Cold Fusion News
Cold Fusion Energy & LENR News
Will 2013 be the Year of the New Fire or Not?
2012 has seen a lot of progress and news in low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) particularly important have been the revelations about Brillouin, Defkalion, NASA and George Miley and the public demonstrations of the Celani and NANOR reactors. Many of us are wondering if 2013 is going to be the year of cold fusion or the New Fire or not?
My personal guess is that 2013 like 2012 will see a lot of small steps toward the final goal but no Big Breakthrough. Instead we’ll get a lot of slow and steady work towards the final objective. We’ll probably hear about a number of new LENR work much of it associated it with the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project.
We’ll probably hear more pronouncements from Andrea Rossi who has promised to make a third party report about his ecat device available in February. Since Rossi has had to redesign his device several times my guess is that he isn’t as close to a working device as he has claimed, although he might actually have a hot ecat.
LENR/Cold Fusion Year in Review 2012
Although it didn’t produce the breakthroughs that some people were hoping for 2012 was an interesting and exciting year in the terms of cold fusion or low energy nuclear reaction (LENR). There were a lot of fascinating developments even if the big breakthrough didn’t occur (or if it did nobody noticed).
So what were the big stories in LENR in 2012 and will we remember them even a few years from now? Here’s my breakdown:
- Francesco Celani’s public demonstration of an LENR device that meets most of the criteria posted by LENR skeptics. Particularly his demonstration of that device at National Instruments’ NIWeek conference in Austin Texas in August.
The successful and very rapid duplication of Celani’s LENR device by the Hunt Utilities Group and STMicroelectronics. The ability of back room inventors in a small Minnesota town to duplicate the Celani reactor proves how easy it is to do LENR work.
Why LENR will Lead to Massive Inflation
The widespread adoption of low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) or cold fusion might completely destroy the value of money. The reason for this is history or rather economic history.
History teaches us that as technology advances inflation increases and money loses its value. Take the case of the US dollar $100 in 1913 is the equivalent of $2,325.46 in 2012 according to the US Bureau of Labor Standards’ official inflation calculator. That’s right the US dollar has lost more than 200% of its value in the past century. Why?
One reason might be technology as goods and services get cheaper because of innovation money loses value. As technological advances have increased over the past century inflation has increased despite the efforts of government to control it.
So how does technological innovation drive inflation anyway? The most likely answer is that money can be viewed as a measure of the value of labor. Technological advance greatly increases the earning power of the individual and greatly reduces the cost and value of labor. As the labor and other costs associated with goods fall their value falls.
Energy Efficiency is a No Win Game
The promoters of green technology such as President Obama are engaging in a no win game with their obsession with energy efficiency. Increased energy efficiency will not meet our civilization’s needs for energy nor will it help us avert energy shortages. Only new sources of energy such as low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) will be able to do that.
The problem with energy efficiency is an obvious one that its promoters rarely talk about: increased efficiency increases the use of energy. Efficiency makes it cheaper and easier to use energy so people use more energy. That increases the demand and explains to why the demand goes up as efficiency increases.
The result is similar to what happened to information when the internet and computer technology made it cheaper and easier to get than ever before. Not only was more data than ever generated, more was used. Since vast amounts of new data became available people started using it and finding uses for it.
Lower Energy Prices Key to Prosperity and Fighting Poverty
Lower energy prices are the key to prosperity and fighting poverty. That means successful development of low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) or cold fusion is critical to fighting poverty around the world.
Around 6.5 million households in Great Britain alone are now suffering from what is called fuel poverty according to the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group. Fuel poverty occurs when a household spends more than 10% of its income on fuel. If the Advisory Group’s numbers are correct one in four families in the United Kingdom is dealing with fuel poverty and numbers are increasing.
Energy bill increases in Britain this year alone will push another 300,000 British households into fuel poverty. The average gas and electric bill in Britain rose by 7% in the last year.
Demand for Alternative Methods of Electricity Generation Increasing
Even Exxon-Mobil the world’s privately owned oil and gas company admits that electricity production is the future of energy. This bodes well for alternative methods of electricity production such as low energy nuclear reaction (LENR).
Exxon is predicting that if no other sources of electricity appear around 30% of the world’s electricity will be produced by natural gas by 2040. The company estimates that around 25% of the world’s electricity is currently generated using natural gas. Like a number of energy companies Exxon hopes to cash in on this by exporting excess gas from North America (mostly the USA) to Europe and Asia where prices for it are much higher. Prices there are higher because nuclear power is being abandoned in those areas in the wake of the catastrophe in Japan last year.
Major European Electronics Company has Duplicated Celani Cell
Reports that Francesco Celani’s low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) device has been replicated by a major semiconductor manufacturer in Europe are circulating. The reports state that both researchers affiliated with the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project (MFMP) in France and a company in Italy have duplicated the Celani cell.
Test results about the Celani cell.
An e-mail from Nicholas Chauvin (I think he’s with the MFMP) to Sterling Allen of Pure Energy Systems dated December 9 names a new major player in the LENR field in Europe. The e-mail states that a Swiss company called STMicroelectronics has replicated the Celani Cell in Italy. The e-mail states that STMicroelectronics will publish some sort of report about the cell on December 15. Since December 15 is Saturday I’m sure this report is reliable. It’s been my experience that big corporations don’t do anything on Saturday (largely because it interferes with executives’ golf games).
Energy Glut and LENR are Redefining Our Future
The Bakken Oil Field in the US and Canada is among the world's largest
The future it seems just isn’t what it used to be, instead the of the great energy shortage that’s been predicted for the last few years the world seems to be facing an energy glut. We’re facing that glut in traditional energy sources like oil and natural gas even before low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) comes in.
The United States is now one of several countries that is actually producing more energy than it can use right now. The United States might actually become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017 and an oil exporter by 2030 because of better drilling technology and new finds like the Bakken Shale. Our neighbors to the north in Canada actually have more oil in their oil sands than the Saudis do. The US and Canada also have huge supplies of oil and natural gas.
Recent Advances Show that LENR is not Free Energy
If the free energy enthusiasts take a look at the recent advances in the field of low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research and development they are going to be very disappointed. Recent revelations from cold fusion researchers such as Francesco Celani, Andrea Rossi and the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project demonstrate that LENR is far from free.
The LENR reactor that Francesco Celani has publicly demonstrated and that the Fleischmann project associated researchers at the Hunt Utilities Group are working with reportedly requires a large jolt of electricity to produce a reaction. That means a person relying on a device based on that technology would need a source of electricity independent of the LENR device in order to start the LENR device.
The most logical place to get that electricity would be from the electrical grid. So a person would still have to pay for at least some electricity to start the LENR device. If there was no grid connection you would need some other source of electricity probably a diesel or propane generator. You would have to pay for generator and for the diesel fuel or the propane.
Piantelli Files International LENR Patent Application
Low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) pioneer Francesco Piantelli has filed a new international patent application for a cold fusion device. David French a Canadian patent attorney with a strong interest in LENR noticed the application and pointed it out to the Cold Fusion Now website.
International Patent Application No: PCT/IB2012/052100 was filed on November 1st with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) a United Nations agency that functions as a sort of international patent office. The patent is for a “Method and Apparatus for generating energy by nuclear reactions of hydrogen absorbed by orbital capture on a nanocrystaline structure of a metal.
The summary of the patent states that power is generated by contacting hydrogen with cluster nanostructures or crystals made of metal. In the past Piantelli has done experiments with nickel and hydrogen LENR. Some observers regard him as the creator of Nickel and Hydrogen LENR. His work in the 1990s with Sergio Focardi was apparently the basis for Andrea Rossi’s ecat LENR technology. Below is video of one of Piantelli’s associates discussing his work at Italy’s The Atom Unexplored Conference last year.