Breakthrough Energy – Page 5

May 8, 2015May 16, 2016

Thoughts on Attending ICCF-19 in Padua by David French

The Need for Experiments

It’s been just 3 weeks since ICCF-19 concluded in Padua and one week since my return. I’ve been asked many times what I learned at this event and what was important.

Of course, that question is unfair: many important things occurred in the course of the week. I may not have actually appreciated the main significance of a good number of them. But for me, a highlight was seeing Dr. Alexander Parkhomov in person and watching his courageous response to the barrage of questions he received as he stood at his poster, his granddaughter by his side acting as interpreter.

Dr. Parkhomov delivered a Christmas gift to the world on December 25, 2014 when he published the video of his boiling-water demonstration of a Cold Fusion effect. Far too many words have been devoted on the Internet, such as on CMNS Google group chat site to the uncertain interpretation of the temperature measurements that he reported as being associated with this experiment. He reported, in fact, boiling water away to produce steam at a rate that maximized out at 2.74 to 1 over the amount of electrical energy that he was supplying to his unit. He did this with his ceramic stick version a ceramic “dog bone” reactor (using Rossi nomenclature) which glowed yellow hot at 1100° in his video (at 149:30 minutes into the first video). Notwithstanding the diversion on CMNS over his temperature measurements (the temperature profile that he reported over the time of his experiment), I’m still convinced that his 2+ to 1 measurement of energy as based on replacing boiling water, even if he did it with the kitchen measuring cup, is the most important event to have occurred in the past year.

Dr. Parkhomov was endeavoring to replicate the experiments done under the guidance of Andrea Rossi at Lugano, Switzerland in March, 2014, reported in October, 2014 by observers from Sweden. But Rossi never disclosed what his “magical ingredients” were. Dr. Parkhomov was quite open: powdered nickel and lithium aluminum hydride – LAlH4.

I largely accepted and believed the video that was posted on the Internet and the associated information provided by Dr. Parkhomov both at the time that it was released and subsequently. In contrast, others persisted in casting doubts on this entire demonstration because of the temperature data that had been provided. However, for me seeing this humble 70-year-old retired physicist from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia answering questions, answering the barrage of questions at ICCF-19 through the assistance of his very talented granddaughter validated in my mind that there was no fraud or mistake here. This was a genuine scientist who’d made a great step forward. For me this was the most important event that occurred at ICCF-19. I’m glad that Dr Parkhomov was honored by having, at his request, attendees assemble around his poster to pose questions to him.

Here’s my agenda: I think that the field needs to pursue new, focused and creative experiments that will lift the veil on this ColdFusion/LENR Mystery. Numerous experiments have been done in the past 26 years and there’s still no theory to explain the “magical” excess heat effect. Yes, there is a need for theoretical review, and the secret that everyone is seeking might be hidden in the 26 years of research reports that have issued. But, in my view, there needs to be a focus on new experiments that will lift the veil. The Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project is pursuing this objective.

Recently I tried to describe to a Cold Fusion enthusiast and friend how I would take the Parkhomov arrangement and introduce variants that would help elucidate what is going on. Here’s what I propose:

1) turn the apparatus so that it’s oriented vertically, particularly the pressure chamber containing the powdered nickel and the metal hydride
2) surround and contain the pressure vessel with a highly insulative environment. If necessary, employ a Dewar vacuum flask or other arrangement appropriately modified to tolerate containing an internal temperature of 1400°C.
3) Stack the materials in the pressure containment vessel so that they are vertically separated. For example, the powdered nickel could be on a higher platform and the lithium aluminum hydride could be on a lower platform.
4) This entire structure is going to be raised to a temperature of 1100° – 1300°C. This can be achieved, optionally as was done by Dr Parkhomov, by enclosing the pressure vessel in a ceramic cylinder and wrapping heater wire around the cylinder. Alternately, the heater wire could be wrapped on a cage of support material, e.g. glass rods, or even multiple narrow panels of Mica. Another heat loss control arrangement, along with a wide-mouthed Dewar flask, could include multiple sheet metal cylinders surrounding the red hot core. If the pressure vessel were in the form of a cylinder with a cylindrical pipe in the core, heat could be provided from this inner core. Howsoever done, external heating must be provided. But heat should be free to escape only at the top.
5) Measuring the heat emitted could be obtained by a variety of calorimetry methods, but I like the boiling water variant.
6) The 1st experiment would be to see whether separating the metal hydride from the nickel powder affects the excess heat that we expect to be generated.
7) As an alternative other solid-state sources of hydrogen could be placed on the lower shelf to serve as a source of hydrogen. If excess heat still arises we could conclude that lithium is not essential for this effect to occur. Other sources of hydrogen could include magnesium hydride – MgH2; calcium hydride – CaH2; sodium borohydride -NaBH4 as examples. This will establish whether the lithium or aluminum is an important part of the reaction.
8) Some of these metals, e.g. lithium may have a significant vapor pressure sufficient to expose lithium vapor to the powdered nickel. Placing a Palladium hydrogen filter disk between the higher and lower platforms would allow only hydrogen to access the nickel.
9) Once it’s established that an excess heat effect is occurring, many parameters could be varied to learn the response of the excess heat effect to:
a) the temperature of the pressure vessel, including the temperature of onset for the formation of excess heat and the effect of the rate of increase in temperature;
b) the amount/pressure of hydrogen gas in the pressure vessel, once released from the metal hydride;
c) the role, if any, of collateral metals , including not only metal components of the hydrogen emitting hydride, but also additional metals that can be mixed with the powdered nickel or be allowed to contact the nickel as a vapor;
d) the role, if any, of the use of an electrical heater that may emit magnetic fields and may be operated in either AC or DC mode; alternate heating, e.g. natural gas may be employed, fed through a central tube lined with a catalyst;
e) the substitution of other powdered or finely divided metals for the nickel powder (Palladium is an obvious 1st example, followed by titanium);
f) the substitution of deuterium gas for the initial hydrogen used to establish an excess heat effect; and
g) other variants as a fertile imagination may suggest.

Some people may be objecting: “Where’s the calorimetry?” Or more typically: “Where are the highly accurate measurements?” The point is that the boiling water method of heat measurement is totally satisfactory to validate whether an excess heat event is occurring. Once the coefficients of performance – COP – are well above 1:1 it is not necessarily to quibble about accuracy. Purists may wish to circulate water at a constant temperature in a chamber mounted above the heat source and weigh the amount of water associated with a stabilized temperature elevation. If the side walls and bottom of the reactor are extremely well insulated, this should provide the accuracy that so many insist must be achieved.

Some may say that the Parkhomov’s demonstration is just a reflection of the earlier work of Andrea Rossi. But that is not the best observation to make at this time. When such observations are made, even if true, they simply act as a diversion from discussing the key issue. The key issue is:

What experiments can be done that will lift the veil on the ColdFusion/LENR process?

Let’s stay focused on this central issue! Meanwhile ……

Dr Alexander G Parkhomov deserves credit for having openly and publicly shared his experiment and results with the World. Rossi, even if he may have been first to achieve similar effects, has always maintained a degree of secrecy around his process. If this results in Rossi getting a head start in the marketplace then his reward will be the profits that he will reap from that head start. Meanwhile, I give credit to a retired physics professor from Russia who showed both imagination and generosity in sharing a major advance in this field for the benefit of humanity.

May 7, 2015May 22, 2015

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Cold Fusion Conference

The original article The Peak Oil Crisis: The Cold Fusion Conference by Tom Whipple of Falls Church News-Press is posted here.

In mid-April the 19th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-19) took place in Padua, Italy and was attended by some 470 scientists, cold fusion bloggers, entrepreneurs, and the merely interested. The first of these conferences was held back in 1990 in the wake of the University of Utah announcement that two of its chemists had discovered a new way to release energy from the atom. The 1990 conference, however, was resoundingly ridiculed by the American Physical Association and was said to be nothing but a gathering for crackpots, pseudo-scientists, and fraudsters. However, over the decades, the conferees continued to gather in cities around the world, with some 100-300 usually in attendance. Many of those who came to the conferences were scientists who had been able to reproduce the “anomalous heat” that the University of Utah researchers had observed prior to their announcement in 1989. Most of the presentations were way down in the scientific weeds and were comprehensible only to those with considerable knowledge of particle physics, so the conferences drew little attention.

In the last couple of years, however, the tide has turned. Although Cold Fusion is still anathema to many in the U.S. and more importantly to the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists in several countries around the world are starting to see that the technology works, that it could be at least a partial solution to many of mankind’s problems, and are starting to talk about developments in the field to their local press. Most, however, continue to be unaware of recent progress in developing this new source of energy or are too wedded to their prejudices to even consider new evidence.

This year the most important development in cold fusion, unless overtaken by a competitive technology, is the acceptance test of the Rossi/Industrial heat, 1 megawatt, cold fusion reactor, which currently is underway at customer factory in the US. The engineer and entrepreneur, Andrea Rossi, who developed the first working commercial application of a cold fusion reactor, did not attend the ICCF-19 conference. However, his CEO Tom Darden of North Carolina based Cherokee Investment Partners and its subsidiary that is developing the cold fusion reactors, Industrial Heat, attended for the first time.

While many were hoping that Darden would give a progress report on Industrial Heat’s acceptance test of its first fusion reactor, they were disappointed. Darden talked only in generalities as to how he became involved with cold fusion, his dedication to the technology as a way of solving the carbon emissions problem, and his interest in financing similar projects. Two or three journalists who attended the conference however, reported being told by a “credible” source, possibly Darden, that the 400-day, 24/7, acceptance test of the one megawatt reactor is going well after several months. Rossi, who is spending full time monitoring the acceptance test, has been saying lately that the reactor has been running in the “self-sustained” mode a good piece of the time which means that it does not require any outside energy to stimulate the heat-producing reaction.

As has been the case for 25 years, mainstream media coverage of the conference was scarce to non-existent. In addition to his formal address to the conference, Darden who seems to be one of the more knowledgeable people around concerning what it going on in the field, gave a lengthy interview to a blogger. In the interview, Darden revealed that he was funding other cold fusion projects, but did not give any details.

During the interview Darden said primarily that he wants to use this technology to stop global warming and not just to make money from a new source of energy; that he invested millions of his own money in Rossi’s technology only after many tests and careful due diligence; and that he is convinced that Rossi’s or a similar technology will have major impact on the world. He notes that a cheap source of clean energy, which is exactly what cold fusion promises to be, is what mankind needs at this juncture.

Another star of the conference this year was the Russian physicist Parkhomov, who successfully reproduced Rossi’s cold fusion reaction earlier this year and has been sharing the details of his experiments with interested parties all over the world. This has made him a folk hero among those who are hard at work attempting to create still more replications of the reaction.

As could be expected many of the presentations were highly technical, and ranged from new ways of making the cold fusion reaction more reliable to aeronautical applications and even mutating radioactive waste into harmless substances. The Russians, with their ongoing Chernobyl problem, are particularly interest in this aspect of the science.

This conference was notable for it may be the last one to be ignored by the mainstream media. Should the Rossi/Industrial Heat year-long trial of a working commercial reactor be successfully completed by the time the next conference comes around, public and government perception of cold fusion could well have changed markedly. A working commercial scale reactor, which is open for public inspection, will be very difficult for skeptics to deny or ignore.

Next year’s conference will be held in Japan with a subsidiary conference in China. India was also a bidder for the honor. After 25 years, cold fusion looks like it is on a roll.

Read the original article The Peak Oil Crisis: The Cold Fusion Conference by Tom Whipple of Falls Church News-Press posted here.

April 5, 2015May 22, 2015

Open Power Newsletter #20: Appeal to ICCF-19 for Open Power’s voice

Open Power Association at hydrobetatron.org has issued Newsletter #20. The following was written in English, and slightly modified before re-posting here.

Read the original .pdf in the Open Power Newsletter Archive here.

Newsletter N. 020 – Special issue – April 2015
******
Editorial: ICCF19 Committee in Italy gives no voice to the Italian Open Research Organization.

Open Power unbelievably anticipates the “move” in the chess game, filing a Patent Application on march 9th, 2015 to protect Open Science against mere business: in prospective, free licenses will be distributed to selected major protagonists.

As inferable from the titles of the interventions allowed to the Congress, numerous “titles” will contribute to confirm the whole mosaic of the Open Power process (e.g. Bazhutov, Biberian, Celani, Goryachev, Gromov, Huang, Li, Parkhomov, Petrucci, and so on).

We would have preferred to expose, share and discuss our work together with the involved researchers, instead of merely communicating. However, luckily, the free circulation of the advanced ideas is guaranteed by the Net, stronger than any obstacle.

Thus, we can now show in advance that, according to the preliminary experiments dealt with in the attached report, the “fig. 2” reactor as conceived in the related Patent Application, does indeed properly work about experimental scopes it was designed for.

-Ugo Abundo Open Power Association

*****
The adventure continues…
To the full report prepared for ICCF19:
CLICK HERE
*****
Link to the video of experimental set-up:
CLICK HERE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACF2tG663Lk

*****
Link to the full text and drawings of the patent Application:
www.hydrobetatron.org
CLICK HERE
*****
We have not received a reply to our e-mail request for an explanation sent to ICCF19 at 29/03/2015 below?! Read .pdf here.
We leave to the readers judgment on the matter…
*****
always look:
hydrobetatron.org
for the latest news
*****
If you do not want to receive this newsletter any more, send an e-mail to:
contatti@hydrobetatron.org
with subject: no more newsletter

April 1, 2015

Yasuhiro Iwamura to focus on nuclear waste clean-up

Title photo: Japanese Cold Fusion Society Meeting 15 participants.

A new research venture has launched between Tohoku University and Clean Planet Inc. in Japan.

Leading the research team is Dr. Yasuhiro Iwawura, who has left Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, along with Dr. Takehiko Itoh, after years of work demonstrating nuclear transmutations in cold fusion environments, in one case turning Cesium into Praseodymium.

From a March 30 press release:

Clean Planet Inc. and The Research Center for Electron Photon Science of Tohoku University agreed to establish the collaborative research division – Condensed
Matter Nuclear Reaction Division at Tohoku University.

In this division, fundamental research on condensed matter nuclear reaction, R&D on energy generation and nuclear waste decontamination will be performed.

The members of the new division consist of researchers of Tohoku University, Clean Planet Inc. and HEAD (Hydrogen Engineering Application & Development Company).

Yasuhiro Iwamura and Takehiko Itoh left the research center of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at the end of March 2015 to complete the formation of this illustrious team.

This new division is made up of the following members:

• Yasuhiro Iwamura, Jirohta Kasagi and Hidetoshi Kikunaga (Condensed Matter Nuclear Reaction Division, Research Center for Electron Photon Science, Tohoku University, Japan)
• Tadahiko Mizuno (HEAD, Japan)
• Hideki Yoshino, Takehiko Itoh and Masanao Hattori (Clean Planet Inc., Japan)

Hideki Yoshino at 2014 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT

Hideki Yoshino, the Founder and CEO of Clean Planet Inc, presented results of recent work with Tadahiko Mizuno at the 2014 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT.

Listen to Replicable Model for Controlled Nuclear Reaction using Metal Nanoparticles [first few minutes of audio missing] [.pdf] [.mp3] [video]

In an article Commercial Developments presented at 2014 MIT Cold Fusion Conference, author Robert Paulson wrote of Clean Planet:

At the conference, Clean Planet showed off their proof of concept reactor which operates at a COP of 1.9 as well as some other reactors being built which are made to operate at the 1kw and 10kw power level. Their reactor is simple and an amazing spectacle to watch. Using normal nickel mesh, they create a brilliant plasma to sputter the surface of the metal, cleaning it and creating surface nanostructures which kick off the Cold Fusion effect. Preparing their material inside of the reactor may solve some of the material consistency issues other commercial groups are struggling with.

They have a well equipped lab with gamma and neutron radiation detection, although they have not seen any consistent hard radiation outside their reactor during excess heat, they have some some occasional bursts.

Clean Planet also presented mass spectroscopy results which confused many scientists and has started a wave of speculation regarding theory. In the mass spectroscopy results, higher masses decreased during excess heat at the expense of lower masses, opposite to what would be expected of fusion events. Clean Planet was quick to point out that these results should be seen as preliminary, their equipment can not separate deuterium and helium so until their outside gas analysis comes back they don’t have solid information.

Japan is in dire need of this technology and has historically been supportive of cold fusion research, we can expect Japan to have a serious presence in the Cold Fusion commercialization race. While Mizuno skyped in, his group was represented at the conference by multiple businessmen, they look to have all the resources they need and attracting funding and talent should not be an issue. This is a company to keep an eye on, they could quickly develop a foothold at the head of this field.

MIT Conference video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB_MRUX4mo0

Public-private partnerships have long been a feature of Japanese LENR research, with many academic experimentalists and theoreticians working with industry to both research LENR science and develop applications. Located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tohoku Region, Japan, Tohoku University is the third oldest Imperial University in Japan.

Yasuhiro Iwawura, together with Mitsuru Sakano, Shizuma Kuribayashi, and Takehiko Itoh, had announced plans to work with Tohoku University ten years ago in a paper Observation of Nuclear Transmutation Induced by Deuterium Permeation through Pd Complex published by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Technical Review. Co-author Itoh will join Iwamura on this new project associated with Clean Planet, Inc.

The Japanese government will provide funding for the nuclear waste decontamination research project named “Reduction and Resource Recycle of High Level Radioactive Wastes with Nuclear Transformation” through the ImPACT Program, a Japanese national research program.

Watch Yasuhiro Iwamura present “Recent Advances in Deuterium Permeation Induced Transmutation Experiments Using Nano-Structured Pd/CaO/Pd Multilayer Thin Film” at ICCF-18:

Listen to Yasuhiro Iwamura present an updated version of Deuterium Permeation Induced Transmutation Expt. using Nanostructured Pd/CaO/Pd Multilayer Thin Film at the 2014 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT. [.pdf] [.mp3] [video]

Mitsubishi was also featured in Paulson’s review:

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries research program, headed by Dr. Yasuhiro Iwamura had some big developments since their last presentation 8 months ago at ICCF18. They are focusing on technology which maximizes transmutation using a gas permeation process, previously reporting that they were able to use the cold fusion effect to transmute cesium to praseodymium, essentially producing a valuable material from a radioactive waste.

While transmutation in this field has been a proven reality, a well funded drive to engineer this effect could lead to enormous advances in many fields of technology. Transmutation could solve both issues with nuclear contamination as well as material scarcity, including exotic isotopes.

A research program at NRL failed to replicate these results. At ICCF18 Dr. David Kidwell spoke the same day as Dr. Iwamura about NRL’s failure to replicate the results, he was overly aggressive and had a very mocking tone, accusing them of improper use of equipment, sloppy work and accidentally spiking samples after apparently finding praseodymium contamination in their lab. While the motives behind the NRL bullying were foggy, they ate crow pie a few months later when Toyoto affiliated labs published results showing that they had replicated the transmutation effects in this experiment.

MHI originally said they used gas permeation through a palladium film ion-implanted with cesium to trigger the effect and transmute the cesium to praseodymium. At MIT, Dr. Iwamura showed new developments in their transmutation research; they started developing modular experiments so they can scale up the device to commercial levels.

Dr. Iwamura revealed that they had began hybrid electrochemical experiments where they are using cesium in a liquid solution. This may not only be more effective due to the known electrochemical methods of triggering the effect, but it will also have engineering benefits such as cooling and scalability.

This is an enormous breakthrough if it can transmute Cesium in a liquid solution at high yields. Considering water contaminated with cesium is the main contamination at Fukushima, this technology could not only clean up the radiation but also generate heat as a side product. The potential here is enormous, not only for Japan, but for the world, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is quickly moving forward.

MIT Conference video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzZl9l8nn1c

The mission of the new Center is to develop a clean, safe and abundant form of energy for our global community. The transmutation effect of the cold fusion environment offers a chance to clean up the mistakes of the past, as well as begin again with an ultra-green source of power.

Clean Planet also says “We are determined to bring the application models from this division to the market before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020,” and with the team of researchers on board, they just might win that race.

Cold Fusion Now!

Related Links

JCF-15 pairs Experiment and Theory

Industry and academic partnerships report from JCF-14 meeting

Japanese Cold Fusion Research Society meeting papers released

March 24, 2015

Open Power Newsletter and Report #12 Spring, the first day

The Open Power Association’s Ugo Abundo will be presenting at ICCF-19 on experiments with the Hydrobetatron.

Report #12 Spring, the first day [.pdf] describes recent results:

Hydrobetatron preliminarily performs up to 2.26 ratio in hydrogen vs reference run in argon, with electrically pulsed powders at Open Power Lab.

The contribution of involved heat transfer phenomena is under analysis.

The complete set of runs will be discussed at ICCF19.

Watch video of Open Power Lab action with Pulse generator and Hydrobetatron at hydrobetatron.org.

Hydrobetatron

Pulse generator

Tungsten cylinders after reaction, with craters and cracks

Also published is Open Power Association Newsletter No. 019 for March 2015.
Read [the original report in Italian here]

Selected topics are google-translated and reproduced below.

Newsletter No. 019 – March 2015

Dear Friends,
The experiments planned with the reactor ITAbetatron pulsed with nanoscale powders, etc. Proceed in the best way! We all hope to succeed fully in this wonderful company! In this case we will finally have a new source of energy: clean, inexhaustible and economic, that creates the conditions for the welfare and prosperity of the peoples of the Earth, and at the same time to combat global warming, and therefore the dangerous climate changes, thus also saving the planet Earth.

PUBLISHED ON HYDROBETATRON.ORG THE REPORT No. 012
TO VIEW THE VIDEO CLICK HERE:

“Spring, the first day”:
Hydrobetatron preliminarily performs up to 2:26 ratio in hydrogen vs reference run in argon, with electrically pulsed powders at Open Power Lab.
The contribution of Involved heat transfer phenomena is under analysis.
The complete set of runs will be discussed at ICCF19.
FULL REPORT IN PDF:
http://www.hydrobetatron.org/-012-report_ultimo-report.html

“OPEN POWER” will attend the conference ICCF19 to be held in Padova from 13 to 17 April 2015

Published in the post of hydrobetatron.org The “Technical Report of experiments conducted on: prototype LENR” of: Quirino Puppies
TO READ THE FULL REPORT IN PDF:
CLICK HERE
http://www.hydrobetatron.org/blog/index.php

TALK ABOUT US:
http://22passi.blogspot.it/2015/03/si-prevede-una-primavera-eccessivamente.html

http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/03/20/open-power-association-preliminary-report-on-reactors-with-tungsten-powder-cop-of-2-26-measured/

https://itit.facebook.com/Rossi.Focardi.FUSIONE.FREDDA

http://www.scoop.it/t/lenr-revolution-in-process-cold-fusion
http://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/1137-OpenPower-Ugo-Abundo-Progettazione-di-repliche-e-modifiche-del-reattore-di-A-Par/

https://coldfusionnow.org/

Are you an ‘entrepreneur-minded?
Then you may want to consider the possibility of investing on our promising research to find a new source of energy: clean, inexhaustible and economic.
Seize this opportunity now!
Send us an e-mail with your introduction at: contatti@hydrobetatron.org
We will evaluate and, if necessary, we will fix an appointment to know us better and learn the details of the collaboration.

How much will we have to wait for Andrea Rossi to receive the apology from the Italian State? This is the story of Emilio Spaziante, General of the Guardia di Finanza in the 90s, and Andrea Rossi, in prison for crimes he did not commit: confiscated 4 million to Spaziante.
“He used the official GDF as nominee”
TO READ THE ‘COMPLETE ARTICLE CLICK HERE:
http://22passi.blogspot.it/2015/02/quanto-dovra-ancora-aspettare-andrea.html
AND HERE:
http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2015/02/28/confiscati-4-milioni-spaziante-usava-ufficiali-gdf-come-prestanome/1463319/
AND HERE:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroldragon

Read the entire Newsletter #019 on Hydrobetatron.org here.

March 23, 2015March 27, 2015

Live Long and Prosper – Cold Fusion Now!

Title graphic: Cold Fusion Then – Cold Fusion Now!.

It was twenty-six years ago today that the world learned of a new form of energy that promised a green technological future for all life on Earth.

Twenty-six years later, we can’t yet buy a reactor in Home Depot, but prototypes are multiplying in independent labs.

We don’t yet have university labs training a new generation of scientists, but young entrepreneurs are self-organizing around open-science principles.

The ground is formed, and a figure emerging. A critical mass of awareness has occurred.

Could a man like Bill Gates ignore what he was told one day last fall?

And where would the most powerful man in the world go to get the real deal on the scientific question of our time?

The Department of Energy? Oh do not be cruel.

Dr. Robert Duncan, former Vice Chancellor of Research at University of Missouri, was key in creating the Sidney Kimmel Institute of Nuclear Renaissance (SKINR), now directed by Dr. Graham Hubler, formerly of Naval Research Lab.

Watch Graham Hubler’s SKINR Overview from ICCF-18.

Slide from Graham Hubler's SKINR Overview at ICCF-18 — Slide from Graham Hubler’s SKINR Overview at ICCF-18

Now Dr. Duncan is at Texas Tech University as Senior Vice President for Research, where he is Founder and Director for the Center for Emerging Energy Sciences (CEES). From the Texas Tech University Board of Regents Agenda Book for the meeting December 11-12, 2014 [.pdf], CEES will study the Anomalous Heat Effect (AHE), one of the many names for cold fusion that emphasizes the mysterious and as-yet-unknown reaction that creates fusion-sized heat from small, table-top reactors.

According to Texas Tech, total research expenditures topped $140 million in 2012. What portion will go to CEES? Even 1% would be a welcome change, but not enough to do what CEES wants: to discover the nature of the reaction, and engineer a technology.

They will partner with ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and contract with a scientist “soon to retire” from SRI International. These two institutions are experienced in the field of condensed matter nuclear science, publishing major results over twenty-six years of research.

Dr. Vittorio Violanted at ICCF-18 — Dr. Vittorio Violante of ENEA at ICCF-18

Director of Energy Research at SRI International is Dr. Michael McKubre, whose lab dream team has reproduced results such as the correlation of excess heat from cells that use a fuel of deuterium with the amount of helium produced. ENEA’s early experiments probed the properties of materials. Led by Dr. Vittorio Violante, the lab has worked the SRI regularly for the past two-and-a-half decades to produce unique metallic hydrides used in the numerous ground-breaking experiments. He briefed Bill Gates and friends last November.

The complete service environment for a new energy technology is now in place. We have the metal, we have the water, and we have a desperately broken global economy ready for re-tooling.

Alliances are forming. How will the LENR community respond?

Cold fusion scientists, so used to being ignored, now expect to be ignored. They are as ill-prepared today for the onslaught of attention as Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons were twenty-six years ago when the two quiet researchers emerged from their basement lab to tell what they had found, and were crushed by the satellite environment invading their every beaker.

Since then, the International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science should have had CNN covering their conferences, but most of the time, they had NO ONE. When someone was there, it wasn’t Anderson Cooper, it was Infinite Energy Magazine, and sometimes, those scalawags from Cold Fusion Now.

When the Gates Foundation does makes their move (and how could they not?), will the second tier of capitalists start jumping in? Will CNBC start sending professional crews for sit-downs with real video equipment – and lights?! You betcha!

And where will the press go to for clear information? How do you start to investigate a story that has been hiding in plain sight for two-and-a-half-decades?

Well, er, I am available as of this morning to design and manage any public relations campaign, so please do call.

What will you get?

Hmmm…

UPDATE on Cold Fusion Now Actions

I have little time to blog anymore.
The poor Cold Fusion Now website is neglected and in disarray. (Wanna help re-design? Email me!)
My activity hasn’t stopped…

Last fall, I was on our local TV news surreptitiously holding two cold fusion books, Developments in Electrochemistry Science Inspired by Martin Fleischmann and The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, as I talked about the upcoming Science Night at our community college.

More recently, our little town’s tribute to Leonard Nimoy, simply called Spock Day, brought the news cameras out, and they caught a little promo I always bring with me. Notice the Cold Fusion Now sticker in the corner?! How about the new Hydrogen coasters on the bar? Check out these photos snapped off the TV:

Geek girl Ruby Carat with KIEM News' Steve King, and Astronomer John Pedicino. — Geek girl Ruby Carat, KIEM News Steve King, and Astronomer John Pedicino.

KIEM-TV's Brad Curtis with partial CFN sticker — KIEM-TV’s Brad Curtis photographed on TV with partial CFN sticker

Hydrogen atom coasters on the bar at Spock Day courtesy Cold Fusion Now!

All lots of fun, but is it really making a difference?

YES!

While cartoons of hydrogen atoms, and running around leaving coasters on bars may seem like a joke to the serious-minded, (and I’ve gotten the “disgruntled” mail to prove it!) I believe that every act of advocacy is worthwhile, and has the potential to change one life, or a billion lives.

Any moment, a teaching moment!

In a recent algebra class, I was demonstrating properties of polynomial functions. I brought up Making Sense of Alumina Spectral Emissivity, a new paper by Bob Higgins on his deep-dive into the thermal imaging of the nickel-hydrogen “dog-bone” reactors. It is an excellent introductory article to the sticky issues in thermal measurement. In the paper is the equation for radiant power emitted from a blackbody as proportional to the temperature of the body to the fourth power, M = εσ T⁴.

As I started to talk about how coefficients scale a function, and in particular how the emissivity effects the radiant power in this equation, several students brought up Andrea Rossi and the E-Cat – more than ever before! I was able to answer some questions, putting people on the path to reason, instead of reaction. Who knows what that will be inspired in the minds of creative youth?

New movie finished; waiting for release!

Even more fun was the trip to San Diego this past January to interview Navy scientists on their work in cold fusion research.

Altogether, I filmed a total of five hours video interviews with Dr. Stanislaw Szpak, Dr. Frank Gordon, both from the SPAWAR lab, and Dr. Melvin Miles, from the China Lake Research lab. I have finished editing a first movie from those interviews, and I’ve already started on a second.

It’s important to have these scientists who’ve worked so long alone to tell their own story. Cold fusion has a complicated history, with a complicated science, and complicated people. As it moves to the mainstream, and information begins to dissipate through the feeds, a need for simplicity will distort the truth of the real events as they happened.

If the people who lived it don’t tell their story, someone else will. The LENR community must shape the story of what happened when one of the greatest discoveries of all time was kept from the world. It is important for the integrity of those who suffered the consequences; the intrepid researchers must be recognized, and the rest of us deserve a clean-energy future.

Hep the elite to what’s going down!

Dr. Melvin Miles visiting Caltech January 2015.

I had picked up Dr. Miles for the trip to San Diego, and on the way back, we stopped in Pasadena, California at the campus of Caltech for a little advocacy. Dr. Miles and I dropped off copies of the chapter on cold fusion from Developments in Electrochemistry Science Inspired by Martin Fleischmann to a few key Caltech faculty. Written by Dr. Miles and Dr. Michael McKubre of SRI International, the chapters were distributed in mailboxes to such luminaries as David Goodstein and Nate Lewis. We were able to hand one personally to Dr. Harry Gray, an eminent researcher who Miles had met years ago at another college.

Walking into Dr. Gray’s office, he was open to meeting us, and surprised at the activity in the LENR field. He remarked, “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Postcard for LENR book on Caltech bulletin board.

I also put Cold Fusion Now stickers and postcards for Dr. Edmund Storms‘ The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction on lots of Caltech bulletin boards, knowing many students will see them, and not be as closed-minded as their professors.

Rocket scientists always get the latest

Postcards, stickers, and magnets were left at Voyager Airport Restaraunt. — Postcards, stickers, and magnets were left at Voyager Airport Restaurant.

Always a stop on my travels, the Mojave Spaceport got another dose of news when I dropped off stickers, postcards, and calendar magnets to Virgin Galactic‘s office there and the cafe where all the rocket scientists eat lunch.

I left a serious wad of materials on the way down to San Diego (I asked permission, and the gal said “Oh yeah, we’re always happy to have more stuff to look at”), and when I came back through a week later, they were all gone, so I laid more down.

The Cold Fusion Now calendar magnet was still on the soda machine. Yah!

Cold Fusion Now calendar magnet sits at Mojave Spaceport soda machine!

Got a ticket for the ride of your life?

We have only to look back at the early publications of Infinite Energy Magazine, started by Eugene Mallove and Jed Rothwell, to see what lies ahead: an explosion of interest, and businesses popping up like clover. I get dizzy thinking about the speed at which this nascent technology will sweep the planet – and I can’t wait!

For twenty-six years, the world has been moments away from breakthrough. We don’t have to wait much longer. We will have a second chance at designing living arrangements for all the life on our planet – and we can begin now!

All in all, the lack of activity on the Cold Fusion Now website is only because we are taking our activism to a new level. I do want to sincerely apologize to everyone I have not written back this past year. Your messages are important to me, and give me a boost when I really need it. I thank you and am grateful for your support. With two p-t jobs and a mortgage, I haven’t been able to respond in a timely manner. I will do better.

There is much more activity going on, but it’s still premature to tell the details.
Like, did I ever tell you about the time …

..Aiy yai yai!

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

Ruby at Spock Day: "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few!" — Ruby at Spock Day: “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few!”

COLD FUSION NOW!