Toast? no I don't think so.
The Russians slapped Amercians in the face by putting a satellite and a man in orbit first.
Good point.
People wishing to play up this angle of the story -- in a message to someone in the media, for example -- should mention that cold fusion was rated one of the top 10 basic science breakthroughs of 2004 by the Nikkei Shimbun. The other day I describe how researchers like Mizuno and Iwamura are "hanging on by their fingernails" in Japan. That is true, as far as I know, but on the other hand they do have some pretty good hopes and some substantial backing. Perhaps I exaggerated how one-sided the fight is. Iwamura has officially been allocated "beam time" at the Spring-8 facility starting in the upcoming fiscal year (which begins in April). He reports that he is also collaborating with: "RIKEN, JASRI, University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology and University of Shizuoka, in addition to University of Osaka, INFN-Frascati, University of Tohoku." If an American CF researcher had that kind of support he would think he had died and gone to heaven.
I do not think it is likely that any nation will get far ahead of the US in cold fusion before we notice what is happening. I cannot imagine Toyota would surprise us with a market ready commercial cold fusion powered automobile. The development efforts would probably be no secret. They would be reported in trade magazines. Presumably, US industry would react even if the DoE did not. But who knows? After all, Toyota and Honda were openly developing hybrid automobiles for about 10 years, and playing up the public relations aspect of this research at every opportunity, while US manufacturers did absolutely *nothing* in response.
I assume the situation would resemble our rivalry with Russia in rockets in the early 60s. It turned out they were not really so far ahead after all. Serious rivalry for commercially practical space ventures did not begin until the 80s when the Europeans began launching satellites cheaper than the US. Still, if China or Japan were to get one or two years ahead of the US in basic research on cold fusion, it might eventually translate into a large market share, as well as what you might call "leverage." This means the power to call the shots, and decide priorities such as which technologies are developed first. They would be in a position to dictate which US companies would be allowed to participate as junior partners, and how much of the market these junior partners would be allowed. You can play favorites and exploit other people's rivalry, the way a company such as Dell might play off Intel versus AMD. For a long time US lead in basic research and technology such as transistors, hard disks, telephony and so on. That did not mean that our rivals never developed these technologies, but an early lead in basic research did translate into a big market share, the ability to shape the market, to lord over our rivals, and many other advantages.
- Jed
