Cold Confusion

Eli has noted a rather remarkable scientific riff from Mitt Romney:

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

Well, of course Romney doesn't claim to be a scientist. It sounds like he's mixing up cold fusion with high temperature superconductivity. And I guess the last sentence is true.

Anyway, I was curious to track down the source and context. It's from an interview Dec 7 2011 with the Washington Examiner. The transcript and video are here. It's on video part 2 (actually audio only) at about 5 min.