Cold fusion is hot again (again!) 12 years after CBS News first said it was
This world-changing technology could prove commercial within two to five years; private investors may speed the process.
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It’s been over 31 years since electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported achieving nuclear fusion at near room temperature, promising unlimited clean energy from a tabletop device.
Their announcement at the University of Utah in March, 1989, startled millions and landed them on the cover of Time Magazine.
Too good to be true?
If real and imminent, cold fusion could be the solution to all of our energy and environmental problems — ending carbon pollution, lowering production and transportation costs, revitalizing national economies, and giving the world a fresh new start. Disillusionment, however, soon set it.
Controversy ensued
In the early days after the announcement, investigators from MIT, CalTech and elsewhere rushed to replicate the Fleischman and Pons experiment.
They soon announced that they could not do so, and cold fusion became junk science in most scientists’ eyes.
But hope refused to die
A few researchers kept experimenting, and they gave cold fusion a more accurate scientific name, “Low Energy Nuclear Reaction” (LENR). Not strictly fusion, LENR is more akin to a nuclear transmutation reaction, which is completely devoid of any radioactive waste.
As time went by, a growing number of experimenters began to generate sporadic reports of successful LENR heat generation.
Significantly, some MIT researchers, who originally threw cold water on cold fusion, warmed up to LENR, hosting a series of conferences on the subject. At the same time, reports of the LENR phenomena being produced by other credible parties continued to accrue.
By 2009, 20 years after the Pons and Fleischmann announcement, significant LENR progress had been made, and CBS News / 60 Minutes issued its special report, “Cold Fusion Is Hot Again.”
View the complete report here (12:52 minutes):
This report is still relevant and well worth reviewing today. Even more has happened in the 10-plus years since:
- Research continued to proliferate.
- Institutional R&D quietly continued to proceed, at various times, within NASA, the U.S. Navy, SRI International, Google, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toyota and other organizations.
- Various developers pursued a smorgasbord of potential applications — for heating homes and industrial plants, generating electricity, driving cars, powering spacecraft, cooking food, assembling products, and activating electronics.
- Business leaders began to grasp the size of the opportunity. Commercial cold fusion could not only revolutionize the global power and heat industries (well over $1 trillion per year) but also transform every other business sector.
- More investment in the field kept resulting in stronger proof of concept.
- In a recent survey, young engineering and science research students listed LENR as their number one career interest or goal, if they could find a job in the field.
See this article on LENR’s potential in Asia and globally:
Overall, a consistent expectation has emerged throughout the nascent industry: practical application is close at hand, years before hot fusion may prove commercial. LENR participants wonder, who will be first to graduate from pure research to marketable technology?
Clearly, the key to success would be controlling the generation of LENR heat in a cost-effective manufacturable system.
A working product near?
Two commercial startups have now emerged as go-to-market leaders:
- Berkeley, California-based Brillouin Energy Corp.
- Clean Planet at Tohoku University in Japan
Another U.S. startup, Brilliant Light Power, is working on a unique energy technology that is not LENR, but offers similar massive net energy, according to the company.
Of the two leading contenders, either Brillouin or Clean Planet may be the first to offer 100% practical, commercial “cold fusion” (LENR) service to a paying customer.
The technology is also known as “lattice confinement fusion,” recently named by NASA:
In the race to commercialize, Brillouin may have the edge. While the two leading companies have reached advanced stages of development, only Brillouin has perfected a reliable control system for turning the power on, up, down, and off — with advanced plans for a scalable manufacturing process.
Regardless of which company implements the first commercial installation, it will be a turning point for the whole industry, which may then take off.
It probably won’t be winner takes all, though. The leading players offer variations of the technology and special ways of approaching the total addressable markets, which far exceed $1 trillion per year and impact all other markets. There’s room for multiple leaders plus hundreds of suppliers, service companies, specialists, and licensees.
The key to rapid growth for the industry is for any one of the leaders to reach the take-off point, which is proof of commercial operation.
How soon can that happen? That depends in large part on the rate of funding. According to one estimate, it will take:
- 2 to 5 years (with current rates of funding).
- 1 to 2 years (if funding accelerates).
Green investors and innovators, take note!
There has never been a better time to make a difference!
EraNova Institute is developing action information on this and other world-changing opportunities. Contact us with questions or comments.
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