Remember Cold Fusion? Well . . .

This is Dr. Randell Mills, the CEO of BlackLight Power in Cranbury, NJ. Mina Kimes on CNNMoney.com this morning reports that this entrepreneur with $60 million in venture funding says he's found an endless source of cheap energy. Trouble is, it violates the laws of quantum physics.

Here is some of what she reported:

Such skepticism doesn't daunt Dr. Randell Mills, a Harvard-trained physician and founder of BlackLight, who recently claimed that he has created a working fuel cell using the world's most pervasive element: the hydrogen found in water.

"This is no longer an academic argument," Mills, 50, insists. "It's proven technology, and we're going to commercialize it as quickly as possible."

For the first time in his company's 19 years of persistent trial and error, Mills says he has a market-ready product: a fuel cell that produces a chemical reaction to alter hydrogen atoms. The fuel cell releases heat that turns water into steam, which drives electric turbines.

The working models in his lab generate 50 kilowatts of electricity - enough to power six or seven houses. But these, Mills says, can be scaled to drive a large, electric power plant. The inventor claims this electricity will cost less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which compares to a national average of 8.9 cents.

While his business has been working on the "BlackLight Process" since its inception almost two decades ago, Mills developed the patented cocktail that enables the reaction - a solid fuel made of hydrogen and a sodium hydride catalyst - only a year ago. (He recently posted instructions on the company's Web site, blacklightpower.com). Now that the device is ready for commercialization, he says, BlackLight is negotiating with several utilities and architecture and engineering firms, but he won't disclose any partners' names until the deals are finalized.

(Editor): I'm hardly the one to ask about physics ___ particle,quantum, or basic. But the idea that he is beyond the conceptual stage and now at the point of going commercial with this caught my eye. Note that he hopes to have one or more systems in place by Fall 2009. I think it is particularly significant that he plans these fuel cells for power generating plants, the ones that burn coal and contribute so much to our pollution and warming climate problem. Will coal states or coal interests in Congress block this? Stay tuned.