2000-03-01|World Trends & Forecasts

To the editor

I noticed over-simplification of information in "Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Technology Timeline" in The Futurist (March-April 2000). Here is what I consider to be the most striking item in possible future, or extrapolation, according to Arthur C. Clarke.

2002

The first commercial device producing clean, safe power by low-temperature nuclear reactions goes on the market, heralding the end of the Fossil-Fuel Age. Economic and geopolitical earthquakes follow and, for their discovery of so-called "Cold Fusion" in 1989, Pons and Fleishmann receive the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The so-called "Cold Fusion" was quickly dismissed by the scientific establishment, most notably the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Arthur C. Clarke's endorsement of "Cold Fusion" does not lower his credibility, but instead shows his extreme open-mindedness towards radical concepts. I also believe that "Cold Fusion" will eventually be recognised as the revelation of a previously unknown electro-chemical mechanism, but I doubt that Pons and Fleishmann will receive due credit any time soon, unfortunately. So many important discoveries in the history of human civilisation have been dismissed at first (e.g., Galileo Galilei, Christopher Columbus, etc.).
Incidentally, the method of announcing "Cold Fusion" (a press conference instead of a peer-reviewed scientific journal) was sharply criticised. However, the LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), one of the greatest inventions in human civilisation, was also announced in a press conference because every scientific journal rejected the paper submitted by the researchers.
As for "Deepwater Oil: The Final Frontier?", I would like to point out that the ultimate fossil fuel seems to be methane hydrate, a powder-like substance produced through the combination of methane gas and water under high pressure and in low temperatures. It is distributed under the seabed and glacial land, and its deposits are estimated to be more than 100 times bigger than the currently confirmed natural gas reserves.
Also, the patent-pending technology called "Integrated Power Generation Plant and Greenhouse" should be promoted world-wide as a viable solution to help reduce greenhouse gas emission in order to meet the commitment of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
- Toward Carbon-Free Energy <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/GS.Sunatori/1999-11-18.html>
Thank you very much for your attention.

2002
The first commercial device producing clean, safe power by low-temperature nuclear reactions goes on the market, heralding the end of the Fossil-Fuel Age. Economic and geopolitical earthquakes follow and, for their discovery of so-called "Cold Fusion" in 1989, Pons and Fleishmann receive the Nobel Prize for Physics.

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"Sunatori, Go Simon" <GS.Sunatori@HyperInfo.CA>

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2025-10-15T16:49:38.000Z