pollution free. Why don't we hear about it anymore? Was it proven to be impossible? Was if found to actually cause pollution? Was it found to be too unstable?

Answer 1

As it turned out, the reports of cold fusion were a false alarm.  Too bad, too!.

There was a lot of arugement and controversy--but the bottom line is that no one was able to reproduce the results the scientists (Ponds and Fleishman) claimed.  No one thinks they were lying--they just made a mistake.

But--there may yet be something come out of this whole incident (and some good scientists are still looking at this).  Not cold fusion (as it turns out, whatever the scientists thought they sayw, it wan't that).  But there is a lot of evidence from various scientist s that suggests there was SOMETHING.  But so far, while there are a lot of theories, no one has nailed this down yet (and it might be decades before anyone does).

PS--the reason why we do know that whatever is there (assuming something is) its not CF, is that any type of fusion (cold or otherwise) has to produce certain types of radiation. And no one has ever seen that radiation signature in any of the experiments. So (again, asssuming there is really something there) whatever it is, its some other phenomenon

Answer 2

It was a scam.

Answer 3

Cold fusion is, sadly, impossible.  The experiment that was used to "prove" it was never repeated, despite many attempts.

Answer 4

Sounds like just the job for you ,GOOD LUCK

Answer 5

there are people right now working on fusion and cold fusion. The cold fusion that came to light a few years back was a hoax or just wrong (which can be debated)

other than that yes fusion could provide us with polution free power

of course you have the minor problem that if you had a containment breach you would mealt a hole to the center of the earth with the heat (1 mill degrees C +)

Answer 6

Politics

Politics

Politics

Think about it, oil is a commodity of value and taxability. Even if you could run a car on water, I doubt a government would make use of it. It's not impossible to run a car on water, being an environmentalist is a weaker priority in governments eyes at this moment of time

Answer 7

The theory of cold fusion never actually worked. The water in the gas tank sounds more like the hydrogen car, however the hydrogen car uses hydrogen and water is the exhaust. Very few hydrogen cars actually exist, they are still very expensive to build.