See: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-kochfunded-climate-change-skeptic-reverses-course-20120729,0,7372823.story
It is nice to see a scientist persuaded by the weight of evidence. That does not often happen. It will not be "the beginning of the end" in the cold fusion battle until you start to see similar headlines about major scientists endorsing cold fusion, especially scientists funded by people whose interests will be hurt if cold fusion succeeds. I wonder if that will happen. I hope it does. Regarding global warming, I have no doubt it is real. To those who have doubts, rational or not, here is what I say: Every step that is proposed to deal with this problem is beneficial in its own right. Every step would be progress in technology, and would ultimately lower the cost of energy. So what difference does not make if global warming is not real, or if it isn't caused by human activity? It is in our best interests to act as if it is. Long before the germ theory emerged, people understood that keeping houses, dishes, and water supplies hygienic will reduce disease. The Greek goddess Hygieia was the goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation. Along the same lines, any sensible person should recognize that reducing energy, reducing pollution and increasing efficiency will improve our lives whether or not it actually helps reduce the extreme weather and increased temperatures we are experiencing. You don't have to know about germs to realize intuitively that clean water is better for you, and it tastes better too. Anyone familiar with the technical details knows that most technology is inefficient and could easily be improved, with large cost benefits. For example, the "best practices" at the data centers operated by Google make them far more efficient and cheaper per byte than competing data centers. See: http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/ Details about the efficiency techniques are made freely available by Google, as a public service. Others should imitate them. It is economic lunacy not to imitate them! I am aware that some have argued that alternative energy is a bad idea because money would be better spent elsewhere. I know enough about energy that can dispute that with some authority, especially when I see the idiotic investments that we made in other categories, such dot-com fiascos and building far too many gigantic houses for people who cannot afford them. Naturally, investments in solar must lead to creative destruction such as Solyndra. That is regrettable but it is unavoidable. Let us be honest and admit frankly that if cold fusion succeeds, it will lead to creative destruction on a far larger scale. It will destroy the entire alternative energy sector -- solar and wind. Following that, it will destroy the conventional energy sector: oil, coal and nuclear. This will make trillions of dollars of infrastructure and investments useless, practically overnight. This will put millions of people out of work. That's what I am hoping for. That's the best outcome. That is the down-side to cold fusion. It is dreadful, but the up-side has more benefits than the down-side has problems. We have to be cold and calculating. We also have to take steps to alleviate the human misery this will cause, as best we can. It is like deciding to invade Normandy in 1944, knowing full well that thousands will die and it will cause heartbreak that never heals. - Jed
