Cold fusion news gets mixed reactions

Cold fusion may sound like a drink you need to brace yourself for, but it’s a great deal more meaningful than that.

Rather than splitting atoms to make electricity like fission in nuclear power plants, cold fusion combines atoms to generate more energy than is required to make it. Technically speaking, two light nuclei combine to form a single heavier nucleus and release a large amount of energy.

In a breakthrough trumpeted throughout the world, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National…