Naval cold fusion research program

I noticed this article myself but have been too busy to post on it until now, though Wade wishes to contribute his own take on it as well:

It seems that cold fusion, LENOR or LERN as in this article, is being commented more frequently these days. This is the favorite of many strong researchers and evidently has some promise as an energy source. It has a rather lengthy and interesting history that was brought to prominence by Pons and Fleichman in the late 80’s, in an ill fated demonstration. It is only recently that I became aware that the Navy not only had its own research lab but that they had been working on LENOR for over ten years, had their funding cut and evidently are back at it again. I believe that Matthew commented on the little blowout in regards to this area of research over in Oak Ridge. This attached article is short enough to give you a brief on cold fusion and is quite worth the time.



Wade

News that the Navy has been working on LENAR/LENR is a bit shocking, though it makes sense in a way. Their dependence on fission reactors makes their fleet bulkier than it needs to be, and they will eventually need systems capable of sustained energy output greater than current generators can feasibly produce. If you don't know what I mean, think naval rail guns. They take electricity to be fired, which means they don't have the benefit of being able to store energy in chemical form as with traditional naval projectiles. It has to be drawn on a demand basis from a generator (or capacitors charged by a generator), which means a naval rail gun platform is limited in power and speed by its generator.

I guess it really boils down to the amount of energy you can produce per square foot with devices based on this deuterium/palladium wire technique. There's also some question as to how one is actually meant to harness this energy. Most people tend to look at fusion power in the same way they view fission, thereby assuming that harnessing power from fusion means transferring heat from the reaction to some form of coolant which will then power turbines. Whether or not LENAR/LENR will generate sufficient heat to work even as a distributed power generation source is still questionable, but hey, I'm open to any possibility.