Cold Fusion Reactor

The Cold Fusion Reactor as it appears prior to Patch 3 and for General Ironside

## Introduction

The **Cold Fusion Reactor** is the main power supply structure of all USA generals except General Alexis Alexander. It is a fusion reactor that produces electricity for other buildings.

## Overview

The Cold Fusion Reactor is, as the name suggests, a second generation power plant with cold fusion as its basis. It consists of a trapezium structure formed by many types of cuboids on a rather small rectangle foundation. Inside the building, there is a reactor core which is filled with palladium/nickel powder and deuterium/hydrogen in water/gas/plasma form. The core is then connected to a closed cell system (vaguely looks like this). When the electrolysis starts, muons will start to form and if a muon replaces one of the electrons in a hydrogen molecule, the nuclei are consequently drawn 196 times closer than in a normal molecule, due to the reduced mass being 196 times the mass of an electron. When the nuclei are this close together, the probability of nuclear fusion is greatly increased, to the point where a significant number of fusion events can happen at room temperature, producing energy during the process (while it does not produce any harmful radiation). The energy produced can be used to heat the water outside the reactor to produce steam that will turn a turbine to move the generator. Then the generator will produce the electricity provided to other buildings via electric cables. To provide more security, this power plant has a machine gun (Granger, Ironhand and Townes) or a laser fence (Townes) to keep infiltrators at bay. The power plant has control rods to increase the power produced. General Townes tweaked his reactors (dubbed "Advanced Cold Fusion Reactors") to generate about 60% more power by default to supply his defences and oddly enough, his main battle tanks as well.

This small power plant provides electricity to all buildings and defense structures of all USA Generals except Alexander (who prefer smaller, more compact and easier to construct Ion Power Plants to do the job). However, these structures tend to be very fragile and should you put many of them too close to each other, they will be a good target to disrupt your power supply. Also, if you do not build security systems quickly enough, enemy factions will infiltrate your power supply.

## Assessment

Pros:

* Very cheap (800$).
* Fast build time.
* Occupies decently small space.
* Does not leave radiation when destroyed.
* Infantry units will spawn upon its ruins when destroyed.

Cons:

* Produces little energy (5 power points) without control rods. Only exception for Townes' CFRs that can produce up to 12pts at stock.
* Low durability.
* Explodes when destroyed.

## Trivia

* In reality, scientists presume that cold fusion is technologically impossible, at least due to trivial physical laws (atom-cores will not merge in such cold temperatures, etc.).
* Strangely, all reactors can be upgraded with "Control Rods", even though fusion reactors do not use control rods.

## Gallery

Cold Fusion Reactor upgraded with Control RodsCold Fusion Reactor with Laser Fence (Townes)Cold Fusion Reactor with Security Systems (Granger, Ironhand & Townes)