How Hot is Cold Fusion?
Michael C. H. McKubre
March 23 2010 marked the 21st anniversary of the announcement by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons that began the modern era of �old fusion�with the claim that heat is produced from the deuterium palladium system under special circumstances at levels that are consistent with nuclear but not chemical heat production or energy storage effects. This effect has been reproduced in hundreds of laboratories, has been reported in thousands of papers in the peer reviewed literature, has been the subject of 15 major International Conferences and numerous books and reviews. The American Chemical Society recently hosted its 4th multi-day symposium in San Francisco on what are now called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, LENR.
Despite these advances and this level of recognition the field still labors under a pall of skepticism. An attempt will be made in this talk to bridge the information gap by discussing results obtained at SRI, to try and grapple with the criticisms of the evidence for a new physical effect that have been directed largely from the physics community. Why is it that some people have seen the Fleischmann-Pons heat effect, and others not? What are the parameters that control the effect? How large is the effect? What is it capable of doing?
