Why is there so Much Resistance to LENR?

Even though Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) seems to be the best hope for solving humanity’s energy problems there seems to be a lot of resistance to it. Why are people including scientists, politicians and businessmen so reluctant to acknowledge the New Fire’s potential?

Part of the reason is the nature of cold fusion or the New Fire, it is simply outside most people’s understanding. Most people simply don’t know what it is and those that do reject it because mainstream science rejects it. The media refuses to cover LENR in the US largely because organized science has rejected it or worse branded it a fraud. The failure of government to acknowledge cold fusion has similar origins.

So why are scientists and others so reluctant to even take a look at LENR? Even when there is quite a bit of evidence that there is a real phenomenon that should be investigated? Here are a few hypothesizes:

  • The failure of LENR researchers, particularly early cold fusion researchers to come up with a reaction that could be sustained or replicated. This was what really doomed Pons and Fleischman. Even though this has been corrected it still plagues the field.
  • The questionable and unrealistic claims made by some LENR developers such as Andrea Rossi. Current inventors have trouble making a sustained reaction but some of them claim to be on the verge of generating electricity.
  • The unrealistic expectations of some New Fire enthusiasts. Researchers have barely scratched the surface yet there those who expect LENR powered cars will be on sale next week. Anything is possible but it’ll probably take years of research and development just to get a working LENR steam turbine up and running.
  • A poor understanding of how long it really takes to develop and commercialize new technologies. The internet was invented in 1969 but it took over twenty years to get it to a point where average people could use it. The creation and commercialization of other technologies such as television, the automobile, airplanes and personal computers took even longer. Despite what some people think the speed at which new technologies can be rolled out has not increased.
  • Politics within the world of science. Examples of such politics include: Physicists that don’t like the idea of chemists or electrochemists demonstrating that there is a phenomenon that proves their pet theories wrong. Large research institutions afraid of being shown up by backroom inventors. Hot fusion and other researchers afraid of losing funding if cold fusion is proved viable. Science has now become so politicized that certain kinds of research are now impossible within some large institutions. Fear that research into cold fusion will subject researchers to ridicule or ostracism by self-proclaimed skeptics. Fear that such political pressures will destroy scientific careers.
  • The lack of interest in the New Fire from large institutions such as universities which makes it difficult to get LENR taken seriously as science. This is largely driven by the scientific politics mentioned above.

What is not mentioned here is any sort of conspiracy involving oil companies or the military. Instead of a conspiracy we have petty politics, emotions, bitterness and closed minds. In other words LENR has been hindered because scientists and others behaved like well, human beings. Conspiracy instead becomes a crutch for those who don’t like the way the world works and want something to blame its problems upon.

Conspiracy Stupidity Threatens LENR’s Credibility

Those who take such conspiracies seriously should reconsider their positions. The notion about a conspiracy against Free Energy is spread by groups like Thrive and Zeitgeist. These organizations promote ridiculous conspiracy theories that sound a lot like Nazi and Communist propaganda. Their beliefs have strong anti-Semitic overtones to them. Zeitgeist even claims that humanity is on the verge of a golden age in which nobody will have to work. That is the Communist utopia promised by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro we’re still waiting for it.

The basic mantra of both Thrive and Zeitgeist is that humanity is on the verge of a golden age but the golden age is being blocked by a conspiracy of evil bankers. These evil bankers are responsible for the world’s problems. That sounds a lot like Nazi propaganda which blamed Jewish bankers for the world’s problems. It also sounds suspiciously like Stalinism which blamed the Soviet Union’s failure to create utopia on a secret conspiracy. In both cases the secret conspiracy became a cause for mass murder.

The association with such lunacy is sure to discredit LENR and make it harder to get anybody to take it seriously. Thrive is particularly nutty among other things it alleges that aliens have provided humanity with free energy technology but the evil bankers are stopping it from being adopted. The Thrive movie that’s been posted online also contains footage of David Icke a British conspiracy theorist who believes that the Queen, President Obama and George W. Bush are all alien lizards.

Those who wish to achieve the potential of LENR need to overcome both scientific resistance and conspiracy stupidity. Fortunately researchers like Francesco Celani have gone a long away to overcoming this resistance by demonstrating successful LENR devices. The work of men like Rossi and Celani and groups like the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project disproves both the scientific skeptics and the conspiracy theorists. That is what we must concentrate upon not petty politics and silly mythology.

Continue reading here: LENR, the Drought and Elon Musk

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