I do not know much about prediction markets but this seems like a bad idea because the game is rigged. Whether a Fortune 500 company will announce a product or not is entirely a matter of politics. There are no technical reasons to prevent this from happening. In a sane world, every Fortune 500 company would already be frantically developing cold fusion.
In the 1980s the television program Dallas had a season during which everyone was asking "who shot JR?" (Everyone but me. I had no idea this was happening.) In the UK, there are betting shops where you can bet on just about anything: sports, politics, whether tourists will travel to the moon. However they did not allow people to bet on who shot JR because the answer was known to someone. It was up to the scriptwriters. The scriptwriters themselves might have secretly placed bets in favor of one character or another, making a fortune. The decision to develop cold fusion or not has never been bounded by technical problems. It has always been a matter of choice. It has always been about academic politics and funding. Any time in the last 23 years, any major industrial company might have invested $100 million or so, and very likely they would have developed a workable prototype. At least they would've shown beyond any doubt that the effect is real and worth spending hundreds of millions more on. I suppose it may take approximately $1 billion to develop industrial prototypes. I think it will be far more expensive than Defkalion now anticipates. This may seem like a lot of money but it is approximately how much the world spends every day on fossil fuel. Compared to the savings brought by cold fusion this is a microscopic sum of money. It like investing a dollar in the lottery and winning $500 million (as someone is likely to do tonight). Many skeptics over the years have argued that we should not do cold fusion research because we cannot be sure it will pan out. That's ridiculous. First, because by that standard no one would get out of bed in the morning because you might be struck by lightning. Second, because there is every indication that cold fusion will work out, and not a single valid technical reason to doubt that. By 1990 it had already achieved temperatures and power density. There has never been any doubt that once it is understood and controlled, it will be a viable source of energy far cheaper than any other. Some skeptics have argued that we cannot afford to do cold fusion research. That goes way beyond ridiculous into deepest cloud cuckoo land. imagine a $500 million lottery in which there are only 10 tickets for sale, one is certain to win, and you have the opportunity to buy nine of them for $9. Would you say you can't afford that? Cold fusion will be by far the most cost-effective R&D in the recorded history of our species. - Jed
