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U.S. Dept. of Energy Takes A New Look At Cold Fusion

lhouk281 writes "Technology Review is reporting that the U.S. Department of Energy has decided that recent results justify a fresh look at cold fusion. According to Peter Hagelstein, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, experiments performed under properly controlled conditions reliably produce more heat than standard theory predicts, and nuclear products show up in about the right amounts to account for this excess heat. Maybe we'll get those atomic-powered automobiles after all ..."

31 of 554 comments (clear)

  1. OMFG, what if by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    the same crackpots who brought you an Earth that orbits the Sun, an Earth that isn't flat, blackholes, gravity waves, etc turns out to be right about "cold" fusion - say it ain't so...

    1. Re:OMFG, what if by Jonny+Ringo · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think they are trying for to much, they need to take baby steps and be realistic.

      Start with luke-warm fusion.

  2. Why would you want Cold Fusion? by alnapp · · Score: 2, Funny

    Surely Heat might be more useful :-)

    1. Re:Why would you want Cold Fusion? by chegosaurus · · Score: 3, Funny

      They use it for refrigeration you fool!

  3. Not good enough by JudgeFurious · · Score: 4, Funny


    I want an atomic powered FLYING car. Until they get those babies off the ground I'm not interested.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
    1. Re:Not good enough by Esion+Modnar · · Score: 5, Funny
      I want an atomic powered FLYING car.

      Yeah, it'll look great in your garage right next to your atomic powered flying pig.

      --

      They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
    2. Re:Not good enough by Adriax · · Score: 5, Funny

      atomic powered flying pig

      Mmmmm, pre-nuked bacon to go...

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
  4. Well.. by rijrunner · · Score: 4, Funny


    But since it relies on dihydrogen monoxide, it'll never make it through congress

  5. Bit late by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 5, Funny

    Haven't most people switched to PHP or ASP now?

  6. Where did I put that thing? by Total_Wimp · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does this mean we have to give Ponz and Fleishman their dignity back?

  7. WMDs and cold fusion by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can't really criticize the government too much for doing this. We'll certainly have cold fusion before the Bush administration finds any WMDs.

    --
    Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
    1. Re:WMDs and cold fusion by ThisIsFred · · Score: 5, Funny

      Excellent! That means we'll have cold fusion before November 2nd.

      --
      Fred

      "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
      -RMS
  8. Just say "no" by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 4, Funny

    That extra heat is coming from an exogenous source: the bowl of the researcher's crack pipe.

  9. Atomic Laptops: by Upaut · · Score: 5, Funny

    An atomic reaction small enough to be contained within a laptop, providing months of continual power. Really gives "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH" a whole new meaning...

    --
    3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
    1. Re:Atomic Laptops: by s.d. · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, really what I want to come from a device that sits on my lap is radiation. That'll be great...

    2. Re:Atomic Laptops: by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Funny

      An error in reaction.dll has occurred. Please toss your laptop like a hot potato. Meltdown will commence in 5...4...3.........

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  10. From the article by alnapp · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Over the past 15 years, enthusiasts have generated some 3,000 manuscripts on cold fusion, but very few were ever published in scientific journals.

    Really?

    I can't think why

    1. Re:From the article by Kenja · · Score: 2, Funny

      Its for the same reason they refuse to publish my theory that FDR was a time traveling robot from the year 2620. They're just afraid of the truth.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  11. Bah... US Dept of Energy only needs 3 people! by Le'BottomEh · · Score: 4, Funny

    1. A naive female scientist who writes her formula on post-it notes
    2. A Russian scientist who is forced to decipher the formula on said post-it notes
    3. An international spy that uses names of saints as a disguise

    Don't believe me? Here's proof!

  12. maybe... by rogabean · · Score: 2, Funny

    i'm either too geeky or not geeky enough...but it took me 4 times reading the article to figure out they were not talking about Cold Fusion development tools... /smack!

    I kept trying to figure out what the dept of energy wanted with Cold Fusion Tools... /shrug

    --
    "why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
  13. What the fark??? by WwWonka · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and nuclear products show up in about the right amounts

    About? About?

    Is that the kind of "precise" measurement that will lead to three eyed fish and babys with 12 toes in twenty years?

    Man, I would give a volkswagon worth of dollars to have a more precise way of measuring nuclear by-products! ;-)

  14. What will we make fun of now? by CatGrep · · Score: 2, Funny

    You mean we've been making fun of cold fusion for nothing all these years? What'll we make fun of now?

  15. Other Alternatives by perdelucena · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think instead of Cold Fusion they should consider using Perl, PHP or J2EE. Why US governement still insists on using those proprietary formats?

    ----
    >> SELECT SIG FROM USER WHERE ID='15607317'
    NO ROWS RETURNED

  16. In SovietRussia by Lispy · · Score: 2, Funny

    the Fusion cools you.

    Omg, i can't believe I just did that...

  17. Oil company nukes by RogL · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, it's a shame we ever allowed the oil companies to develop nuclear weapons. They've kept the American auto industry away from building cheap fusion-powered flying cars, ever since they nuked Honda & Toyota back to the Stone Age. And what can we do, except stay away from Canada (those Canucks with their straw-to-ethanol enzymes; you know they're getting blasted into atoms any day now! What were they thinking?!)

    Damn oil-company overlords... I'll never welcome them! Never!

    Got to go - I hear the medication cart coming down the hall.

  18. Obligatory Mr. Fusion™ Post by Compulawyer · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'll believe it when my Mr. Fusion(TM) is using beer cans and banana peels to power the Flux Capacitor(TM) on my DeLorean(TM).

    --

    Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

  19. Re:Where are the neutrons? by OECD · · Score: 2, Funny

    A handful of failed attempts to replicate the results are discouraging, yes, but the potential benefits should've justified a bit more tinkering back when it was announced.

    I'd like to announce that I've produced a fusion reaction in my sock drawer. I await further funding. Surely the potential benefits justify a bit more tinkering?

    --
    One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
  20. Re:Poly water by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 4, Funny
    Anyone remember the discovery of polywater. It was massively redidistlled water that developed weird almost homeopathing memory and strange viscosity.

    Although it was considered unexplainable, repeated tests showed that the one and only thing inside the glass beaker was infact water. So it had to be a new form of water. A kind of ice-9 but for real.

    It was eventually found to be accumulated soluble silica products from the glassware. Which of course was the one chemical that could not be tested for inside a glass beaker. Got people exited like cold fusion for a while, since like cold fusion is was not utterly implausible.

    I remember that; I was a grad student in a chemistry lab.
    One day I was going to south to visit my gal.
    But I had to stay and keep watch over the equipment.
    My Sal she is a spunky gal,
    But I was on polywater duty all day.
  21. Back in the 20th century by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    We had these flying machines called Zeplins. They were big, full of hydrogen, and generally were most spiffy except once and a while they blew up.

  22. Re:It's funny to watch people react here.. by shiftless · · Score: 2, Funny

    so why not approach things with a neutral opinion until proven one way or the other? ...

    If you want to critique this guy, then go show me how smart you are and pick apart his experiments or apparatus, or maybe propose a theory that could explain the results another way - and devise an experiment to test that theory.


    You're new around here, aren't you?

  23. Re:Where are the neutrons? by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 3, Funny

    Alchemists accidentally stumbled into modern chemistry.

    -B