An article in the science section of The Guardian present alternative to Gas, with Cold Fusion as first option...
Is it linked to the presence of Nukey startup getting implemented...
Display More
British Gas: alternative, cheaper energy suggestions
News that British Gas and their rivals will be drastically increasing its prices has angered many. But science can offer suggestions for generating cheaper and cleaner energy, reducing prices as a result
Yesterday British Gas announced it will be increasing its prices by approximately 10%. Understandably, at a time of increasing austerity and falling wages, a lot of people are very angry about this, as evidenced by an ill-advised social media exercise by the British Gas services director. This should have been anticipated; if you mug someone then try to strike up a conversation while they wait for the police to turn up, civilised discourse is unlikely.
The company claimed the price increase is due to "the cost of buying energy on the global markets, delivering gas and electricity to customers' homes, and the government's 'green' levies". Assuming it is being 100% truthful, which of course it is (why wouldn't it be?) then the solution to high prices is to find alternative sources of energy and fuel that aren't as expensive to obtain or to transport to people's homes, which also don't produce as many greenhouse gases or other pollutants.
Thankfully, the field of science has several possible alternatives.
Cold fusion
The ideal alternative energy source would be cold fusion, where atoms of hydrogen (or, more likely, the isotope deuterium) are fused at obtainable temperatures to form heavier elements like helium, releasing abundant energy in the process.
There is still some debate as to whether practical cold fusion is feasible, given the conditions required to result in a net gain of energy. One restriction is the amount of pressure required to force atoms to fuse. This has proven to be a tricky hurdle for scientists, but it should be easy for British Gas. If an executive is placed in the middle of a reactor, given a lump of solid hydrogen to hold, then told it is the last thing of value owned by an impoverished pensioner, it should trigger a grasping reflex so powerful that the hydrogen atoms are forced together and a fusion reaction initiated. Once initiated, it should be sustainable.
Granted, solid hydrogen is extremely cold so shouldn't be something a human can hold unaided. But given their actions, it seems those in charge of British Gas don't experience cold as they clearly don't see it as a potential problem.
