| It is almost certain that some unknown phenomenon is happening with palladium/nickel and hydrogen/deuterium. I first heard of the 1989 pons and fleischmann experiment in late '90 but didn't know what to think of it, I was in high-school, information was scarce. Then in 2008 or 2009' I found a memoir from a science historian about it.
It spoke in great detail about the pressure to publish quickly before any rival the vested interest of the hugely influencal MIT in "hot fusion" (billions in funding). They they didn't even try to half-ass an experiment, then dragged pons and fleischmann in the mud so deeply they had to quit academic life and anyone who tried to follow their track would have their funding cut. Because most other physicist ( Pons & Fleischman were actualy electro-chemist) were not able to acheive the same results. Which was kind of to be expected: no peer review article was published they just "announced" their finding. Then everyone rush to blindly replicate months of hard work from a field they barely knew. Then it became a fraud, then fake science. Anyone trying the "forbidden" experiment would lose his reputation and any hope of a career. It doesn't get more anti science then cold fusion. Only then I realised wikipedia was full of censorship and could not be relied upon for anything remontly controversal. Then came 2011, andrea rossi and the e-cat. Andrea rossi has a ph in... philosphy, convicted frauster in italy and inventor of a new
cold fusion device. Even then it sparked ton of interest in cold fusion (LENR for low energy nuclear reaction, because it's not fusion that is happening: no hard radiation, no instant huge release of energy, etc.) and the next decade is a cycle of trying to debunk rossi, him promising a "working plant" next year, mistery client and feeding crumbs of evidence, proof and information over a decade. And it's not finished yet. You can follow most of it on https://e-catworld.com/ . People there are not quite QAnon level of crazy but they will mention ufo various free energy stuff of regular basis. I remember reading news about navy SPAWAR research on cold fusion there. But yeah in a nutshell huge claims, little results (but SOME result that is the annoying part). |
The entire things is explainable by some combination of incompetence and fraud. There is nothing here that should lead one to believe there is any kind of actual new phenomenon.