Q&A with Dr. Edmund Storms

Edmund Storms is a long-time researcher in nuclear physics and cold fusion science, formerly of Los Alamos National Laboratory.  His most recent book is The Science of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations about Cold Fusion published by World Scientific Publishing Company 2007.

This is a Q&A Dr. Storms.

Q: How much money has gone into cold fusion research in the US? worldwide?

A:  Hard to tell because the money comes from different sources that don’t publish their accounting. l guess the total might be near five million dollars in the US. World wide expenditure is harder to guess but might be well over 10 times the US investment.

How do research labs in other countries go about getting their funding?

This depends on where the research is done. Universities generally have funds that can be spent on whatever the professor wants to study within reason. Government laboratories generally need to budget for the work. Private investors give money based on their personal interests.  Cold fusion is funded just like all other research efforts. However, in this case, the money available for research is very small compared to most other efforts of similar importance.

How is the majority of funding procured in the US?

Most work in the US is either funded by private individuals or is part of larger programs funded by the government. Because of the negative history, direct funding of cold fusion by the US government was not possible until very recently.

What kind of cost to set up a cold fusion lab?
This depends on how serious the effort is intended to be. A person can study cold fusion as a hobby for maybe $10,000.  However, serious work requires access to very expensive equipment.
How much palladium is used annually in this research?

A study requires very little palladium.  I have probably used no more than a few ounces in 21 years of work.

How much platinum is used annually in this research?

The platinum is not lost and is continuously reused.

Why is the Dept. of Energy not on board with this while the Naval Research facility actually gets results?  Why doesn’t the science agencies of the federal gov have a coherent policy on this important issue?

The different agencies of the government are run by people having different skills and attitudes.  The Navy has always been more creative than the DOE. The attitude of the DOE is gradually changing thanks to creative people being put in charge by the present administration.

How much money has gone into hot fusion research?

In the US, this investment has now exceeded 20 billion dollars and counting.

How long has hot fusion research gone on?

Serious work was started about 60 years ago.

What are some of the advancements made from hot fusion?

The method has achieved production of megawatts of power for brief times.  Containment of the plasma has been mastered. However, many problems remain, not the least of which is whether the huge machine will be sufficient reliable and can actually pay for itself in the market place.

What is the probability of achieving energy production from hot fusion?

Energy can be made but the whether it will be practical, i.e. cost less than energy from other sources, is very unlikely.

Are there any results from hot fusion research that could in any way help the cold fusion research?

Money spent to achieve a goal such as hot fusion always generates basic understanding that can be put to other uses.

Is there a growing number of scientists doing research in cold fusion?

Yes, but growth is slow.

What is the number of scientists researching this technology?

This is hard to tell.  The annual conferences attract about 175 people from all over the world.  Perhaps the actual number working on the subject is twice this number.

Who is the furthest along in their research?

Japan followed by Italy, Russia, and China.

List the different avenues of research going on right now.
To understand this answer, you need to do some reading.  However, the brief answer is that the work is focusing mainly on electrolysis, gas discharge, and gas loading.
Which among them seems most promising?  least promising?

Gas loading and gas discharge are most promising with electrolysis being the least promising.

How many years are we away from actual implementation of cold fusion as a source of energy for the public?

More than 10 years are required unless more money is applied and someone gets lucky in finding the necessary conditions.

How many dollars of research are we away from actual implementation of cold fusion as a source of energy for the public?

This is impossible to guess. Even hot fusion is not able to guess how much money would be required to make it work even though the process is basically understood.  The cold fusion process is not yet understood.

Have petroleum or traditional fossil energy corporations been involved in cold fusion research in any way?

Occasionally these companies have looked at the process but lost interest when they could not make the process work at practical levels.

In what way do you think cold fusion will  change the world?

Cold fusion would produce profound and basic changes  in the world that are hard to even imagine.  People had better change their ways before this source of energy is available because the effects will be huge.  The discoveries being made over time have each had an increasingly large effect on how mankind lives and fights. First, there was fire, then creation of explosives, cheap steel, heavier than air flight, atomic fission, computers , mastery of the genome (life), and now the potential availability of cheap and unlimited energy.   Each of these discoveries led to applications and uses that changed everyone’s lives. Cold fusion will be the most important in this series of discoveries and will have the greatest effect, both good and bad.

List some services of cold fusion.
Cheap goods would be produced.
Large amounts of pure water from the oceans would be available.
Generation of CO2 would be reduced resulting in a reduction in global warming.
The world would no longer be dependent on oil.

Space travel within the solar system would be much easier.

List some disservices of cold fusion.

Initial destabilization of the world’s economies would occur.

War would become more deadly even without the use of atom bombs.
Increased food would result in a growing world population.

Fight for resources could lead to another world war.

McLuhan’s Tetrad questions:
What’s cold fusion enhance?

It makes energy.

What does cold fusion make obsolete?

All other sources of energy.

What does cold fusion retrieve that was previously obsolesced?

Impossible to answer.

What does cold fusion flip into when pressed to an extreme?

The process that makes cold fusion work would also make possible the conversion of common elements into other more valuable elements.   In other words, the claim of the Alchemists would be realized.

Cold fusion scientist speaks this Saturday – in public!

If you are in southern California this Saturday June 26, get down to  the Long Beach Conference Center to hear a public lecture on cold fusion.  From the press release:

(PRWEB) June 3, 2010 — The 17th Annual Natural Philosophy Alliance (NPA) announces its first free Public Science Day on Saturday June 26, 2010 at the UC Long Beach Pyramid Pointe Conference Center from 9 am to 6 pm during its 4-day conference starting June 23 at Cal State Long Beach. Independent scientists from around the world will be on hand for a day of experiments, demonstrations, thought provoking lectures, and comradery.

“…In the early afternoon Dr. Michael McKubre will answer the question “How Hot is Cold Fusion?” as he did when he appeared on 60 Minutes in April 2009…”

“The NPA’s full scientific conference takes place at UC Long Beach from Wednesday, June 23 through Saturday, June 26. Independent scientists from around the world have submitted over 100 technical papers, to be collected in a conference proceedings book, available to the public for $25. From 8:30 to 6:00, Wednesday through Friday, many of these scientists will present the ideas from their papers to an attentive audience of peers. Interested students may also register for the conference and hang out to discuss physics with the many presenters in the campus dorms.”

“Admission is free on Public Day. For more information, call 562-508-4504, email contact(at)worldnpa(dot)org, or visit the website http://conf17.worldnpa.org.”

The press release is posted here or go to the NPA website http://www.worldnpa.org/main/


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Also recent article by posted on  The Examiner by Fred Burks touts cold fusion documentaries.  Read this other voice for a changing paradigm:
Energy crisis: Top scientists show how to make oil obsolete in two powerful documentaries
by Fred Burks

Getting Real and Going Beyond “Demanding Clean Energy”

There’s a recent petition making it’s rounds on the net, titling itself as “Demand Clean Energy”, relating the action to the attack on the gulf.   People have been jumping all over this in light of the gulf disaster.  Signing it, posting and re-posting to their facebooks, twitters, email lists and so forth.

But what exactly is “clean energy”?  It sounds nice.  Seems like it should make sense.  But specifically what is supposed to suddenly stop all the drilling and allow us to power ourselves without petroleum?

Unfortunately reality doesn’t have anything to do with good intentions. When asked by most people what they believe the clean energy being proposed is,  likely you will hear the stock alternative energy responses:  Solar, wind, etc.

Why is it that people are still unaware that NONE of the stock clean energy alternatives, and NO combinations of the stock alternatives will be able to run what we are running now from oil?

It simply won’t work.

And this is old news.  It’s been mentioned time and again from experts over the better part of the last decade.  Yet the belief still exists that these will somehow work on large massive scales, that we have the time and resources to make this mass “flip of the switch” transition, and if we do it then in a few years we will all be driving around in electric cars.

This is how behind everyone is.  Lacking in specifics and putting it all under a vague and unrealistic umbrella of “clean energy”.

It’s time to get real, get honest, and get specific.  Start waking up to the realities of what won’t work on a massive scale, and the technologies that do actually have the potential to work on an enormous scale, and deserve the investment, willpower and push for immediate developments.

Yes, demand clean energy but be specific about it.  Demand cold fusion now.

How do we change conventional attitude about energy?

by Edmund Storms

Edmund Storms is a long-time researcher in nuclear physics and cold fusion science, formerly of Los Alamos National Laboratory. His most recent book is The Science of Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations about Cold Fusion published by World Scientific Publishing Company 2007.

Lets explore the present energy problem with total honesty and objectivity. As everyone now knows with overwhelming certainty, oil can cause great damage when it enters water, thanks to an accident. Less obvious damage results when CO2 enters the atmosphere after the oil is burned. Coal is even worse in generating CO2 and causing climate change. In spite of these disadvantages, oil and coal have too many advantages to be easily replaced. So, what can we do to gradually reduce their use?

Only a few sources of  renewable energy are known and accepted. These are solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, wave-action, temperature gradients, and biomass. Each of these has the disadvantage that the energy must be concentrated into some other form for it to be useful. This concentration process adds to the cost and complexity of the energy source. Nevertheless, all of these methods are being explored with success at a rate controlled by economic issues, as determined by the low cost of energy from coal, oil and natural gas. In a rational world, like in Europe, the cost of energy from these sources would be increased artificially by using taxes, the income from which would be used to develop sustainable sources and to encourage conservation. Unfortunately, the rational approach is too unpopular to enjoy widespread application. So, what else is possible?

Fission power based on uranium is proposed but it is not renewable. The uranium will eventually be exhausted just like oil. In addition, dangerous radioactive byproducts are made. While this is a plausible temporary solution, it has potential disadvantages, as Chernobyl demonstrated. Fission power based on deuterium is not renewable either, but so much deuterium exists in the oceans that the energy is infinite for all practical purposes. Unfortunately, this fusion process has not been found to generate practical energy even though attempts have been ongoing for 60 years while consuming at least 20 billion dollars and counting. Several basic problems raise serious doubts about whether this method will ever produce useful commercial power.

What else is possible? Various unconventional sources of energy have been discovered, but these have been systematically rejected by science and society. Whatever the reasons, this rejection has denied mankind potential sources of energy just when the need has become critical. In a rational world, all imagined sources of energy would be explored with enthusiasm. But, as we discovered earlier, this is not a rational world.

What are these unconventional sources? Three have been suggested: cold fusion, hydrino production, and zero-point energy.

Cold fusion is a method for causing a fusion-like reaction between deuterons that was discovered by Profs Fleischmann and Pons in 1989. Details can be found at www.LENR.org. This method was rejected by general science and is still used occasionally as a metaphor for bad science. Enough information has now been accumulated by work in over 10 countries to demonstrate that the process is real but not enough to understand the mechanism.

Hydrino formation is described by Randell Mills in numerous publications that can be accessed at www.blacklightpower.com. Dr. Mills proposes that energy can be extracted from hydrogen by causing the atomic electron to collapse closer to the nucleus by occupying orbits that are described by fractional quantum numbers. The process is being actively developed as an energy source without help from conventional science.

Zero-point or vacuum energy is proposed to be extracted from an energy field that permeates space. Various methods involving a combination of magnetic and electric fields have been proposed and explored to accomplish this feat. Many so-called over unity devices have been created, but doubt remains about which demonstration is actually producing the claimed effect.

In spite of evidence being published showing the reality of unconventional energy sources, all of these methods have been actively ignored by conventional science and many governments. In general, the reason is based on the inability to explain the observed effects using conventional and accepted theory. In view of the disastrous consequences of using conventional carbon-based energy, the luxury of such intellectual arrogance is no longer justified. Even if some money is spent on studies that fail because the effect is not real, this loss is more than offset by unexpected discoveries that could solve our growing problems. After all, large amounts of money are routinely wasted on conventional studies that do not result in useful products. What have we got to loose by exploring unknown territory?

BP attacks the Gulf, US surrenders

June 14, 2010 — The Gulf is a graveyard. Fishing is likely finished for the next several years, if not decades. Wildlife has been devastated, and some species may never return. Tourism to some of the most beautiful beaches in the US has plummeted. Shipping lanes are set to be sludge tracks. And hurricane season is just beginning.

BP attacks the Gulf, but the virtual surrender from the Feds hasn’t shamed the oily politicians enough to keep them from whining about more drill permits. An Exxon Valdez gushes into the Gulf every 3-4 days as a whole ocean clogs with crude. Listening to the army of those who want to expand drilling further into the last remaining wildlands is a surreal and sorry sound.

Even those who accept the Peak Oil scenario fret over “environmentalists going bonkers” with their “outrageous demands” to curb this sociopathic need to consume oil.

It shouldn’t be surprising. Petroleum revenues fuel our entire society. We are all complicit. Few of us have the skills to escape the ubiquity of the slick. Worse, our elected representatives, in training for industry jobs, deflect scrutiny of their oily paycheck by shouting: 50,000 jobs on the line if drilling doesn’t continue; the “growth” of our economy will halt; poor ole grandma won’t be able to heat her house in December.

Where was the whining as jobs were vacuumed up across the border over the last several decades? And define economic growth. Growth for who?

Sadly, when it comes to Grandma’s house, there is an element of truth. For Grandma won’t be able to heat her house in winter much longer, whether drilling continues or not. Indeed, the most compelling argument against further drilling is not about jobs or the environment. It’s about Grandma, and it’s strategic.

The world’s finite petroleum resource is about half gone; the easy discoveries have been made, and the easy oil has been extracted and burned. Global oil discoveries peaked in the early 1960s and as demand has grown, we’ve been nursing the same oil fields for decades without replacement. Only the difficult, dangerous, and more expensive to get at oil remains. Whether it’s tar sands or deep ocean, the price of oil is set to rise, going well beyond Grandma’s ability to pay.

It’s called rationing, price rationing to be specific. And the biggest victims will be oil’s biggest users – US.  With only the expensive oil left to extract, higher prices are inevitable. Eventually, Grandma and everybody else in the US will be priced out. Meanwhile, $10 a gallon won’t stop the guy on his tiny motorbike in Vietnam who only uses a quarter-gallon a week.

In a recent interview, Dr. Michael McKubre stated the most compelling argument.

“These days with what’s going on in the Gulf of Mexico, people are sensitized to the fact that oil is bad; it’s environmentally bad; burning it is bad; it is worse than bad – it’s crazy. It’s a one-time resource, it’s a chemical feedstock; it should be used to make our fertilizers and plastics and the things that make our society comfortable. We shouldn’t be burning it. Someone said burning oil to heat your home is like burning Rembrandts. It’s crazy.”

The range of materials that can be created from oil is extensive, from life-saving plastic medical devices to writing utensils. Notwithstanding polyester, petroleum products are a one-time gift to humanity. Continuing to run an entire transportation network on petroleum is a “huge mis-allocation of resources” and in no way sustainable.

Future generations will look back at this past century and shake their heads, mystified at our Medieval ways. How could a people so effectively misuse their resources? Shouldn’t we be preparing for this inevitable decline in the avaialablity of oil? Shouldn’t we make contingency plans to mitigate the inevitable higher prices? Shouldn’t we invest in a clean and safe energy source? Shouldn’t we have cold fusion now?

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