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Tremendous pressure in needed to trigger a thermonuclear reaction.
Unfortunatly it requires vast amounts of energy to achieve the pressure
required to do this. The energy input is, so far, more than anything
scientists can get out of the reaction. In fact as of today self
sustaining, controlled nuclear fusion, here on earth, has not yet been
achieved. The current estimates are that it wont happen till something
like the year 2020.
To be useful you need to get more energy ou than you put in. The cold
fusion group thought that the energy intensive processes like using high
powered lasers and huge magnetic fields to produce the pressures required
could be avoided by letting the crystal structure of metals do the trick.
They tried to create a platinum crystal doped with deuterium (hydrogen but
with an extra neutron). The idea was that the metal crystal acted as a
little cage that the deuterium was trapped inside. If two deuterium were
trapped in the same crystal cage then the cage acted like a microscopic
pressure cooker and the two deuterium atoms bounced around inside the cage
until they collided and merged to create a Helium atom releasing fusion
energy. If it worked then fusion energy could be released without the
expensive apparatus required for high temperature fusion. It seemed that
it was possible to have a cheap source of abundant energy. Unfortunatly
nature does not always like a good idea. Careful analysis revealed that
the process did not work. There were initial reports of energy release
but it was found to be due to a chemical (not nuclear) reaction between
the platinum and the deuterium. After much excitement in the press and
millions of dollars of research money spent at the university where the
researchers worked the whole thing died out. Just recently the university
involved withdrew the pattent application on the process.
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