
459
24
Fatal “Cold Fusion”
Explosion
24.1 BACKGROUND AND ANALYSES
On January 2, 1992, an explosion in an electrochemistry laboratory at SRI
I
nternational
i
n
M
enlo
P
ark,
C
alifornia,
k
illed
s
cientist
A
ndrew
R
iley,
i
njured
t
hree
o
thers,
a
nd
ca
used
e
xtensive
l
ab
d
amage.
R
iley
a
nd
o
thers
at
S
RI
w
ere
c
onducting
e
xperiments
i
n
a
r
elatively
n
ew,
b
ut
w
idely
c
ontroversial,
eld
o
f
s
tudy
t
ermed
“
cold
f
usion.” Beginning with a report by Pons and Fleischmann in 1989 [1], investigators
around the world reported the production of small quantities of excess heat in elec-
trolysis
e
xperiments
w
ith
he
avy
w
ater
(
D
2
O). Some also measured the emission of ...