Cold fusion in metals

Recent newspapers report that cold fusion of deuterons electrochemically infused into metals such as Pd has been observed by two research groups. We have made a rough estimate of the fusion rate of such deuterons on the basis of conventional solid-state physics. We take a model where deuterons are embedded into a jellium of metal electrons and interact via a screened Coulomb potential. The fusion rate depends strongly on the screening length, being larger for smaller length. For Pd metal, the length is estimated to be 0.12 A and even when the deuteron density in Pd is assumed to be 7 x 1022 cm-3, the output of fusion will be much less than that of microwatts per cubic centimeter of Pd. (author)