My long term plans for the survival of the human race (apart from the destruction of fundies) include fusion energy. So I always check in when an article on it comes into the feeds.

rawbytes writes “For the last few years, mentioning cold fusion around scientists has been a little like mentioning Bigfoot or UFO sightings. After the 1989 announcement of fusion in a bottle and the subsequent retraction, the whole idea of cold fusion seemed a bit beyond the pale. But that’s all about to change. A very reputable, very careful group of scientists at the University of Los Angeles (Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski, Seth Putterman) has initiated a fusion reaction using a laboratory device that’s not much bigger than a breadbox, and works at roughly room temperature. This time, it looks like the real thing.” From the article: “Scientists have gotten fusion to occur in the laboratory before, but for the most part, they’ve tried to mimic conditions inside the sun by whipping hydrogen gas up to extreme temperatures or slamming atoms together in particle accelerators. Both of those options require huge energies and gigantic equipment, not the sort of stuff easily available to build a generator. Is there any way of getting protons close enough together for fusion to occur that doesnt require the energy output of a large city to make it happen? The answer, it turns out, is yes.”

[Via Slashdot: ]

Looks interesting, but my sci-fi addled mind focused on this from the article:

Instead of using high temperatures and incredible densities to ram protons together, the scientists at UCLA cleverly used the structure of an unusual crystal.

And the first thing I think is “Well, duh, of course. Everyone knows about dilithium crystals.”

Oh Trek, how I miss you so …