A renewed Cold Fusion Renewable Energy Petition is still alive at Change.org.Sign this petition now.
Cold Fusion atomic energy has been ignored and pushed aside in discussions/ presentations about alternative energy for too long. Advantages include little/no radioactive decay matter, and extremely high energy output. As an example, 1 or 2 future-generation generators themselves could power a metropolis city the size of Los Angeles, California for a month on one small supply of common inexpensive elements. Current energy generation comes from more than 5-sources. World leaders in nations/unions such as Japan, The United States of America, Russia, South Africa, The European Union, and so on have the ability and power to fully engage in the building mass energy production plants now. “Nuclear fission power plants and weapons are dangerous.”
As of 07/02/2012 this is now an international petition.
This is among the safest, cleanest, and most powerful energy resources that has been proven to be as or more productive than coal, and nuclear fission; which is more commonly known. Other technologies based on science fiction stories like the various Star Trek television series from the 1960’s through recent series, offer multiple ideas that need to be officially explored further. Use of this energy source has the potential of replacing oil, coal, and natural gas use worldwide. The nation that does this first would likely reduce foreign dependence by 100%, erase it’s own and most other nations trade debts and retain all funds used towards purchasing foreign energy resources. The conservative powers that currently exist and the energy corporations that want to hold onto their dominance are fighting this in every way possible.
An accommodating resource of energy using a smaller cold fusion engine can also power vehicles of all sizes. World leaders need to endorse this safer alternative too. Job losses may initially be massive but 3x to 10x more jobs would be created. Worldwide unemployment would drop dramatically due to increased lower cost energy availability.
We are in a new and more open time to succeed. Let’s make them listen and act for the people, our planet, not the corporate billionaires and subservient politicians!
Please sign this worlwide petition and forward this article: (Click Here)
LENR/LENT science is known as cold fusion in popular vernacular for many reasons. There is the well-remembered worldwide media flurry over the wondrous announcement by Pons and Fleishman in 1989; the decades long discourse exemplifying it as the fringe of fringe sciences; the repeated high-profile dirty-dealt blows to cold fusion science by established energy concerns aimed at debunking it once and for all. Even movies and sci-fi have helped put cold fusion in the public vernacular. Basically anything that is ‘less hot than the sun’ fusion, involving some sort of nuclear reaction, is cold fusion in the minds eye of the public. It’s a popular name with a nice ring to it, Cold Fusion, and it is about to become the most popular sweet source for energy.
Now the chief scientist at NASA – Langley has released a paper to help us better understand this art. It is densely written, each sentence packed with meaning. Even the title bears a closer look, REALISM and OUTLOOK.
In order to better understand the paper we can look at each part of every sentence and categorize it as the title suggests, under Realism or Outlook. It is best to list only those parts that qualify as definitive when kept in context; parts based on ‘maybe’ or ‘what if’ are not included.
Thanks are given to ‘we’ll stick to our guns’ Pons and Fleischman and to all the dedicated scientists who continued the research: now we have a fantastic science emerging as the ‘Solution to All Energetics’, through low-energy nuclear reactions.
LENR/LENT Science – popularly known as Cold Fusion.
READ NASA and VIEW THEIR VIDEO PRESENTATIONS
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, the Realism and the Outlook (read)
by Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center
REALISM
hundreds of experiments worldwide indicating heat and transmutations with minimal radiation and low energy input
evidence indicates something real is occurring
with effects occurring from using diverse materials, methods of energy addition etc
This is far from a “Narrow Band” set of physical phenomena
several labs have blown up studying LENR and windows have melted, indicating when the conditions are “right” prodigious amounts of energy can be produced and released
are in fact inventing (in real time) the requisite engineering, along with verifying the physics
OUTLOOK
NASA Langley, the epiphany moment on LENR was the publication of the Widom-Larsen Weak Interaction LENR Theory
theory indicates energy densities, some several million times chemical. The current experiments are in the 10’s to hundreds range
still far from the theoretical limits of the weak interaction physics for LENR performance
given the truly massive-to-mind boggling benefits – solutions to climate, energy and the limitations that restrict the NASA Mission areas, all of them. The key to space exploration is energetics. The key to supersonic transports and neighbor-friendly personal fly/drive air vehicles is energetics, as simplex examples of the potential implications of this area of research
1% of the nickel mined on the planet each year could produce the world’s energy requirements at the order of 25% the cost of coal
it is worth far more resources than are currently being devoted to this research arena
With NASA and many others we are able to quickly replace all major sources of energy with cold fusion. At a cost savings, both in implementation and future use, ad infinitum.
Every friend, neighbor, coworker, student, teacher, politician and activist, liberal and conservative, both young and old should become aware of this as soon as possible.
Then the harm caused from continued use of dirty crippling coal, asthma inducing oil, or birth defective radioactive nuclear becomes a matter of criminal negligence. Do all you can to both get the word out and enable this energy transition. It is the most important topic of our time.
This is an action initiated by Contributor Gregory Goble, poet and clean energy advocate. He felt pity for the hot fusioneers who have lost their largesse due to budget cuts, and who might now consider taking help from their poor ole cousins in the cold fusion community who have the ability to save their programs by providing clean, affordable power to probe plasma science. Ironic, huh?
Follow This
We are biting our fingernails waiting for commercialization of cold fusion and the hot fusion folks are sweating out their own issues. It’s going to be a long summer.
While a lattice-assisted nuclear reactive (LANR/cold fusion) device is operating at MIT with zero funding, the MIT hot fusion budget has been eliminated (shut down) and hot fusion energy generation research may soon end worldwide. Ironically, Tokamak reactors may be much less costly to operate if powered by low-energy nuclear reaction LENR generated power. Presently the power to create a Tokamak nuclear reaction is magnitudes greater in costs with today’s energy technologies than if supplied by cold fusion generated electricity.
Primary utility power for the MIT Alcator C-Mod is provided by a 24-MVA peak power, 13.8-kV line. In total, storage and conversion systems have been designed to supply up to 500 MJ at up to 400 MVA to the experiment. Electrical costs are $5,002,000, which is approximately 5% of the run budget. [source]
Alcator C-Mod MIT Budgets and Schedule (2009 – 2013)
Incremental costs for 1 run week (at 14 ± 3 weeks) Cost: $2,008,000
As you can see the hot fusion folks still believe fusion only takes place at extremely high temperatures in a plasma and seem to be unaware of fusion taking place in low temperature vibrational environments. Science is discovering nuclear active environments NAE can occur in a condensed matter.
Here is where we “turn substance into accident“.
This is a medieval term which means “to give new quality to substance; a loose and ironic use of the terms of scholastic philosophy.” –from the glossary of Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer translated by A. Kent Hieatt and Constance Hieatt Bantam Books.
Hot and cold fusion folks can work together to advance science by using cold fusion/LANR/LENR to power hot fusion experiments.
If you live in a district where your Representative in on the House Energy and Water Subcommittee FY2013 Appropriations bill, then message the following note to your representative. (You need to put in a zip code matching the Representatives district to use the email form).
If you do not live in a district where your Representative is on the House Energy and Water Subcommittee FY2013 Appropriations bill, then message the following note to: U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers – Attention Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee Members here
@
Energy and Water Subcommittee Members
Republicans
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey email
Jerry Lewis, California email
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho email
Denny Rehberg, Montana email
Rodney Alexander, Louisiana email
Steve Womack, Arkansas email
Alan Nunnelee, Mississippi email
Democrats
Peter J. Visclosky, Indiana email
Ed Pastor, Arizona email
Chaka Fattah, Pennsylvania email
John W. Olver, Massachusetts email
“The Department is instead directed to continue operations at the Alcator C-Mod facility and to fund continued research… ” –by funding LENR to help hot fusion.
Honorable Subcommittee Members,
The MIT Tokamak reactor is a project that advances engineering and science. Both construction and operational energy costs can be reduced by utilizing cold fusion/LENR energy devices just now emerging into the marketplace. Blacklight Power has a technology, recently validated by academic and industry experts that could provide cost-reductive electricity for research with high-energy requirements.
NASA plans utilization of condensed matter nuclear reaction science engineered into its next generation of spacecraft. Here are two announcements by NASA to utilize Cold Fusion/LANR/LENR energy devices to replace plutonium for spacecraft power and a NASA presentation of the science and theory behind this science.
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, the Realism and the Outlook by Dennis Bushnell NASA Abundant Clean/Green Energy by Joseph Zawodny NASA LENR at GRC from NASA Glenn Research Center .pdf
The following is a list of four companies developing new commercial products based on LENR:
Include these advanced energy solutions as relief to your budget, energy, and environmental concerns. Funding LENR research brings benefits far beyond science exploration; we will be developing the ultra-clean energy that can power our future for millenia.
Thank you for this consideration,
The following is publicly posted fund raising material from MIT and ITER – Help Save Hot Fusion. It describes conventional models of fusion based on high-energy collisions in a hot plasma.
This does not describe cold fusion/LANR/LENR which hot fusioneers do not believe possible.
Intro Fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which light nuclei fuse together to create a single, heavier nucleus and release energy. Given the correct conditions (such as those found in plasma), nuclei of light elements can smash into each other with enough energy to undergo fusion. When this occurs, the products of the fusion reaction have a smaller total mass than the total mass of the reactants. The mass difference is converted to energy as determined by Einstein’s famous formula, E=mc2. Here, m is the mass difference and c is the speed of light. Even though the mass difference is very small, the speed of light is extremely large (about 670,000,000 miles per hour), so the amount of energy released is also very large. [source]
What is a Tokamak?
Since we have now established what nuclear fusion is, and its potential as an attractive source of energy, the next obvious question is: How do we create fusion in a laboratory? This is where tokamaks come in. In order for nuclear fusion to occur, the nuclei inside of the plasma must first be extremely hot, like in a star. For example, in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak we routinely create plasmas which reach temperatures of 90,000,000 degrees Celsius, about 5 times hotter than the center of the Sun. [source]
The President’s 2013 Budget Proposal shuts down Alcator C-Mod, an essential laboratory for clean energy research at MIT.
Does the proposed budget only cut Alcator C-Mod?
No. Almost all domestic programs under the Department of Energy’s Office of (Hot) Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES) received cuts under the president’s FY13 proposed budget, although the shutting down of Alcator C-Mod is by far the most severe and irreversible. Proposed cuts also target the DIII-D tokamak in California (-11.9%), plasma physics theory (-14.4%), the Advanced Design program (-62.9%), and general plasma science (-21.6%), among many others. [source]
What has happened?
The Presidential budget request for 2013 was announced on Monday, February 13, 2012. In that request, C-Mod, an essential laboratory in the U.S. and World Fusion Energy Program, is threatened with termination. C-Mod is a world-class laboratory housed at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center and dedicated to educating students. As the only high field, compact high performance divertor tokamak, it is unique in the world. In the coming decade, vitally important research, including many critical ITER physics, research and development tasks, can only be accomplished on C-Mod. Although the budget for the fusion science part of the Department of Energy remained nearly constant at 400 million dollars, most US fusion labs face significant cuts because funding for the construction of ITER was increased by 45 million dollars. This money was taken out of C-Mod and other existing experiments. View the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) director’s presentation about the budget here. [source]
ITER Faces Massive Budget Cuts
Due to the many challenges of fusion energy—just look at the size of the investment in ITER—this is a project that could only be attempted at an international level. However, let’s always remember that (hot) fusion technology remains in competition with other technological approaches for energy generation. We therefore need to implement and stop losing time. We must bear in mind that we have been entrusted with public funds, which gives us an enormous responsibility towards the citizens within the ITER Members.
Since the European Union has agreed to earmark funds for ITER through 2020 at the level of EUR 6.6 billion (of which EUR 2.3 billion is for 2012-2013), we have concerns regarding the schedule slippages that have occurred over the past several months. Slippages do not contribute to the positive image of the project; they also risk undermining the political support for ITER if they are not corrected soon. The next six months will therefore be crucial. [source]
C-Mod Funding Restored in Proposal from House Appropriations Subcommittee
The House Energy and Water Subcommittee released their FY2013 Appropriations bill. This appropriations recommendation includes specific language restoring funding to the Alcator C-Mod project:
The [President’s budget] request proposes to shut down the Alcator C-Mod facility and provides only enough funding for decommissioning and existing graduate students. The Department is instead directed to continue operations at the Alcator C-Mod facility and to fund continued research, operations, and upgrades across the Office of Science’s domestic fusion enterprise. House of Representatives Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, 2013, pg. 105
The domestic fusion budget (inclusive of C-Mod) is almost completely restored to FY2012 levels (the President’s Budget Request cuts ~$48.3 million, the House Appropriations recommendation only cuts of $0.5 million). ITER, the international fusion reactor which the US is collaborating on, also receives increased funding, $73 million above the President’s Budget Request. These increases overcome the issues of trying to fund both the domestic US fusion program and ITER on a flat budget. [source]
Big thanks to E-Cat World [visit] for posting this video by musician Barry Simon of the JET Energy NANOR device running since January 2012. The video has Professor Peter Hagelstein explaining the lattice-assisted nuclear reaction LANR/cold fusion energy device.
The revolutionary energy producing device was first turned on earlier this year in January for a short course on the science Cold Fusion 101 co-taught by Peter Hagelstein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Electrical Engineering and Mitchell Swartz of JET Energy, who built the NANOR cell.
There is a beautiful soundtrack, too!
Related Links
Demonstration of Excess Heat from the JET Energy NANOR at MIT by Peter Hagelstein MIT and Mitchell Swartz JET Energydownload .pdf
Successful Cold Fusion/LANR Demonstration at MIT – again by Ruby Carat February 1, 2012
Easy to remember facts about cold fusion science and technology can go just about anywhere. Message the chip body, or print and post up where your chemical body goes. Snail mail your legislative representatives and local decision-makers.
Three elements are colliding together, the degradation of the environment, the plummeting economy, and the energy crisis. I think its been called a clusterf**k. There is no way out for seven billion people, unless we have an energy dense clean form of next-generation power.
Energy is a currency. Choose the best value for now and for to come.
Last summer, Cold Fusion Now left their HQ in beautiful Eureka, California for an extended stay with family on the east coast. We visited our local power plant, and headed out, stopping in Los Angeles to do art actions, send letters, and make a movie.
Then, a tour across the United States and the history of cold fusion took us just about from corner to corner. We returned back to the left coast this year low-budget style, going through hill and dale across the southern US, burning gasoline and taking the inventory of effects of The End of Oil Age.
The expectation of a flip in the arrangement for living on this planet spreads through an undercurrent of anxiety at the real mess we are in. Many people here in the US are in a type of stunned muteness as their notions of the world dissolve before them, and don’t understand why.
I’d say we spoke with a hundred+ individuals one-on-one in the context of a new energy paradigm and distributed the last of the stickers on hand (one thousand stickers distributed in total over two years). We spoke with people in the streets, and scientists in the lab. Everywhere, an eager ear to hear the news.
It’s all about accelerating the meme of hope: we don’t have to live this way.
We can choose another path and create that reality with each thought – and action.
C’mon along as Cold Fusion Now recounts the actions taken on the Cross-Country 2012 return to the Left Coast!
Miami, Florida
DJ Le Spam and the Spam Allstars
Half-a-year in Florida was spent researching and writing. While I was supposed to be writing a book about how the alphabet created math and science during the Ionian Revolution, I couldn’t stay away from the almost constant news about cold fusion. But there was a break. Almost every week for months, I went to DJ LeSpam‘s casa, and we jammed up mucho musica on stringed instruments. I have been learning the ukulele, and he played guitar, tres, and banjo.
DJ Le Spam is sound artist Andrew Yeomanson who started the Spam Allstars ensemble in the mid-nineties with yours truly, who played saxophones and flute back then. [visit] Though I left the area for a teaching job, Andrew kept the music alive. Today, the band gigs 3-4 times each week in Miami and South Florida. DJ Le Spam also curates museum performances and plays at nationally- and internationally recognized events. He is a bona fide expert in early Cuban jazz and regularly spins rare recordings at private functions.
Miami, Florida DJ Le SPAM has fusion-powered gear.All these activities occur with a Cold Fusion Now sticker right upfront his main instrument. Last year for a local Halloween community event, the band played the NBC6 Miami television station with the sticker in full TV Body view. [visit] At a few gigs that I attended during my stay, one a huge Coral Gables-area block party, the other a small intimate club in La Pequena Habana, I spoke with lots of people and gave away info and stickers with the Cold Fusion Now website address.
As there’s nothing like art to communicate the impossible and inspire the incredible, I wrote a movie script for Andrew and his moviemaking pal Juan Maristany [visit] to make involving his car, his cat, and cold fusion. It’s called “A Car, A Cat, and Cold Fusion“. The plot involves a Hammond Organ, which contains some 3 grams of palladium in its electronics, Ernie Ball nickel guitar strings, a 1960s-era black sports car, and Andrew’s kitten Lil “Crisis” Crissy, a tiny bundle of fluff rescued from a Miami parking lot. You’ll have to wait for that action on screen; I’ll only say that there are Superwaves and the fight for free energy as the backdrop!
Andrea Rossi
I hooked up with Cold Fusion Now’s Eli Elliott and we got the opportunity to interview Andrea A. Rossi [video], the inventor of the first commercial cold fusion energy generator. We drove from Broward County down to Miami Beach to meet with Mr. Rossi for an hour between 3 and 4 o’clock at which time he’d have to step out.
We met him at his office in Miami Beach. It was situated close to Lincoln Road where cafes, boutiques, and art galleries lined the walkway. We parked inside the garage and took the elevator up to his place. He kindly offered coffee and drinks. We didn’t have much time and hurried to decide where to sit.
Armando's Penny Lane Music Bulletin Board.There were books stashed everywhere; neatly stacked magazines on space, books on fiction, non-fiction, physics, and paperback mystery novels. We brought him a doumbek and some CDs of the Spam Allstars and Armando, the local banjo player who emigrated from Roma, Italia and owns Penny Lane Music Emporium in Ft. Lauderdale. [visit]
I went through some of the questions I would ask Mr. Rossi while Eli set up the cameras and microphone. There was only one he wouldn’t answer.
Eli and Andrea together for a Polaroid after the shoot.“I was wondering if we could go down to the new factory location and take a few pictures?”, I asked innocently.
“I’m sorry”, he said, smiling and shaking his head regrettably. “I cannot tell you the location of the factory.”
“Oh we don’t have to disclose the location – we’ll go blindfolded!”, I assured.
Laughing, he said “No, no, we need to work in peace.”
Drat. That sure woulda been a scoop.
But who can argue? I dropped the matter knowing that these small, independent companies working on new energy need all the support they can get. There is plenty of friction surely coming down the pike as powerful forces behind regulators slow the dissemination of this breakthrough technology to save a dying economy. We as supporters want to make it easy as possible for these companies to operate and thus accelerate the process of moving away from dirty fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power plants to clean, abundant cold fusion energy.
Man in the Street Miami, FloridaThe interview went by so quickly, I had three times as many questions than I had time to ask. After Polaroids, Eli and I packed up and departed. We walked around Miami Beach and soaked up the sub-tropical vibe.
We met this fellow on the street, a good spirit, struggling, whose name I cannot remember now. We spoke about what was going down on the new energy front. When his friend came by, the two walked away. My friend here began telling his friend what I was saying about cold fusion, ‘It’s nuclear power from the hydrogen in water’.
Therein lies the power of conversation. No matter where you are, no matter who you’re with, talking about cold fusion only creates a larger set of minds thinking positively about the future.
St. Petersburg
Jack Kerouac
Ruby puts a message in Jack Kerouac's box.On the way out of Florida, Eli and I made a stop in St. Petersburg where his family has a house. Eli is an artist, writer, independent filmmaker who is really into the Beats, the Beat Generation artists, that is. So we went on by to Jack Kerouac‘s’ house, which lay empty and sad-looking with legal-ownership in dispute. We picked up some trash and shook the front-door mat out to spruce things up and I dropped a sticker in the mailbox in Jack’s name for whoever might find it.
We then went to the bar where Jack Kerouac hung out, which was pretty far from his house. [visit] Since Kerouac didn’t drive, it’s speculated that he traveled on bus, since no one seems to remember him on a bike.
During the friendly conversation that can occur at a local pub, a former tattoo-artist-now-cartoon-graphic-artist at the bar asked where we were headed next, and I said, “Well, I’m going to the Nuclear and Emerging Technology for Space Conference outside of Houston. A fellow is going to speak on a new energy technology that he feels could power spacecraft for long voyages.”
The guy looked up at me, stunned; the pool player chuckled to himself, and whole bar went silent.
“Huh?”
Eli’s been through it before, so he knew what to expect when I started ministering the Cold Fusion to the crew. Needless to say, the bar where Jack Kerouac drank held an enthusiastic bunch, lifted-up by the possibilities offered by this revolutionary new energy. I was encouraged to put a Cold Fusion Now sticker on the bulletin board, and I did, to be seen by the many locals, poets, musicians and tourists that come by to honor this great voice of a generation.
The Woodlands, Texas
George H. Miley
It was along Highway 90 through the Gulf Coast to The Woodlands, Texas for the NETS conference. At NETS, I spoke with Professor George H. Miley of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne who would be speaking to rocket scientists about low-energy nuclear reactions LENR in his talk A Game-Changing Power Source based on LENR. [visit]
He was reticent about being videoed, but did agree to some later in the interview which I’ll be editing in the coming months. However, I was glad get audio of our conversation as it helped to describe his theoretical ideas on LENR loosely summarized as they were in the interview transcription.
Professor Miley is assisted in his LENR research by undergraduate students at the school, but at this conference, he was accompanied by two super-smart and hard-working graduate students. They weren’t so familiar with Dr. Miley’s LENR research as they had their hands full with the plasma thruster technology they were designing, as well as passing exams, but they both indicated how much they enjoyed working with Dr. Miley and how much fun it was designing rocket engines. Of course, Professor Miley was sitting right there! But it was all in fun, and the students were having a great time connecting and speaking with the other planetary scientists and spaceship designers.
The very personable Dr. Miley was kind and accommodating with his time. He spoke with the demeanor of someone who is very ‘even-keeled’. He has been researching cold fusion since 1989 and lived the history of this ostracized community, yet he has no anger about the injustices perpetrated during these past two decades. A consummate professional scientist, the hurdles and blockades only inspired him to succeed even more at unlocking the secrets of this mysterious energetic reaction between hydrogen and tiny pieces of metal.
Yes, Dr. Miley prefers to speak through science, and he certainly does. An octogenarian, he’s got the energy and looks of a much younger man. At the conference, he was busy attending meetings, talks, supervising students’ talks, poster sessions, and of course, speaking himself on LENR. I was grateful that he took the time to speak with me and explain his research in simple terms so that I could better represent this science to a larger audience.
Session 462 Advanced Concepts: LENR, Anti-Matter and New Physics
I sat upfront during the Session Advanced Concepts session hoping to get good pictures and audio, but I was only able to get an audio recording for transcription purposes. [visit]
The talks were alot of fun, with close to two dozen or so attending the late-Friday afternoon session. I might have been the only woman there, and I was surely the only non-rocket-scientist in attendance.
After the lectures, one of the organizers associated with Johnson Space Center JSC came up wondering who I was, and what was my purpose there. I told him I was passing through at an opportune time to meet up with Dr. Miley, and that I did clean energy advocacy for cold fusion. “Oooooh, I heard there would be someone here like that.” So, the JSC crew was alerted to my impending presence beforehand! Well, they did a great job with the lectures and all got a Cold Fusion Now sticker with the website on it to learn more about this impending new energy technology that offers a solution for both domestic and off-world energy problems.
Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell Museum of Art and Culture
Goddard's launch control board composed of telegraph keys. The first key fired the igniter, releasing a weight that knocked open the gasoline valve as it fell. The other keys were for aborting the process. After NETS, I made my way through Texas and up into Roswell, New Mexico, a town I always like stopping in. This time, I checked out the Roswell Museum and Art Center [visit] where they have a fabulous Robert Goddard exhibit [visit].
Robert Goddard was an early rocket pioneer who, with funding from Charles Lindbergh, set up a lab in the Roswell area during the 1930s. The museum had a reproduction of his workshop and lots of little -and big- parts of rockets and tools that he used to build his craft.
On the way out of the museum I stopped by the front desk to sign-in as a Visitor, and struck up a conversation with the proprietors. Somehow, I got started on clean energy advocacy for cold fusion, (how did that happen?) and the one fellow said, “Yeah, they’ve been keeping that back for years, but now there’s a fellow, hmmm what’s his name… who’s coming out with some device…..”
“Oh wow, do you mean Andrea Rossi and his Ecat?”, I said.
“Yeah, that’s it!”
Well, it’s always nice to meet someone with the knowledge that cold fusion is real and almost ready, and we stood and had a little session on the topic. The second guy hadn’t really heard much about it, but he was interested, so I gave them both stickers with the website address, and they said they’d check it out.
Alamogordo, New Mexico
Museum of Space History
Starchaser Rocket Booster outside the Museum of Space HistorySouth of Roswell is Alamogordo and The Museum of Space History. It sits in the foothills above Alamogordo and White Sands, a huge expanse of white gypsum dunes that collected over millions of years from an ancient lake. [visit] The White Sands Missile Range is adjacent, as is the Trinity Site [visit], the spot of the first atomic bomb test.
The museum has lots of early space program artifacts and historical missile technology. They had a Sputnik reproduction, and outside was this rocket booster from Starchaser that looked like it just arrived. [visit]
Oliver Lee State Park
The desert at Oliver Lee State Park.I camped out by Oliver Lee State Park [visit], a beautiful oasis in dry surrounding desert. I met a Volunteer manning the Park Office and we had a great conversation. He told me about the Aborigines in Australia who have a special class of people called the Listeners. Their only job is to listen, not give advice or reprimand, just listen. If you’ve got a problem, you go to them and just let loose, and you won’t be judged, or consoled, but you will be able to get something off your chest. That, in and of itself, was enough to restore balance to the soul, in many cases.
As we spoke of the insanity of this world, and what it would take for people to learn how to live in peace with each other, with respect for all life on this planet, this retired, full-time RVer Volunteer Ranger’s words of wisdom on what I could do in my own small way to contribute to this world I seek were simple and stunning. He said,
“It doesn’t cost you nothing to say a kind word, and it doesn’t cost you nothing to listen.”
Wow. And all I had to give him was a Cold Fusion Now sticker.
When I came back from my hike, he made a point to tell me he’d check out the website. Going away, I thought to myself that I would really start to listen more. So good am I at talking; it’s that listening that needs more practice.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Edmund Storms
Edmund Storms speaks with Cold Fusion Now on a variety of issues.An opportunity to listen presented itself straightaway as I then rolled on up I25 to speak with Dr. Edmund Storms who lives and works in Santa Fe.
He was finishing writing A Student’s Guide to Cold Fusion [visit] after completing a full-survey of the field, becoming up-to-date with the most recent experimental results. Looking at a wide range of published papers, he was searching for a connection, trying to piece together a logical structure that would allow him to name the conditions of this Rumplestiltskin-like reaction.
He spoke about his views on the Nuclear Active Environment NAE, now believing it’s the tiny cracks and spaces that are key to initiating a reaction. When hydrogen (or deuterium) are caught in the just the right-sized space, and jiggled with the right resonant frequency, the nuclei will somehow “fuse” together creating the much sought-after excess heat effect that is the focus of worldwide research.
If he’s right, naming the NAE is only the first step. There still needs to be a model for how the nuclei overcome the Coulomb barrier and join together during the reaction. Dr. Storms will be partnering with colleagues to test his hypothesis in the coming months, as well as writing a shorter, article-sized version of his ideas in A Student’s Guide. But, if his hypothesis bears out, it may mean that cold fusion can occur in all kinds of materials. Hydrogen would only need just the right space, and just the right frequency, and what an energy breakthrough that would be.
Our initial discussions were not on tape, so focused was I on following his words, but later we sat down for a video interview and I asked him some pointed questions about the current developments in the field. I’ll be editing that in the coming months.
The Storms' kick up the dust around their Western outpost in these steel horses. Note the properly groomed bumpers.Carol Talcott Storms is herself an early cold fusion researcher now artist who partners with her husband Edmund on all issues both domestic and scientific. I was able to snap a picture of their parked vehicles, which carry them around this Western town proclaiming the new energy science happening right in their own backyard.
On the way out of town, I spoke with the proprietor of Nicholas Potter Bookseller, a rare and used-book shop in old town Santa Fe, [visit] about the research occurring right in his own neighborhood and he was impressed. A special author book signing event might be a great opportunity to get The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction for his shelves! [more]
Magdalena, New Mexico
The Very Large Array Radio Observatory
Very Large Array of dishes capture radio waves from space.The next stop was the Very Large Array Radio Observatory 60 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico in a very remote area. [visit] It was there they filmed the movie Contact based on Carl Sagan‘s novel of the same name. Of course, when I got there, it was closed, sort of.
There was some kind of event going on for astronomers, and everyone had badges – except me. But the door was open, and so I sneaked in to leave a few Cold Fusion Now stickers on the table, and snuck out. No conversations were held as I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I snapped a few photos of the dishes and started back to the main highway.
And that’s when my truck broke down. (See what you get for sneakin’ around!)
Magdalena, New Mexico Palimpsest: Bank, Cafe, Ice-Cream, Print Shop My poor ole truck Baby squealed in pain just two blocks from the only garage within 30 miles. Miraculously, I was in the tiny town of Magdalena. It was Friday afternoon at 5PM local time and I’d have to wait till Monday for parts.
Magdalena is an old Western cattle town, now economically-depressed. There’s no grocery store, food items are purchased locally at the gas station mart, but the auto garage had excellent mechanics who knew right away what was needed and fixed it promptly when parts arrived Monday morning. Thank you Winston’s Auto and Wrecker Service!
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
America’s Spaceport
There is a town in New Mexico named Truth or Consequences, but the locals call it T or C. I trekked there to see Spaceport America, the new facility being built by Sir Richard Branson for his Virgin Galactic fleet of spaceships. [visit] The New Mexico Space Authority also kicked in and there will be other private space company launches as well. I’ve wanted to tell Sir Richard about the new energy industry that’s ready to pop and blow all other markets away, and give him a Cold Fusion Now sticker, for a long time now.
Spaceport America still under constructionI took the 30-mile drive outside of T or C to the Spaceport. I was unable to access the building when I visited on my way east. As I approached this time, I could see the cement trucks and cranes from a distance, and knew it was still a construction zone. At the perimeter, I met the very same Security Guard that I had met last summer. He remembered me, too.
“May I go and check out the Spaceport?”, I asked.
“Nope, sorry, still under construction, but you can come back on the weekend for the tour.”
Well, I wasn’t going to be able to stick around the whole week for the tour. I pulled over in the little spot he directed me to, and snapped a few shots of the still-forming structure. Apparently, they’ve been having alot of engineering issues that have put the project over a year behind schedule, and it may be two years behind. There’d be no opportunity to personally lobby Sir Richard this time around.
Artesian Bath House and RV Park
Hot-spring mineral bath from the 1930s in Truth or Consequences, New MexicoIn T or C, I pulled into the Artesian Bath House and RV Park [visit]. A parking spot for the night with a $3 hot-spring mineral bath was waiting for me. The owner was a long-time resident of the area and had collected many Indian arrowheads and totems during long hikes in the wilderness. He gave me an arrowhead and some Apache tears as a gift, and I gave him an ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus and a Cold Fusion Now sticker. After exchanging wampum, I continued westward.
Tucson, Arizona
I left New Mexico timidly, hoping my truck would make it through the barren southwest desert. In Tucson, Arizona, I holed up to write-up the Miley interview. The website had been neglected for quite some time while I’d been away, with lots of broken links and such due to the transition to a new platform made right before I left Florida. Fixing things would have to wait until I made it through this trip, but people were wondering “Where’s the news about George Miley?”
Saguaro National Park
Saguaro Cactus off 77 north of Tucson (not in the park).While in Tucson, I visited the Saguaro National Park. [visit] where I took pictures that somehow disappeared. What a bummer. The Saguaro is the iconic cactus of the Southwest and the park is filled with incredibly beautiful stands of Saguaro at whose feet lay the early spring-flowering desert flora.
When leaving the park, a couple down from Phoenix was sitting at the picnic table and asked where I was from. That started a conversation about energy, and before you knew it, they had a sticker in their hand, and were intrigued about investment opportunities. I told them to learn more about it on the website first before doing anything with their dollars, and said my goodbyes to these most pleasant and positive people.
Titan Missile Museum
I also bounced over to the Titan Missile Museum, a silo site with a decommissioned Titan missile still inside. [visit] Titan missiles carried devastating nuclear bombs and were part of the MAD Mutually Assured Destruction strategy during the Cold War years. Portions of the movie Star Trek First Contact were filmed there as well. Scenes where Zephram Cochrane readied the first rocketship with warp drive used this very silo in 1996.
Titan Missile Control Room with 1 second to launch.Unfortunately, the pictures I took here vaporized as well, but I caught a little video and here’s a still. During the tour conducted by a former Titan missile unit member, I learned that one of the first positions for women in the active-duty armed forces was the position of the person to Press the Button for launch. Wow.
The resident historian Chuck Penson, featured in the video at the beginning of the tour, [visit] followed our group around down in the underground rooms, and though I couldn’t find him afterwards, I left a Cold Fusion Now sticker for him at the front desk.
zed short
While in Tucson, I also met up with zed short, author of the short-story “The Believers” [read] and the play “Waiting for the E-cat: A comedy in two acts“. [read] He lives in a very remote desert region, and so he came up to meet me in town. We talked about the recent news and had a great conversation on how to move forward with this campaign for ultra-clean energy. He put a sticker on his pickup and I encouraged him to continue to write in service to a new paradigm of living.
Cold Fusion Now knows the importance of including artists in the new energy movement, for they give words and feeling to worlds not-yet-born so that we may recognize and become familiar with the new.
Biosphere2
Biosphere2 looking at large greenhouse and habitat modules.North of Tucson, is Biosphere 2, originally built to research man-made environments for space habitation, now a huge facility for studying the interactions and effects between elements of ecological systems. [visit]
I took the tour and saw incredible landscapes of desert, coastal, and rainforest reproduced on a small-scale in a huge greenhouse. These micro-environments are used as test cases to describe the real thing on Earth. Currently, scientists are testing the effect of less water in the rainforest biome. While they won’t be killing it by withholding all water, they’ll be reducing the amount of water provided to the forest and monitoring the effects. Obviously, parallels between these artificially-created micro-environments to Earth’s rainforests will only go so far, but having even the smallest amount of data can give some direction to managing the last natural areas of the planet.
At the end of the tour, back in the lobby, I knocked on the door on the manager’s office.
Underneath the Biosphere2, there are many pipes carrying lots of hot water.“Hi, I do clean energy advocacy for cold fusion, and I believe your facility here might benefit from this new technology. Would you mind passing these stickers along to the people involved in heating and power?”
Curious, but encouraging, the woman replied smiling, “Why yes, I’d be happy too, thank you.”
I spent a moment telling her what cold fusion was, and she seemed intrigued. As I left, she carried the stickers out with her, walking away to presumably deliver them.
Meteor Crater, Arizona
50,000 year old meteor crater is one of the best preserved on the planet.I was on my way to stay with friends in Las Vegas with a route that would take me by Meteor Crater, a huge hole in the ground made by a meteor 50,000 years ago. [visit] In the early twentieth-century Daniel Barringer spent decades mining and researching the rock, metal, and glass left by the impact.
Plaque to Daniel Barringer describes heroic scientific effort.From reading the information plaque on the observation deck, you would walk away thinking that Mr. Barringer was a tireless man of science, his lone effort dedicated to proving the space-origins of the pit. I thought of the parallels to cold fusion scientists today and sighed.
But then a Guide appeared and I asked about Mr. Barringer.
“Oh no! He was trying to get rich by mining the metal left. He thought that he’d be able to find a big cache of the meteorite buried somewhere, and make alot of money by mining it out.”
I had to laugh, thinking, well that’s how it is, isn’t it. Taking a chance to win big – or just make a living, and you end up making breakthrough discoveries about this history of our planet, but penniless. Doesn’t that sound familiar? For many researchers in the new energy field, they are just trying to pay the rent, hoping to strike it rich with a new form of power that will give human beings a second chance at a technological future on a clean and green world.
A storm was coming in that weekend, and no “rim tours” were being held due to the really heavy winds. Could I escape the storm going north?
Grand Canyon
This picture is no substitute for physically experiencing Grand Canyon.Grand Canyon is one of the most impressive natural formations on Earth. [visit] Words cannot express the overwhelming grandeur that this stretch of rock commands. On this day, it was packed with visitors from all over the world snapping photos which never convey the feeling of standing before this ancient sculpture of time.
But the storm was coming in here too. It rained, it hailed, and was so windy I could barely stand upright. In the few moments of weather transition, I snapped a few photos myself and drove on down the mountain to southern Utah to escape the storm.
Glen Canyon Dam at Page, Arizona
Glen-Canyon-Dam Page, Arizona
Glen Canyon Dam looking down.I passed by Glen Canyon Dam, which provides electrical power to the region. It is an incredible feat of engineering, and I looked upon it amazed at the abilities of human beings.
But I kept thinking how all this infrastructure will one day be obsolete, as cold fusion slowly infiltrates society, and despite being technically spectacular, I said “with good riddance”. Power grids are inefficient, and water in the desert is not to be toyed with. And dams don’t last forever. At some point, their lifetime is reached, and they need to be rebuilt. What a huge use of resources!
When electricity can be made by small, portable cold fusion units, free of the grid, our lives will change completely and we’ll have an opportunity to explore life as we’ve never explored it before.
Kanab, Utah
Zion National Park
Zion National Park in a desert snowstorm.The storm hit big in Kanab, Utah. I decided to hang around another day till the roads cleared up. At the Sun and Sand Motel, I spoke with a professional truck driver interested in science and cold fusion. Both he and the motel owner got stickers, which will go on their trucks. We then took a ride to Zion National Park to see it in the snow. [visit]
There’s nothing like a personal touch when enlarging a movement for clean, abundant new energy. You talk to somebody, and they talk to two people, and those two people talk to two people each, and you can see how this can avalanche.
I had been on the road for almost a month, and living out of my truck was taking a toll. I had to cancel the Las Vegas stop, and headed to Los Angeles, where I’d be staying for the summer.
Spaceport at Mojave, California
Rocket engineers will see this when they come in for lunch at the Mojave Spaceport.On the way, I stopped at my favorite little desert hideaway, Mojave. There’s not much to Mojave, but they do house the most cutting edge private space companies in the country. That’s where Scaled Composites, designers and manufacturers of the SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo crafts are building the fleet for Virgin Atlantic.
I stopped in the Spaceport’s Voyager Restaurant while I finished writing up the Session 46 Advanced Concepts. (And all typos, grammatical errors, and mixed metaphors are now corrected! Thanks Steve Schor.) I put a couple of my last stickers on their bulletin board, so all the space heads would see it when they came in for lunch, and said goodbye.
Last Stop for Now: Los Angeles
In Los Angeles, the Welcome Wagons greeted me.I was happy to get to Los Angeles. There is much work to do. A new documentary will be forthcoming featuring our own James Martinez. There will be alot of new eyeballs coming to cold fusion as the next year unfolds, and we’ve got to be prepared for an onslaught of attention.
I regret missing my friends up in New England. Missing out on Cold Fusion 101 was a drag. Sadly, I was not financially able to stay up there during the winter and camping options are limited in the city. And not stopping in to see the many labs along my route was disappointing, but hey y’all: You haven’t escaped yet!
I have the feeling there will be other tours, and other trips, and who knows when some woman in a big blue truck will show up at your door and hand you a sticker! Cold Fusion Now continues to drive the most important issue facing humanity to new heights, for our survival as a species may depend on this revolutionary cold fusion energy technology.
You can see from this travelogue that being a clean energy advocate is easy and fun. It just means talking to the people you meet about what’s going on, and giving them a place to go for more information. I hope that you are inspired to take on the challenge, and do what you can to support
