The first use of the term "cold fusion" goes back to 1956 - not 1989.
The term was coined in a 1956 New York Times article referring to muon-catalyzed fusion, MCF, and the work of Alvarez. This was real fusion, no dispute about it, and the reactants were as cold as any fog chamber can be. The brilliant scientist Luis W. Alvarez - when analyzing the outcome of muon experiments at the Rad Lab in Berkeley at few years before, observed MCF with the release of about 5.5 MeV of energy. Great things were predicted from this discovery, but it fell flat commercially because making muons with a beamline requires too much energy, and this is compounded by the short lifetime of muons. The technique could not produce net energy due to this intractable dilemma. Fast forward to the present. If the work of Holmlid is verified - everything changes, and we can go "back to the future" by about 60 years. Ironically, it can be said today that the original "cold fusion" of Alvarez is now set to merge with the 1989 version of P&F, thanks to the new work of Leif Holmlid in Sweden and his discovery of a comparatively easy and cheap way to make muons . using only a small laser, instead of a beamline. Ya gotta luv it. and marvel at how close we were to useful cold fusion back then (assuming of course, that Holmlid is correct). It could even be possible that the electrolysis technique of P&F is in fact, a version of MCF wherein muons are being made first in an unknown way, which then catalyze the fusion of deuterium to helium. Doubtful that we can go that far... but has anyone ever tested a P&F cell for muons?
