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11A031
The Fusion Game
by Jim Davies, 1/31/2011
Fusion is what happens when two atoms combine. Fission is more familiar: one atom (of uranium) splits up into two smaller elements, with the conversion of a tiny amount of mass into a huge amount of energy; but fusion is the opposite, though it releases even more energy. What's emitted by the sun is fusion energy, not fission; hydrogen atoms are combining to produce helium plus radiation. The H-bomb uses a fission explosion to create momentarily the super-high temperatures needed for a fusion explosion, which then takes place with a far more powerful bang. At vast taxpayer expense, government scientists have been laboring for decades to generate controllable fusion energy here on earth, but have not succeeded yet. The problem has been the need for those extraterrestrial temperatures. The reason for the interest is that if it can be done, all worries about energy sources (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, bio, geo, hydro, wind, wave, the lot) are over. Theoretically, fusion energy is dirt cheap, its raw materials abundant. The repercussions would be enormous, the whole game would change and civilization would begin a new chapter. And if it can be done cold, ie at or near room temperature instead of solar temperature, we can take all that and square it.
Fox News has thrown some cold water on this cold fusion claim, and noted that "Their credibility isn’t helped by the fact that Rossi apparently has something of a rap sheet, which allegedly includes illegally importing gold and tax fraud." Anyone who trusts gold more than government paper, and who tries to cheat the tax thieves, is a person of rare intelligence and courage - so I certainly hope this Establishment medium is proven wrong. Cold fusion would really upset a large set of powerful companies in energy, all of whom have close ties to government and strong interests in keeping energy expensive; the more so if this revolutionary technique were produced independently of their own lavishly funded laboratories. I don't know whether Focardi and Rossi can pull that off, but surely wish them well.
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Two of the treasures on my bookshelf are autographed works by
the late Eugene Mallove, whom I met on a few occasions while he
managed the magazine 
The search for cold fusion has
continued, in small underfunded laboratories and without notable
success, but last week from Italy came news of a breakthrough. It
may turn out to be another disappointment, for the theory behind
it has not been published for "peer review," which is a
no-no in academia; but physicists Focardi and Rossi demonstrated
their new device in a press conference 
