That's a great question! Cold fusion is a form of nuclear fusion that occurs at a much lower temperature than traditional nuclear fusion. It would create power by releasing energy in the form of heat which could then be used to generate electricity.

The "cold" in "cold fusion" refers to the starting conditions, rather than it being cold the whole time (I think!)

So it still gets hot, and you can extract energy from it, but it doesn't require as much energy to get it going.

The fusion itself would happen at room temperature, but the process would release enough heat to boil water. Also, cold fusion doesn't mean room temperature. Compared to natural fusion, even fusion at 10k K would be considered cold.

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The reason you're asking is also a part of why they've started calling it Low Energy Nuclear Reactions. Firstly, because "cold" in the stellar sense is a lot more hot than in the human sense, and secondly because "cold fusion" does not have a good track record for predicting anything which gives it a bad rep.

The cold part means you don't need ridiculously high temperatures to get it to happen, it does not describe the outcome of the reaction.

Think of it more like autoignition temperature, rather than flame temperature. There are substances that will ignite by themselves at room temperature, but they still produce heat when burned. Fusion is a lot harder though, while there are ways to make it happen at reduced temperatures, like replacing the electrons with bosons muons, we don't quite know how to do that in a way that's practical for power generation.

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The room temperature means that no heat is added not that no heat is produced, basically hot fusion requires enormous temperatures which of course means energy being put into the process so any energy extracted has to be balanced out with the energy you input. Cold fusion has been a pipe dream for science but it just won't work https://youtu.be/GNdJHcM7-5U

Apart from what people already said about "cold" quite possibly meaning "10000°", it's also not like you need something to be hot to create power. Photovoltaic, hydroelectric and wind power are not boiling hot either. And neither are batteries or fuel cells. A cold fusion cell that works akin to a hydrogen fuel cell is not unthinkable, just pretty unlikely to exist.

Just to check, did you mean muons or did you actually mean bosons, in which case please elaborate or link something that talks about it, because I've never heard of that one

you are gonig off a missguided assumption:

"cold fusion" doesnt mean the reactino doesnt output any heat ever, it means that the requirements to start the reaction are much lower. the output is identical to regular fusion.

I think they're referring to muon catalyzed fusion. It's considered impractical due to the high cost of muon sources and the relatively short life span of the particle itself.

Since it would be operating at the temperature of a coal power plant it could use the same steam cycle and turbines. In fact cold fusion could be retrofitted on top of current infrastructure with a little imagination.

Yeah, that's why I'm checking what they mean. I already know of muon catalysation, but who knows, maybe someone figured out how to use Pi- mesons intead of electrons

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The same way that t would be harnessed with any thermal generator - you heat a medium (water etc) turn into steam and turn a generator. “Cold” in “cold fusion” means “not millions of degrees currently needed”, not “room temperature”.

Yes, I meant muons. whoops.

In the simplest of explanations, It creates power by producing extra electrons than what was thrown into the reaction originally. This doesn’t relate to heat boiling water, just as much as it does relate to energy being simply harnessed. No temperature involved.

Usually the factors involved are fuels that differ from what you might think of as fuels like gasoline or diesel. helium-3 and deuterium are cold fusion fuels, and energy reactions caused by electromagnetic forces and plasma from the ionized fuels. The magnetic fields cause particles to move around at such an incredible rate that it’s almost like a small particle collider, until they are quickly, violently, slammed together. This both in theory and as of recently, and literally can create extra electrons and excited particles.

To use this as a feasible method of making energy and using it on real world applications, you would need to be generating a lot more than what we can currently generate. But again, as of recently, this is possible.

I understand your post says you get what cold fusion is but in the nicest way, if you got what cold fusion was, you would know how it produces power. So I thought a good explanation of what cold fusion is AND how power is produced would do the trick

Alright, nevermind then