page 1A

---

Cold Fusion

---

Ok, sometimes people ask me about cold fusion and what the whole thing is about. So here's a basic explanation.

Fusion is the thing that happens in the sun, that makes it glow and warm up our planet. In a fusion reaction, two hydrogen atoms crash into each other and become a helium atom. We've been trying to get this to happen on earth so that we can have tons of clean cheap energy, but we aren't having any luck because we aren't as big and sexy as the sun.

Then, in the 1980's two guys named Stanley and Martin noticed that palladium (it's a metal) has a weird ability to absorb hydrogen like a sponge. It absorbs about 900 times its volume of hydrogen. Since hydrogen atoms in a piece of palladium are so close together, they said "Gee, I wonder if we could get the hydrogen atoms fuse more easily!"

So they tried.

And they got lots of crap for it when they said they had room-temperature fusion, but none of the other scientists could verify this claim. And now, twenty years later, I am standing in a laboratory filled with hydrogen cans and chunks of palladium, writing in my blog about this alchemy that most of the world views as BS. But whatever, it got me in a magazine. And I get to write in my blog while I'm at work.  ¶ 5:22 PM