At 04:15 PM 1/8/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I don't necessarily agree that cold fusion is economically viable,
it's possible that huge sums could be spent with no commercial
result, but at this point, huge sums aren't needed; rather what is
needed is what Kowalski suggests, and what a DoE panel also
recommended in 2004, and even recommended back in 1989, though it
was half-hearted in 1989.
Targeted research to establish more firmly the basic science. Not
hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think tens of millions would be appropriate now, but as soon as
someone demonstrates a 10 W stand alone Arata effect device that
continues for a month, I would recommend hundreds of millions per year.
Reasonable, I'd say, if the 10W experiment looked like it had a
prayer of being scalable. If not, it would still be worth substantial
continued support, depending on such things as the economics. If one
needs $100,000 worth of palladium to generate 10 W, it may be
striking as a phenomenon, but not as a commercial product. Yet. As to
tens of millions now, I'm not certain. Proposals should be
entertained, as they said. It's about time for the DoE to follow its
own panel's recommendations, instead of the private political
maneuvering and contrary influence from the entrenched.
The priority at first should be exploring the science, WTF is
happening in there? Without knowing, speculating about commercial
applications is just that: speculating. Not engineering. We need to
know the science, period, regardless of practical applications. But
applications will quite reasonably follow, either specialized or general.
