Then where’s my Mr. Fusion?
***You are utterly, 100% right. The hot fusion boys have spent $250B of our money, and the best we have to show for it is 6MJoules of output for a few seconds. In the meantime, hundreds of LENR experiments have generated thousands of MJoules for less than a thousandth of the cost — almost all of which is private money to begin with.
So for hot fusion, we’ve got maybe a total of 10MJoules for $250B, which comes to $25k/Joule. For cold fusion, we’ve got maybe a total of 100k MJoules for $250M, which 25cents/Joule.
Like you say, where is my Mr. Fusion, from the hot fusion boys?
Yes, but unlike with cold fusion, we know the actual theory of hot fusion, how it works, why it works, etc.. We know the theory is valid, and the trick is coming up with mechanisms to make it controllable.
We don't have that with cold fusion. We don't know even the theoretical "how" and "why" of it. All we've got, at best, are lab experiments of questionable reproducability, without even an underlying theory of why it should work at all.
But what are you advocating, exactly? I've got no problem with private scientists, with private funding, continuing to work on it. Maybe they'll find something useful and workable at some point. Maybe they won't. My objection is to the over-inflated hype, or expectation that it will produce something worthwhile.