LENR-forum has a poll on the “best LENR science news” of 2018 which you can vote on here.
Cold Fusion Now! voted, and here, we share our perceived top achievements in slightly different distinct categories of science, engineering, and news, for the “2018 I’M HOT!” award. We say “perceived” as the CMNS field is wrought with secrecy as advances are made in labs cluttered with NDAs. Programs have developed around the globe, and there is more LENR activity than ever, but little hard news about results or funding.
We give a nod to those who have published and revealed publicly what they have achieved in 2018 in regards to Science, Engineering and News.
“Science” refers to research focused on determining the basic parameters of a LENR experiment.
“Engineering” refers to developments concentrated on producing excess heat expressly for commercial purposes.
“News” refers to announcements or stories that have the potential to provide science or engineering results in the future.
BEST SCIENCE Clean Planet-Tohoku-et al.
The collaborations between academia and industry in Japan have been producing results that have brought LENR into the mainstream of science through the actual facts of Reproduction. A two-year collaboration between Clean Planet Inc, Technova, and Tohoku University, and a host of other universities on the island, on excess heat experiments using similar cells and the same cathode materials, have produced results with similar output profiles. A willingness to publish these increasingly “hotter” results, and the scope of the cooperation, puts this group of researchers in the top spot for 2018 I’m Hot! Science Award.
BEST ENGINEERING Brillouin Energy Corporation
There are few labs whose sole purpose is to engineer a commercial product, but only one that has followed the prescribed steps of evaluation by a recognized independent lab with public distribution of the technical reports, and that is Brillouin Energy Corporation. The verification of the Brillouin Hot Tube by SRI International was confirmed by two seperate technical reports, the one this year announcing a doubling of the thermal output over the previous report. Their ability to swap out reactor cores and obtain the same outcomes is the result of a focus on engineering cores to specifications that have recently bumped thermal excess to 50 Watts, equating to twice the heat input. Doing the hard work in the full view of their investors, and laying bare the results for the public, puts this group of engineers in the top spot for 2018 I’m Hot! Engineering Award.
BEST NEW STORY GEC-NASA GRC Agreement
This year Global Energy Corporation and NASA Glenn Research Center entered into an agreement to develop a 10kW Genie power generator based on the previously patented hybrid fusion-fission reactor which uses LENR-generated neutrons to activate fissionable material – “a natural abundance uranium deuteride fuel element”, eliminating the need for plutonium. While NASA has dabbled in LENR off-and-on since the 1990s, this agreement for development is a new level of cooperation that brings the US agency together with a private corporation long involved in LENR research. If they are successful, the reactor would provide a cleaner alternative to conventional fission, making another useful application of the LENR reaction. For this announcement, we give GEC-NASA the 2018 I’m Hot! News Award.
2019 will mark 30-years of research in the field that Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons discovered in 1989. As labs build upon hard-won successes incrementally, we are approaching the point where replication is the norm, and results are repeatable.
It’s anyone’s guess when mainstream science will turn attention towards this solution to our energy problems. However, the knowledge and skills built up the CMNS community are indispensable to bringing this science to a technology, and the increasing collaboration between LENR scientists and mainstream institutions shows resources in CMNS being drafted for that experience.
2018 shows how productive that cooperation can be.
Take your vote on the Best of 2018 at the LENR-forum poll here.