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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in a love of all things tech

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Speaker 1: and just a heads up. If I sound a little

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Speaker 1: loopy today, it's because I think of coming down with

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Speaker 1: a nasty cold and or sinus infection, and it's got

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Speaker 1: me thrown for a bit. But gosh darn it, the

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Speaker 1: show she must keep happening, as they say in the business,

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Speaker 1: and so we're going to forge ahead in our week

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Speaker 1: of nuclear discussions. In my last episode, I talked about

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Speaker 1: fusion reactors and how if we could just get them

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Speaker 1: to work reliably, if we could find a way to

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Speaker 1: make the reactions take place without pouring more energy into

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Speaker 1: them than we're getting out of and we can make

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Speaker 1: it sustainable, we could produce enough electricity to meet our

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Speaker 1: needs for the foreseeable future while also producing very little waste,

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Speaker 1: and none of it the high level nuclear waste that

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Speaker 1: a traditional fission based nuclear power plant would create. But

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Speaker 1: I also mentioned that's devilish lee hard to achieve fusion

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Speaker 1: because you first have to overcome some fundamental forces that

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Speaker 1: very much do not want to let that happen. And

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Speaker 1: by saying want to let that happen, I'm anthropomorphized sizing

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Speaker 1: a little bit. They they resist this. So you have

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Speaker 1: to force to positively charged nuclei to fuse together. And

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Speaker 1: because like charges repel each other, that takes a lot

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Speaker 1: of energy and effort. But what if it didn't require

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Speaker 1: so much. What if we didn't have to have these enormous,

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Speaker 1: expensive facilities that use powerful lasers or magnetic fields to

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Speaker 1: have this happen. What if you could find a way

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Speaker 1: to fuse hydrogen ice of topes together at room temperature.

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Speaker 1: Will that be a phenomenal transformative achievement. It would mean

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have to spend years building and testing facilities

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Speaker 1: meant to heat deuterium or tritium into plasma and then

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Speaker 1: compress it into a space small enough to force fusion

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Speaker 1: to occur. It could potentially reduce the amount of energy

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Speaker 1: you would need to initiate a reaction and you would

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Speaker 1: end up with the payoff energy and you could just

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Speaker 1: harness that to generate electricity. That would be swell. There's

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Speaker 1: a common name for this concept. Actually, there are a

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Speaker 1: few different common names, But the one that we used

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Speaker 1: to use, and you often will hear people use it deristively,

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Speaker 1: is called cold fusion. Now these days we tend to

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Speaker 1: use other names because cold fusion has a real stigma

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Speaker 1: against it. So the new names we might use include

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Speaker 1: things like condensed matter, nuclear science, or low energy nuclear reactions.

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Speaker 1: No one really agrees exactly how this works. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of different competing hypotheses. No one really agrees

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Speaker 1: whether if this works. But some people do argue that

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Speaker 1: it does work and it has worked, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of other people say, I don't think so. So let's

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Speaker 1: dive into the maligned work of two people in particular,

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Speaker 1: sort of the pioneers of the cold fusion furer, and

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Speaker 1: that would be Martin Fleishman and Stanley Ponds. And Fleishman

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Speaker 1: and Ponds or Ponds and Fleishman had conducted an experiment

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Speaker 1: involving heavy water and palladium. Now, heavy water refers to

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Speaker 1: water that has deuterium isotopes. Uh. Deuterium is an isotope

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Speaker 1: of hydrogen, and water is h two O isotopes of

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Speaker 1: an element. I'll share the same chemical properties, but they

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Speaker 1: have a different atomic mass from each other due to

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Speaker 1: the presence of neutrons. So hydrogen and its most plentiful state,

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Speaker 1: protium is a prot on and an electron with no neutrons.

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Speaker 1: Deuterium is a proton and neutron with one electron. It's

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Speaker 1: still hydrogen, but now it has a neutron, so it's heavier.

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Speaker 1: That's why we call it heavy water. If you have

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Speaker 1: water that is where the molecules are, you have deuterium

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Speaker 1: hydrogen atoms as opposed to protium hydrogen atoms, So that's

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Speaker 1: the difference there. Now, most hydrogen we encounter is protium.

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Speaker 1: That's the vast majority of the stuff that we see

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Speaker 1: in our world. But we do have some deuterium in oceans.

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Speaker 1: It does occur naturally. Uh So, Ponds and Flishman had

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Speaker 1: a high concentration of deuterium in their mixture. So that's

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Speaker 1: why it was called heavy water. Because the hydrogen atoms

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Speaker 1: in those H two O molecules were more massive than

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Speaker 1: you would typically encounter. They were literally heavier. So why

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Speaker 1: did they use palladium. Well, that element has the ability

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Speaker 1: to absorb hydrogen in great volumes. In fact, it can

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Speaker 1: absorb about one hundred times its own volume in hydrogen. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is because the surface of palladium can react chemically

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Speaker 1: with hydrogen in a way that draws the hydrogen into

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Speaker 1: the palladium itself. So the thinking goes that if you

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Speaker 1: could absorb deuterium through palladium at a high enough density,

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Speaker 1: you might be able to induce fusion to occur because

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Speaker 1: you're forcing these hydrogen atoms very close together. You just

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Speaker 1: have to get those deuterium atoms close enough, and then

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Speaker 1: some as yet unknown process would take you the rest

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Speaker 1: of the way. That last bit is a heck of

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Speaker 1: a kicker if you cannot explain why it happens. That is,

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Speaker 1: that's a huge question mark and a big gap in

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Speaker 1: your understanding. But science is also filled with stories in

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Speaker 1: which someone was messing around with stuff and something interesting happened,

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Speaker 1: and they couldn't explain how the interesting thing happened, and

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Speaker 1: so they had to look further into it, and only

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Speaker 1: after a lot of X lauration did we then get

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Speaker 1: an understanding of what was actually happening. So while a

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Speaker 1: lot of discoveries and science come from carefully crafted and

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Speaker 1: tested hypotheses that are building upon previous knowledge, sometimes our

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Speaker 1: advances and science come from lucky observations that lead to

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Speaker 1: more rigorous scientific exploration. So it might start off as

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Speaker 1: something where we noticed there's an interesting phenomena occurring, we

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Speaker 1: cannot explain why it's happening yet, and then we look

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Speaker 1: into it and we gain that understanding. So you've got

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Speaker 1: this heavy water, You've got your palladium electrode. How were

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Speaker 1: you to absorb the hydrogen? I mean, hydrogen is locked

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Speaker 1: in with oxygen when it's water, Right, you've got those

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Speaker 1: water molecules H two O. Well, this was through a

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Speaker 1: process called electrolysis. And I'm not talking about hair removal here,

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Speaker 1: although there is a process called electrolysis for that. Instead,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about the chemical decomposition that happens with some

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Speaker 1: liquids when you pass an elect current through that liquid.

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Speaker 1: So let's say you've got some water inside a container,

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Speaker 1: and we'll call the container an electrolyzer. So this container

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Speaker 1: is an electrolyzer. It's got water inside of it, and

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Speaker 1: inside that electrolyzer you place a pair of electrodes. One

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Speaker 1: of those electrodes is a negatively charged electrode, that's the cathode.

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Speaker 1: The other one is the positively charged electrode that's the anode,

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Speaker 1: opposite charges attract, so the negatively charged cathode will attract

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Speaker 1: positively charged ions in the water and the positive anode

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Speaker 1: will attract negatively charged ions. And there are several different

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Speaker 1: types of electrolyzers, and each type can separate hydrogen atoms

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Speaker 1: from oxygen atoms and water in different ways. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: there's the fuel cell method in which you have a

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Speaker 1: permeable membrane separating the two electrodes, and when you apply

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Speaker 1: a potential difference between the two electrodes, it causes water

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Speaker 1: to react at the anode to form oxygen, which bubbles off,

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Speaker 1: and the oxygen separates from the hydro gen. So you've

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Speaker 1: got these positively charged hydrogen ions. Because that you actually

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Speaker 1: strip the electrons off the hydrogen and you then use

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Speaker 1: those electrons to do work. In a fuel cell, the

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Speaker 1: hydrogen ions will move across through the permeable membrane toward

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Speaker 1: the cathode because they are attracted to the negatively charged electrode,

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Speaker 1: and then the hydrogen would typically bubble up and you

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Speaker 1: could capture hydrogen that way and use it for more

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Speaker 1: fuel or whatever. If you used a material like palladium

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Speaker 1: for your electrode, then you could just absorb the hydrogen

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Speaker 1: or deuterium in this case type of hydrogen isotope. The

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Speaker 1: important thing is that this process allows you to separate

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Speaker 1: hydrogen in the form of deuterium from those water molecules,

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Speaker 1: and you should end up with a palladium electrode stuffed

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Speaker 1: with hydrogen two and then maybe something magical could happen

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Speaker 1: which brings us two Ponds and Fleischman. Fleishman met Ponds

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Speaker 1: when Ponds was a student at the University of Southampton,

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Speaker 1: where Fleishman was a professor of chemistry. Ponds had graduated

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Speaker 1: and become a professor of the University of Utah, but

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Speaker 1: while he had left the University of Southampton, he and

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Speaker 1: Fleishman remained in touch and they began to collaborate on

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Speaker 1: research projects. In the early nineteen eighties, Fleishman wanted to

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Speaker 1: explore if there were ways to trigger a nuclear process,

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Speaker 1: which would be a process that results in the change

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Speaker 1: of nuclei within atoms, and wondered if he could do

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Speaker 1: that using a chemical process. Chemical processes are reactions between

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Speaker 1: atoms and molecules. So he's saying, I wonder if I

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Speaker 1: could take a chemical reaction, which typically would only be

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Speaker 1: at the atomic level or larger atoms and molecules and

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Speaker 1: force a nuclear reaction, which is at one level down right,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about the nucleus of an atom. Then in

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Speaker 1: Ponds and Fleishman began to experiment by building what they

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Speaker 1: called a fusion cell. This was essentially an electoral lizer

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Speaker 1: with an anode made of platinum and a cathode made

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Speaker 1: out of palladium, and they use heavy water inside of it,

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Speaker 1: and they hypothesized that the palladium would soak up deuterium

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Speaker 1: produced through electrolysis, and that the deuterium atoms would be

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Speaker 1: forced so close together that they would undergo fusion and

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Speaker 1: release energy in the form of heat. So what happened,

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you, but first let's take a quick break

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Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Well, Ponds and Fleishman conducted their

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Speaker 1: experiment and they monitored the temperature of the fusion cell

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Speaker 1: throughout the process. They actually did this in a kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting way with it gets pretty complicated, but they

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Speaker 1: did in a way that wasn't as simple as sticking

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Speaker 1: a thermometer in the water. And actually their their measurements

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Speaker 1: of temperature were based on estimations, not on like hard

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Speaker 1: readings at that point. So they analyzed the data at

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Speaker 1: the conclusion of their experiment, and they found that the

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Speaker 1: cell appeared to be producing about one hundred times more

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Speaker 1: heat than it would through the chemical process itself. So

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Speaker 1: we understand the chemical process, so based on that, you

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Speaker 1: would expect x amount of heat, but instead what we're

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Speaker 1: measuring is one hundred times x amount of heat, So

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Speaker 1: something else must be happening. This anomaly seemed to support

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Speaker 1: that hypothesis that maybe there was some sort of fusion occurring.

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Speaker 1: According to their calculations, the chemical process alone would not

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Speaker 1: be able to produce that heat, so something else had

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Speaker 1: to be doing it. But to be sure, they would

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Speaker 1: need to replicate their experiment, which is proper from a

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Speaker 1: scientific perspective. You have to make sure that the experiment

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Speaker 1: you conducted was an accurate and precise one, and that

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Speaker 1: you should be able to repeat the process and get

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Speaker 1: the same results. If you don't get the same results

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Speaker 1: after repeating the experiment using the exact same process, something

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Speaker 1: has gone wrong. There's some other factor that's at play,

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Speaker 1: such as unreliable measuring mechanism. Maybe the thermometer you were

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Speaker 1: using was not reliable maybe your methodology for estimating the

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Speaker 1: temperature was off. So replicating is very important because it

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Speaker 1: tells you, yes, I'm consistently getting the same result. And

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Speaker 1: if you can't say that, then you don't really have

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Speaker 1: any conclusions you can draw. If you perform the same

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Speaker 1: action over and over and something different happens every single time,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't tell you anything about the cause and effect

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Speaker 1: of that action and the consequences. So here was the problem.

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Speaker 1: To conduct more experiments would require some funding, and so

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Speaker 1: Ponds and Fleishman applied for a government grant to get

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Speaker 1: money for their experiments, and the grant process included peer

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Speaker 1: of view. Now peer of you means that you would

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Speaker 1: have peers, qualified scientists who would look over an application,

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Speaker 1: a grant application to determine if the application was had

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Speaker 1: merit you, if it was scientifically sound in its approach,

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Speaker 1: and it's outlined, and here we get the first kink

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Speaker 1: in our story. One of those reviewers was a nuclear

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Speaker 1: physicist named Stephen Jones, and Stephen Jones was also exploring

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Speaker 1: the possibility of cold fusion. However, Jones was not looking

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Speaker 1: for changes in temperature the white Ponds and Flashman were.

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Speaker 1: He was looking for evidence of neutrons, because in deuterium

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Speaker 1: fusion reactions, you wouldn't just end up with only helium four, however,

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Speaker 1: you would actually end up with one of three possible outcomes.

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Speaker 1: So you would either have helium four plus a helium

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Speaker 1: three ADAM plus some high energy neutron, or you would

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Speaker 1: end up with helium for tritium and a high energy proton,

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Speaker 1: or you would end up with helium four, another helium

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Speaker 1: four ADAM, and uh gamma ray. So those are the

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Speaker 1: three potential it comes of the this deuterium deuterium fusion process.

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Speaker 1: So you if you were had a way of testing

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Speaker 1: for one of those byproducts, then you could look to

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Speaker 1: see if there were evidence of fusion reactions happening at

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Speaker 1: that point. So if you had a way of just

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Speaker 1: detecting helium, then that would be a pretty darn convincing

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Speaker 1: argument that fusion had actually happened if you're detecting helium

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Speaker 1: being given off by this reaction, because they tell you

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Speaker 1: something has to be generating that helium. But Jones's work

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Speaker 1: was looking at neutrons specifically, so he had detected some

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Speaker 1: neutrons through his experiment, but keep in mind he was

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Speaker 1: only looking for neutrons, not for helium, but there were

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Speaker 1: so few neutrons detected. The team had concluded that fusion

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Speaker 1: might be happening, but at such a low rate that

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Speaker 1: it was useless for any practical purpose. You would not

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Speaker 1: be able to harness this for energy if in fact

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Speaker 1: fusion is happening. Fleishman and Pond's research, however, suggested a

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Speaker 1: much higher rate of fusion, much much greater than what

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Speaker 1: Jones's research had shown. So Jones gets this article submission

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Speaker 1: as part of the peer review process, and he reads it,

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Speaker 1: and he reaches out to the Department of Energy and says, Hey,

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Speaker 1: these guys over here are doing research that's kind of

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Speaker 1: like the research I'm doing, and we're both investigating the

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Speaker 1: same thing, but we're looking at it through different evidence.

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Speaker 1: How about we collaborate on this. So that offer goes

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Speaker 1: to Pons and Fleishman and they decided to turn down

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Speaker 1: the offer. Some scientists point at this as one of

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Speaker 1: the big mistakes that they made in the whole affair.

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Speaker 1: Ponds and Fleishman had deep expertise in chemistry, but they

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Speaker 1: did not have deep expertise in nuclear physics, whereas Jones

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Speaker 1: was a nuclear physicist, but he did not have a

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Speaker 1: background in chemistry, so together they could have combined their

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Speaker 1: areas of expertise to search for evidence of this process

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Speaker 1: of cold fusion. But it isn't meant to be, so

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Speaker 1: Ponds decides he's gonna put together a neutron detection experiment

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Speaker 1: of his own. So he's already detected an anomaly in temperature,

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Speaker 1: he's like, he says, well, maybe I'll check for these

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Speaker 1: neutrons as well, and if I detect those, then that's

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Speaker 1: more evidence to support my claim. So his first go

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Speaker 1: was a bust. He didn't detect any signs of neutrons

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Speaker 1: being released through this method, and based on his earlier work,

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Speaker 1: he should have been seeing a lot of neutrons getting

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Speaker 1: produced because there was such a a huge anomaly relatively speaking,

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Speaker 1: in that temperature. So he redesigns his experiment, and this

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Speaker 1: time he did detect neutrons, but nowhere close to the

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Speaker 1: number he should have been seeing based upon his earlier work.

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Speaker 1: One reference I saw said it was one hundred million

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Speaker 1: times fewer neutrons in number, which isn't great news if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to support a very out their claim. So

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Speaker 1: on the bright side, he did detect more neutrons than

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Speaker 1: Jones had in his work. So Jones, you know, he

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Speaker 1: had said, yeah, there might be some fusion happening, but

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Speaker 1: it's at a very very low rate that's not really

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Speaker 1: of any practical purpose. And Ponds found more neutrons than

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Speaker 1: Jones had when he ran the experiment, but still wasn't

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Speaker 1: at the level that what they would have or what

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Speaker 1: they had expected based upon their their earlier work. So

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Speaker 1: this presents a huge problem. The first Fleischmann Pond's experiment

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Speaker 1: seemed to suggest cold fusion on a pretty large scale

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Speaker 1: all things considered, this neutron test was not consistent with

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Speaker 1: that conclusion, and Jones's work had produced different results as well.

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Speaker 1: So the lack of consistency was troubling, as it could

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Speaker 1: mean that the results were the product of error rather

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Speaker 1: than a replicable process. So here's where the scientific process

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Speaker 1: butts head heads with what it means to be a

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Speaker 1: human being. So in the scientific community, the general rule

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Speaker 1: of thumb is that whomever publishes their work first on

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Speaker 1: a new discovery gets the credit for it, and that

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Speaker 1: in is up being important because often you'll have multiple

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Speaker 1: people working on the same problem at the same time,

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Speaker 1: and at some point you have to decide who gets

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Speaker 1: the credit and potentially a future Nobel prize or patents.

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Speaker 1: The scientifically responsible thing to do at this point would

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Speaker 1: be to design more experiments and make sure the design

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Speaker 1: is rigorous and conduct more tests to see what happens.

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Speaker 1: That would help researchers make sure that there was a

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Speaker 1: real effect there to observe before moving forward. But with Jones, Ponds,

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Speaker 1: and Flishman all working on this problem, it created a

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Speaker 1: real sense of urgency. It was a race to get credit.

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Speaker 1: And then Jones reaches out to Ponds and Flishman and said, hey, guys,

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Speaker 1: I'm playing on publishing my research. I'm gonna submit my

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Speaker 1: work to a scientific journal in eighteen days. I was

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Speaker 1: thinking you guys could write up your research and submit

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Speaker 1: it to the same journal, and that way everyone gets credit.

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Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing, by the way. So Fleishman and Ponds were

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Speaker 1: nowhere near ready to publish any work, but they did

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Speaker 1: agree to Jones's proposal, and then they went and did

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Speaker 1: something a little sneaky, and I'll explain what they did

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Speaker 1: in just a moment, but first let's take another quick

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Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. So Fleishman and Ponds had

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Speaker 1: at least a year's worth of work they really needed

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Speaker 1: to do before they were going to be ready to publish.

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Speaker 1: But they felt forced into rushing into publication in order

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Speaker 1: to get that credit for their work. And this was

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Speaker 1: not just a matter of ego. According to their initial results,

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Speaker 1: their approach might potentially allow for a new form of

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Speaker 1: generating electricity. Right if they were right and Jones was wrong,

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Speaker 1: and you were actually seeing fusion on a scale that

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Speaker 1: was practical, you could put that to work that would

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Speaker 1: transform everything, would be an enormous benefit to all of humanity,

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Speaker 1: and it would make you a whole lot of money.

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Speaker 1: So you want patents, not just at it. So they

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Speaker 1: decided to write up an article on based on their research,

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Speaker 1: even though they felt like they needed another year to

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Speaker 1: really work on it, and they submitted their article five

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Speaker 1: days after Jones had proposed a joint submission, so nearly

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Speaker 1: two weeks before Jones's own submission was going in, So

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Speaker 1: they kind of broke the agreement. They jumped ahead of Jones,

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Speaker 1: which is dirty pool old man. Moreover, they had not

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Speaker 1: conducted their tests with enough rigor to really meet scientific standards.

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Speaker 1: For example, They did not run a control test in

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Speaker 1: which they would use regular old water instead of heavy

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Speaker 1: water to see if they got different results. If you

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Speaker 1: were running a really rigorous scientific experiment, you want to

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Speaker 1: have a control group, right, So you would set up

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Speaker 1: one electroalizer with your platinum and palladium electrodes, and you

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Speaker 1: would have it in heavy water, and you would set

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Speaker 1: up an identical one using regular water that doesn't have

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Speaker 1: deuterium in it, or at least not to any measurable degree,

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Speaker 1: and you would run the same experiment and see if

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Speaker 1: you saw the same sort of anomalies. If you saw

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Speaker 1: the same anomalies, that would tell you, okay, it's got

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Speaker 1: to be something else, because protium is not going to

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Speaker 1: fuse the way deuterium will, so something else must be happening.

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Speaker 1: But they didn't do that. They also didn't switch out

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Speaker 1: their electrodes for different materials to see if that they

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Speaker 1: would get the same anomaly. And again, if your hypothesis

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Speaker 1: is based on when you put these materials with heavy

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Speaker 1: water and under these conditions you can get fusion, you

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Speaker 1: have to be able to say, all right, well we

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Speaker 1: also tried it with these other materials and with regular water.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out that nothing happened, So that supports

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Speaker 1: our argument that these other conditions have to be in place.

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Speaker 1: But if you found the same anomally, it would again

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Speaker 1: tell you, all right, something else is wrong with this experiment.

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Speaker 1: Either we're doing something wrong, or one of the pieces

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Speaker 1: of equipment we're using isn't is not performing properly. But

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Speaker 1: we know that it's not the effect we thought it

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Speaker 1: was going to be, or they could have tried different

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Speaker 1: ways to measure the effects that they observed. So, in

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Speaker 1: other words, if you think you're seeing an effect because

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Speaker 1: of those specific factors in your experiment, you it is.

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Speaker 1: You know, something that you should do is change out

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Speaker 1: those factors and make sure the effect disappears, because that

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Speaker 1: will support your claim. But if you still see that effect,

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Speaker 1: that means your hypothesis is wrong because you switched up

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Speaker 1: the stuff that you thought was necessary and it turns

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Speaker 1: out it's not necessary at all. But they did not

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Speaker 1: do that. They did submit their article to the Journal

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Speaker 1: of electro Analytical Chemistry, and they that article ended up

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Speaker 1: or rather that journal ended up putting the article through

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Speaker 1: a very rushed peer review process because it was a

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Speaker 1: big deal. It's really you know, there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of urgency put behind this report, and as a result,

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Speaker 1: the people reviewing the paper didn't have the time they

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Speaker 1: would need to really go through it the way they

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Speaker 1: would typically, and so the article gets published after going

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Speaker 1: rushing through this pure review process. And later on they

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Speaker 1: discovered there were a lot of errors in that article,

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Speaker 1: but the reviewers had lacked the time to thoroughly analyze

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Speaker 1: the paper, so those are those errors went undiscovered until

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Speaker 1: the article was published. Meanwhile, before the journal had even

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Speaker 1: printed the article, Pons and Fleishman participated in a press

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Speaker 1: conference at the University of Utah to announce their results,

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Speaker 1: which again is highly irregular. The scientific community had not

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Speaker 1: had a chance to read and analyze the research, and

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Speaker 1: this press release began to pump up interest and enthusiasm

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Speaker 1: in the public before anyone could even attest to the

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Speaker 1: validity of the claims, which is always dangerous, right, like

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Speaker 1: to go out to the public and say, we definitely

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Speaker 1: have a thing that's going to transform our world, and

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Speaker 1: no one in the scientific community has yet had the

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Speaker 1: chance to test that claim. Then the public is gonna

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Speaker 1: sit there and think, oh, well, this person is a scientist.

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Speaker 1: Their word is to be trusted, and I can't wait

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Speaker 1: to see this magical science fiction world we're about to enter.

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Speaker 1: The article was published without really proper review, and the

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Speaker 1: scientific community then began to pick the article apart upon publication,

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Speaker 1: and about a month later, Ponds and Fleishman would publish

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Speaker 1: two pages of corrections to that article to address some

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Speaker 1: of those criticisms. In addition, even before the article had

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Speaker 1: been published, scientists began to see if they could try

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Speaker 1: and replicate the results because there were scientists who had

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Speaker 1: a copy of the pre published article, you know, they

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Speaker 1: got that early peer review copy that uh was you know,

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Speaker 1: a rush through, but they actually had versions of this

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Speaker 1: before it was published. So they started to see if

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Speaker 1: they can maybe replicate the same experiment. But they ran

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Speaker 1: to some issues because Fleishman and Ponds did not include

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Speaker 1: all the details about how they actually performed the experiment,

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Speaker 1: probably because the Universe of Utah officials told them to

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Speaker 1: hold back on some details as a way to apply

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Speaker 1: for patents in the future and not have someone else

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Speaker 1: just jump ahead of them the results of the experiments

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Speaker 1: that scientists were conducting. You know, they were trying to

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Speaker 1: produce their own version of Ponds and Fleischmann's work based

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Speaker 1: on what little information they had, were incredibly inconsistent. Some

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Speaker 1: teams reported that they saw no signs of fusion at all.

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Speaker 1: Some teams said no, we're seeing some evidence for fusion.

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Speaker 1: But there was no real agreement or even alignment of

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Speaker 1: facts among those teams, and some teams that claim that

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Speaker 1: they had found something interesting could not replicate their results

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Speaker 1: with future runs of experiments. Ultimately, that led to a

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Speaker 1: general consensus that cold fusion is not a real thing,

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Speaker 1: at least not in this form uh and since then

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Speaker 1: there's been a real stigma against the idea of cold

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Speaker 1: fusion or spected. Scientific journals are not likely to publish

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Speaker 1: articles claiming to have proof of cold fusion, largely because

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Speaker 1: of the fallout that happened from the Ponds and Fleishman incident.

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Speaker 1: But while that might seem dogmatic, and probably is to

431
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: some extent, it's also true that for cold fusion to work,

432
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: for it to be possible, our understanding of nuclear fusion

433
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 1: would have to be off somehow. We would have to

434
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: have a pretty sizable gap in our knowledge about nuclear fusion,

435
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: and that is entirely possible. That can be true. But

436
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: if it turns out that cold fusion is possible, our

437
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 1: scholarship on nuclear fusion would need to be adjusted. It's

438
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: based on a lot of observations and experimentation that support

439
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: our ideas and have proven to hold true after numerous experiments.

440
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: So it would be very extraordinary to have to fit

441
00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: in new information into this into this model. Not that

442
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be possible, but that it means it requires

443
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 1: an extraordinary amount of proof. Because if you have a

444
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 1: pretty solid idea of how something works in the universe,

445
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: and your observations and experiments all seem to support that idea,

446
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: someone coming in with a new idea better have really

447
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: convincing evidence to tell you, oh, you need your idea

448
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: is good, but you need to also include this other

449
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: part because if you haven't observed it, then it's hard

450
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: to say that that idea has any validity right that

451
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 1: new piece of information. So it seems improbable but not

452
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 1: impossible that cold fusion would work. But there are still

453
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: people working in the field of low energy nuclear reactions today.

454
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,120
Speaker 1: There are some really super smart scientists working on this,

455
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 1: despite the fact that the larger scientific community remains skeptical

456
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: at best that there's anything there. There many of the

457
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: experiments seem to indicate that various processes are producing more

458
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: heat than you would be able to explain through conventional means,

459
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: But sometimes that amount is small enough to fit within

460
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: the margin of error, or it could be due to

461
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: either faulty measuring tools, faulty measuring processes, or some other

462
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 1: missed step in the procedure. In other words, there hasn't

463
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: been such a clear demonstration of the working principles of

464
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: low energy nuclear reaction to make the scientific community at

465
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 1: large re examine their perspective on the subject matter. And

466
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 1: it may very well be that there is some other

467
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 1: process going on. Maybe it's not a nuclear reaction. Maybe

468
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: there's something else happening with these experiments that we don't

469
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: yet understand, and if we're lucky, those processes will be

470
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: something we could harness in a practical way. And even

471
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: if we're unlucky, learning more about those processes would give

472
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: us a deeper understanding about how the universe works, assuming

473
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: that there are actual processes happening to understand, and it's

474
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: not just the manifestation of errors or you know, wishful thinking.

475
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:13,959
Speaker 1: Complicating matters is that practical application is a huge carrot

476
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: dangled in front of us because there is a clear

477
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: demand for a source of clean, attainable energy. Fossil fuels

478
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: cause pollution, They can have a direct effect on our health.

479
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: They can have long lasting environmental impacts. They can cause

480
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: instability in various regions. Renewable energy like wind, solar, and

481
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: hydro power are all more environmentally friendly, at least on

482
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: the production side, but they depend heavily on geography and

483
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: the presence of things that are beyond our control, like

484
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: having sufficient wind or sunlight in order to generate that electricity.

485
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: In the case of solar power, then you have to

486
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: have some other energy storage mechanism because otherwise you are

487
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: not going to be generating electricity whenever the sun is down.

488
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: So the machines we build to harness these energies also

489
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: can sometimes be expensive from an economic standpoint. Uh, it's

490
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: hard to justify building them sometimes. So you could say, well, yeah,

491
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: this energy is much cleaner the solar power or wind power.

492
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: It's much cleaner than cold power. But if at the

493
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: end of the day you figure out how much it's

494
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: going to cost to build a solar farm and it

495
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: ends up being way more expensive than a cold power plant,

496
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: that's a tough sell because people will say, well, we

497
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: need energy, but we don't want to spend ridiculous amounts

498
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: of money for it. We want some balance there. Uh,

499
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: then you end up going with coal or some other

500
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: fossil fuel, And it doesn't matter how strong the argument

501
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: is that that's not the cleanest approach sometimes because sometimes

502
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 1: money matters more. And that's just the world we live in.

503
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: Um not particularly please with it, but that's how the

504
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: world works. So there's a big demand for something new, right,

505
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: There's a big demand for something that can take the

506
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: place of all that that could provide for our energy

507
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: needs while cutting back drastically on pollution, something that would

508
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: reduce our country's dependence on foreign oil, which in turn

509
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: would boost a country's national security. And if you're the

510
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: one to figure out how to harness low energy nuclear reactions,

511
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: assuming there is such a thing, you would be wealthy

512
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: beyond your wildest dreams. Plus you'd help save the planet,

513
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: or at least you would help provide for the needs

514
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: of millions of people while cutting back on pollution in

515
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: the same process. So even if there's just the smallest

516
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: possibility that it might work, you would expect people to

517
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: try and go after that goal, because it's kind of

518
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: like buying a ticket for the lottery. You know, deep

519
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 1: down the odds of winning the lottery are next to nothing,

520
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: but they're still the slimmest of chances, and if that

521
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: chance pays off, that's all gravy. Now. I don't want

522
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: to accuse everyone working in the low energy nuclear reaction

523
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: field of being motivated by money or by being foolhardy.

524
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily the case. I'm sure many

525
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: of them are very sincere in their pursuit of science,

526
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: and they may well be on to something. I just

527
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: point out that money is a factor, and it's a

528
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: really powerful one and it's hard to ignore. So, like

529
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: I said an episode one thousand, it's important to apply

530
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: critical thinking. We don't have to deny something out of hand,

531
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: but we can demand extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims.

532
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: As it stands, I don't think we've seen enough evidence

533
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: for low energy nuclear reactions, but who knows, maybe the

534
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: future that will change. The important thing is that if

535
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: you are a critical thinker and the evidence comes up

536
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: that supports that claim, you you accept it. You say, well,

537
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: this goes against what I thought, but the evidence is there,

538
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: and so now I have to accept that this is

539
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: in fact a reflection of reality. Just so far I

540
00:32:55,760 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: haven't seen that for cold Fusion. Well, that concludes this sepisode.

541
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: In our next episode, we're going to take a look

542
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: at the dark side of nuclear power. We're going to

543
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: look at three famous nuclear power disasters, three Mile Island,

544
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: Chernobyl and the Fukushima reactor disasters and to talk about

545
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: what happened and how bad were they really, And that's

546
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: our next episode. If you guys have suggestions for future

547
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, whether it's a technology, a company,

548
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: person in tech, maybe there's someone you want me to interview,

549
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: send me a message the email addresses tech Stuff at

550
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or drop me a line

551
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Facebook. The handle for both of those

552
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,560
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553
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:43,000
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554
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555
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556
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557
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558
00:33:55,440 --> 00:34:04,160
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559
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