New Energy FAQ
Source: https://www.eugenemallove.com/Writings/new_energy_FAQ.html
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Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ)About New Energy Science and
TechnologyCopyright ©2003, New Energy Foundation,
Inc.
This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
covers basic queries about New Energy science and developing
technologies. The revolutionary New Energy field concerns
spectacular new sources of energy that have achieved substantial
validation in laboratories around the world, but which are not yet
accepted by the scientific establishment. We welcome you to make
your own judgment about what constitutes substantial
validation and why the scientific establishment does not yet
accept New Energy in its various forms, but please do perform
your own examination of the important evidence that is gathered at
this and other referenced New Energy websites and publications.
Despite the great accomplishments of modern official science, we
have concluded that its organizations and journals are significantly
mired in obsolete science and technology paradigms that are holding
back progress; we hope that you will come to appreciate this. (If,
in fact, that is not your opinion already!) The existence of New
Energy R&D around the world and its under-reporting and
mis-characterization by the "mainstream" scientific media is
evidence of a profound paradigm paralysis. [...]
THE QUESTIONS...General
Questions
What
is "New Energy" and what are its major categories?
What
are the advantages of New Energy over conventional renewable
energy?
What
will the world be like in the New Energy Age?
Will
the present electric power-grid eventually disappear?
How
difficult will it be to retrofit a home or business with New
Energy technologies?
Won't
the advent of New Energy technologies terribly upset the world
economy?
Will there still be a market for
hydrocarbon fuels in the New Energy Age?
Are
there now any New Energy devices on the market that generate
electricity or produce heat and cooling?
Are
there experiments that can be performed by serious, technically
inclined amateurs - technicians, engineers, scientsists in other
fields, students - to demonstrate New Energy?
When
will the "New Energy Age" begin?
How
is New Energy R&D being funded?
[...]
If I
am a student planning to be in science or engineering and would
like to work in the New Energy field, what courses should I take
and in what fields would it be best to major?
Who
is opposing New Energy science and technology?
Who
is ignoring New Energy science and technology?
Questions About New Hydrogen Physics
Energy("Cold Fusion";
Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions, (LENR); "Hydrino" Energy;
etc.)
What
is "cold fusion"?
What
sources of information can I access that deal with cold
fusion?
What
is excess heat?
Is
cold fusion chemical, nuclear, or something else?
If
cold fusion cells are at least in part nuclear, why aren't they
extremely hot?
What
is the difference between power and energy? What are watts,
joules, kilowatt-hours and BTUs?
Why
doesn't cold fusion produce dangerous ionizing radiation and
neutrons?
What
is "hot" fusion (conventional, plasma fusion)?
What
is the present status of "hot" fusion?
How
does cold fusion differ from hot fusion?
Are
there theories that can explain cold fusion?
Is
there a future for cold fusion?
Are
there technologies other than cold fusion/LENR that could release
energy from water?
Questions About Vacuum
Energy(Zero Point Energy
(ZPE); Aether Energy; Space Energy; Orgone Energy)
What
is "vacuum energy"?
What
sources of information can I access that deal with vacuum
energy?
Who
were some of the historical scientists and inventors who have
dealt with vacuum energy?
What
experimental devices exist today that embody vacuum energy?
Is
there a connection between technologically-derived vacuum energy
and "Chi," "Qi," "Prana," and other claims of "biophysical
energies" or "subtle energies"?
Is
there any mainstream research that substantiates "biophysical
energy"?
Questions About Environmental
EnergyExtensions to and Revisions
of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
What
is "Environmental Energy"?
What
is the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
What
is Carnot efficiency?
What
sources of information can I access that deal with "environmental
energy"?
What
evidence is there that there are major flaws in the Second
Law?
What
is a "Maxwell Demon"?
What
is a "Perpetual Motion Machine of the Second Kind"?
THE ANSWERS... Answers to General
Questions
What is New Energy and what are its
major categories?In this FAQ we
capitalize the term New Energy for emphasis, so that it will not be
confused with the general expression "new energy," which depends on
one's perspective about what is "new." New Energy is the term
applied to new sources of energy that are currently not recognized
as feasible by the "scientific establishment," but for which
compelling evidence - and in some cases overwhelming evidence - exists
in at least three categories:
1. New hydrogen physics energy (a.k.a. "cold fusion,"
more generally Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions or LENR, "hydrino"
physics, and other water-based energy sources) - energy release far
beyond the normal chemical energy of hydrogen-oxygen combustion (up
to millions of times beyond).
2. Vacuum energy (Zero Point Energy or "ZPE," Aether
energy, or Space energy) - descriptions of vast energy sources from
the vacuum state.
3. Environmental energy, i.e. energy from sensible
thermal energy (in particular, the energy of molecular motion),
through significant extensions to the Second Law of Thermodynamics -
the supposedly "impossible" extraction of energy from a single
temperature reservoir.[Back to
Top]
New Hydrogen Physics
Energy"Cold Fusion," or more generically Low-Energy Nuclear
Reactions (LENR), is the large, worldwide field of scientific
investigation devoted to the work launched by Drs. Fleischmann and
Pons with their announcement at the University of Utah on March 23,
1989. This area of New Energy is among the most widely explored and
verified of the new energy sources. See, for example, the technical
paper resources at: http://www.lenr-canr.org/ or at
http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html.
Evidence for LENR consists of substantial
nuclear-magnitude excess heat (more heat output than other energy
input, and far beyond ordinary chemical explanation) in
electrochemical cells, gas-phase cells, ultrasonically activated
cells, solid state devices in hydrogen gas, etc. There is also
evidence of a surprising variety of nuclear products: helium, where
no such helium gas levels existed before the experiments; tritium (a
radioactive isotope of hydrogen); low levels of neutrons; charged
particle emissions; gamma rays; transmutation of heavy metals to
become other metals. (Yes, this sounds like "modern alchemy" and it
is!) Dr. Randell Mills, now of the BlackLight Power Corporation in
New Jersey (www.blacklightpower.com),
prior to the Fleischmann-Pons announcement pioneered a theory of
"Classical Quantum Mechanics" that allows hydrogen's electron to
drop below the conventionally understood ground-state level and thus
release energy, leaving what he calls "shrunken" hydrogen or a
"hydrino." Triggered by the Pons-Fleischmann announcement, Mills
developed a catalytic process-using other elements in contact with
the hydrogen-to release this energy. Mills and his associates, who
are pioneering a variety of emerging technologies and new forms of
matter ("hydrino hydrides"), do not agree that the excess heat in
"cold fusion" comes from nuclear reactions. On the other hand, some
cold fusion researchers report the accurate correlation of helium
product with excess heat in what amount to essentially radiationless
nuclear reactions. We are talking about different albeit related
experiments. Hydrogen in exotic environments is the common theme,
and there is common ground in many of these "cold fusion" and
"hydrino" experiments. We believe that the diverse data will
ultimately lead to a comprehensive and unified physical
understanding, which may even incorporate findings from another form
of New Energy research - "vacuum energy."[Back to
Top]
Vacuum
EnergyThis is a very controversial area of New Energy
research, even within the paradigm-breaking New Energy field. The
central idea is that what we normally think of as the vacuum of
space itself can be tapped for energy! Nonetheless, vacuum energy is
very real, based on robust experiments and devices that we have
observed and measured. Like new hydrogen physics energy, it also has
a variety of carefully conceived theoretical explanations behind
it-not all of which can be correct. In many respects, Vacuum Energy
is on as solid ground as New Hydrogen Physics Energy-provided that
the appropriate information and devices within this field are
accessed. There is, indeed, much misinformation floating around. The
field of vacuum energy actually predates the Fleischmann-Pons work
by many years, but ultimately this area of physics may provide part
of a crucial understanding of what is going on in New Hydrogen
Physics Energy.
However, the large field of claimed devices
that appear to work as "perpetual motion machines," with no
apparent fuel, not even hydrogen, is also the area of New
Energy that is most fraught with uncertainties about which devices
work and which ones do not. There is a range of quality from highly
competent and scientifically credible work to incompetence in
measurement; and, there are cases of probable outright fraud. The
basic conceptual framework of vacuum energy is that the so-called
"vacuum" of space is not really a vacuum at all, i.e. there is no
such thing as "nothingness" or a true "void." What we normally think
of as a vacuum (a space devoid of particles with mass) is actually
pulsating with energy that can be exhibited in experiments and
tapped in technological devices. The term most often associated with
this energy is Zero Point Energy, or "ZPE" for short. This comes
from standard quantum mechanics theory, which says that "quantum
fluctuations" in a "space-time electromagnetic foam" of an extremely
small granular size (far below the size of atoms) form a jiggling
field of energy. An excellent research compendium on the Zero Point
Energy viewpoint about vacuum energy is the book by Moray B. King ,
Quest for Zero-Point Energy: Engineering Principles for "Free
Energy" (2001) [...].
Another radically different perspective on vacuum
energy has led, beginning in the mid-1980s, to prototype
technological devices that generate electricity and motive power
from the vacuum, devices which we have personally examined on-site.
The theoretical model is not "ZPE," but rather a pervading
massfree form of energy that can exhibit electrical
properties, as well as anti-gravitational properties, and which can
also convert to massbound (ordinary mass) forms under the
proper circumstances. This line of investigation originated with the
work of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the pioneer of our present
electrical power generating grid of alternating current (and the
recognized original inventor of radio), and with the controversial
biomedical scientist Dr. Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), who experimented
in mid-20th Century with what he called "orgone" energy. It turns
out that both Tesla and Reich had remarkably accurate things to say
about a dynamic ether (or aether), the static
"luminiferous ether" form of which was rejected by 20th Century
physics as a carrier of light waves, following the ascendancy of
Einstein's relativity theories. Unfortunately, because of major
theoretical errors that have entered modern physics and pervade it,
an energetic, dynamic ether with properties measurable in the
laboratory was overlooked. The work of Dr. Paulo and Alexandra
Correa of Canada (http://www.aetherometry.com/ [...]) has
built on and apparently has validated the stream of aether physics
work that was begun by Tesla and Reich.
Yet another researcher of some prominence in vacuum
energy is Tom Bearden, whose book, Energy from the Vacuum,
appeared in 2002 (http://www.cheniere.com/). He
and his associates have developed and patented a so-called
Motionless Electromagnetic Generator (MEG), of whose testing
validation we are not yet sure. Still another researcher important
to vacuum energy is Kenneth Shoulders, (http://www.svn.net/krscfs)
whose well-known, patented "high density charge cluster" science and
technology has impressed a host of investigators. Shoulders has
found ways to generate microscopic, dense, moving clusters of
millions of electrons, which conventional physics understanding says
should not be able to exist because of intense electrical
repulsion.[Back to
Top]
Environmental
EnergyThis is the least prominent of the New Energy sources,
the one that has the smallest group of pioneering scientists and
inventors, but it is potentially one of the most important areas of
New Energy technologies. Its experimenters and proponents cast
significant doubt on the universal validity of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, which for over 150 years has proclaimed that it is
impossible to extract useful work from the thermal motion of atoms
and molecules using only a single temperature reservoir - with
no lower temperature reservoir to which to exhaust waste heat. Some
of this research has been reviewed and discussed at length in
articles in Infinite Energy (Issues, #29, #37, and #43),
but a recent landmark paper by physicists and a mathematician at the
University of San Diego ("A Solid-State Maxwell Demon,"
Foundations of Physics, Vol.32, pp.1557-1595, October 2002,
http://www.kluweronline.com/),
seems to offer nearly conclusive proof that devices that do create
work from a single temperature reservoir can be built. The paper
proposes a laboratory-testable, solid-state device that uses the
electric field energy of an open-gap p-n junction semiconductor
device to drive a solid-state mechanical piston. The authors used
numerical results from a commercial semiconductor device simulator
to verify their analytical model. They describe the proposed device
as a "thermally rechargeable capacitor which, in this incarnation,
is used to power a linear electrostatic motor." Thus, all the
thermal energy in the environment - in the air, water, and solid
earth - can be converted to useful work, if the environmental energy
advocates are correct, as we strongly believe they are, based on our
own thorough examination of this field, including our own laboratory
experiments. (Patents for devices invented by Kenneth Rauen, based
upon these 100% repeatable laboratory effects, have been applied for
under a for-profit corporation.)[Back to
Top]
What are the advantages of New Energy
over conventional renewable energy?Like
conventional renewable energy technologies -such as solar power and
wind power - the cost of the "fuel" for New Energy technologies is
zero or effectively zero (e.g., the cost of extracting heavy
water from ordinary water to use in LENR processes is minute
compared to the value of the energy released). In both conventional
renewable energy technologies and in New Energy technologies, there
are costs associated with the initial capital expense of the
equipment, maintenance items, etc. However, New Energy technologies
are not dependent on whether the Sun is up or on weather conditions.
(Obviously, some conventional renewables, such as geothermal energy,
do not have weather or sunlight-related constraints.) The
great advantage of New Energy technologies, however, is that they
are inherently compact and concentrated - small
units can be made to provide a source of power anywhere - such
as in homes and offices and including installation in transportation
vehicles (cars, trains, ships, airplanes, and space vehicles).
Enough is already known about the various New Energy devices now on
the drawing boards to realize that their capital cost per watt will
be substantially less than for large arrays of solar cells or farms
of wind-powered generators, as examples.
Like conventional renewables, there will be
either zero or vanishingly small pollution associated with the use
of New Energy devices. In some of the New Hydrogen Physics Energy
devices, questions might arise concerning very low levels of
radiation emitted, the effects of escaped "hydrinos," and
transmutations of metals within the devices. However, there is every
reason to believe that even these New Hydrogen Physics Energy
devices, which alter the structure of atoms within them, will be
able to be designed to be completely safe. Vacuum Energy devices and
Environmental Energy devices would have, by definition, zero
pollution. [Back to
Top]
What will the world be like in the
New Energy Age?The post-Hydrocarbon Fuel Age will be unrecognizable to
people alive today. Central station power plants belching
smoke and harmful gases will be a thing of the past: there will be
no power grid. The grid will gradually wither and die during the
transition to distributed New Energy devices, which could be
as rapid and dramatic as the transition to the personal
computer/Internet era that began in the mid-1970s. Pollution caused
by hydrocarbon-fuel combustion will be a thing of the past. In
a world of effectively free energy (no significant recurring costs
for the energy), all the world’s populations will become
richer. People will be able to be much more self-reliant,
unchained from central controlling authorities that today rule
energy use. (Governments will continue to try to tax and control the
use of energy, but they will fail - as they have failed so far in
trying to tax the Internet.) It will be possible to build
self-contained dwellings and communities anywhere that construction
materials can be brought in - in forests, atop mountains, on remote
islands, on the surface of bodies of water, and even on ocean or
lake floors! There will be no geographic localization of fuel
resources (such as in the Middle East today), so the fight over oil
will disappear as one underlying cause of conflict and war.
Cheap desalination and water pumping will make deserts bloom.
It will be extremely cheap to produce clean, potable water anywhere.
Agriculture will profoundly change, as New Energy makes available
anywhere: fertilizer, light, heat, cooling, and shelter from insect
pests. Transportation disasters in which people are burned
alive by hydrocarbon fuels will be an unimaginable nightmare of the
past; no one will think of carrying such explosive substances on
fast-moving vehicles! Through discoveries already made in the
LENR field, it will be possible to remediate existing nuclear waste -
reduce it to non-radioactive forms. And, shocking but almost certain
to happen, it will be possible to produce rare elements
cheaply through LENR reactions - yes, an age of "modern alchemy" will
emerge.
The inexorable increase in Earth’s
population will come to an end as all peoples become richer and
smarter. The new physics ratified by the New Energy
devices - based on concrete, repeatable experimental results,
not on the absurd fictions of present day archaic mainstream physics
theories - will dramatically increase the ease of space travel
in ways that are foreseeable today. Terrestrial civilization will
spread into the Solar System and beyond. We will become a true
spacefaring civilization, whose destiny will be the stars. Finally,
new knowledge about biology and medicine, gleaned from the new
insights on biophysical energies that can be shown
experimentally to pervade space (the aether), may radically
improve health. A revolution in medicine is already in the making in
some of the now proved-as-effective complementary medicine.
Complementary medicine, its modalities that do work, will
gain a proper grounding in the physics and biology of nature that
present physics does not address. These new views of life will alter
human perceptions about our true nature and those other living
beings with whom we share this planet. A Copernican-magnitude
revolution in philosophical outlook is inevitable in the New Energy
Age. [Back to
Top]
Will the present electric power-grid
eventually disappear?Yes. Most certainly, it will wither and die. Gone
will be unsightly overhead wires. Gone will be the expense
associated with maintaining the grid - a large percentage of what we
pay today for electricity. Gone will be power outages during storms.
Gone will be accidental electrocutions of workers who maintain the
grid. Gone will be the need to have residential or commercial
properties sited near an electrical power grid pole or node.
How difficult will it be to retrofit
a home or business with New Energy technologies? It will be very easy. The wiring in the house or
office that distributes electricity to lighting, outlets, and other
devices, can remain in place. The New Energy electric power
generator, which is expected to be not much bigger (and it may be
even smaller) than a typical home furnace today, will be placed
somewhere in the basement, outside, or in the living quarters of the
residence or business. It will be attached to the electrical
panel where electric power is admitted to the house today. New
Energy heating devices will simply replace existing furnaces, if the
present ones are oil, gas, wood, or coal-based, but the air, water,
or steam lines that distribute heat within the house can remain in
place. Cooling devices, such as air conditioners, will, like
furnaces, simply be replaced - the cool air distribution will occur
with the existing ductwork. Some items within the home may
have their own built-in New Energy devices. For example, it may be
that personal computers will come equipped with their own power
sources that never need replacement during the lifetime of the
product. [Back to
Top]
Won’t the advent of New Energy
technologies terribly upset the world economy? The world economy will change dramatically with the
advent of New Energy, as it has every time new technologies are
introduced, such as the printing press, the steam engine,
photography, distributed electricity, electric lighting,
automobiles, airplanes, radio, television, nuclear energy, space
travel, communications satellites, personal computers, the laser,
and the Internet. However, because of the central role of energy in
all areas of human activity - in the provision of heated and cooled
shelter, lighting, food, clean water, transportation, and power for
manufacturing - the New Energy revolution will have a much more
dramatic impact on the world economy. It will be one of the
most profound changes in human history - rather akin to the taming of
fire. Initially, when the first high-profile,
ready-for-production New Energy device is announced, there will
likely be a very big shock to stock markets and prices of fuel. But
the world will become much the better, after this initial upset has
passed. Now that you know about this possibility, you
can begin to think about preparing financially for the coming
transition. [Back to
Top]
Will there still be a market for
hydrocarbon fuels in the New Energy Age?In the New Energy Age, there will still be a market for
hydrocarbon substances (oil, natural gas, even coal), at least for a
time. These will be used in the chemical industries to make plastics
and in many other industrial processes in which these substances
have value as feedstocks. However, since the cost of generating
energy will effectively drop to zero (once the capital costs of
equipment are paid), it will be possible to use the carbon from the
carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, and the hydrogen from water,
as basic ingredients to form hydrocarbon substances - this will become
cheaper than transporting hydrocarbon substances across oceans, as
an example.
Are there now any New Energy devices
on the market that generate electricity or produce heat and cooling?
No, not as of January 2003. (We will
obviously have to update this reply in the future - we hope in the
near future!) All New Energy devices - for generating
electricity, heat, and cooling - are currently in the research and
prototype development stage. You cannot buy one of these
experimental devices - yet - from anyone. That could change at any
time. When it does, the worldwide interest in prospective
utilitarian New Energy technologies will ramp up considerably, since
it will then be very clear to many scientists, technologists, and
investors (who are now far too skeptical) that this science and
technology is for real. [...][Back to
Top]
Are there experiments that can be
performed by serious, technically inclined amateurs - technicians,
engineers, scientists in other fields, and students - to demonstrate
new energy? Yes, but these experiments
must be done with care, patience, and understanding.
• In the area of New Hydrogen Energy
Physics, Dr. Edmund Storms (Los Alamos National Laboratory,
retired), a pioneer experimenter in the cold fusion field, has
posted on http://www.lenr-canr.org/ a
complete technical paper, "How to Produce the Fleischmann-Pons
Effect." It describes how to reliably - albeit with difficulty -
produce the excess heat "Fleischmann-Pons effect" with an
electrochemical cell based on heavy water. He does not
in this article describe how to produce the heat-measuring
calorimeter that is necessary to observe the excess heat with
confidence, nor does he give details of how to make a particular
cold fusion cell. Cell construction and calorimeter
construction is a far larger topic, which requires its own
creativity and understanding, to make sure that the noise level of
the excess heat measurement is low enough to observe the excess heat
with high confidence.
• Dr. Randell L. Mills and S.P. Kneizys
published a comprehensive pioneering paper in 1991, "Excess Heat
Production by the Electrolysis of an Aqueous Potassium
Carbonate Electrolyte and the Implications for Cold Fusion,"
Fusion Technology, Vol.20, August 1991, pp.65-81. This
paper has explicit instructions for producing excess heat in
experimental apparatus with a variety of sizes. Fusion
Technology can be examined at many university engineering or
science libraries. NASA scientists reproduced this work and reported
their positive findings in NASA Technical Memorandum 107167,
February 1996. This NASA publication was reprinted in Infinite
Energy, #7,pp.62-69. These references are probably the
best way to begin to explore excess heat phenomenon in ordinary
water solutions.
• In the area of Vacuum Energy, a huge body
of experiments to measure the characteristics of the aether is
provided by Dr. Paulo and Alexandra Correa on http://www.aetherometry.com/.
These experiments involve simple sheet metal boxes, called Faraday
cages, accurate mercury thermometers, commercially available
gold-leaf electroscopes, oscilloscopes, Tesla coils (also
commercially available), and other rather simple laboratory
equipment. The simplest experiment to carry out involves
measuring the astounding thermal difference that can be detected
between nearby air and the zone slightly above a Faraday cage
surface in a darkened room. This experiment, with extensive
controls, was described in detail by the Correas in "The
Reproducible Thermal Anomaly of the Reich-Einstein Experiment Under
Limit Conditions," Infinite Energy, #37, pp.12-21. A
guide to other aether-measurement experiments is to be found in
Eugene Mallove’s review of the Correa work posted on their site,
"The Correa Science and Technology: An Appreciation." It
designates which of their downloadable monographs have hands-on
experiments that can be performed.
• In the area of Environmental Energy, there
are some straightforward laboratory experiments, which Kenneth Rauen
of New Energy Research Laboratory plans to describe in published
work in 2003 or 2004 (after patenting issues are resolved). Watch
this page for further notice about this publication.
[Back to
Top]
When will the "New Energy Age"
begin?In some sense it has begun
already, given the quickening pace of a diverse group of
technologies that are under development. The New Energy Age
will accelerate dramatically as soon as a pre-production prototype
New Energy device emerges that is "anointed" - unequivocally declared
to be real in the judgment of a major mainstream media
outlet, such as Time, Newsweek, Business Week,
a major daily newspaper, or a major television network. Sad to say,
it will require such media recognition before society begins to move
in a big way! In the meantime, the science and technology
proceeds without widespread media acclaim - apart from the occasional
favorable article, which still does not declare that the particular
New Energy source has been established to be real with zero
doubt. Wild times will ensue when a major publication
does declare a New Energy device to be indisputably real. A
media frenzy of almost unparalleled magnitude will then rock the
global psyche. If the Fleischmann-Pons effect had been robust
and easily reproducible - it was not - the New Energy Age would have
gotten into full swing in 1989. If the U.S. Department of
Energy report on cold fusion in 1989 had been balanced, not a
reckless rush to an unethical, negative judgment - as it most
certainly was - a widely recognized scientific revolution would have
occurred in the early 1990s. The New Energy Age would by now be well
under way. Citizens of the world can "thank" the U.S.
Department of Energy’s ERAB (Energy Research Advisory Board) report
for this travesty. [Back to
Top]
How is New Energy R&D being
funded?Given the importance and reality
of New Energy, a huge amount of investment money, by right, would
now be flowing into the field. It is not. By and large, potential
investors and government agencies are not convinced.
Therefore, the general media have not been convinced about New
Energy - and ignore it or ridicule it. Money talks! And when there is
little or no money in something, the media do not talk about it. It
is a vicious Catch-22: insufficient R&D funding to bring about
the robust new Energy devices necessary to make a
breakthrough with the general media, which coverage would, in turn,
prompt the funding required to develop the robust devices. Despite
this terrible, illogical circumstance, exceptionally good people and
groups have, indeed, invested in New Energy already.
Here are some of the higher profile cases, but this is
not to be taken as a comprehensive list - the funding
situation is in flux:
• The Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI) put at least $6 million into cold fusion work, mostly at SRI
International, until the mid-1990s. EPRI published a final report
confirming the Fleischmann-Pons discovery. EPRI is the research arm
of most of the U.S. electric utility industry. Dr. Michael
McKubre’s group at SRI International has continued to work on cold
fusion/LENR through selected grants from advanced military research
groups and from Japanese and other sources.
• The patented Patterson power cell
technology in the LENR area received self-funding from Dr. James
Patterson and several private investors, but Clean Energy
Technologies, Inc. of Sarasota, Florida fell into hard times for
reasons unrelated to the validity of the basic patented technology.
(A significant buy-out offer, reportedly $15 million, was tendered
by Motorola in the mid-1990s, but the offer was not accepted.)
• The U.S. Navy funded several cold fusion
efforts at a handful of federal laboratories since 1989. In 2002,
the U.S. Navy published a positive report, encouraging new research
to be funded.
• Several investors funded ENECO of Salt
Lake City, for its LENR work, which has now been put on hold.
That company has now moved into the area of patented advanced
thermal energy conversion systems.
• Dr. Mitchell R. Swartz, of Jet Technology
in Massachusetts, has primarily self-funded his own cold fusion/LENR
work - as well as a monumental effort to overcome patenting
obstacles at the USPTO.
• Dr. Les Case, of Fusion Power, Inc. in New
Hampshire, has pioneered and self-funded one of the most impressive
forms of LENR reactions, gas phase "catalytic fusion," a process
which has been confirmed at SRI International.
• Privately-held BlackLight Power
Corporation, of Cranbury, New Jersey, has received by far the
largest investment influx from several power companies and many
private investors - an estimated $10 to $30 million. There
continue to be reports of an impending IPO.
• Since 1987, Dr. Paulo and Alexandra Correa
have expended some $1.2 million of their own funding into developing
their patented Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge (PAGDTM) reactor technologies, which generate
electrical power and drive special types of spinner electric motors.
• China, France, India, Italy, Japan, and
Russia each have their own way of funding New Energy research in the
LENR area. Italy at present seems to have the most actively funded
program. Several Italian corporations pursue active R&D
programs. Similar corporate funding exists in Japan (e.g. Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries Advanced Technologies Center), and university
professors in Japan continue to pioneer in cold fusion
research. A large, mis-managed research effort was launched by
Japan’s MITI government agency, the so-called "New Hydrogen Energy"
(NHE) program. It was abandoned in the mid-1990s after an
estimated $30 million expenditure. Though many scientists in that
program continue their research, the ending of the official funding
has been used in anti-cold fusion attacks.
• Dr. Daniel Cavicchio and Dr. Eugene
Mallove helped launch the New Energy Partners, LLC investment fund
for New Energy, which did manage to raise funding for several of the
struggling cold fusion companies. This NEP initiative is
currently in a holding pattern.
• Various philanthropic individuals, such as
former heads of a few U.S. corporations, supported and in some cases
continue to support Cold Fusion and other New Energy projects.
Other individuals with high technology backgrounds have selectively
invested in New Energy technologies, quietly and privately.
• The non-profit (501c3) corporation, New
Energy Foundation, Inc., was founded by Dr. Eugene Mallove and
colleagues in New Hampshire in late 2002. It is intended to
help fund New Energy R&D worldwide through select grants to New
Energy scientists and companies. [...] [Back to
Top]
[...]
If I am a student planning to be
in science or engineering and would like to work in the New Energy
field, what courses should I take and in what fields would it be
best to major? It would be most
useful for you to major in any of the basic sciences (physics,
chemistry, biology, materials science) or in electrical, mechanical,
or aerospace engineering. As you take your courses, be aware that
your professors will, for the most part, not take kindly to
questions and comments that suggest that there may be major cracks
in the foundations of knowledge that they are dispensing. Learn from
this! You will be observing a paradigm shift in
progress. Watch what happens when you confront your professors
with technical papers and news reports about New Energy. You may be
amazed at their responses. There is room for all kinds of people in
the New Energy field - business people, environmentalists,
architects - not only scientists and technologists. If you are not yet
in college, why not consider doing a school report about some aspect
of New Energy? Writing skills will be needed aplenty. There
will be much to write about as a new world of possibilities opens up
for humankind. The field especially needs good science
journalists - those who do not follow the pack-mentality that is so
prevalent. [Back to
Top]
Who is opposing New Energy science
and technology?Only fools and
small-minded people would oppose research on something so
wonderful - even if there were only a 10% chance that it was correct
(and the true percentage is far higher - 100%, in our opinion).
Sad to say, there are plenty of fools arrayed against New
Energy. Most of them are in academia and in government agencies
charged with managing scientific research - though there are
outstanding exceptions. To paraphrase and turn the tables on the
enemies of New Energy in their attacks against frontier
researchers, "This shows that a Ph.D. is no guarantee against
foolishness." There are plenty of science Ph.D.s and even
Nobel laureates who have obscenely attacked cold fusion, vacuum
energy, hydrino physics, and investigations into loopholes in the
Second Law of Thermodynamics. Their credentials are
worthless. What they have to say on the subject of New Energy
usually amounts to no more than uninformed bigotry. These
people apparently believe that science has come to an end - that the
broad outlines of physics and biology, as described in current
texts, are on absolutely secure grounds. One of the greatest
buffoons in the sad array of enemies is Robert Park of the American
Physical Society and the University of Maryland, whose "What’s New"
electronic column gives weekly cues to an army of incompetent
"science journalists," who then misinform other journalists, the
establishment’s so-called "scientists," and cowering government
bureaucrats and politicians.
Many people assume that it must be the "oil
companies" who are blocking New Energy research. Not so! In
our view, these large companies are fundamentally too stupid to
understand what is about to hit them. Their executives all
have "golden parachutes" anyway, so they do not really fear
that a complete collapse of the hydrocarbon economy will hurt them
individually. Moreover, a handful of people from existing energy
companies have, in fact, already shown that they are prepared to
jump ship and get involved in New Energy. [Back to
Top]
Who is ignoring New Energy science
and technology?For almost 14 years
now - the time since the Fleischmann-Pons announcement - we have
observed a very strange phenomenon. Those who one might expect would
have the greatest interest in and enthusiasm for New Energy, show no
interest in it at all - in fact provably (it has been brought
to their attention) they deliberately ignore it. These
are the establishments of activist environmental groups! In
toto, these groups raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year in
contributions for their environmental causes, and they do do much
good work. However, apparently they are very threatened by the
possibility that their leadership in protecting the
environment will be upstaged by a radically different solution for
environmental ills, which they know little if anything about and
which they have not championed. Also holding them back, there is a
strong anti-technology sentiment among these groups - quite a Luddite
streak. Real technological solutions are not their cup of
tea. So they proclaim that the solution to the world’s ills
is, amazingly - hydrogen! Only when they talk
about hydrogen they insist that solar power and wind power will be
required to generate this hydrogen from water - never is
there the merest mention of the possibility of cold fusion or other
New Hydrogen Physics Energy solutions, which they most certainly
have heard about.
It might be argued that these environmentalists
have just absorbed the physics establishment’s verdict on New
Energy, but we think that is not a credible hypothesis. They
are so anti-establishment to begin with, the problem lies somewhere
else: their arrogant need be in charge so that they can continue to
play to the political and financial parties that support
them. It may be that some of these groups will have a change
of heart and will some day do what they should have been doing for
over a decade - support New Energy, or talk about it at least
as one possibility! But we are not holding our breath.
When cold fusion was announced on March 23, 1989, within days or
weeks - before there was any way to know one way or the other whether
the cold fusion claims would hold up - we had these prominent
environmental figures say these absurd things about cold fusion
(again, this was in 1989): Jeremy Rifkin, "The fusion findings
are the worst news that ever happened. Right when we are beginning
to develop a global awareness of the problems of global society,
here come some scientists saying we don’t have to deal with these
problems." Amory Lovins, "Most of the costs of fusion will be in the
stuff you wrap around it to get electricity, from the turbine, to
the plant site, to the health physicists and other clean up services
you need, all of which will make it at least as expensive as
fission. The right place for a fusion reactor is where we have
one - in the Sun, 93 million miles away." Today these propagandists
promote the environmentalists "hydrogen economy" - while failing to
mention that there may be or are energy sources far
more appropriate to solving the world’s environmental ills. In
truth, these activists do not really want to solve these
problems. They want to be in the public eye talking about them and
collecting money for them. They crave - and they get - the
adoration of the mainstream press. [Back to
Top]
Answers to Questions on New Hydrogen Physics
Energy Note: A Summary of Where the Field Stood in Early
2000So as not to unnecessarily repeat
ourselves, please realize that many questions about New Hydrogen
Physics Energy are answered in Dr. Eugene Mallove’s 8,500-word Memorandum
to the White House (http://www.infinite-energy.com/resources/memotowhhouse.html)
"The Strange Birth of the Water Fuel Age." Please read
it. That memorandum was requested by the Clinton White House in
early 2000, thanks to the prompting of our supporter, Sir Arthur C.
Clarke. Unfortunately, nothing was done about it by the previous
Administration, and nothing has been done about it by the present
Bush Administration, to which the identical Memorandum was
re-submitted. None of this is surprising to us any longer. The
abdication of scientific and environmental responsibility by Federal
officials in the matter of cold fusion is appalling and
unconscionable. Note well: The Memorandum asked for
no Federal funding for research in this area. It simply
asked for one thing: "Mr. President, you need do only one thing now:
Publicly state that you are going to investigate this matter and
then do it." Even this very simple action has not been taken.
What is "cold fusion"?
The collection of phenomena that has
come to be called "cold fusion" was discovered by professors Martin
Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in the mid-1980s, who used their own
money (about $100,000) to perform the electrochemical experiments
that led to their announcement at a press conference on March 23,
1989 at the University of Utah. One of the most intense
controversies in the history of science erupted almost immediately.
The phenomena reported by chemists Fleischmann and Pons defied then
current understandings of how nuclear reactions could occur - they
were never thought to be able to happen under such mild, modest
temperature conditions (with the exception of radioactive decay). In
a small, vacuum-insulated glass cell they had electrically split
heavy hydrogen (deuterium) from oxygen in the molecules of a
heavy-water solution. The heavy hydrogen was compressed into a
palladium metal electrode, after which the cold fusion effects
emerged after days and weeks of careful measurement. The reaction
products in "cold fusion" were not present in the expected amounts
for normal high-temperature plasma fusion (hot fusion at
millions of degrees, such as in the cores of stars). Even if such
novel reactions were agreed to be occurring at all, that they were
not producing intense neutron or gamma radiation (The very fact that
Fleischmann and Pons were still alive!) caused great consternation
and paradigm paralysis in members of the scientific establishment.
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