Cold Fusion:Power to the People or False Hope?

It's baaack! That dream of clean, cheap, nearly limitless power through the magic of cold fusion.

An engineer friend sent me this clip from a recent edition of the CBS program 60 Minutes that examined what it purported to be recent advances in the development of cold fusion, or, as it is currently being called, a "nuclear event" in a bottle.

I have reasons to call into question many of the elements used in this show. Reporter Scott Pelley says that the Fleischmann/Pons experiments were replicated in laboratories around the world. However, it is not sufficient to say that laboratories have obtained quirky and possibly interesting results from varied experiments. Replication, by definition, means that laboratories around the world have used the exact same apparatus and that they have obtained the exact same results. In the scientific research model, any other use of the term "replication" is not valid.

Furthermore, it is not up to 60 Minutes to give its imprimatur to "cold fusion" by shipping one scientist to a laboratory for two days to inspect their work. Scientific progress is achieved by a much slower and more deliberate process. A laboratory or a researcher publishes work that is subject to peer review. The work is then presented to allow other researchers, irrespective of their location, to use the same materials to arrive at the same, consistent results. Absent these conditions, there is no claim to scientific validity.

It could be, as one of the programs' participants stated, that variances in the quality of palladium used in the experiments varied widely and thus is responsible for the inconsistent results. That hypothesis can easily be tested by supplying researchers with the exact same materials with which to conduct their experiments.

While that work goes on behind laboratory doors, I would advise a lot of starry-eyed futurists whoa re ready to buy the cold-fusion theory to heed the words of the old Frank Sinatra song and "put your dreams away for another day."