Gibbs published a new article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2012/11/20/cold-fusion-and-unintended-consequences/
For once I have no objection! He says nothing unreasonable. I posted the following response: Gibbs is correct. The problems he describes may occur with cold fusion. These problems -- and others -- have been discussed by several people since the discovery of cold fusion, especially: Martin Fleischmann, Stanley Pons, Arthur C. Clarke, David Nagel, Michael McKubre, Michael Melich, Eugene Mallove, Anthony Lovins, Jeremy Rifkin, Adm. Sir Anthony Griffin and me. I described some of their conclusions in chapters 11, 12 and 19 of my book, “Cold Fusion and the Future.” The book is here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf Some of these problems are not likely to be as serious as Gibbs fears. The total nuclear waste from cold fusion cells is likely to be very small. It should be easily contained because the cells will be sealed units, like batteries. As long as the recycling plants are designed and run correctly, this should not be a problem. Clarke discussed the heat islands problem. He, I and others concluded that even with low Carnot efficiency, savings from co-generation space heating will likely lower overall heat releases. Agriculture from desalinated water may be a problem, but not if the standards of Israeli and Saudi desalination plants are adhered to. These and other examples demonstrate that the use of cold fusion will have to regulated to some extent. Granted, there are many other unintended consequences. They are anticipated, but not intended. There are also a host of evil applications for cold fusion, some of which I describe in the book. Fleischmann and Pons delayed the introduction of cold fusion for a few years partly because they feared some of these applications. They thought it might be a good idea for the Department of Defense to classify the research. - Jed
