There is still no confirmative evidence to show that cold nuclear fusion (低溫核聚變) works, not to mention that it could be used to produce elecricity.
In the year 1989, two chemists, Prof. G. Stanley Pons and Prof. Martin Fleischmann were experimenting with electrolyzing heavy water, (which contains tritium), using palladium electrodes. Hydrogen in all its forms has a very strong affinity for palladium. From their measurements, Pons and Fleischmann calculated that more energy was being released from the process, as heat, than was being put into it as electricity. They speculated that somehow tritium nuclei were being forced close together enough to cause fusion. This would account for the apparent excess heat being released. The process was called cold fusion because the temperatures involved were far lower than any at which fusion had been known to occur.
Today it is believed by most scientists familiar with the facts of the case that the procedures of Pons and Fleischmann were flawed and their conclusions mistaken.
[taken from the web-page:
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae330.cfm?CFID=20596137&CFTOKEN=57280a7f4dc14344-D09865BA-15C5-EE01-B9DA86A9A95188ED ]
In 2008, Professor of Physics Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University along with Yue-Chang Zhang from the Shianghai Jiotong University ran an experiment by forcing deuterium gas into a chamber filled with a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide, thus creating 'pynco' deuterium. The team argues that the dense deuterium then fused and created helium nuclei, plus a fair amount of energy.
As the gas was injected into the chamber, the temperature rose to 70 degrees Celsius, presumably accounting for the energy released during the nuclear fusion reaction. After the gas was turned off, the temperatures inside the chamber remained slightly higher than those near the cell wall for up to 50 hours, which the researchers said to be an effect of the nuclear fusion reaction that took place previously.
2010-03-03 20:59:23 補充:
(contd)...However, the result of their experiment still needs to be confirmed.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/World-039-s-First-Cold-Nuclear-Fusion-Reactor-Demonstrated-Last-Week-86633.shtml