Suspects Arrested in Mallove Murder
April 2010
Cold fusion pioneer and author Eugene Mallove was murdered in 2004. On April 2, 2010, police arrested two suspects in the murder: Chad M. Schaffer, 32 and Candace L. Foster, 30. See:
http://www.theday.com/article/20100402/NWS04/304029816
http://www.theday.com/article/20100406/NWS02/304069933
A biography of Eugene Mallove is here: http://www.infinite-energy.com/whoarewe/gene.html
American Chemical Society March 2010 meeting cold fusion program
December 2009
The American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring 2010 National Meeting & Exposition is underway in San Francisco, California, March 21 - 25, 2010. Forty six papers will be presented in four sessions over two days, sessions: ENVR014, ENVR049, ENVR050 and ENVR051. Seven papers will be shown in poster sessions. Here is a letter from the session organizer, Jan Marwan, and a copy of the program:
http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/ACSMarch2010program.pdf
A on-line press briefing was held with six leading researchers: M. Miles, G. Miley, V. Vysotskii, P. Hagelstein, M. McKubre and J. Marwan It can be viewed here:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5620243
M. McKube was interviewed at the conference by Ira Flatow. This was broadcast on NPR's Science Friday on March 26, 2010. See:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201003261
The interview starts 13 minutes into the broadcast:
http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/510221/125235729/npr_125235729.mp3
Arata replication by Kitamura et al. and Kidwell et al.
December 2009
In June 2009, Kitamura et al. (Kobe U.) published a replication of Arata's experiment gas loading zirconium oxide with nanoparticles of palladium in it. The publisher has granted LENR-CANR.org permission to upload the manuscript version of this paper: Kitamura, A., et al., Anomalous effects in charging of Pd powders with high density hydrogen isotopes. Phys. Lett. A, 2009. 273(35): p. 3109-3112.
Another replication was reported here: Kidwell, D., et al. Does Gas Loading Produce Anomalous Heat? (PowerPoint slides). in 15th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2009. Rome, Italy: ENEA.
Arata's 2008 lecture and demonstration are described below. At ICCF-15 Arata reported an improved version of this experiment, with different types of calorimeters and a new cell design. The slides from this presentation are here.
Defense Intelligence Agency report
November 2009
On November 13, 2009, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released a report on cold fusion: Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance DIA-08-0911-003.
A version of this paper in HTML format is available here: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/DIALENRReport.shtml
ICCF15 Conference
The 15th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science was held in Rome, Italy, October 5 - 9, 2009. The website is here: http://iccf15.frascati.enea.it/
The conference was sponsored by the ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies Energy and the Environment), the Italian Physical Society, the Italian Chemical Society, The National Research Council (CNR), and Energetics Technologies. The conference opened with brief lectures by the presidents of the Physical and Chemical societies. One hundred fifty four people attended, with more young researchers in attendance compared to previous ICCF conferences. Many new and significant experimental results were reported, in addition to several successful replications of the Arata nanoparticle gas loading technique. Arata himself reported increased heat from a new cell design and improved calorimetry.
The conference revealed interest in the subject at a growing number of university and government laboratories in several countries. For example, impressive results were reported by researchers at the ENEA, SRI and U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Kobe University and elsewhere. Better instruments, such as high precision microcalorimeters and custom designed mass spectrometers have been used to confirm the results and to characterize improved materials, leading to larger and more reproducible excess heat and other effects. As a result, better understanding about how the novel process works is being achieved.
The book of abstracts is here: http://iccf15.frascati.enea.it/docs/Abstracts.pdf
Many of the PowerPoint slide presentations are here: http://iccf15.frascati.enea.it/ICCF15-PRESENTATIONS
A review of the conference is here: Scientific Overview of ICCF15.
The deadline for submitting a paper for the proceedings is November 30, 2009. The proceedings will be published on line at an ENEA web site with links to the LENR.org website. A printed book will be published by ENEA and will be available.
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) books uploaded
September 2009
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has made several books and reports about cold fusion available at no cost. We have uploaded some of these documents. The LENR-CANR.org versions of these files are smaller than the versions at the EPRI website and they have been rendered in "searchable" Acrobat format. The following are available:
EPRI. Proceedings: Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion Volume 1: Plenary Session Papers, TR-104188-V1. 1994. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii: Electric Power Research Institute.
EPRI. Proceedings: Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion Volume 2: Calorimetry and Materials Papers, TR-104188-V2. 1994. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii: Electric Power Research Institute.
EPRI. Proceedings: Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion Volume 3: Nuclear Measurements Papers, TR-104188-V3. 1994. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii: Electric Power Research Institute.
EPRI. Proceedings: Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion Volume 4: Theory and Special Topics Papers, TR-104188-V4. 1994. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii: Electric Power Research Institute.
McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals, TR-104195. 1994, Electric Power Research Institute. (This replaces a partial version of this paper previously uploaded to LENR-CANR.org)
EPRI. NSF/EPRI Workshop on Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals. 1989. Washington, D.C.: Electric Power Research Institute.
Seminar at U. Missouri, "Excess Heat and Particle Tracks from Deuterium-loaded Palladium"
May 2009
Announcement: Many research groups have reported excess heat from deuterated palladium using many different experimental techniques. Recently, the Navy's SPAWAR laboratory published experimental results that document the production of nuclear particles, thereby suggesting that nuclear reactions are occurring. However, these observed particle tracks are at levels that are much smaller than would be expected if this excess heat resulted from conventional nuclear fusion. These excess heat reports
often vastly exceed that which would likely be produced by chemical reactions or by structural phase transitions in the palladium.
The program, videos and PowerPoint slides from the speakers are available from the university:
http://research.missouri.edu/news/stories/090527_seminar.htm
The video files at the university have to be downloaded completely before they can be played. More convenient versions are available on YouTube:
Robert Duncan
Frank Gordon
Pamela Mosier-Boss
Larry Forsley
Edmund Storms
Michael McKubre
Peter Hagelstein
Yeong Kim
Mark Prelas
David Nagel
Peter Handel
Robert Duncan -- Closing Comments
Prof. Robert Duncan gives presentation on cold fusion
May 2009
Prof. Robert Duncan, vice chancellor for research and a professor of physics, University of Missouri-Columbia, appeared on 60 Minutes segment, "Cold Fusion is Hot Again." On April 23, 2009, he spoke at The Missouri Energy Summit, a conference sponsored by the University of Missouri System. The title of his presentation was Prospects for Discovery of New Energy Science. The abstract was: "Dr. Robert Duncan spoke on the importance of objective scientific method in the exploration
of new ideas, using cold fusion as an example." The audience was reportedly large, around 2,000 people. The title, abstract, video and PowerPoint slides from the presentation are available here:
https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/1263
Duncan discussed the research, he suggested a model that might explain the cold fusion effect, and he described the angry response of some scientists to his presentation:
". . . This negative reaction resulted in what I consider to be a loss . . . a lack of objectivity. When I went on the 60 Minutes piece, I was contacted by a highly prominent professor from an Ivy League university, who was just really [laughs], really was angry with me. For having done the piece. And the point was, I laid out the scientific case [to the prof on the phone] but he flatly wouldn't consider it. And when I said, 'come on, why don't you just work with me here, through the data,'
he said essentially, 'well, you know, us high caliber physicists have done that before, and there has never been anything there. So you charlatans just can go on and do whatever you like.' Okay. Well. It is interesting: my scientific reputation -- I guess, at least to him -- had been stronger before I did the piece.
But now, the point is, real science, possibly with outstanding engineering consequences, suddenly becomes a pariah science. A science where no one can go . . ."
His PowerPoint slides conclude:
"Research funding needs to become less dependent on the common assumptions within the culture of scientific communities, and much more courageous and objective.
The Scientific Method is a wonderful thing, use it always, no exceptions!"
On May 10, 2009 all information about this lecture was erased and replaced with this message: "Dr. Duncan's speech and presentation slides are not available." On May 20 the information reappeared. In case it disappears again, the video is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nNRB0K_dw0
And in three segments here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRiTphJRkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLhqYFyrtWQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBVcA6G35QY
A copy of the PowerPoint slides is here: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2009/2009DuncanUMSummit.pdf
CBS 60 Minutes alters cold fusion report in response to pressure from the APS
May 2009
Steve Krivit reported that the on-line version of the video has been altered. The video as broadcast said: "'We asked the American Physical Society, the top physics organization in America, to recommend an independent scientist. They gave us Rob Duncan." The sentence referring to the American Physical Society has been removed from the on-line video and replaced with the following: "We asked another distinguished physicist to have a look at the research." There were no other apparent
changes to the video.
CBS 60 Minutes reports on cold fusion
April 2009
The CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes reported on cold fusion on April 19, 2009. The video and an article describing it are here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/17/60minutes/main4952167.shtml
"COLD FUSION IS HOT AGAIN - Presented in 1989 as a revolutionary new source of energy, cold fusion was quickly dismissed as junk science. But today, the buzz among scientists is that these experiments produce a real physical effect that could lead to monumental breakthroughs in energy production. Scott Pelley reports. Denise Schrier Cetta is the producer."
A detailed description of the broadcast is here: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/60MinutesTurnsUptheHeat.shtml
The reported featured the work of McKubre et al., and Dardik et al. Here are some notable papers by these authors:
McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals. 1994, EPRI. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHdevelopmen.pdf
McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd and H/Pd Systems. J. Electroanal. Chem., 1994. 368: p. 55. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHisothermala.pdf
Dardik, I., et al. Ultrasonically-excited electrolysis Experiments at Energetics Technologies. in ICCF-14 International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2008. Washington, DC. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DardikIultrasonic.pdf
CBS asked Prof. Robert Duncan to do an independent evaluation of the literature and to visit researchers and experiments. Duncan has not performed cold fusion experiments himself and had the impression that the original claims were mistaken. He now says: "I found that the work done was carefully done, and
that the excess heat, as I see it now, is quite real." He added: "If you ask me, is this going to have any impact on our energy policy, it’s impossible to say, because we don't fundamentally understand the process yet. But to say, because we don't fundamentally understand the process and that's why we're not going to study it, is like saying, 'I'm too sick to go to the doctor.'"
Most experts who have conducted independent evaluations of cold fusion have concluded the effect is real, notably Gerisher, who wrote: "In spite of my earlier conclusion, -- and that of the majority of scientists, -- that the phenomena reported by Fleischmann and Pons in 1989 depended either on measurement errors or were of chemical origin, there is now undoubtedly overwhelming indications that nuclear processes take place in the metal alloys." See: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GerischerHiscoldfusi.pdf
Richard Garwin asserted that there may be an error measuring input power, and the excess heat might be an artifact for this reason. This is ruled out for several reasons, most notably:
- The excess heat has been measured when there is no input power, in heat after death and with gas loading.
- As McKubre pointed out in his response, "A very large number of people have been making these
measurements and a measurement of current, voltage, temperature resistance is some
of the simplest measurements that a physicist or a physical scientist will
measure."
- Garwin himself, in his 1993 report on his visit to SRI wrote: "We have found no specific experimental artifact responsible for the finding of excess heat . . ." In other words, he does not know any specific reason to doubt the power measurements. Unless he can cite a specific reason his claim cannot be tested or falsified and therefore it is not a valid scientific assertion. Garwin's SRI report is here:
http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/reports/GarwinLewisReport/garwin.shtml
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/RichardGarwinStillDisbeliever.shtml
Garwin also said: "I am living proof that there's doubt. Now,
they can say that there, that excess heat is being produced. But they can't say
there's no doubt. All they can say is they don't doubt. But I doubt." This is also not a valid scientific assertion.
Twentieth Anniversary of the Announcement of Cold Fusion
March 2009
Cold fusion was announced on March 23, 1980 at the
University of Utah by Professors Fleischmann and Pons. A video of the press
conferences is available at video.google.com:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5820042344911746802&ei=jqDHSaCcPI2YrQLTwLjXAg&q=fleischmann+pons+1989+press+conference&hl=en
Several articles about the history of cold fusion have been
published recently. Here are two examples:
http://www.groundreport.com/Health_and_Science/The-ghost-of-free-energy
This one is notably negative and misinformed:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0323
Meanwhile, cold fusion sessions are being held at this week's American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting in Salt Lake City:
http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/237nm/techprogram/S29619.HTM
Here is a press release from the ACS about the cold fusion session:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/acs-fr031709.php
Ask President Obama to support cold fusion
January 2009
Before the inauguration, the incoming Obama administration set up a web site to solicit public opinion on energy and other policy issues, the Citizens Briefing Book. We uploaded a message:
Allow more government researchers to study cold fusion
Cold fusion (the Fleischmann-Pons effect) is a source of energy that has been largely ignored, but has huge potential.
This is a fusion reaction between deuterium atoms in solid materials. Over the last 20 years, it has been explored in laboratories world-wide and found to be much more efficient and cheaper than the conventional plasma fusion (ITER) method. It has produced thousands of times more energy per gram of fuel than any chemical reaction, and it can probably generate millions of times more. In some experiments, it has reached temperatures and power density comparable to the core
of a conventional fission reactor.
This method is still not sufficiently understood to be scaled up or commercialized, but the potential is great. Government funding is needed to help achieve this understanding. Senior researchers at National Laboratories, the U. S. Navy and other government laboratories have done outstanding cold fusion research in the past, and they would like to do more, but they have not been adequately funded.
Technical details about cold fusion, including hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers from mainstream journals, can be found at this website: http://lenr-canr.org/
Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
The Citizen's Briefing Book is now closed. Our proposal garnered roughly 50 votes from supporters, and 15 knowledgable comments, mainly from researchers. Unfortunately, several skeptics voted against it, so overall it got 37 votes (370 points). We thank the people who supported this initiative, and we encourage all readers to contact the Obama administration and other decision makers and request that cold fusion research be funded.
News from 2008
Prof. D. Nagel gives keynote address at ISA EXPO 2008
September 2008
David J. Nagel, Research Professor at The George Washington University, presented the International Society for Measurement & Control (ISA) EXPO 2008 Keynote/Rimbach Lecture on October 15th at ISA EXPO 2008 in Houston, Texas (October 14 - 16). See: http://www.isa.org/expotemplate.cfm
Rimbach Lecture 2008 - Instrumentation for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM, Room 301
Description:
Two chemists announced in 1989 that they could produce nuclear reactions and energy under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. They were Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. Their reactions were termed “cold fusion”, even though no one really knew then what nuclear reactions might be occurring. In the years since 1989, hundreds of experiments have been done on what is now called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, or the Fleischmann-Pons Effect. The experiments have involved electrochemical,
gas phase, plasma and beam interactions with solids. Power production and new materials have been reported in many studies. The total body of experimental evidence shows that it is indeed possible to produce nuclear reactions at low input energies. However, the field remains controversial and poorly understood. There is no satisfactory theory now for what has been observed. Past and current experiments require sophisticated instrumentation, including both multiple sensors and automated control of relevant conditions.
Many people, including those in several start-up companies, believe that understanding, control, optimization and commercial exploitation of this new means to trigger nuclear reactions will follow in the coming years. That could lead to a new industry that manufactures individual nuclear power units for homes and offices, which produce very small amounts of prompt radiation and negligible radioactivity. The units could have many uses, notably the production of clean drinking water. If the anticipated advances
occur, including significant scaling up in power levels, a new nuclear reactor industry will emerge. Sensing and control instrumentation will be as critical in that industry as they are in current energy production and process control industries.
The ISA reported:
"Wednesday’s keynote address was given by cold fusion expert Dr. David
J. Nagel of George Washington University and drew a large crowd. Dr.
Nagel’s presentation, entitled 'Instrumentation for Low Energy Nuclear
Reactions,' inspired much discussion and dialogue surrounding the
importance of cold fusion technology and application."
http://www.isa.org/Template.cfm?Section=Press_Releases5&template=/TaggedPage/DetailDisplay.cfm&ContentID=72558
Another ISA report by Jim Strothman described Nagel's lecture:
". . . To develop the 'promise' -- which includes LENR technologies having a wide-range of possibilities, from replacing batteries to providing clean water -- 'the need for instrumentation is urgent. There has not been (instruments) we need to pursue this experimentally,' [Nagel] said.
Even so, 'there has been a lot going on' in the scientific world, Nagel said. 'Over 1,000 papers have been written. How many are worth reading? A few hundred.'
What excites scientists, and already proven many times, is low-energy nuclear reactions provide what is known as 'heat after death,' a continual flow of energy long after the reaction occurs.
'It’s as if you drive from New York to Washington, D.C. You turn the car off at Baltimore, and you’ll still get to Washington,” he said. 'We don’t understand why (excess energy is available). We just know it is.'
With LENR, 'nuclear reactions are occurring at modest temperatures -- the experimental evidence is amazing. And there’s no noticeable nuclear waste,' Nagel said. 'So you can drive something (like a home appliance) and not make a mess.'"
http://www.isa.org/InTechTemplate.cfm?Section=General_Information2&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=72216
Continued persecution of sono-fusion at Purdue
August 2008. Sono-fusion researcher Rusi Taleyarkhan has been sanctioned by Purdue University on trumped-up charges of academic malfeasance. This has been brought about by academic rivals, U.S. Congressman Brad Miller, and by the corrupt, out-of-control head of the department Prof. Lefteri Tsoukalas. The sordid details are described here:
http://newenergytimes.com/BubbleTrouble/2008-August-Sanction.htm
This affadavit by a department secretary at Purdue describes racist attacks and absurd threats made by Tsoukalas:
http://newenergytimes.com/BubbleTrouble/2008MizeDarlaJ.AffadavitFeb2.pdf
Other affadavits confirm this account:
http://newenergytimes.com/BubbleTrouble/BubblegateAffidavits.htm
On September 1, 2008, additional evidence came to light tying the New York Times to the scandal:
http://newenergytimes.com/BubbleTrouble/BubblegateSendLawyersAffidavitsMoney.htm
ICCF14 Conference, ACS Conference
August 2008
The 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science was held at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, 10-15 August 2008. The conference web site is here: http://www.iccf-14.org/
The agenda and abstracts are here: http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/ICCF14Abstracts.pdf
Some of the papers from this conference will soon be uploaded to LENR-CANR.org.
A section on cold fusion was held at the 236th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition, August 17-21, 2008, Philadelphia, PA, USA. See:
http://newenergytimes.com/Conf/2008/ACS/ACS-2008-NET-Abstracts.pdf
Prof. Y. Arata Gives Lecture and Demonstration at Osaka University
June 6, 2008
Osaka National University Prof. emeritus Yoshiaki Arata gave a lecture and demonstration of his latest cold fusion reactor on May 22, 2008, in Arata Hall on the university campus. (Note that Arata Hall is named after Prof. Arata, who is one Japan's leading scientists, with honors including a building named after him at the university, and an award from the Japanese Emperor in 2006.)
A photo of the reactor is shown in Fig. 1. A schematic the device is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 1. Photo of experimental setup.
Fig. 2. Schematic of Arata's experimental device.
Highly purified gas is held at 100 atm in the tank shown on the left. The cell has a sample of zirconium with palladium nanoparticles (ZrO2 or a Zr-Ni alloy, both with Pd particles). The sample weighs 7 to 18 g. The cell is equipped with two thermocouples: Tin (inside, at the core of the Zr-Pd sample), and Ts (at the surface of the cell wall). The cell is insulated.
The cell is first evacuated and baked out, to purify the Zr-Pd sample. After the cell cools from the bake-out, either deuterium or hydrogen gas is injected into the cell at high pressure, causing it to ionize. The ionized gas rapidly enters the Zr-Pd sample. A chemical reaction occurs, heating up the sample.
Fig. 3. Comparison of zirconium-palladium samples loaded with deuterium versus hydrogen gas.
Figure 3 shows what happens after the sample is saturated with gas and it begins to cool down from the burst of chemical heat. This phase of the experiment begins at about 300 minutes. Arata calls it the "skirt fusion zone" phase. This graph shows data from three test runs:
A ZrO2-Pd sample with D2 (deuterium) gas.
B Zr-Ni-Pd sample with D2 gas.
C ZrO2-Pd sample with H2 (hydrogen) gas.
Two temperatures for each test are shown. These are from the two thermocouples in Fig. 2, Tin (inside the cell) and Ts (at the cell surface).
Tests A and B both produce heat, remaining hot 3000 minutes (50 hours) into this graph, and beyond up to 100 hours. Test C, with hydrogen, cools down to room temperature at 500 minutes. This shows there is a difference between hydrogen and deuterium. A mass spectrometer shows that helium proportional to the heat is produced during tests with deuterium. With hydrogen, no heat is produced during this phase, and no helium is produced.
With deuterium, the inside of the cell remains hotter than the cell wall which shows that the heat originates in the Zr-Pd material. With hydrogen, there is no temperature difference.
Note that the ZrO2-Pd (Test A) does not get as hot initially as the Zr-Ni-Pd (Test B), but it remains hotter after 500 minutes.
Rothwell and Storms have published a review of this experiment critisizing the calorimetry, mass spetroscopy and some other aspects of the work. See: Rothwell, J. and E. Storms, Report on Arata's Paper and Lecture about his "Solid Fusion" Reactor. 2008, LENR-CANR.org.
Arthur C. Clarke, a friend to cold fusion, dies at age 90
March 18, 2008
Famed author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke died at age 90. Clarke was an early and enthusiastic supporter of cold fusion, and a loyal friend to many researchers. He will be sorely missed. He made many knowledgeable comments about cold fusion in the mass media. He wrote introductions to the books by Beaudette and Krivit. (See "Books and Videos about cold fusion") His most extensive comments about cold fusion are in the revised
"Millennium Edition" of Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible (Indigo, 1999). He wrote a short paper, here:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ClarkeACthecominga.pdf
A review of Profiles of the Future is here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofpr.pdf
Arthur C. Clarke and his pet Tyrannosaurus rex, 2003
Cold fusion conferences held in India
January 2008. Two cold fusion conferences were held in India:
"Low Energy Nuclear Reactions: Third Route to Nuclear Energy" at Hyderabad hosted by Pentagram Research Foundation on January 3, 2008
A one-day discussion meeting at the National Insitute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bangalore, January 9, 2008. Mahadeva Srinivasan reports that many senior scientists "gathered to take stock of the status of cold fusion" at this meeting, and: "The meeting concluded on a very positive note resolving to send a formal recommendation to the office of the Chief Scientific Advisor to the cabinet in Delhi, namely Dr. R. Chidambaram that cold fusion research be funded adequately."
Michael McKubre (SRI) and Steven Krivit (New Energy Times) attended the meetings. McKubre reports: "The interactions we had with Indian scientists, politicians and businessmen were in every instance and degree more positive and substantive than I had any reason to dream possible. . . . India is ready to roar!"
NatureINDIA published an on-line article describing the NIAS meeting by K. S. Jayaraman, "Cold fusion hot again." The article quotes P. K. Iyengar: "'We did great injustice to the country by stopping the research that was going on at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre BARC),' Padmanabha Krishnagopala Iyengar, considered the father of cold fusion in India, told Nature India . Iyengar, former director of BARC, who could not attend the meeting,
said on phone that India had lost out 15 years by this wrong move but even now 'it is not too late to revive it.'" The meeting was also described by M. Srinivsan in Current Science, "Meeting Report -- Energy Concepts for the 21st Century."
The LENR-CANR BARC Studies In Cold Fusion Special Collection includes several papers by Iyengar, Srinivasan and other BARC researchers.
Lecture by Edmund Storms at YouTube
January 2008. Edmund Storms, "How to Cause Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)," recorded December 2008. See:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3B79262131CA1BCF
The PowerPoint slides for the lecture are here. It is easier to read these full-sized slides than it is to read the ones in the video.
News from 2007
8th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen / Deuterium Loaded Metals
October 2007. The 8th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen / Deuterium Loaded Metals was held 13-18 October 2007, at the Sheraton Catania, Hotel and Conference Center, Via Antonello da Messina 45, 95020 Cannizzaro(CT), Sicily, Italy. For more information see: http://www.iscmns.org/catania07/index.htm
Colloquium on Cold Fusion held at MIT
August 2007. The 2007 Cold Fusion Colloquium on "Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions (LANR) The Science and Technology of Deuterated Metals" was held at MIT on August 18, 2007. See: http://world.std.com/~mica/colloq07.html Wired magazine published an article about the colloquium: "Cold-Fusion Graybeards Keep the Research Coming." See: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/cold_fusion
ICCF-13 conference held in Russia
July 2007. The 13th International Conference of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (cold fusion), ICCF-13, was held in Dagomys, Sochi, Russia, June 25 - July 1, 2007. The abstracts from the conference are available here: http://www.iscmns.org/iccf13/ICCF13_Abstracts.pdf
Congressman joins latest effort to suppress cold fusion research
May 2007. As reported earlier in this section, sono-fusion researcher Rusi Taleyarkhan has often been attacked by people who oppose cold fusion research. His experiments produce high energy fusion which probably has no bearing on metal lattice cold fusion. However, the people who oppose this kind of research make no distinction between different claims. Nature has made on-again, off-again claims that Taleyarkhan allocated $25,000 of DARPA funding to the research without authorization. Taleyarkhan
has also been attacked by jealous rivals, notably Seth Putterman, and Robert Park has often attacked him in his weekly newsletter. (Prof. Brian Josephson described Nature’s attacks here and here.) In 2006, Taleyarkhan was accused of academic misconduct, and investigated by a Purdue University committee headed by Peter Dunn, Purdue's
associate vice president for research. The committee completely exonerated Taleyarkhan. The details of the charges were kept confidential until recently, when they were revealed in an article in the Journal & Courier newspaper, here.
The charge of misconduct had nothing to do with the accusations made by Nature or Putterman, but rather that Taleyarkhan had assisted anther scientist, Yiban Xu, to replicate the experiment. The charges were made by Lefteri Tsoukalas and Martin Lopez de Bertodano, professors in Purdue's Nuclear Engineering Department. They claimed Taleyarkhan participated in writing Xu's papers, and they said these papers were "nothing but a contrived and hurried attempt to stage the appearance of 'independent
confirmation' of sonofusion claims."
Xu emphatically denied there was any interference, and wrote to the committee: ". . . I did all the experiments myself, collected all the data independently and did so without Dr. Taleyarkhan's involvement. I also did the analysis work with no input from him." Xu said that Taleyarkhan did review a manuscript and he wrote some remarks in the margins of a manuscript. Most scientific papers are circulated to colleagues for comments.
A letter from Dunn begins by saying, "Dr. Taleyarkhan has displayed what might be characterized most favorably as severe lack of judgment regarding his involvement with the 'independent confirmation' experiment performed . . ." Then it goes on to say just the opposite: "The (inquiry committee) found no evidence that would contradict Dr. Taleyarkhan's claim that he played absolutely no part in setting up or running experiments, nor obtaining data and conducting analyses
thereafter, for experiments . . ."
It is ironic that in the early days of cold fusion, Fleischmann and Pons were accused of not cooperating with other researchers enough, but now a cold fusion researcher is attacked for cooperating too much. Edmund Storms remarked: "Anyone who attempts a replication must learn from the person who made the initial discovery. So what if the replication is not completely independent. Each effort will be different and each will add to the understanding of the variables. It is impossible to prove the reality
of an effect by one independent replication."
After the university exonerated Taleyarkhan, and the case was closed, U.S. Congressman Brad Miller got involved. In this letter, he demanded that Purdue re-open the examination and hand over to the Congress "any or all reports" and documents by anyone in the committee or any "equivalent organization" at the university.
After the New York Times reported on Miller's investigation, Taleyarkhan wrote to the Times protesting this "gross travesty of justice" and "biased and openly one-sided smear campaign." The Times printed a small excerpt of the letter. The entire letter was published in the DailyTech.com, here. (As reported in this section earlier, the
New York Times, the Washington Post, Time magazine, Scientific American and other mainstream media often attack cold fusion researchers, but they do not publish letters from the researchers defending themselves or pointing out factual errors in these attacks.)
We have reached a nadir when a U.S. Congressman uses the power of his office to persecute a cold fusion researcher for publishing a positive result and helping others replicate.
Cold Fusion Presentations at the ACS and APS
March 2007. Papers on cold fusion were presented recently at the American Physical Society (APS) and American Chemical Society (ACS) conferences. The APS conference was held in Denver, CO, March 5-9. 2007, and ACS was in Chicago, IL, March 29, 2007. See: http://newenergytimes.com/news/2007/NET21.htm#acs The Abstracts from the APS cold fusion sessions are here:
Session A31: Cold Fusion I http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR07/SessionIndex2/?SessionEventID=64258
Session B31: Cold Fusion II http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR07/sessionindex2/?SessionEventID=57225
The ACS conference session was described in a magazine article, Van Noorden, R., Cold fusion back on the menu, in Chemistry World. 2007: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/March/22030701.asp It includes this surprising comment by Robert Park, the archenemy of cold fusion: "there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions."
A paper was published recently by U.S. Navy researchers Szpak, S., P.A. Mosier-Boss, and F. Gordon, Further evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd lattice: emission of charged particles. Naturwiss., 2007. DOI 10.1007. This research was presented during both the APS and ACS conferences. Here is the ACS version of the presentation and PowerPoint slides. Several of the presentations at the APS were related to this work. Four videos of these
presentations were uploaded by Steven Krivit of the New Energy Times. Here are two:
Pamela Mosier-Boss et al., "Production of High Energy Particles Using the Pd/D Co-Deposition Process"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1214733147725965006
Larry Forsley et al., "Time Resolved, High Resolution, Gamma-Ray and
Integrated Charge and Knock-on Particle Measurements of Pd:D
Co-deposition Cells"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6412593157514157574
Krivit has uploaded several other cold-fusion related videos. For a complete list, see:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22new+energy+institute%22&hl=en
Also in March 2007, a new paper was published by another U.S. Navy researcher, Hubler, G.K., Anomalous Effects in Hydrogen-Charged Palladium - A review. Surf. Coatings Technol., 2007. We have uploaded a set of PowerPoint slides describing content similar to this paper, along with a link to the paper. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/HublerGKanomalousea.pdf
Fire from Water at Google Video
January 2007. The New Energy Institute (www.newenergytimes.com) in collaboration with the New Energy Foundation (www.infinite-energy.com) has uploaded an edited version of the 1999 documentary Cold Fusion: Fire from Water to Google Video, where it can be viewed for free. This video was produced and directed by Christopher Toussaint, and written by Eugene Mallove, Jed Rothwell and Christopher Toussaint.
It features interviews with many prominent cold fusion researchers. See:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6426393169641611451&q=COLD+FUSION&hl=en
The video is edited by Steven B. Krivit and released by New Energy Institute with permission from the New Energy Foundation. The original video is 70 minutes long; the edited version is 38 minutes. The full original version can be purchased from Amazon.com here. The VHS tape is available directly from Infinite Energy as shown in Books and Videos about LENR-CANR.
News from 2006
U.S. Navy SPAWARS experiments with CR-39
November 2006. Recent experiments at the U.S. Navy San Diego SPAWAR Systems
Center have demonstrated nuclear effects with palladium co-deposition cathodes
subjected to magnetic or high voltage fields. CR-39 is used to detect high energy
particles. It is placed in close proximity to the cathode because the particles
do not travel far. These experiments appear to be highly repeatable. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSexperiment.pdf
For more information, see: "Extraordinary Evidence," by Bennett Daviss and Steven Krivit:
http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm#ee
Other U.S. Navy experiments at SPAWARS, China Lake and the NRL are described in our Special Collection.
Nature and Scientific American on the Warpath Again
September 2006. Nature and the Scientific American regularly attack and ridicule cold fusion as well as the sonofusion research performed by Rusi Taleyarkhan et al. It is not clear whether the latter has anything to do with metal lattice cold fusion, but it relatively simple, lab bench experiment that produces anomalous nuclear fusion on a microscopic scale. Therefore the editors of these magazines consider it impossible, and they assert it must be pathological science, fraud, and
so on. Last year, professors working on competing sonofusion devices circulated rumors claiming that Taleyarkhan committed academic fraud. Taleyarkhan was fully exonerated by the university, so recently Nature has circulated equally baseless rumors that he has committed financial fraud.
Prof. Brian Josephson has been engaged in lively correspondence with the staff at Nature regarding their allegations. He summarizes the situation here, and copies of the correspondence are here.
Scientific American has mainly ridiculed these subjects lately, in both the print edition and the on-line blog by the editor, John Rennie, on August 24, 2006:
- Let's be finicky in our application of the phrase. For example, Newtonian
physics did not get sent to Pluto. It was shown to be a valid approximation of
Einstein's relativistic physics for objects moving well below the speed of
light, and as such was incorporated into the newer theory. And cold fusion,
N-rays, Velikovskian planet billiards and similar crackpottery weren't sent to
Pluto either because they never enjoyed a significant period of acceptance by
the scientific community (perhaps they all reside on another planet... Uranus?).
Melvin H. Miles website
May 2006. Dr. Melvin Miles has established a new web site: http://coldfusion-miles.com/. Miles is one of the leading researchers. He published a series of papers while he was a Distinguished Fellow of the China Lake Naval Weapons Laboratory. See: Special Collections, U.S. Navy Cold Fusion Research.
Papers in Chinese, and a new e-book in Japanese by T. Mizuno
April 2006. LENR-CANR serves an international audience. (See our earlier news item below). We have introductions to the field in French, German and
Italian. Sergio Bacchi translated versions of Storms' Student's Guide into Portuguese and Spanish. These are popular.
In Chinese we recently added a review paper, the Introduction to Cold Fusion, and a translation of an important paper by Oriani, The Physical and Metallurgical Aspects of Hydrogen in Metals (translation into Chinese) (The English original is here.) Note also the technical review in English, "A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed
Matter Nuclear Science."
Now introducing our first document in Japanese: T. Mizuno's 107-page e-book, "Jyouon Kakuyuugou Purojekuto (Cold Fusion Project)."
Washington Post, Time and others attack cold fusion
January 2006. The recent scandal in South Korea with the cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang prompted several newspapers and magazines to compare Hwang's academic fraud to cold fusion. In January 8, 2006, the Washington Post published an article about this titled "Barely a Drop of Fraud" by Prof. Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, (Yale University), page B03. It says:
- It is true that there have been some great scientific misdeeds in the past. Who can forget Piltdown Man, the manufactured fossil skull that puzzled anthropologists for decades? Or the claims of the discovery of cold fusion in 1989 at the University of Utah?
And:
- .. . . Similarly, the Piltdown hoax, which was revealed decades after the
manipulated skull's supposed discovery, caused no collateral damage.
Paleontology, a historical science, did not have an immediate impact on
contemporary physics or medicine. And cold fusion was swiftly debunked, which
kept its costs confined to the state of Utah.
These comments are beyond the pale. Cold fusion was never
"debunked" and even the harshest critics until now have never suggested that it
was fraudulent. The cold fusion effect was replicated at high signal to noise
ratios by researchers at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China
Lake, Shell, Amoco, SRI, Texas A&M, Los Alamos, Mitsubishi Res. Center, BARC
Bombay, Tsinghua U. and over a hundred other world-class laboratories.
Several researchers sent messages to Prof. Kevles and to the Washington Post protesting these statements. The Post has not responded. The Yale Daily News student newspaper printed a letter from E. Storms protesting Kevles' remarks, and pointing out that cold fusion may become an important source of energy. Kevles responded by saying that only Fleischmann
and Pons are guilty of "scientific misdeeds," and that the cold fusion research performed after they published had nothing to do with them:
- Pons and Fleischmann's initial published paper
about their research lacked essential raw data and experimental
details. When asked to supply their scientific colleagues with more
information, they persistently refused. Other scientists trying to
replicate their experiments could only guess at the apparatus they had
used.
-
- Eventually, their particular claims were refuted as
theoretically unfounded and without experimental support. This is the
incident I referred to in my article and it has altogether nothing to
do with research since in this field.
Cold fusion researchers replicated the Fleischmann-Pons experiment, and cited the original paper in their published replications, so it makes no sense to say their work "has altogether nothing to do with this research." Furthermore, Fleischmann and Pons did not hide their work, but on the contrary they assisted others in this field by supplying palladium samples, and Fleischmann co-authored papers with others. Other researchers in this field hold Fleischmann and Pons in the highest regard,
and they think that Kelves should apologize for calling their actions "misdeeds."
Commentators in Time magazine, the Guardian and elsewhere have made similar comparisons. M. D. Lemonick wrote in Time:
- . . . It wouldn't be the first time. In 1996 chemists from the University of Utah
claimed they had discovered "cold fusion." They hadn't, it turned out, but a
combination of ambition, fear of competition and pressure from the university
led them to announce the discovery before they had any proof.
We contacted the author and informed him that the date was 1989, and that the claims were subsequently replicated by hundreds of researchers, and these replications were published in the peer-reviewed literature. We suggested he should review the relevant literature before commenting on the research.
Lemonick responded with a series of unfounded and increasingly bizarre statements. He said that Fleischmann and Pons "wouldn't even let anyone see their experimental apparatus." We pointed out this cannot be true, because, as noted above, they provided samples of material and they co-authored papers with other researchers.
Lemonick eventually conceded that the other researchers have made claims, but he said: "It may be that others have produced cold fusion since, but that's not the same thing." We asked him what he meant by this in view of the fact that the same materials and techniques are used and the same results obtained. We pointed out that the authors all reference the original paper by Fleischmann and Pons, and say they are replicating it. He did not respond. Instead, he asked out of the blue:
"So . . . anybody can repeat [the experiment]. That's what you're saying, right?"
Rothwell responded: "Good heavens no! I did not say that, and that is completely incorrect. I would say you need a Ph.D. in electrochemistry, a well-equipped laboratory and anywhere from two months to a year of rigorous preparation and materials testing (depending on what equipment and materials you happen to have in hand). Prof. Richard Oriani is one of the top electrochemists in the United States. After he replicated, he described this as the most difficult experiment he did in his 50-year career.
. . ."
In our earlier messages we emphasized several times that the experiments are difficult, so we cannot imagine why Lemonick arrived at the notion that "anyone can repeat" them. It is clear that Lemonick is grasping at straws, he knows nothing about cold fusion, and he did not even bother to do a cursory Google search on cold fusion, since he did not recall the date it was revealed. It is surprising that a national magazine such as Time would publish his views on the subject. It is a
shame they will not allow a cold fusion researcher to set the record straight, but so far they have ignored letters to the editor on this subject.
(If you would like to see our correspondence with Kevles or Lemonick in full, please contact JedRothwell@mindspring.com)
News from 2005
LENR-CANR welcomes a growing international audience
December 2005. In 2005 more and more readers have come to LENR-CANR from
outside the U.S. We cannot track individual users, and we do not use
"cookies" or ask readers to register, but we can see that more than
half our readers now come from ISPs in other countries. Readers from 177
countries, which is to say, most of the countries registered on the
Internet, have downloaded hundreds of thousands of papers. During the four
weeks from October 21 through November 18, visitors came from 115 different
countries, and 60% of the traffic was outside the U.S.
Cold fusion research has been international from the
beginning, with vital contributions from India, Italy, France, China, Japan,
Russia and many other countries. Regular international conferences provide a
forum for the work to be shared and we are delighted to make this information
more widely available.
The most recent international conference, ICCF12, was held on November 27, 2005. See: http://iccf12.org/
We have authors from dozens of countries, and we seek to
expand this circle of contributors. We recently uploaded a review by
Iyengar et al. describing early research in India, which produced
some of the most compelling results ever published. We recently welcomed our
first author from Iran, F. Amini. Most of our papers are in
English, but we have a small number in other languages, including French, German,
Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and we welcome more contributions in other
languages. We are happy to assist and edit papers for authors who are not
native speakers of English. We have translated several papers from Japanese
into English.
LENR-CANR has long maintained a presence in other countries,
even places where the Internet is slow and expensive. People in China sometimes
have difficulty reaching the U.S., but thousands of them have been able to
reach us thanks to Prof. Li, who operates a mirror site copy of
LENR-CANR at Tsinghua U., China's most prestigious technical university. We just added two new papers by Li et al., including our first paper in Chinese, a 1990 Introduction to Cold Fusion, and a technical review, "A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science," from the September 2004 issue of Journal of Fusion Energy. The review says that cold fusion is real; it produces tritium, which is
proof that the effect is nuclear; and that more funding should be made available for the research. The Journal of Fusion Energy is edited by president of the plasma fusion lobby, Fusion Power Associates in Gathersburg, MD. Heretofore it has been strongly opposed to cold fusion, so we welcome this new open minded support for cold fusion, although it is puzzling that in the same issue of the journal the editor again attacks cold fusion, calling it "controversial
and entirely unproved" (p. 161).
Readers in other countries who have difficulty accessing the Internet should
please contact us, and we will mail you a CD-ROM with the entire contents of
the website on it. If we have mailed you a CD-ROM before, feel free to ask for
an updated version every four or five months.
In these troubled times, it is good to be reminded that
science knows no borders, and researchers worldwide are united in their quest to
advance knowledge for the benefit of mankind.
October 2005. Leading scientific journals and magazines such as Nature and Scientific American have attacked cold fusion many times. Most recently, in October 2005 Nature published a News Feature titled "Physics: Far from the frontier." This describes S. Putterman's work on sonofusion. It includes the following paragraph:
"The problem with reports of tabletop fusion is that for most scientists they evoke memories of the notorious, and now largely discredited, 'cold fusion' claim made by two chemists in 1989. The chemists claimed they could achieve nuclear fusion reactions well below the extreme temperatures predicted by theorists, and that these reactions could be used as a source of unlimited energy."
The world faces a growing energy shortage, high oil prices, and potentially catastrophic global warming, yet these leading journals ignore a possible solution to these dire problems.
September 2005. On September 30, 2005, the National Public Radio program "Living On Earth" broadcast an 18-minute segment about cold fusion. It is focused on the May 21, 2005 Cold Fusion Colloquium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It features brief interviews with noted cold fusion researchers, including M. Swartz, D. Nagel, M. Fleischmann, M. McKubre and others, as well as some comments by leading opponents to the field. This show may be re-broadcast on other NPR affiliates. An audio
recording and transcript of the program is available here:
It should be noted that negative comments made by R. Garwin in this broadcast contradict his own 1993 evaluation that he reported to the Department of Defense. See:
"The uncertainty in excess power measurement is about 50 milliwatts, but the excess power appears to be on the order of 500 milliwatts or even 1 watt peak. . . .
"We believe that there are a few things (probably irrelevant) not very well understood by the experimenters. . . .
We have found no specific experimental artifact responsible for the finding of excess heat . . ."
"The more you looked into their results the less there was, unfortunately.
They've been very careful there [at SRI], but there are mistakes.
The data was not carefully preserved, things were not dated, there were only two positive runs as I recall . . .
August 2005. S. Szpak, P.A. Mosier-Boss, C. Young and F.E. Gordon of the U.S. Navy Spawar Systems Center, San Diego, have published two new papers, both available here:
March 2005. In 2004, the DoE promised to fairly evaluate Cold Fusion claims with an impartial
group of experts. Because the DoE place unreasonable limitations
on the review process, the necessary information was not communicated to the assembled
experts. Inevitably, this meant the review was riddled with error, misunderstanding, and
outright rejection based largely on ignorance. Yet, the Review Summary
promised to fairly evaluate any proposal that was properly submitted. But when
the DoE is given a chance to fulfill this second promise in 2005, they failed again. Details
of this travesty can be found in our new document The DoE Lies Again.
March 2005. The March 2005 issue of Scientific
American includes a one-page article describing the 2004 DoE Review of cold
fusion. 1 The main section of the
article is a reasonably accurate description of the conclusions reached in the
DoE Review. However, the Scientific
American added a sidebar, titled "Nuclear Doubts" that includes four
statements which are incorrect and totally at odds with the literature. They are:
1. "Helium 4, a suggested cold fusion by-product, was detected at amounts close
to background levels."
Correction: In some experiments helium-4 has been close to the background, but
in others it has been hundreds of times above background. And at least one case
the concentration has been above atmospheric
concentrations of helium. 2
2. “Expected gamma rays were not produced; experts doubted the explanation that
all energy was generated as heat instead.”
Correction: gamma rays have been detected in many experiments although not in
amounts commensurate with a conventional hot fusion reaction. Copious amounts
of other nuclear products including tritium, x-rays charged particles and
transmuted elements have also been detected, in the case of tritium at levels
millions of times above background. 3, 4 It is a fact that the energy
is generated mainly as heat; these unnamed experts cannot contradict
facts established by replicated experiments.
3. "Not all chemical explanations for the excess heat were eliminated."
Correction: The cold fusion effect has been replicated hundreds of times in
laboratories around the world, and there is not a single instance in which
significant chemical fuel was present in the solution.
The minuscule amount of chemical energy that might be generated and stored in
the cell has been carefully inventoried. 5, 6 The heat generated by a few cells has ranged from 100 to 10,000 times
greater than the absolute maximum amount of energy that could be generated by
an equivalent mass of chemical fuel.
4. “Excess power was only a few percent more than the power applied, suggesting
that measurement errors could account for the purported net energy.”
Correction: Excess power has ranged up to 300% when input power was supplied.
It has been measured at Sigma 90. 4 In gas loaded cells and heat
after death events, there is no input power, so any detectable output heat
comes from cold fusion. There are – as noted above – no chemical changes in the
cells, no chemical fuel, no energy deficit during electrolysis that would
indicate that energy is being stored up, and no possible way a chemical
reaction could produce even a small fraction of energy released during heat
after death events.
The article expresses bias in several other more subtle ways. For example, it
repeats spurious claims made by some of the DoE reviewers that top-of-the-line
instruments have not been used to measure cold fusion effects. The best
instruments on earth have been used to measure excess heat, helium, tritium and
transmutations, especially in the US, Italy
and Japan. 7-9 Top-of-the-line instruments
have rarely been available in the United States mainly because there is so much
opposition to the research. Skeptics complain that instruments are inadequate,
but they themselves are to blame for this.
Finally, it should be noted that the photograph caption says, "cold fusion
allegedly occurs in a jar of heavy water with electrodes." After 16 years, the Scientific American still cannot
distinguish between a “jar” and a laboratory grade Dewar test tube.
1. Choi, C., News Scan: Back to Square One, in Scientific American. 2005. p. 21.
3. Storms, E., Review of experimental observations about the cold fusion effect.
Fusion Technol., 1991. 20: p. 433.
4. Clarke, B.W., et al., Search for 3He and 4He in Arata-Style
Palladium Cathodes II: Evidence for Tritium Production. Fusion Sci. &
Technol., 2001. 40: p. 152.
5. McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear
Processes in Deuterated Metals. 1994.
6. Bockris, J., G.H. Lin, and N.J.C.
Packham, A review of the investigations
of the Fleischmann-Pons phenomena. Fusion Technol., 1990. 18: p. 11.
December 2004. On December 27, 2004, the Nippon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei)
science page listed cold fusion research by Iwamura et al.
(Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) as the third most important technological
trend of 2004. Iwamura et al. have published evidence for
transmutations, excess heat and gamma ray production. See, for example:
The Mitsubishi work was the only breakthrough relating to nuclear
science among the top 20. The Nikkei is considered the Japanese
equivalent to the Wall Street Journal, and the Japanese
Journal of Applied Physics, where Iwamura published in 2002 (ref.
2, above) is Japan's most prestigious journal of physics. Iwamura's
research has been confirmed by several leading laboratories in Japan
and France, and replications are now underway at Tokyo University
and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute Spring8 facility.
December 2004. The Department of Energy, Office of Science, has completed its
review of cold fusion and published online, Report
of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions. Information about
this has been moved to our new Special
Collection - 2004 DoE Review.
August 2004. Announcing "The 2004 Cold Fusion Report" from New Energy Times ($15).
Available from
http://www.newenergytimes.com.
The report has been endorsed by some of the leading cold fusion
researchers.
"This is a fine report. It is a work well done, the old-fashioned way,
with hard work. I hope the world reads it -- it is well-written and
powerful. I hope the world acts on it -- it is clear, concise and
concrete."
- Dr. Michael Staker, materials scientist and research engineer for a
major U.S. military research laboratory
"'The 2004 Cold Fusion Report' is excellent. I hope it is recognized by
a mainstream publication so that it can get wide circulation."
- Dr. Edmund Storms, radiochemist formerly with the Los Alamos National
Laboratory
"'The 2004 Cold Fusion Report' has brought a wide variety of
interesting and complex material together. It should be helpful for
someone trying to understand what the arguing has been about."
- Dr. Michael Melich, senior research professor at the U.S. Naval
Postgraduate School and former branch head of the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory
"The report is very, very well done! I believe that 'The Cold Fusion
Report' will be a good basis for future discussions, both inside and
outside of the cold fusion community."
- Dr. Antonella De Ninno, an Italian nuclear physicist and fusion
researcher with the Italian Agency for New Technology, Energy and
Environment
This web site also features a free audio recording (MP3) of a lecture
by David J. Nagel (George Washington University) given at ICCF10. The
recording is 62 minutes long.
In December the number of downloads usually decreases, but in 2006 total megabytes downloaded increased dramatically. The reasons are not clear, but it probably because larger files have been uploaded, and because of increased activity by robot readers.
Many of our readers are students and professors on the academic
schedule. Readership usually dips during spring holiday, final exams and summer
vacation in U.S. and European universities.
Fig. 1. Number of Acrobat files (papers) downloaded per month since LENR-CANR began in 2002.
Fig. 2. Monthly outgoing traffic for the past two years, in megabytes. In March 2008, the number of megabytes spiked, but the number of papers downloaded did not increase proportionally. The reason is unclear.
Fig. 3. Cumulative number of Acrobat files (papers) downloaded since LENR-CANR began.
