Report #2 - Energy Catalyzer: Scientific Communication and Ethics Issues

This came to my attention via Al Fin's Energy Blog

Important Article on Rossi LENR Project

So, I checked it out and read it.  It looks bad, sure, but I am not convinced of anything.  Of course, this report has brought out the skeptics who started trashing the Rossi's idea with a relentless fury over at NextBigFuture.

I have said all along that I am neither a believer nor a skeptic.  I have stated, so far as my memory will not betray me, that I believe that there's a 90% chance that it will work.  As for the concept itself, I think there's a higher probability than that.  This does not mean, however, that I believe Rossi's device works.  I have no way of knowing that.

Rather, I have suggested an unambiguous demonstration.  Such as a device that is obviously not possibly powered by anything else but Rossi's device.  It should be so constructed as to permit no further doubt of its authenticity.  An analogous demonstration would be like the Wright Brothers demonstration of heavier than air flight, which was considered impossible in its time.  Seeing is believing.

Without such a demonstration, the critics will continue unabated and undeterred.

Morning Summary, 6/30

Looks like the numbers are taking a dump again.  Well, folks, I've given it my best.  For now on, I'm just going to stop worrying about it.   It sort of happened yesterday.  I got to thinking, why am I knocking myself out to get audience?  I put up nearly 20 posts.  Who the hell else does that?!  And I am struggling to get an audience?!  Are you freaking kidding me????

So, for now on, it is no more trying to please people who don't appreciate it.  I don't care if anybody gets huffy about this.  Screw it!  I am going to do what pleases me.  Yes, it did please me to a certain extent to put up stuff like the stuff I put up, but it doesn't do anything for me to keep running myself ragged over it.  There are other priorities, you know.

I see too much of this one way street kind of thinking.  People want something, but they don't want to give up anything in exchange.  It's gimme, gimme, gimme.  Hell, the whole problem that we have in Washington right now is that very thing.  You've got an entire country here that is thinking of only one thing, how do they get something out of somebody else.  At some point, the people paying are going to wake up and say, what the fuck am I doing this for?  Handle you own shit yourself, assholes.  My existence is not to further yours.

Gas Taxes by State

A little map to show you as I sign off for the evening. It would appear that Texas does not have the lowest gas taxes, but not the highest either.

Thanks for coming by, and have a great evening.

Established Physics Has Another New Fusion Problem

Brillouin Energy Corp In Berkeley California has another Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) method in the development and proving stage. The new method comes at fusion from a different path than the Rossi E-Cat.

"A very different take on getting past the Coulomb barrier."

I started reading this pdf, but it looked a little too technical for me, so I stopped.  If it turns out that they are correct, then all power to them.  I still think that it is possible to get hot fusion on the nano scale.

 

Morning Summary, 6/29

Technical difficulties this morning.  The other pic won't load for some reason. At any rate, yesterday was a good day.  Thanks for the support.

It seems that the E-cat news is what drives traffic here for the now at least.  There is a limit on the news though. Inasmuch as the adoption of the new technology will take time, it may be useful, or perhaps just entertaining to speculate on what is the best use for this device.

Perhaps it isn't the best use, but one that occurred to me is to use it for space propulsion.  Why?  It won't have any competitors.  If you try to compete with existing energy providers, you may just have a problem. They won't go down without a fight. It may be helpful, for the future of this new technology, not to take on the existing order directly.

This may not seem relevant to this post, but hang with me. Robert Zubrin was on the Space Show last night. It just so happens that I start to research him a little before the show and I came across something that he wrote about Mars. It was quite impressive, but I am still a bit doubtful that anyone should go there just now. But when someone does go, I would suggest the idea should be to stay for a long, long time. In other words, a one way trip.

In order to make a one way trip, you will have to take a sufficient number of people plus plenty of equipment to get started with a new colony.  Think of it like the New World settlements in the Pilgrim days of America. They aren't going to just to come back.  So, they will have to be ready for most anything.

More on that later.  I want to listen to the show because I missed it.

One more thing.  The reason to go to Mars is the same reason for not competing directly with the existing order.  Too much opposition.  You need to go where no one else is so that there won't be an army of opposition against you.  That place could be literally out of this world.

Evening Wrap, 6/28

I counted 19 posts, now that is definitely a record.  I could have done more, but I decided to slow down a bit.  At some point, you just reach your limit.  I figure I can put out maybe a thousand words a day.  I haven't counted them, but I figure 10 posts at the average of 100 words a post will get to a thousand.  Here, I could have averaged just a hair over 50 words per post and got the thousand words in.   Now, since there are over 1400 posts here now, that means as many as 140,000 words.  That's a good sized book by now.

Anyway, I hope something was here that was good enough to bring folks back.  Thanks for coming by and have a great evening.

Five Predictions For The Future Of Energy

By Ariel Schwartz Fri Jun 17, 2011

No mention of Thorium, nor of Fusion.  Neither hot fusion or "cold" fusion.  It must be that this author isn't aware of this possibility or is discounting it as improbable.  I think he is mistaken either way.

I predict that his predictions will be wrong.

Colonization is a bad word?

On a recent Space Show, Dr Space said that the word "colonization" implies oppression to some people.  I think that is rather silly.  It is only a word, but people do get hung up on words.  The "frontier" doesn't appeal to people in terms of space either possibly for the same reason.

If you substitute "settlement" for colonization, it supposedly is a better word.  Guess what?  I am not going to do that.  Just because a bunch of leftists want to knock American history, it doesn't mean that I have to accept their stupid premise.  They are just a bunch of ungrateful slobs who probably work for the government and the taxpayers, while at the same time, are biting the very hands that feed them.  Maybe if the taxpayer pulls the plug on these parasites, they may find that they have a good thing and stop knocking it.

Asteroid eater

While musing about Space Colonization, I perused this article on wikipedia about Bernal spheres.  It so happens that the idea would be to get up to 140,000 people on this sphere.  So, I thought, what would these people do to support themselves?  There may be industry, sure, but what kind of industry?

Then the thought struck, which turned out not to be original, to have them consume asteroids.  In effect, they would be asteroid eaters!  Actually, this link was about computer games, but this would be real live asteroid eaters!  The big space colony would dock with asteroids and process them for their ores, and then trade with other colonies for their wares.  Thereby, creating a space industry that would be completely independent from the Earth.

They may even get richer than Earthlings, therefore causing great envy and resentment from the ground based Earthlings down below. Aw, shucks!

Hydrino Theory, Which Overturns Quantum Theory, Is In Turn Overturned By Doofusino Theory

by Scott Aaronson

This piece is meant to make fun of hydrino theory, and possibly "cold fusion".  Look, if there is anything that is going to shut this up, it will have to be some type of unambiguous test which cannot be denied.  Otherwise, it will be too easy to ridicule anything that is contrary to conventional wisdom.  Sadly, it is only through the new ideas that progress gets made.  If people are too scared to step out of the box, progress will stall.  Isn't that the thing that is happening nowadays?

Oops! Forgot the title again! Morning Summary, 6/28

Obviously, the extra posting bumped my numbers.  All the same, thanks for your support.  I'll be posting here again today.

As I noted on the evening wrap, there appears to be a new post in the top ten.  That was Rossi doing the calculations for his E-cat demo for Mr. Krivit.   I think it shows the interest in Rossi's device better than anything else could.  I would like to spread the interest far and wide.  You know, get the message out.  That's the trick.

There ought to be more demos, and those demos need to be set up like show biz.  You could have celebrities and so forth and they would be there to witness it.  As for the demo itself, it could be like what I suggested before, an automobile going around a track continuously with no obvious power source except the E-cat.  I think such a demo could get a lot of people on board.

Evening Wrap, 6/27

Sixteen posts, must be a record.  The most popular one was of Rossi doing the calculations for the E-cat's energy production.  For just one day, it almost made the top ten list.

Here's how it stacks up in comparison with 9 and 10 on the list, first the 9th and 10th:

You see, it almost cracked the top ten in the first day.  Quite a showing for just one day.

Thanks for coming by and have a great evening.

Force has the better of the argument

Does this sound familiar?  It should, since I wrote it on Sunday.  It so happens that Brian D. Josephson had this to say about the rejection of "cold fusion"

Isn't that what I wrote above as the title of this post?

The pdf file linked above is titled Pathological Disbelief and has some connection to "cold fusion", but it is not about "cold fusion" per se.  Here is the concluding page of the pdf

If you want to change things, you may have to be ready to fight for what you believe because there are those who will not allow you to prevail no matter what the evidence says.

Mr. Rossi calculates the E-Cat’s energy

From Cold Fusion now website

Comment: I'd like to hook that up to a machine that will produce electricity and power a vehicle around a track until it ran out of fuel. Then we will know one way or another if this is for real. Seeing is believing.

Life on Mars?

Brandenburg's book is amazing. Not only does he make a case for past life on Mars, but also for present life. That's not all. He also postulates that life may have transited from Mars to Earth and seeded the Cambrian Explosion.  Hold on to your seats, but there's more.  He is also suggesting a nuclear explosion, as in a malicious event, you know, like a war.

The search for life doesn't interest me much.  This explains all the fascination with Mars, though.  Maybe the face means something!

Change in plans

I'm not up to going out today, so I'll be blogging instead.

Morning Summary, 6/27

I'll be reading  John Brandenburg's book about Mars today.   It should be fairly busy, so I don't know how much time I'll have to post.  If I can get in a few, I will.

Evening Wrap, 6/26

Today was a day to get caught up on the Space Show.  Didn't listen to them all, but I did listen to five of them.  I figure that the "cold fusion" folks can team up with the space enthusiasts.   The thing that they have in common is that they are not favored currently by those in power.  Perhaps in the future, these brilliant leaders of ours may find a use for these.

Storing Hydrogen Safely

Metal hydrides could potentially play a leading role in a hydrogen economy. By Virginia Heffernan

I got the idea to do this from an earlier post about the ratio between hydrogen and nickel. That is, if the ratio is 1 to 1 in terms of atoms, then it would be effectively much higher pressure per volume of the solid nickel ( according to the Ideal Gas Law). So, I find this article, and it gives a number, but it is not entirely clear what it means.

Many alloys form hydrides with up to 9% hydrogen but will release the gas only at extreme temperatures.

Does that mean by weight or what?  At 9% by weight, it would be greater than 1 to 1 because hydrogen is only about 1/30th the mass per mole ( and even that takes into account the fact that hydrogen bonds with itself, so the true ratio would be 1/60th).  That could mean multiple atoms of hydrogen per nickel atom.

As Spock would say on Star Trek:  "fascinating".  This means the equivalent of very high pressures, I would think.  It would mean up to six moles of hydrogen per mole of nickel, with the nickel occupying only a tiny fraction of the volume that would have been the case with hydrogen alone.  This gives a very high theoretical pressure per volume, per the Ideal Gas Law.

You may recall the equation for the gas law:  pv=nrt.   As temperature increases, so must pressure.  If it approaches a billion degrees kelvin and is still inside the nickel, the pressure would be very high indeed.  Each side of the equation would have to rise proportionally, you see.  A billion degrees is 10^9th.

So, Huizenga doesn't think this can cause fusion?  It almost seems comically false to me.  He's gotta be pulling somebody's leg. 

Space Show, 6/3

John Brandenburg was on, and he talked about life on Mars. He says some amazing things, like there was abundant life on Mars, even before multicellular life existed on Earth.

He says stuff that may not be popularly accepted by modern science. But, isn't that conventional wisdom?

Some other things that got said confirmed a suspicion that I have expressed here that the powers that be don't want you to know such things. This information may have been suppressed to some extent. Does that sound familiar?

I am going to buy Brandenburg's book through the One Giant Leap Foundation. They will make a contribution to the Space Show.

Focus Fusion as Propulsion, II

I wrote about this concept before, but what makes this different is that I added a few comment boxes to the picture, so as to illustrate what I meant.  Not that it is necessary, because I would think it would be obvious, but just in case it isn't.  [ This is rather repetitive and unnecessary, but what the heck.  I think all this proves is that I just might know what the heck I am talking about.  The only thing is that I don't have the PHD to prove it.  Even if you did have the PHD, like Fleischmann and Pons in the case of "cold fusion", you will still be called crazy, which is what they mean by "pathological science".  That's conventional wisdom for you, it will take you nowhere, it justs keeps you where you are.]

Update:

Incidentally, I was listening to a second Space Show mp3 file as I prepared this post. I would like to attend the propulsion conference, but that is not in the cards. I would like even more to sock it to a crowd and make them believe this stuff, but I don't do public speaking. Too bad, because that may be the only way to get to a large number of people. They are too damn lazy to read this stuff and even more so in trying to understand it. It may take someone who will be forceful enough to push something even if it means rattling some cages big time.

Space Show, 6/20

This show is about the challenges of a long duration mission to another planet, like Mars. I can relate to that to some stuff that I've read and heard about here on Earth.

Take the movie, The Shining, in which a family stayed over the winter in hotel in the mountains. It was an isolated situation and the thing that can happen in such circumstances is that people can lose their minds.

I've heard of stories of people doing bizarre things on the open ocean. It is the monotony of the circumstance that makes people crazy. They can start having hallucinations and delusions due to the lack of stimulation. It is a lot like a sensory deprivation tank, where hallucinations can be induced because the lack of sensory stimulation can make people insane.

That's the reason that I get a bit leery of a two year trip to Mars. Unless you have some way of accounting for these kind of problems, you run a great risk of the mission going haywire because that's what can happen to people in those conditions.

The Evening Wrap, 6/25

Thirteen posts.  An impressive number of posts.  Does quantity equal quality?  Was this a good day?  I don't know, somehow it doesn't seem good.  Frankly, I have a bad feeling about this.

Sooner, Not Later: Interstellar Voyages a Reality?

Guest commentator and co-founder of Project Icarus, Richard Obousy explores some "disruptive technologies" that might push us to the stars sooner than we think.

I agree that disruptive technologies can make the big difference in space exploration and ultimate colonization.   But this is not guaranteed, and, as a matter of fact, it may be receiving opposition from those who will have us all go back to the stone ages, because they believe that would be an improvement over modern society.

Laser Beams Close in on Fusion Energy

You could see emisison-free, safe nuclear fusion powering homes in the near future.

This is more of the same brute force technique which have so many people convinced that it is so difficult, when a table top device was invented decades ago can do the basic same thing.  It is promoted as an advance that can do all these wonderful things, but the real idea behind it has nothing to do with generating electricity.  Phooey!

Brian Josephson on Cold Fusion's Reproducibility

For the record, a number of cold fusion phenomena have turned out to be fairly, though not completely reproducible. lenr.org is a good source of information in general.
Brian

Brian Josephson is the 1973 Nobel Prize winner for physics.

He is not the only eminent scientist to speak positively of "cold fusion".   It isn't the fringe, nor "pathological science" that the detractors want everyone to believe.

Morning Summary, 6/25

Just passed 1400 posts yesterday. Blogger keeps suggesting that I make a book out of the blog. Somehow, that doesn't seem appealing to me. After all, it costs money. The blog was supposed to make money. It never did do that. It may never do that.

So, I have to find other reasons to continue with it. Does it do anything for me at all? I'd say yes, a little. I feel a little pride towards the creation of something that didn't exist before. There may be some pride, if I can have a little influence out in the world, even if it is tiny and hardly anyone notices. It goes beyond nothing at all. So, I've get that much from it. Maybe other folks get something from it. Not enough to make the blog go viral, though. It is definitely not doing that.

The thought of moving the subject toward health and well being- which I touched upon briefly in earlier posts- comes to mind. Everyone seems interested in that. I can get something out of it, and my readers can get something out of it, provided that it is new and interesting.

The topic of self improvement has always interested me. Particularly when something goes wrong. I want to understand why and what I can do to avoid such events in the future. It is distressing to have to keep picking up the pieces when things fall apart.   That's why I've got Dr. Sanity on the sidebar, because I've read a lot of her stuff. It really is a mad world out there.

It is better to keep one's sense of humor, especially when things look the darkest. I've gotten through some rough moments in life that way. The roughest seem to come when sense of humor is lost and things really get crazy. Dr. Sanity recommends it, and it seems to have worked for me through the years.

Evening Wrap, 6/24

The best posts today were about the Ideal Gas Law. In case you missed it, I strongly suggest that you read it. It may seem a bit presumptuous of me to say, if so, then so be it. The entire controversy seemed to revolve around this one key point that Huizenga made over and over again in his book, yet he does not take into consideration the points that are made in those two posts. It is either an oversight, or a deliberate deception. Yes, that is what I said. He may have deceived the public in order to shoot down "cold fusion". If I am right about this, this one man may be more responsible than anyone living for the fact that fusion is not providing cheap and plentiful energy for all people everywhere. What this could have meant for the human race and what has been lost during all this time is mind boggling.

Morning Summary, 6/24

Today will be busier than usual, so posting is likely to be light.

There was something that I wanted to look up in Huizenga's book, so I may be posting something about that later today, if I can find it.  It has to do with confinement of the deuterium within the lattice structure of the palladium.   It may be a key point that is getting overlooked.

Meanwhile some news came down the pike yesterday.  I'll link to it below:

From Free Energy Truth: This Is HUGE News: Defkalion Press Conference

The Evening Wrap, 6/23

I feel a little drained right now.  It has been a long week, a little tiring to do everything here and be out there on the road too.  I would prefer to do all one thing or the other, but that means giving this up, which I don't want to do.

I feel as though I am doing my best work now.  By what standards this can be compared to, I don't know.  I don't see it getting much better.

After a night's sleep, things may look different in the morning.  At any rate, thanks for coming by, have a great evening.

The Oil Drum: The return of cold fusion?

Warning to cold fusion believers: this is a skeptical piece and the comments are even more so. I got this link via Talk: Energy Catalyzer link on Wikipedia.

With my prior posts, I think I've covered both sides and there's no knock out punch of an argument on either side. I tend towards believing that it is possible, but have no training to judge it confidently for myself. I get the feeling that the skeptics are leaving something out, while the believers want and need to believe in it, but may not be looking at it objectively enough.

The link above seems to connect the dots the way I did with the other hot fusion methods- in this case, Focus Fusion. None of the skeptics seem to be acknowledging the role of energy in this process. I suspect that it gets planted in the popular mind that it is hot in the way we are accustomed to thinking of hot. But electricity isn't the same form of energy as infrared radiation. That's what we feel as heat. So, a given amount electricity can be equivalent to the temperature necessary to make fusion without the device "thermalizing". So, it isn't "hot". And it isn't "cold" either. As for electricity, it is, if I am not mistaken, the kinetic energy of electrons. Kinetic energy is the movement of mass, in which electrons have a slight mass- as opposed to photons of infrared radiation, which do not. This is the distinction that appears to be getting overlooked or left out.

2009 article: Hydrinos and Zero Point Energy Devices Get More Real

The concept of a hydrino, a hydrogen atom with a reduced orbiting electron is something that Randell Mills at Blacklight Power has managed to engineer such that researchers and customers are beginning to quietly line up especially now that Rowan University has confirmed that the device yields energy output.

I've heard of the Casimir Effect before.  Just skimmed through this hydrino post, can't say that I get it yet.

Free Energy Truth: Defkalion, E-Catalyzer Market Strategy - Bullet Points

Defkalion Green Technologies s.a. was established for the purpose to manufacture and release to the market products based on the Andrea Rossi E-Cat invention; essentially undertaking the path from invention to industrialization on a global scale. There is no government financing involved.

The "Hyperion" name gets mentioned.  I don't know if it is connected to this:

A New Paradigm for Power Generation

 

Evening wrap, 6/22

I close out today's posts with a video I found courtesy of cold fusion now website.  It isn't going to end the skepticism in my opinion.  In order to do that, you are going to need a demo that is completely unambiguous. This means something like a Wright Brothers flight, when there can be no explanation other than what is obviously true.  If it "flies", it can't be denied.  This doesn't look like that to me, to be honest about it.  It has a number of measurements and such, but how does that convince anybody of anything in such a way that it leaves no room for doubt?

Gas-to-liquids (GTL) products

Gas-to-liquids (GTL) products

Also this as a list of Gas To Liquids links:

Carbon Sciences to produce first samples of diesel fuel from methane and CO2 using catalytic dry reforming process

Morning break, 6/22

If you want to be unconventional, by definition, you have to think in a new way. Which brings me to something I'd like to discuss here, but I don't know if I am going to be able to make the point I'm trying to make.

I said once before that ideology makes us stupid because it causes us to close our eyes to facts that are right in front of us, but with the ideological blinders on, we just don't see them.

So the next few sentences may seem "kumbaya" to those on the right side of the political spectrum. But here goes. Many years ago, I read Herb Cohen's book, You Can Negotiate Anything.   In that book, he describes negotiating styles.  One of those styles he called "Soviet".  By the way, I may have written about this before, but hang with me.  It was a type of style that required a winner and a loser.  A win-lose type of negotiation.   That was one style.  There was another style he called "win-win".  That's where the "kumbaya" comes in, because most people divide outcomes up into winners and losers.  The idea of a win-win style just doesn't seem realistic to them.  Conservatives love to describe liberals as kumbaya when the liberals start discussing peace.

By contrast, to a conservative, with supply side economics, if you cut taxes, everybody wins.  Why isn't that "kumbaya"?  They will see that cutting taxes, you raise more revenue.  That leaves more to the state in order to spread the wealth around.  But those on the left, in these type scenarios drop their "kumbaya" BS and start talking winners and losers again.  If you cut taxes "for the rich", somehow the interests of the poor are harmed.  Heck, they'll continue to believe that even when the outcome of their policy is negative because to them, it is more "fair".  Hey, that's what Obama said about capital gains taxes.

In the end, who's kumbaya and who isn't?  Depending on the circumstance, it would seem that either one could start taking on the role of kumbaya or the knuckle dragging neaderthal.    When it comes to relations with the outside world, the left will act like kumbaya, but when it comes to supply side economics, they'll act like the neaderthals.  And vice versa.

What makes for the stupidity is the failure is in seeing other's fallacies while not seeing their own.   They believe in their respective ideologies and can't see what's plainly in front of them.   Supply side economics seemed to work well in the Reagan era, but Clinton raised taxes and the country prospered anyway.  That wasn't supposed to happen.  In the late seventies, there was inflation and recession at the same time.  That appeared to contradict economic theory at the time.  It was called, the Phillips Curve, and it just so happened to not apply at that time.  This is where supply side economics seemed to work where Keynesianism seemed to fail.  But the opposite occurred during the Clinton years.  How can they both be right and wrong at the same time?

I would suggest that something else was at work which cannot be explained by the ideologues.  I would also suggest that ideologues may think that they know, but they don't.

Ronald Reagan didn't trust ideology.  Why should those who think well of him believe in ideology, then?  There are those who do.  By the way, the point is that in politics, ideology seems to become the conventional way of thinking.  Since we have a weak economy, those who favor Keynesian economic policies want to believe that those policy prescriptions will be successful.  Supply siders do too, with respect to their own policy prescriptions.  But what if the problem has nothing to do with the tax rates?  Then neither ideology will have the answer, will they?

In our discussions with each other, we should take the win win style.  This may seem too kumbaya, but it may actually be the only thing that can work.  Better find a way that everyone can win, but if you don't, we may all lose.

Update shortly later:

It so happens that if the politicians make a deal that is only for themselves, the outcome will be worse than doing nothing at all.  I think that is what happened with Glass Steagall.  When that was repealed, it opened the way for the housing mess that we are going through now.  They compromised the wrong thing and basically sold out the people, while only helping themselves.  If that happens now, we are really sunk.

Evening Wrap, 6/21

Still looking for a way to streamline the blog.  It is now "emphatically unconventional", so that is now officially a part of the blog's description.  How do you find stuff that will fit in with that description, while not changing the blog too much?  For example, what is unconventional about markets?  I have to think about that.  I think I know a way with the music.  But not with politics.  The trouble with politics is that being unconventional is on the fringe.  Politics can't afford to become unconventional, or it will be pushed to the margin.  With politics, you want to make the unconventional, ahem, conventional.

Some interesting things to think about.  That's all for today.  I hope it won't be too busy tomorrow, so I can put in some posts.  Thanks for coming by and have a great evening.

Morning Break, 6/21

Riding around in my truck this am, I was listening to Glenn Beck. It is unusual for me, since I haven't been listening to him all these years. As with TV, I stopped listening to radio years ago.

It so happens that I still need info, and radio is still good for that. And I was listening to the radio this morning and Glenn Beck starts talking about Google a bit. He mentions that Google will fill in the search box as you type along. He must have filled in part of the box when he came across something that he wanted to talk about a bit. He typed "how much does it cost" and the automatic part of google will fill in the rest. One of the items that was filled in was how much does an abortion cost. It was actually at the top of the list.

Isn't that a shame? It looks to me like people would have better things to do than this.

Another thing he was talking about was a bit of advice about investments. The investment was water. He said that to invest into water directly may get you into a lot of trouble if there is a big water shortage. Instead, his adviser suggested that you only invest in the other products connected to water, such as purifiers and such.

Maybe Glenn Beck isn't your cup of tea, but time is limited. Along those lines, and in a line of thought with this morning, I figured something about the blog. Since I am unconventional, why not just do unconventional stories? I already do this and "cold fusion" is one of them. JP Aerospace is another. Space isn't unconventional, but it may as well be since most people don't seem to be interested in it. So, there you are!

Morning Summary, 6/21

Once again, my attention is returns to streamlining the blog. It would seem after the day like yesterday, that I would really need to get fast because there is so little time. Today's plan shouldn't be so busy, so I may be able to post a bit more.

Ok, I looked up my sources of information on "cold fusion" and found a report that has been posted by Free Energy Truth. It is of Krivit's interview of Rossi as he visited their facility in Italy. It appears not to have gone well.

I looked over Krivit's report on his blog here.  Hard to say what's going on there based upon what only this. It was posted several days ago. I am a bit surprised that I had not known about it earlier.

A thought just occurred to me. Last year, just before the election, I compared Christine O'Donnell's campaign to the 70's rock group, Grand Funk Railroad. It is all about publicity and how to get it, even if it is bad publicity, because there is no such thing as bad publicity. Is this bad report a publicity stunt? Well, I don't know. Now, let's look at the entire "cold fusion" saga. If it is anything, it is a litany of controversy, which has kept it alive all these years. Could "cold fusion" be seen as the "uncola" of science? An amusing thought.

Evening Wrap, 6/20

Very busy day.  Sorry for the light posting, but I just didn't have time today.

Chris Laird was a bit late on his newsletter, here is some of what he had.  Remember that it is a subscription based service and the link is available in the products page.

Newsletter - Edition 269 - 19 June 2011
By Christopher Laird
Markets in transition
Japan effects not clear yet
HUI USD Gold

He is bearish all markets, and starting to worry about gold.  This probably won't happen.  As the Fed is empowered to stimulate the economy and avoid inflation, if there is a crash, they will continue pouring liquidity into the market.  Sure, it is inflationary, eventually, but without any demand, the velocity of money will be low, which keeps inflation risk down.  If they have the chance, they will continue with an accomodative stance.

Time to rethink things

There are now over 1300 posts in this blog. It is getting rather big, I'd say. Even with an organizational strategy like categories, this thing is getting big. How can it be streamlined? Especially since I don't have as much time to blog as I did before. Even if I continued blogging full time, as I did before, it would be necessary to prune the blog a bit. Let's say the daily plan is to manage the blog in such a way as to become more streamlined and efficient in terms of time.

One way to do that is to merge it into my own life. I've had those ideas all along, but how far do you take it? Do I blog every cotton picking thing about my life? I think not. Furthermore, I don't want the blog to be about me. Yet, it is inescapable that it has to be to a certain extent.

So, I guess I have to disclose what I am comfortable with disclosing. There aren't any big secrets here, just don't feel the need to discuss that much about myself.

Let's start off with something that has just crossed my mind. I cover some high tech stuff here, and people may wonder, "why aren't you doing something like that?"
Well, I tried, and it didn't work out. I got a job at IBM/NASA as a coop, which wasn't a permanent job, or to put it more bluntly, not a real job at all. But it was an opportunity, and I didn't know how to exploit it. Plain and simple fact. It wasn't because I did bad work, or got bad grades in school, or got into trouble with the law, or used drugs, or anything like that. Just plain and simple thing that may have been surmountable, but at the time, it wasn't.

Still, I could have gotten employment elsewhere. But it was the same story, really. If I knew what I was doing, in seeking a computer career, I could have been successful. I know a lot of things that I might have done better, but I decided not to do them, for one reason or another. I could go into each of these decisions, but I'd rather not. Not need for me to punish myself that way.

Other people might say, in a less than charitable spirit, that I don't really seem to have that much ability. Yet, I seem to be able to keep up with what I am doing here. I feel as though I could have done something on a professional level. It just didn't come together. Maybe that's just the way the old cookie crumbles. By the way, that isn't just fatalism that I am expressing. I am not a fatalist. If there is anything I can do to avoid a bad outcome, I will do it, if it is possible. But by the same token, I have learned to accept things as they are. You have to sometimes, or you will go nuts.

I can go on and on about this story. At times, I thought I was really close to making it big, but it didn't happen. Rather than to go into that, let's just stop there.

Another thing I did was to write software and publish it myself. I did try to get my stuff published, but it was turned down. I published it and it didn't sell.

I tried the markets and just about broke even. Another example of an opportunity that came oh, so close. I mean it was dot com time. Big fortunes could be made and lost. I think I came close to making one trade work really big. Instead, I missed it and got into a bad trade. That's the breaks.

So, you could say that I've done a number of things and made no big mark out there. I really wish I could say something different, but that is how it has been.

The Morning Summary, 6/18

Time to switch gears and put my blogging shoes on.  The audience is dwindling, and, well, there may not be anything I can do about that.  Unless someone invents a longer day, or I get paid a lot more.  In the meantime, I will be pressed for time and the blog will suffer.

Nevertheless, I felt like this was a productive week for the blog.  I reviewed a book, or mostly reviewed it, and that's something.  I'd like to think of something to say about it, but I have to organize my thoughts.  Hopefully, by the end of the day, I will have something to "close the book" on Huizenga's book.

Going forward, it may well be the case that the weekends may be the only time I can blog freely.  Even then, I have to do chores that can't be done during the week.

I considered taking my computer with me.  If I do that, I will have to get an air card for my computer so I can blog while I am not driving.  This isn't cost effective though.

Maybe it is time to do it the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper.  I can take a few notes while I am not driving, then transfer them to the blog when I have the time.  That can make me a bit more productive.

There's a radio in the van, so it isn't like I have to do without information.  However, it is not the kind of information that will fit into my blog.  Radio is local, this blog is, ahem, global.

Most people get their news from TV, but I don't like TV.  It may be possible to buy a contraption I can carry with me.  A portable boob tube.  I can check that out today.  Keep tuned and I will let you know what I decide to do about that.

Morning Summary, 6/17

Sort of what I've been expecting.  At the peak, I was posting about 15 posts per day.  Now, it's possible that I will only have time, on some days, for a couple.  I can imagine even less than that.  They won't be high quality posts either.   It may be possible to add more content.  I can look into it, but it will probably cost money.  I'd rather not spend the money if I can avoid it.

Moving on, the plan is to finish the book either today or tomorrow.  I want to summarize my posts thus far and "close the book" on the book.  After that, I may recap everything I have written about Rossi Focardi.  Up till now, there has been nearly 100 posts on the subject.

I noticed that Blacklight Power has gotten some interest.  It has moved up the list for popular posts.  It could become a subject for discussion.

The other subjects I cover have taken a back seat.  Maybe I can work in some posts about those.  It is a question of how much time I have for it.

Well, that's all for now.  I have to get ready to do the day job.  Thanks for coming by.

The Evening Wrap, 6/15

Long day today. I have finished about 90 pages of Huizenga's book. Rather than to go into details, because I am a bit tired right now, I won't discuss too much about it right here. But I'll mention something pretty short, and that is this: I think it was a mistake to make him chairman of that panel that investigated "cold fusion". It's not because he isn't qualified. I just don't think he can be trusted to give a completely objective report. I'll try to justify that statement in future posts. Until then, thanks for coming by, and have a great evening.

The Evening Summary, 6/13

The routine may need to change. There's not enough content here to recap. Let's see how this goes tomorrow and make changes as necessary. Have a great evening.

Morning Summary, 6/13

It looks like a bump up in traffic, thank you very much. You tend to get spoiled with higher traffic. When it falls back to what it was previously, it's almost like a major catastrophe.

I am going to write something about E-cat today if I get the chance. Today figures to be a busy day, because if everything goes according to plan, I will buy a replacement vehicle today.

A replacement vehicle is the best strategy because I will have to do this anyway. The blog isn't making money. If the vehicle is what I think it is, it is a good value and it gives me the best opportunity to recover from my earlier mistake of selling my truck. I could be wrong and this could be another mistake. But you have to "roll the bones", and take your chances. I rolled the bones on the truck and lost. That's all their is to it.

This blog is like rolling the bones because I spent a lot of time on it and it hasn't generated much of an audience. For awhile, by posting on E-cat, I got more of an audience. The reason I want to write about E-cat is that I think the problems with it are similar to other problems this society is having right now. That is worth some commentary, so I will return to it eventually- even if I can't do that today.

I wrote about the commonalities between my own situation and E-cat too. It comes down to money, I said. It may also be about power. Power and money go hand in hand. Those who have money have power, and those who have power have money.

This blog is on the wrong side of the power equation. The only way to get plugged in is to do what the power people want and be brought into their service. I won't do that, if I can help it. This blog will be independent.

Since this blog is independent, it is analogous to a militia. A militia is in service to its community and it is volunteer and unpaid. This means that the motives of its members are non commercial and non mercenary. You can't say that about the media. They are a mercenary outfit getting paid to do the bidding of their masters. That bidding may not be in the interests of the community and is therefore a mistake to trust their word. Their word is self serving and should not be trusted.

I hope these words are enough to bring people back here who don't a mercenary interest of their own. My readers should be interested in servicing the needs of this community we call the USA. That doesn't mean it is exclusive to the USA. The interests of the people of the USA are not always in conflict with the interests of the rest of the people of the world.

But, to be honest, it could be more than what would be desired. But those who are not American could be coming here with not really friendly intentions. They may come here as observers of the American scene. No problem with that. This is supposed to be an open society. Even unfriendly people who are not Americans can observe what is happening here for as long as I can provide it- and use the information in whatever fashion they please. I am not connected to anything top secret- our society is open- they can get what information I have here in other ways, anyway. What I get comes from the web.

Eve. Summary, 6/12

Watching a global warming skeptic video. It is quite long. I can't help but think that the same people who destroyed "cold fusion" as a legitimate science are the ones who are pushing "global warming." Interesting thought. Something to think about in a future post.

Thanks for coming by.

The Morning Summary, 6/12

Sad to see the numbers fall so far.  But it can't be helped.

It is a fluid situation.  Once something gets decided, I have to live with it.  You know, I have this tendency to be really decisive when I make up my mind.  That is a weakness, because it tends towards rashness.  Like selling my truck.  No need to have gotten in such a hurry.  If I had waited just one week, the situation would have been quite different now.

Everybody has their own dragons to slay.  That appears to be one of mine.

After making one mistake, I don't want to get too rash and make decisions that I'll have to live with for a long time.  So, I'll take my time here.  But, at some point, you have to act.  Hopefully, it is the right decision when you do act.

I am very tempted to go do something.  Like buy a replacement vehicle.  If I do that, I have made a financial commitment that could be another mistake.  Those could multiply and grow into bigger and bigger mistakes until you find yourself in a real crisis.  I'm not there now, but I can see how I am heading in that direction.

I need to think about this.

Thank all of you who are still coming by.  I'll keep you posted on what is going on.  The blog will continue, but maybe at not quite so strong of a pace.   I'd like to go all out, but I can't.  At least not now.

Evening Wrap, 6/11

Whoa!  It's past my usual sign off time.  Well, that's because I've been busy.  As I said, I am going to have to transition back to a regular day job.  The posts are going to get thinned out a bit.  I did some running about town today.  Ran some errands, took a look at one possible replacement vehicle.  Also attempted to line up other alternatives so I won't have to pick between just one selection.  The pickings are slim though.  You have to work hard to find a good value.

In spite of the light posting, hopefully there was something here interesting enough to read today.  Attending to other business has broken my train of thought.  Now, my thinking has turned to other areas.  It's like being in a trance or something.  Like someone snapping their fingers and you're out of it.  Then you wonder, what the hell am I doing here?

Tomorrow's agenda is pretty much up in the air.  Since it is Sunday, I really can't do anything except go to this one appointment.  But there seems to be a problem at this point.  Since there is a problem, the trip could get cancelled.  In that case, I could just do something else with my day.  We'll have to see.

Anyway, thanks for coming by, and have a great evening.

Morning Summary, 6/11

A part of me screams out not to do this, but hey, sometimes you have got to do something. It looks like my audience is slipping away. Okay, I don't know why that's happening, but it is best to tell the truth about things, and hope that people will cut you some slack. Another consideration here is that this is the internet. People who have come here have remained anonymous, for the most part. I don't ask for favors, though. I pretty much handle my own affairs my own self.

Not that I am being inconsistent, either. But this makes me somewhat remote to people, I suspect. At some point, you have to have some friends. Well, I am not too good at that. I don't want to depend upon people, yet there are times when you need to. Right now, that type of a situation applies.

Yet, I am asking for no favors. People can come here and read my blog. I won't ask for money nor favors nor understanding. I have done my best to be helpful. I was hoping that it may be returned. Even if it isn't, I won't get mad about it. But you have to accept things as they are, not as you wish they were.

Ok, let's get on with the problem. As everyone who has read this blog knows, I sold my truck this past week. It turns out, now I've got to go back and get another vehicle. Less than 1 week into this and I've got to go back and undo what I have just done. It will cost money and that is not impossible for me to deal with, but it isn't going to be helpful. After all, the whole idea was to save money. Now that has backfired. I rolled the dice and lost, plain and simple.

It's not the first time that I've rolled the dice and lost. Seems like I've been doing that my whole life, and it always seems like the dice doesn't roll my way. Even if in this case, the dice rolled my way, the best I could have hoped for was more time. It doesn't look like I am going to get that.

I wanted more time to see if I can finally get an audience here, and even that, if achieved, would have only been a modest achievement. As such, it would only been a start, not a finish. From there, I would have liked for it to have begin making money, so I could continue doing it indefinitely.

All that could still happen, but the odds just got longer. The reason? Money. Money is said to be the root of all evil, but it is also what makes the world go round. You have to have it. There's no getting around it. The world, as it is, requires money. And this blog doesn't generate money. Plain and simple.

I knew that all along, but the dream didn't want to die. It isn't dead yet, but it is not doing well.

I have to give my attention now to earning money. My full attention can't be applied to this blog anymore. The world as it is requires money and there's no money for me to apply to activities that do not turn a profit so this can be sustained.

I will keep the blog. I will continue to post. But posting will be light, because I simply won't have enough time for it anymore. Other priorities require my time and effort. I would have liked a few more months to try to get something going, but that isn't going to happen unless I get lucky. Well, lady luck hasn't smiled my way this time, and unless something changes, isn't likely to start anytime soon.

I am still going to blog about E-cat. You see, I think the issue of money is what has held "cold fusion" down. Not that "cold fusion" was "pathological". No, it was all about money. Just like my own case.

How was "cold fusion" about money? Well, the two guys were affiliated with a university that wanted them to go public with their findings. They wanted this in order to protect their interests in these findings, which had the potential, and still do, of being incomparably lucrative. But in doing so, they risked something, and that risk of a bad outcome is very thing that happened. It backfired on them. It allowed them to be attacked for going outside the normal scientific channels. It allowed them to be attacked for not having proper ethics. None of this was necessarily true, but that is how it developed. It developed that way because those who stood the risk of losing money if "cold fusion" succeeded needed it to fail in order to protect their own money pile. So, this opened the door for those who could claim to be proper and ethical, to do something that was possibly improper, all of it because of the need and desire for money.

The "cold fusioneers" needed or wanted the money too, as we all do, but way of the world said no, you can't have it. And the way of the world is more powerful than anybody who is the new kid on the block. So that is where it stands today. The "cold fusion's" loudest critics who are knocking it down have a stake in the matter and prefer for it not to succeed, because they stand to lose, and they know it. But the public, who also have a stake in the outcome, don't know who to believe. The tendency when there is doubt, to continue going down the path of least resistance. That path is same old path that is getting harder and harder to sustain.

Something has got to give. Something has to change, but change is scary. If "cold fusion" is but a dream, the reality of such a scenario has to be faced. The same is true for the critics. If "cold fusion" is a reality, those who stand to lose by its success will have to stand aside. But what if they don't want to? Then this could get ugly. The outcome has not been decided yet. The decision may not be fair. Because I can see a scenario in which "cold fusion" could be the reality, and yet, not because of it's lack of scientific merit, but for the way of the world, it may not be accepted because it can't win. And that may be hard to swallow.

Evening Wrap, 6/10

I usually add a graphic, but today I'll pass on that.

Today was a busy day away from the computer, yet I feel as though I made a lot of good posts.

Things are a bit up in the air right now, so posting could be light for several days. If it hurts, it hurts. Can't be helped.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting here. So, keep on checking in. Thanks for coming by and have a great evening.

Wikiversity : Cold fusion/Controversy

I don't know how useful this information is, and I haven't scanned all of it, but what I did see seemed interesting.

I can't help but think that something wrong has happened here that is very hard to get turned around and made right.  Nobody even wants to consider the possibility that the people who you trust to do the right thing may not have.

Once again, this seems a lot like the Kennedy assassination and the resulting conspiracy theories.  As I mentioned, I looked into those many years ago and concluded that the Warren Commission was mostly right. It is not possible to tell conclusively that there was a conspiracy or not, but as far as the act itself, I satisfied myself that Oswald acted alone.

I am not given to wild conspiracy theories. But dog gone if there may be one here with respect to "cold fusion".

New Way to Make Lighter, Stronger Steel -- In a Flash

ScienceDaily (June 9, 2011) — A Detroit entrepreneur surprised university engineers in Ohio recently, when he invented a heat-treatment that makes steel 7 percent stronger than any steel on record -- in less than 10 seconds.

If this pans out, an example of an application would be automobile frames, which could be 30% lighter, without sacrificing safety.  Presumably, that would improve fuel economy.

If this seems a bit skeptical, one gets a bit jaded after hearing about advances that can do miracles, but never to be heard of again.

On the other hand, we do get improvements in technology that have accumulated over the years.  If this can work, it would be a big help.

Excerpt from The Rebirth of Cold Fusion by S.B. Krivit

Krivit is the editor is NewEnergyTimes and produced some videos that I put up here and here.  There's an excerpt there from an mp3 file, but the link to the mp3 file doesn't seem to be working.

I am linking to the excerpt, in case you may be interested in reading more about Martin Fleischmann.

There is the story of how he and his family escaped from Nazi Germany in 1938. Also about his rise to prominence in his field.

He is said, by the author, to be a "Renaissance Man", brilliant and creative. It is hard for me to see, even if he were to be mistaken about "cold fusion", that he should have received the treatment that he received.

If you want to know what is wrong with Western Civilization in this dark hour, just read this story about how this man was treated.

Note: It isn't shown here, but his collaborator, Pons, has given up his American citizenship. Just think, it was once the case that people came to America, now it looks as though there are some who are escaping it.

The Evening Wrap, 6/9

Another busy day posting. It was a good mix of posts, including some on E-cat. There was one offering to allow someone to provide some background music ( an Elvis cover of Jailhouse Rock) to my JP Aerospace ad video. There doesn't appear to be any interest in that. Hmm. I thought it wasn't a bad idea. The idea was to make a big collaboration, that would help everybody at the same time. Not everything is a winner, though. Just keeping trying and tee it up again tomorrow morning. Thanks for coming by and have a great evening.

Widom Larsen: Absorption of Gamma Radiation ( LENR )

This is a pdf of a US patent on file.  The patent is for absorbing gamma radiation and making it less penetrating and less energetic.  I presume this is either an explanation for the lack of gamma radiation in LENR, or a way to shield against it, or perhaps both.  (source of link: NewEnergyTimes)

Update:

Also, there appeared to be an extract with more information, quoted below:

The article simply assumes that proton capture at room temperature is possible, using classic nuclear reaction tables to calculate the corresponding gamma emission and residual activity i the reaction products to be expected. Having a look at figure one, to be able to be in the room, the catalyzer would need to be shielded by at least 40 cm of lead, as a result of the 1-7MeV quantas released per reaction, a lot higher than corresponding levels of a fission process with Uranium. Rossi Use only centimetres of lead. If true, the reaction energy is split up in a 10- 100 times more x-ray quantas, and I've heard about alphas, that is easily shielded. However, this clearly breaks the current known behavior to the isotopes involved. 

The filling of shells in compressed atoms (LENR)

Well, this is interesting.  It may explain something about LENR, but then again, it may not.  It caught my interest because of how atoms may behave differently when confined.

The filling of shells in compressed atoms

Italian Nuclear Physicist Fulvio Frisone on Cold Fusion

Italian (n)uclear physicist Fulvio Frisone is disabled, suffering from spastic dystonic tetraparesis that forced him to a wheelchair.

"In this summary, I wish to illustrate a topic concerning the controversial phenomenon known as cold fusion." 

I found this via Facebook.  In fact, I liked the page it came from.   The like was made from my People for Space Colonization page, upon which it is now a featured like.  That means it is always up as a like, along with a few others.

Free Republic: Patent Office Forces E-Cat Self-Destruct Capability

Lots of comments, mostly negative, but interesting to read nontheless.

JP Aerospace and E-cat

It hasn't been mentioned often enough, so I'll mention here again. I have an ad that is promoting a YouTube video of an another ad for this webpage. Sounds complicated? It may be profitable to reconsider the KISS principle.

Anyhow, the video isn't getting that many views and I'd like to improve upon that. The reason that I wrote what I did in the morning summary was that there is a potential community here between myself and this blog, plus JP Aerospace and supporters of "cold fusion". Why? and How? Let's take why of the community part. I think it is obvious that JP wants to get to space in an unconventional way. And the cold fusioneers want to get to net power from fusion in an unconventional way. As for me, I want to get filthy rich off this blog. Ha, ha! That is very funny. But I am unconventional too, my blog says so.

Now for the "how" part. Let us assume that the E-cat works. Also, let us assume that they will allow JP to use one of these E-cats to help him get one of his airships to orbit. JP may not need an E-cat to do that, but I think it may turn out to be helpful. You see, it looks to me that an E-cat doesn't weigh that much for the amount of power that it can produce. As for the airships, well, they are lighter than air. But that will take the airships only so far. That's where the E-cat may be helpful. It can provide thrust so that the airship can reach orbit. Of course, a lot of this depends upon getting a propulsion device with the necessary thrust and isp that can meet the necessities imposed by the rocket equation.

It is assumed also that the E-cat may also be useful in helping overcome drag. I'm thinking of a more vertical trajectory once the airship loses aerodynamic lift. See, the idea is to get aerodynamic lift as long as is possible before the airship encounters too much drag. In order to overcome drag, the airship can go vertical in order to escape the atmosphere, while at the same time it is increasing speed so as to reach orbital velocity. In order to accomplish this, the airship needs an appropriate propulsive device.

None of this is conventional, nor is it this blog conventional. I'd like to suggest the idea and use this blog to get out the word. Maybe it is "crackpot" to suggest it. On the other hand, it just might work.

If you want to help, go to my youtube videos and watch my videos. Sooner or later, you ought to be able to find the one I'm talking about. But if you are in a hurry, go here to watch it. Click on "YouTube".

That reminds me of the Wright Brothers. Nobody believed that "heavier than air" flight was possible. But seeing was believing. If E-cat can get an airship to orbit, it will prove both concepts simultaneously. Something to think about, yes?

Stanford prison experiment

This cold fusion business reminds me of this experiment. Why? The experiment showed how normal people can start acting strangely in such a setting.

If you give somebody some authority, they can abuse it.   As in the experiment, this can happen even with normal people.  If there is any pathology to begin with, it must be far worse.

In the case of the cold fusion study group set up by the DOE, the authority figure was the government, followed by the group, who was to pass judgment on the cold fusioneers. For each of their parts, the cold fusioneers started to act paranoid, as the "guards" started to act sadistically.  Not necessarily in that order or sequence.  [see Pathological Science]

It aggravates the sadistic treatment to call the cold fusioneers "Pathological", when their own sadistic treatment of them may have brought on some of the behavior in the first place.

The Morning Summary, 6/9

No new records yesterday. Looks like there needs to be some new inspiration that will drive these numbers higher. Where might that be found? This got me to thinking about what the problem is here and what might be done about it.

This blog is dedicated to unconventional thinking. That's not always good, because you can be marginalized. People tend to shy away from anything that appears too offbeat or out of the mainstream.

One thing about "cold fusion",it is offbeat. It is unconventional. It has been marginalized. It will be hard to get it mainstreamed. This fact has to be recognized. But not to lose heart about it. There could be a way to use this to advantage.

You can join forces with those who are also marginalized. This may not always be a pleasing thought, though. Not everybody who is marginalized has been made so by an unjust system. To put it bluntly, sometimes a marginalized person or group needs to stay that way. How to tell the difference?

The clue is in justice, and justice must be based upon truth. If there has been a wrong, then those who have been marginalized by it can join forces for mutual support. People in this unfortunate position can thus find a way to help each other out. In the meantime, they can work toward redressing their own harms from the unjust behavior of others, who at least for the moment, are in the majority. The redress can come from getting the truth out and from there repairing the harm done from acts that came from a lack of respect for truth.

The Evening Wrap, 6/8

It was a day to check out the actors in this drama with respect to "cold fusion". Martin Fleischmann, Eugene Mallove, and John R. Huizenga. Each are quite accomplished, yet look at what happened. With all this brilliance, one would think something really good would come of it, yet here we are, over a decade into the 21st century, and still no fusion device ( unless the E-cat comes through, and it isn't even called fusion).

By the way, it looks like there was a rush to judgment in 1989. This subsequently poisoned the well, as "cold fusion" fell under a cloud of ill repute. The time line 1) March, when the discovery was made 2) and just a couple months later, the first negative reports came in 3) and finally in November, the negative DOE report. The attacks were unduly harsh. At least one of the harshest critics ( aside from Huizenga ) who was in on the initial negative reactions, also took part in the DOE report. One may get the impression that the intention was to kill off the idea. That's what Mallove believed, plus the motivation to save funding for their own projects.

I think I've looked at this at a number of angles. Although it appears that some injustice was done, and that "cold fusion" is plausible, this is still not proof. The world still waits for this, and the need is greater than ever. Let's hope that Rossi has the goods.

Thanks for coming by, and have a great evening.

Farnsworth Fusor

The team then turned to the AEC, then in charge of fusion research funding, and provided them with a demonstration device mounted on a serving cart that produced more fusion than any existing "classical" device. The observers were startled, but the timing was bad; Hirsch himself had recently revealed the great progress being made by the Soviets using the tokamak. In response to this surprising development, the AEC decided to concentrate funding on large tokamak projects, and reduce backing for alternative concepts

This is a precursor to the Polywell.   There is no controversy about the ability here to bring about fusion in a table top device.  This device is actually being commercially made today as a source of neutrons.  The neutrons that the device produces is evidence of fusion taking place.

This should be evidence enough that you don't need an office sized building in order to produce fusion.  To the contrary, hobbyists can reproduce the effect for

In the fusor, the ions are accelerated to several keV by the electrodes, so heating as such is not necessary (as long as the ions fuse before losing their energy by any process). Whereas 45 megakelvins is a very high temperature by any standard, the corresponding voltage is only 4 kV, a level commonly found in such devices as neon lights and televisions.

 A tremendous of energy is not necessary, provided that you can come up with a suitable confinement strategy that will make fusion possible.   In my opinion, there is a possibility that this could occur in a random setting and this could be why "cold fusion" can't be easily reproduced.

Pathological Science?

After awhile, the label becomes the reality. Without funding, and under seige, cold fusioneers became insulated, and perhaps a bit paranoid. On the other hand, the mainstream scientists stayed clear of cold fusion for fear of being punished for studying it.

It should not come to any surprise that a follow up study by the DOE would only confirm what they already believed, that cold fusion was not really real.  "  In 1994, David Goodstein described cold fusion as:"

"a pariah field, cast out by the scientific establishment. Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. Cold fusion papers are almost never published in refereed scientific journals, with the result that those works don't receive the normal critical scrutiny that science requires. On the other hand, because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for external critics, if anyone outside the group was bothering to listen. In these circumstances, crackpots flourish, making matters worse for those who believe that there is serious science going on here."

 Under that cloud, the second DOE review took place and produced unsurprising results.

While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review.

The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field, two of which were: 1) material science aspects of deuterated metals using modern characterization techniques, and 2) the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods. The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.

– Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, US Department of Energy, December 2004

There is possibly something pathological going on here, but who is the afflicted party? Going to the government -who itself cannot keep its own house in order- for answers seems an exercise in futility. It is hard to get at the truth when there are so many who seemed determined not to find it.

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest (COI) occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other.A conflict of interest can only exist if a person or testimony is entrusted with some impartiality; a modicum of trust is necessary to create it. The presence of a conflict of interest is independent from the execution of impropriety. Therefore, a conflict of interest can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs-  Wikipedia

Corruption?  Strong word.  If corruption is present in government, that would be a problem, would it not?

Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century (John R. Huizenga)

Just ordered the book.  I'd like to see the other side of the story.  I'd like to know why it is supposed to be a fiasco.

Update:

Checking out some info about Huizenga.  Quite impressive.

Come to think of it, Mallove's book may have something on him.  I'll check that and report here if I find anything.

Update:

This isn't about Huizenga, but while looking at Mallove's book, I found something that correlates with my own theory about "cold fusion" -  check this quote:

three chemists at Brookhaven National Laboratory announced a new way to pull off hot fusion: by using a particle accelerator to fire at a target tiny electrically charged crystals of heavy water- with up to 1,300 heavy water  molecules (D20) in each.  The laboratory immediately sought patents for this "cluster impact fusion"

I wrote earlier that, in comparison with Polywell and Focus Fusion, if you were to hit a small area of matter with sufficient enough energy, you could cause fusion to occur.  Here it is, somebody came up with a theory and some evidence to support it years ago.

Update:

Mallove seems to come down against Huizenga.  This is not to cast him as the bad guy, but he is definitely not open to the idea of "cold fusion".

Update:
One last thing about Huizenga.  He may have had a conflict of interest since the University of Rochester was involved in a hot fusion program.   In other words, he may have had something to gain by shooting down "cold fusion".