2004 DoE Review of Cold Fusion

The DoE Report and Reviews

The DoE report itself, Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEreportofth.pdf

The DoE did not release the 18 anonymous reviews the report was based on, but we have made them available here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf

The links in the DoE website are as follows:

http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/

http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/CF_Final_120104.pdf

Brief History of the DoE Review

After The Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-10) in 2003, several leading cold fusion researchers contacted the US Department of Energy and asked them to set up a review panel to examine cold fusion results and determine whether cold fusion research should be funded.

The DOE first looked at cold fusion in 1989, in the ERAB report. The panel was convened soon after cold fusion was announced, and it finished its work several months before the first serious cold fusion application experiments were completed, and a year or two before they could be published. The ERAB report concluded that cold fusion probably does not exist, but that some funding might be appropriate. Despite this, funding was cut off and the report was cited as justification for this decision.

The New Scientist magazine broke the news of this new panel in the March 20, 2004 issue, in a short article by Ben Daviss, "Upfront: News in perspective" on page 6. On March 25, 2004, the New York Times published an article titled, "U.S. Will Give Cold Fusion Second Look, After 15 Years," by Kenneth Chang. Chang conducted an e-mail interview with Dr. James F. Decker, deputy director of the science office in the Energy Department. Decker confirmed that the panel is being formed, and he wrote: "It was my personal judgment that their request for a review was reasonable." On November 6, 2003, Decker met with Peter Hagelstein (MIT) Michael McKubre (SRI International), and David J. Nagel (George Washington University). Decker said, "They presented some data and asked for a review of the scientific research that has been conducted. The scientists who came to see me are from excellent scientific institutions and have excellent credentials."

News of the DoE review was described in an article in Physics Today, "DoE Warms to Cold Fusion," by Toni Feder, which is available on-line here: http://physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-4/p27.html. The article quotes MIT professor Mildred Dresselhaus, who was on the ERAB panel, and the head of DeE's Office of Science: "I think scientists should be open minded. Historically, many things get overturned with time." Reports of the DoE review were pubished in other newspapers, including the Deseret News and MIT's Technology Review. Weinberger, S., Warming Up to Cold Fusion, in Washington Post Magazine. 2004. p. W22., described the review when it was in progress.

Aftermath: The DoE reneges,  and Scientific American attacks

Most cold fusion researchers were disappointed by the Review, because it was replete with technical errors and misunderstandings. (See Critique below.) Two documents are available in the LENR-CANR library that help explain how this failure occurred and why.  The article "The US Government Once Again Evaluates Cold Fusion," appearing in the winter issue of 21st Century Science and Technology, gives the general background to the process. A technical rebuttal, A Response to the Review of Cold Fusion by the DoE was sent to the DoE with a request that it be circulated to the reviewers. This subject is too important for evaluations to be based on a misunderstanding of the experimental results and be influenced by personal animosity toward the subject.

Despite the technical problems with the report, researchers were satisfied that the DoE was at last being reasonable, and that the Review left the door open to serious research project proposals:

Prof. Melvin Miles applied to the DoE  to fund an up-to-date cold fusion research project, which would extend and build upon his years of research at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center. Miles is one of the world's top electrochemists and he retired from China Lake as a Distinguished Fellow. He is now a professor at the University of La Vern. The DoE flatly rejected his application, without even submitting it to a peer-review process. It responded with a surly list of impossible Catch-22 requirements, such as telling him he would have to publish his experiments in a peer-reviewed journal before the experiments can be funded or performed! In other words, the DoE  was never serious, and the statements in the Review are mere window dressing. This travesty is described in a new document, The DoE Lies Again.

The Scientific American reported on the DoE Review, and it added four statements to the report which are incorrect and totally at odds with the literature. See: News, The Scientific American Slams Cold Fusion Again.

Critique of the DoE review by C. Beaudette

A Response to the DoE by Charles Beaudette is availalble in our library, here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BeaudetteCresponseto.pdf. Beaudette is the  author of  the  book Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Prevailed. See: Books and Videos about LENR-CANR. Selected pages from the book are here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf

Critique of the DoE Review by E. Storms and J. Rothwell

December 2004.

Overall, the review is inconclusive. It says, for example: "Two-thirds of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced. Many reviewers noted that poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other similar issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented." Many in the cold fusion field share this complaint. However, this is a strawman that was not part of the charge given the reviewers. The reviewers were asked whether the claims, taken in total, are real and whether further study should be encouraged using a level of funding required to overcome these handicaps. To this charge, the response was lukewarm.

The DoE asked 18 experts in various fields of science to evaluate the reality and value of cold fusion (LENR). A person outside of science, but concerned about the possible value of such an ideal energy source, would expect the evaluation to be done with competence, objectivity and a concern for the benefits the claims would give if true. Instead, the effort was flawed by an obvious lack of interest by most reviewers. This indifference is evidenced by serious flaws in their justification for rejecting many of the claims. Competent people can disagree about the meaning of observation and can even choose to reject claims. However, only an indifferent and sloppy reviewer comes to such conclusions based on an incomplete or false understanding of the observations. For example, most reviewers, "did not find the production of excess power convincing." They justify this rejection because excess power did not occur over the total time of the experiment, because not all possible explanations have been investigated, and because excess power is only a fraction of applied power. These objections were raised in spite of the fact that time is required for the effect to turn on and the reason for this requirement is known numerous other explanations have been suggested and all have been shown not to be correct and the magnitude of a novel effect is not a logical reason for its rejection. If these criteria were applied to science in general, many of the ideas now accepted would have to be abandoned. The reviewers did not believe the claimed excess energy, if real, had a nuclear origin. One important piece of evidence for a nuclear origin is that fact that when excess energy is measured, helium is also detected in the evolving gas, in amounts consistent with a fusion reaction. Reviewers rejected this helium because the helium concentration measured, in most cases, is much less than the concentration in air. They suggested that a leak in the apparatus may be the source of helium. They ignored the peer-reviewed literature, which clearly demonstrates why such a leak cannot explain the helium: helium is only measured when excess energy is measured; a leak would also provide argon which is not detected the cells are demonstrated to be leak tight in blank runs; and in most cases the systems had a pressure greater than the surrounding air pressure. Furthermore, similar measurements giving consistent results have been obtained at six laboratories in three countries. Knowing these facts, a person has to shake his head in dismay at the willing disregard of published evidence.

So what did the DoE panel accomplish? They showed the world that the subject was worth an effort to evaluate, they offered to fund proposals if they were properly prepared and passed peer review, and they demonstrated that the average reviewer may not be willing to evaluate such proposals fairly.

Nevertheless, like the ERAB Panel report, the reviewers recommended well designed proposals be submitted by individuals. This recommendation should be taken seriously, if for no other reason than to test the intent of the recommendation. We will have to wait and see what the DoE does next when proposals are actually submitted before we can judge the value of this review effort. This could be a big step forward.

The 18 reviewers' comments are more thoughtful and scientific than the summary report by the DoE, but they still lack objectivity and clarity, in our opinion. For example, reviewer #7 writes:

The reviewer rejects the results based on nuclear theory it is "not to be believed," but then proposes an alternative explanation based on the anomalous element diffusing from the palladium interior. The anomalous element could not migrate from the interior of the palladium because:

1. Deuterium atoms, flowing from the surface to the interior, would cause diffusion of the anomalous element away from the surface, not toward the surface.
2. Mass spectroscopy done at various depths shows that the anomalous element was not present in the palladium.
3. The element that was originally on the surface disappears at the same rate as the anomalous element appears.
4. The isotopes of the anomalous element are unnatural, and the isotope shifts are exactly what are expected should the missing element transmute into the new element

Since the initial element disappears, if migration is the cause of the change, we have to postulate that the element applied to the surface migrates toward the interior, while the anomalous element migrates in the opposite direction toward the surface. Such explanations are mere handwaving, and violate as many expected behaviors as does cold fusion but in a different field of science.  This kind of reasoning is typical of most reviews. In any case, the reviewer has missed the main point.  Iwamura's data certainly justifies further study.  The proposed theories, regardless of their source (including the reviewer's own hypothesis), are irrelevant.

Material Submitted to the DoE

Before the review panel convened, five researchers wrote a paper for the DoE: Hagelstein, P.L., et al., New Physical Effects in Metal Deuterides. This paper has 130 References, including several in our Library, which are listed in the following table.

References in "New Physical Effects in Metal Dueterides"