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Can NASA Warm Cold Fusion?
TomOfAmalfi writes "Andrea Rossi says he can provide domestic energy sources (about 10 kW) based on his E-Cat system (a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction or Cold Fusion energy source) for between 100 and 150 US$/kW and begin shipping this year. Many people are skeptical about Rossi's claims because he has not explained how his 'reactors' work (apparently the reactors contain ingenious security devices to prevent reverse engineering), there is no theoretical basis to support his process, and no one has supplied independent measurements to support the specs on his black boxes. However, buried at the bottom of a NASA web page there is a comment about progress in 'cold fusion' research and a link to the slides used in a September 2011 presentation (PDF) which talks about LENR research. NASA has also released a video describing the great benefits we will get from NASA LENR research. Could Rossi be on to something?"
If you are so stinking worried that North Korea, Iran, "The Taliban", Irish Republican Army, Ku Klux Klan, Symbionese Liberation Army, Deseret Liberation Organization, Martian Frontier Front, or any other group of would-be idiots who may have some intelligence to understand the basic principles of physics on their own, you need to convince your local congressmen that the laws of physics need to be repealed and modified so only friendly governments could ever discover those laws on their own. Something like legally making pi equal to exactly 3.12 instead of the more traditionally accepted irrational number. Legislators have that authority and ability, don't they?
If you know anything about nuclear physics in general and about how cold fusion is even claimed to be working, you might even wish that these kind of nut jobs spend all of their resources, time, and energy into developing cold fusion if for no other reason than it is a wonder way to keep people spinning their wheels doing something that will never be productive or useful. Sort of like how the Allied High Command in World War II kept bombing "ball bearing factories" and "heavy water factories" even though both were sort of pointless other than as a way to throw off potential researchers thinking there was something significant there.
I suppose you could make a bomb out of cold fusion devices. You can also make a bomb more successfully out of a gallon of gasoline or 190 proof alcohol. You don't need an advanced degree in nuclear physics to figure out how to make something that will kill somebody else. You can also make a bomb out of chicken poop, some grass clippings, and burning down part of a tree if you have some patience. Those who are so worried about the potential of somebody else doing harm are likely going to harm themselves in the process. Does that imply we need to control the sale of eggs, wheat, and acorns as those might be considered potential munitions?
The sad thing is that this kind of thinking how perhaps you can stop this line of research is a common type of government policy at the moment. It is also important to note it will stop more legitimate scientific progress in a great many other areas, and more significantly by stopping that kind of scientific inquiry it is going to keep more people in a state of poverty and ruin far more lives because that research is being stopped than would be the case if people simply are granted liberty to act as their own agents. Outlawing research also has a way of biting you back as it even encourages the research to be done... by the kind of people who would deliberately use it for malicious purposes.
More generally, I am not worried at all about Andrea Rossi with what he has developed, regardless of if he has a working device that actually produces energy or if it is a bunch of tea kettles in one of the most brilliant con games in history. Well, almost the greatest, he still hasn't been able to beat Bernie Madoff yet.