Author: Ruby Carat

But my brain was foggy this day at 8AM, in lieu of a summary of Hioki’s work, here are a few slides.

A theoretical Model of Two-Picometer Deuteron Clusters for LENR Supported by Laser Emission of Nuclear Reactions Products by Henrich Hora was presented by substitute Dr. Charles Weaver, as Hora was not feeling well.

This young man was not only brilliant, but kind too, as he offered to help me carry the heavy load of video equipment I carried with me on Monday. Thank you distinguished sir!

Here’re two graphs from Hora’s slides:

Vladimir Vysottski presented Calorimetric & Nuclear Diagnostic of Anode Plasma Electrolysis instead of Yury Bazhutov. Thankfully this substitution was easily assimilated; Vysottski’s powerful voice is unforgettable.

A short break allowed everyone to get a cup of coffee.

Then it was time for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science – The Way Forward Panel with Mahadeva Srinivasan as Chair included Jean-Paul Biberian, Yury Bazhutov, Akira Kitamura, Xing-Zhong Li, Michael McKubre, Sunwon Park and Vittorio Violante.

Vittorio Violante began by outlining possible future plans. His thought is to “Find appropriate contexts for continuing the joint research”, and pursuing “very well conceived research projects involving industries.”

In the Q&A following, Paul Breed commented that the perception of the field needs to be altered through outreach in a coordinated fashion. Cold Fusion Now! He felt that the community need not try to convince the mainstream science skeptics, but concentrate on the populace in general, through outreach and events, feeling strongly that it would provide much more return for the effort.

In response to Paul, SKINR Director Graham Hubler set out the criteria needed to satisfy the scientific establishment, namely, reproducibility, and radiation measurements, criteria challenged by Jed Rothwell, who responded, “There is no real radiation!”

Breed then reiterated that it might be better to bring the public on board, even more than the scientific mainstream.

The discussion could have gone on, but was ended so Mahadeva Srinivasan could introduce the distinguished panel.

He then listed some of the positive recent developments.

• More young people are becoming involved, as evident by the attendance at the conference.
• The SKINR program, which has young students and excellent equipment to move forward.
• International collaboration, in particular between the U.S. and Italy, is strong.
• More recognition of the role of industry.
• Increasing dialog between academia and commercially-minded start-ups, in particular in Japan and China.
• Private money and venture capitalists are taking note

Patent laws are still a hindrance, and Srinivasan felt that representatives of major countries should weigh in on this.

Again on the negative side, he then relayed a story of his attempt to organize a tutorial session on cold fusion in his home country, and the university faculty boycotted the event, though a small group of students did show up.

He handed off to Jean-Paul Biberian, who listed a number of “black holes” and “glass ceilings” in France, meaning avenues that appear promising for support, but never amount to anything concrete, or are blocked from moving forward. The handful of researchers in France work independently without any official recognition.

Akira Kitamura began by claiming the number of researchers in the field is decreasing rapidly. In Japan, there are about 10 groups exchanging information on the topic using a variety of methods.

He noted that the phenomenon of excess heat is documented with much data showing the effect is nuclear, despite the lack of an agreed upon theory to explain it.

To move forward, Kitamura says that support is needed from professional researchers in other fields. He wants reliable, repeatable and concrete results as opposed to assertions or arguments. Industry has a large role to play as well as governmental organizations. All of these elements, he says, would yield “positive feedback”, and advance the science.

Sharing information of materials, methods, recipes, measurement methods are all crucial to advancing technology.

Kitamura finds that young researchers are apt to choose nonpioneering research subjects in nonventurous fields, just to supply a steady stream of papers for publication, and to remain employed.

Xing Zhong Li looked back to determine the way forward. What was done right? He felt gas-loading experiments were a success, and the theory incorporating resonance, understanding that anomalous heat occurs without neutrons and gammas.

Li was previously a hot fusionist, and it was a leap for him to jump into cold fusion. After working on resonant tunneling theory on cold fusion, it turns out that his ideas there were confirmed by hot fusion science, and published officially. “Now I am safe!”

New inspirations in today’s work are Energetic Technologies, Rossi and Focardi, Defkalion and National Instruments, and Kitamura and Takahashi, all collaborations between academia and industry.

Li says the most important elements to pursue now are industry involvement and young students and he showed some pictures of his students at Tsinghua University that are interested getting into the field or a supporting industry. One of his students was in attendance here at the conference, and one of his students working at SKINR.

He ended by exclaiming “I feel good about saying, Go ahead young people, that’s the right way to go!”

Vittorio Violante came up next, reminding the crowd that it was Francesco Scaramuzzi, his old boss at ENEA, that encouraged the lab to investigate the claims just after the announcement in 1989. Two groups began experiments, and a strong program continues there today.

In Italy, several entities, both universities and agencies, are continuing to advance the field, in particular, ENEA and INFN. He knows that cooperation with industry is very important to getting good results, because a wider input allows efficiency in development.

He noted collaborations with SRI and the Naval Research Laboratory were very important to their success at ENEA. Despite all this work, they don’t have significant financial support in Italy, and need to strengthen commitments to do that.

Sunwon Park, one of the organizers of last year’s conference ICCF-17, then gave an inspiring talk about why it was so important to work through the difficulties faced by the cold fusion community.

He showed a picture of Earth from space saying

“This is the planet Earth, a beautiful place, and the only one in the universe. We want to keep it that way.”

He noted the technological developments of digital communications that make our life better, but that we are also causing huge environmental problems.

“We have to find some way to take care of all this,” says Park. “I want to pass on this beautiful environment to my grandchildren.”

“Right now, we have to understand what is going on. Energy is fundamental to our way of life, and energy demand is increasing due to expanding population, economic growth, and technological change. We need to move to cleaner fuels, while increasing supply for energy demand. In 30 years, Earth’s population could grow to 9 billion.”

“At ICCF-17, there was a live demo by Francesco Celani, they invited leading “LENR” companies, and there was a panel session on commercialization and worldwide impact.”

“At ICCF-18, there was a demo by Defkalion, and many more companies are showing up.”

Still, Park estimates “less than one out of one-million people believe cold fusion exists, which makes public funding challenging, since it moves more by majority vote in committee.”

He relayed a story about wanting to look into cold fusion himself a few years back, but colleagues in South Korea claimed it was a pseudoscience. After the CBS 60 Minutes piece aired in 2009, there finally was interest, and he was tasked with finding out more about what was happening.

Here’re Park’s Winning Strategies.

“One day, if cold fusion is realized, I think I will be able to fly like a bird”

“Cold fusion is the best way to save planet Earth and human civilization. It’s the most exciting investment opportunity at the verge of the energy revolution. If we work together, we will prevail.”

Michael McKubre was asked to speak specifically on what will move this forward. He says two things necessary to move this science forward are, a need, and an independently-minded nation.

Who fits the bill? Italy.

“Italy is performing very well in this area,” says McKubre. “The next conference will be held in Venice, a rich city. Why is Venice a rich city? It is the industrial center of the region and it’s on the backs of industry that this field will move forward.”

“To move in ever diminishing circles doing the same thing others have done before won’t get us where we want to be.”

SKINR’s objective, as tasked by philanthropist Sidney Kimmel, is “a practical technology in his lifetime.” We owe it to all of us to move this field forward to a useful technological objective.”

And he handed the microphone off.

Robert Duncan closed the session by claiming “diversity in opinions is extremely important.”

He also said the work has to be ready to withstand harsh scrutiny. “I hope we all will be as careful when we roll-out a new product as National Instruments is when they roll-out a new product.”

For any community, “the best advocacy is objectivity.”

“It’s been exciting to hear the different views and thoughts, but it’s going to require that we place that bar high; always disclose what is uncertain.”

Duncan then paraphrased a quote by Nickolai Machiavelli translated into English as “Get real!”

Opening the floor, many comments from the crowd were genuinely genius, the caliber of attendees was so high, but the conference had to close by Noon (when we’d be kicked out of the room), so the passion was quenched, and the final presentation by Annie Sobel, a co-organizer of the ICCF-18 event, began on ICCF-18 Statistics.

21 countries came together to meet.
The youngest attendee was a high school senior, and the oldest was John Fischer at age 93.
2 Keynotes
83 oral presenters
40 poster sessions
5 Labs toured
5 Technical Panels
5 Exhibits
Career opportunities session
Defkalion and University of Texas demos (Note: I did not see the U of T demo.)
ENEA Workshop
MFMP Update

In closing, papers and materials from the proceedings will be available, as authors give their permission, on this website: https://mospace.umsystem.edu/

The half-day of discussion was over. Our heads swimming, Eli and I interviewed Robert Duncan and Edmund Storms for the doc, went to grab a bite to eat, and then captured Peter Hagelstein as he was interviewed.

And so the event was closed. The 18th conference that brought together the major scientists in the world on the energy of our future.

Researchers were conferring with each other, engaged in sharing information and forming partnerships for collaboration. There was more industry curiosity. Small investment companies were represented. Hope for commercial success from Defkalion, Leonardo, and Brillouin remains strong. Authors of the disparate theoretical models have verbalized a desire for consensus. And the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project got the People’s Choice Award for their open-source science project that is attracting a new generation of young people to experiment.

The lack of media attention was appalling. However, CBS was there for one day, as well as an AP reporter. Will we hear anything soon from them? Probably not.

This was heavy science and they are looking for the big breakthrough on which to report.

Duncan observed 18 years is the “adult” age in the U.S., the age when you graduate high school, and go off to the next phase of life. To apply the analogy to the 18th International Conference on Cold Fusion, he said that perhaps the field is now moving forward into its own “grown-up” stage, where further validations will occur, higher visibility will take place, and the respect that this science deserves will finally become the reality.

The next ICCF-19 will take place on March 15-21, 2015 in Venice Italy.

Thomas Passell presented Evidence for Oppenheimer-Phillips Reactions in Deuterated Palladium and Titanium, in this case, about deuteron stripping reactions. Passell was at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) when the announcement came out in 1989, and recommended funding for SRI International to research the phenomenon. EPRI was confused by the rushed 1989 DoE report concluding there was nothing to the Fleischmann-Pons Effect (FPE). When the Bhabha Atomic Research (BARC) published their results of multiple tests by 12 groups showing nuclear effects, EPRI then proceeded with funding, and continued for years.

He claims that deuterons must prefer to react with stationary atoms in the metal host, rather than other moving deuterons, and apparently, “109 and 88 are the magic numbers” for Passell.

A series of theoretical lectures followed.

Akito Takahashi was first with Nuclear Products of Cold Fusion by TSC Theory, work sponsored by Technova, Inc.

He asked first why there is so little radiation from cold fusion? He then compared experimental claims with the predictions of his TSC model.

24 +/-1 MeV/He4 heat, weak alpha peaks, and weak neutrons – all seen in Pd-D systems – were close to what his model predicted. Heat with no neutrons or gammas was close to what he expected theoretically in Ni-H systems. The lack of nuclear ash data is an unknown for this comparison, though.

Takahashi sees three distinct states, an initial state where a unique structure forms, an intermediate virtual state, and a final state interaction. The TSC is the unique formation of a Tetrahedral Symmetric Cluster of four deuterons, which then fuse to Be8 before fissioning to alpha particles.

Takahashi indicated that his TSC model could explain Alexander Karabut‘s data, the very same that Peter Hagelstein explained yesterday with his new idea.

Another theoretical model was presented by Andrew Meulenberg with Composite Model for LENR in Linear Defects of a Lattice. Meulenberg summoned Schwinger’s model to begin, acknowledging Edmund Storms’ new model, which has inspired to Meulenberg to think along new lines.

Julian Schwinger spoke about a correlated phonon-induced motion of a D sub-lattice. How does phonon emission alter hydron motion? An increased number of phonons implies more amplitude of motion, and high phonon emission gives local concentration above the norn.

But how do you overcome the D-D Coulomb barrier? Sinha’s model of 1999 speculated that pair up bound electrons, allowing D+ and D- to attract. Electron pairing is well-known phenomenon and pairing in an s-orbit (at multi-eV levels) is stable. M noted that this doesn’t work inside the lattice, but a linear defect allows it.

Linear defects also allow phonons to bring deuterons closer together. Linear defects allow hydrogen ground state to drop deeper down, become important.

Meulenberg showed Sinha’s Hamiltonian, somewhat similar to Hagelstein’s yesterday.

If deuteron separation is at 1500 Fermi, dimensions are shrinking to a 1-d situation, and the electron spends more time in between. High electron density can be maintained with a chain of hydrons, forming kilovolt electron wells, building up enough negative charge, creating a way around the Coulomb barrier.

Variable lattice space allow linear space to bring multiple H or D, giving “alot to play with.”

Says Muelenberg, “Different models for CF are converging to a coherent picture; fitting the data without violating any physics and chemistry principles.”

Storms commented during M’s question period, thanking him for putting his idea into context and providing the vocabulary of physics. He then quipped to all his colleagues, “I don’t care if you believe my theory or not, just don’t believe anybody else!”

Theoretical Analysis and Reaction Mechanisms for Experimental Results of Hydrogen-Nickel Systems presented by Yeong Kim was anticipated because of his recent collaboration with Defkalion Green Technologies, who beamed in a video of their demonstration of the R-5 reactor in Milan on Tuesday.

The Hyperion reactor contains a core of nickel metal foam. Heating the system to 180 C – 849 C, the Hyperion is then triggered, after which the magnetic field rose 0.6 to 1.6 Tesla.

Kim says, “This indicates that LENRs are producing very strong electric fields E, currents I, and magnetic fields B.”

Kim reported Defkalion tests produced excess heat only with the even isotopes of Ni (58, 60, 62, and 64), whereas odd isotopes do not produce excess heat (61).

No gammas outside of 50 keV to 300 keV were detected from the Hyperion.

Graphs were shown of an excess heat run, and a control run, where the data showed the power can be cut-off at will, revealing the ability to control the reaction.

Kim then began to describe his theoretical explanation of the data. He speculated that in the Fleischmann-Pons Effect (FPE), two deuterons making a Helium-4 require a symmetric release of energy, to conserve total momentum.

For two-particles exiting the reaction, his model shows lower probability.

“The problem is solved”, says Kim, and he is willing to talk to other theorists to help convince them.

He then described Boson Cluster-State Nuclear Fusion (BCSNF) generalized to include Hydrogen-Metal Systems. While there are still some unknowns, namely the S-factor representing the nuclear force strength, and the probability of the Boson Cluster State (BCS), the predicted reaction rates can be compared with the experimental reaction rates.

Kim speculated that the magnetic fields generated by the triggering could provide magnetic alignments of Nickel atoms, and these could provide localized magnetic trap (LMT) potentials for Boson clusters on the surface of Ni powders, though these traps have short lifetimes.

It is Rydberg atoms that then form the BEC cluster state.

“H and Ni powders triggered by glow discharge created a magnetic field causing Rydberg states allowing nano-scale localized magnetic traps, allowing Hydrogen Boson Cluster States in the LMT on the Ni surfaces. Fusion between these elements create excess heat and locally produced glow discharges.”

Kim writes, “Transmutation reactions involving Ni isotopes may not be dominant reaction mechanism but could be part of much weaker secondary reaction.”

Kim believes that self-sustaining reactions could be improved by increasing the deuterium density, and this will be tested with Hyperion R-6 reactor with the on-line real-time mass spectrometer at Defkalion Lab.

1% of Defkalion revenue will be spent on basic scientific research. Moving forward, Defkalion will be cooperating with National Instruments, as well.

A short break allowed me to take a few photographs, and before I knew it, I heard Vladimir Vysotskii‘s voice echoing through the hall. I knew I was late for the Transmutations in Biological and Chemical Systems Panel

Jean-Paul Biberian, the Chair of the panel had opened up the session, handing it off to Vysotskii, who has done some stunning work in transmutation of elements in a heavy-water solution with added micro-organisms, whereby the culture “absorbs” the element, and then transmutes it to a new element. Vysotskii’s research is attempting to use this process to transmute radioactive Cesium-137 to a benign material, offering a path to ridding the planet of 100,000 tons of spent reactor fuel, a high-level radioactive waste, as well as the 1 million tons of highly active water in the world, and the 10 million tons of low-level radioactive waste.

The method is being tested at the Chernobyl region, and he will be working with engineers at the Fukushima plant to further test the application.

Vysotskii was clear to say that it was not just accelerated decay, but a reduction in the number of active atomic elements – a change of 24% in one run. He noted that in the Chernobyl region, there has been an abnormal accelerated decrease of environmental radioactivity, implying that it may be related to the transmutation of these elements by biological organisms.

Lectures were almost an hour behind schedule now. Vysotskii took a few queries, laughing that no matter what, “I have an answer to every question!”

Akira Kitamura, sponsored by Technova, Inc, began his talk on A Mass-Flow-Calorimetry System for Scaled-up Experiments on Anomalous Heat Evolution at Elevated Temperatures. He described a new cell that uses oil-mass-flow calorimetry and where coolant controls the temperature within 0.1 degree C. Neutron and gamma detectors are situated around the vacuum-chamber, sealed unit.

Al₂O₃ powder was used as a control to calibrate. Preliminary runs used CNS/Al₂O₃ sample, where the Silica compound was made with a nickel and copper nano-compound containing 4 grams nickel mixed with 200 grams Al₂O₃ . Temperature output varies with heat input in both cases.

The coolant oil reached almost 300 degrees C at heater input of 231 W. There was long-term stability. The trial run excess heat appeared to be on the same order as that of the CNZ sample yielding about 2W/g-Ni.

The talk on ENEA Workshop Comments and Next Steps by Vittorio Violante was rescheduled due to time constraints.

After lunch, it was time for the Neutron and Radiation Production Panel chaired by Xing Zhong Li. John Gahl, Frank Gordon, Graham Hubler, and Thomas Passell were panel members.

Xing Zhong Li spoke first about an early effort to detect neutrons from inside a neutrino detector in order to test the nuclear origin of the Fleischmann-Pons Effect (FPE), (a big mistake). In any rate, neutrino detectors are no long giant caverns of technology, but smaller 3x3x3 cubic meter units.

Li feels we should be testing cold fusion cells for neutrinos (using one of these smaller units), and asked the auditorium if anyone knows anyone who can help obtain one. And that was all he wanted to say.

John Gaul uses the MURR cyclotron to shoot 8.4 MeV =/- 2.3% deuterons at deuterium-loaded palladium foil, and found higher levels of Pd109 afterwards, as well as Pd-111 and Ag-111. The foils were hot, too. Experimental cross-sections were much larger than expected.

These were the results of only two experiments, and uncertainties like beam current on the target, will need further runs, which are planned.

New SKINR Director Graham Hubler presented Unusual Nuclear Isomer

¹⁸⁰Ta^m

²²⁹Th^m 7.6 eV nuclear excited state 5 hour lifetime

Hubler asks: Can isomers like this play a role in anomalous heat? Are there any more undiscovered low energy isomers? Nuclear structure theory is too inaccurate to predict others.

Low-energy nuclear work was dropped prior to 1940 until the early 50s. It is just now picking up again. He talked about the nuclear Halo effect, and enhanced low energy cross-sections for d,d and d,p which show anomalies, and 3-d fusion. I can’t say I understand this, so forgive me if I end there.

Hubler ended with, “Not all the nuclear structure is known, and there’s probably more to find.”

Frank Gordon began his talk Bottom Line Up Front, and his bottom line? Radiation is produced in LENR experiments, but much, much lower than what is expected by conventional theory. He showed a graph summarizing just some of the reported radiation and how it was measured. His work in San Diego detected triple tracks in CR-39, indicating the presence of energetic (>9.6 MeV) neutrons, though seven orders of magnitude below the expected number expected by conventional theory and hot fusion. “Low flux rates suggest new/unidentified channels including possibly aneutronic reactions exist.”

He showed some pictures of those tracks next to DT neutrons, almost identical. “Experiments provide compelling evidence that nuclear reactions are occurring”, says Gordon, who no longer says “irrefutable evidence”, because “you can refute anything”, and apparently people who do so.

Tom Passell was back with Evidence for Deuteron Stripping in Metals That Absorb Hydrogen to show slides he hadn’t shown before. Passell has a hundred glow-discharge cells running 24-7 at 2 Watts each, all with different metallic cathodes. 40 kHz AC and low power, they live for a months at a time.

That was all I was able to get of this talk.

At 3PM, David French led a seminar on patents. He spoke of the general features a good patent should have to receive approval, focusing on the particulars relating to cold fusion. French is well-versed in the history of technology and uses many examples to illustrate complex issues using easy-to-understand analogies.

He took many questions from audience in rapid-fire, answering general and specific issues that the participants had brought up. French wants to help cold fusion scientists make better patents to get new energy technology officially approved.

Unfortunately, I must apologize for missing Hydrogen Embrittlement and Piezonuclear Reactions in Electrolysis Experiments by Alberto Carpinteri and Piezonuclear Fission Reactions Simulated by the Lattice Model by Diego Veneziano, but Eli got video, so we’ll catch it in the future.

I also missed an impromptu Q&A with Peter Hagelstein, but luckily Eli got that on video, too.

It was a special session that re-iterated Hagelstein’s excitement with his new model. He answered all questions, explaining further how this model can fit the Karabut data, and appears to correlate with Vysotskii’s, too.

One thing I didn’t miss was the Banquet in the evening.

Edmund Storms opened the dinner discussing the ISCMNS, and how easy it was to join, before Jean-Paul Biberian took over as MC.

John Dash received the award for Best Poster.

Michael McKubre announced that ICCF-19 will be held in Venice, Italy March 15-21, 2015.

Frank Gordon announced the winner of the Preparata Metal.

Winner Pam Mosier-Boss accepts the Preparata Metal for her outstanding achievements in science.

The evening continued with ragtime musicians setting a down-home tone, and the available scientists who attended the very first ICCF-1 meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah assembled for a photo. Edmund Storms was there, but somehow disappeared right before the photo was taken.

There’s more coverage from the banquet to publish, but it’s been another 16 hour day, so for for now it’s time to say good night. Tomorrow is the final day which will be a half day with more panels and the closing session.