EPISODE · May 5, 2026 · 31 MIN
Cydian Kauffman: Cold Fusion, Deuterium, and the Future of Water
from Liquid Assets · host Ravi Kurani
One cubic meter of seawater holds enough deuterium to yield energy equivalent to 300 barrels of oil, and cold fusion may be the key to unlocking it. Cydian Kauffman, founder of Pure Water Northwest, traces the full arc from today's fragile water-energy grid to a future where coastal seawater simultaneously powers cities and produces drinking water as a byproduct. Along the way, he gets practical about what is actually in your tap and what you can do about it right now.What we cover:- Power and water are tightly coupled. A grid failure quickly becomes a water crisis, and most people who have spent their lives turning on a faucet have no backup plan.- Deuterium makes seawater a dual resource. At roughly 0.015% concentration, one cubic meter holds energy equivalent to about 300 barrels of oil. Cold fusion, recently achieved in a controlled lab environment, is the mechanism that could unlock power generation and deliver clean drinking water as a byproduct of the same process.- Cold fusion sidesteps the cooling constraint that conventional nuclear reactors face, dramatically reducing the water demand of power generation and opening the door to more distributed energy systems.- Reverse osmosis removes 85 to 99.9% of most contaminants, including microplastics, PFAS forever chemicals, chlorine byproducts, and oxidized arsenic. Units with a reservoir tank are the right call; the first draw from a tankless system is often not fully filtered.- Legal limits are not health limits. The EPA sets both a health limit and a legal limit for drinking water contaminants. For arsenic, the health limit is zero, but some level is legally permitted in tap water across most states. If you don't have a filter, your body is the filter.- Flint, Michigan's water crisis could have been addressed for roughly one million dollars using a government-backed coupon system to source and install 30,000 reverse osmosis units while infrastructure was repaired. The fact that it did not happen that way still puzzles Cydian.Cydian Kauffman is the Founder and CEO of Pure Water Northwest, a water treatment company based in Seattle. Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cydian-kauffman/Movie rec: The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999). Cydian's pick for a film that rewired how he thinks about perspective and communication, mapping directly onto how he translates complex water science into actionable decisions for homeowners.Also available on:Website: https://www.liquidassets.cc/
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Cydian Kauffman: Cold Fusion, Deuterium, and the Future of Water
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