Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Another year, another name change: Cold Fusion to CECR

Each year about this time I present what's new in the field of, well,….

Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann called it "cold fusion". Fleischmann, who died in 2009, said he regretted the name. Cold fusion was more than discredited. It was the most ridiculed scientific announcement since Columbus declared he discovered the East Indies. But that didn't deter some from pursuing the research.

As mentioned last year, there now are a lot of countries, companies, universities, and individuals working on what formerly was known as cold fusion. The most notably has been Andrea Rossi's Leonardo Corporation which developed the 'reactor' called the E-Cat. The description of their technology is LENR or Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions.

Second is the Greek company, Defkalion, which started as a partnership with Rossi, but since has separated. They call their process HENI, Heat Energy from Nuclei Interactions.

The third major player is Brillouin Energy Corporation, an American company in California. Their invention is CECR, or Controlled Electron Capture Reaction. Here is a video on their web site explaining the physics of CECR.

So take your pick on what the future will call the new technology, Cold Fusion, LENR, HENI, CECR or snake oil.

There's too much going on in the field to summarize quickly, but the internet is for the interested. One major problem in discovering what is happening is the tendency for individuals to take strong positions on one side or the other. It has become controversial, as science often is. The best I can make out (I don't know) is that thousands of experiments have recorded excess heat from supposedly nuclear interactions. (Wikipedia claims "cold fusion articles are rarely published in peer reviewed scientific journals" while another article, rejected by Wikipedia, claims "There are about a thousand peer-reviewed papers published in recognized journals.")

But much of the controversy could be changing soon.
  1. ECAT, Rossi's device, is now taking pre-orders on a 1MW plant. 
  2. Defkalion left Greece for Vancouver, Canada and demoed its new Hyperion reactor at National Instruments NiWeek in August. It says it will be shipping in 2014.
  3. Brillouin entered into a formal agreement with SRI International (Stanford Research Institute) to further develop their technology towards commercialization. They also agreed with Sunset Securities for $20 million in capitalization when certain conditions are met.
I do know this: for such possibly breakthrough technology, events are progressing rapidly. Hopefully we will soon see if this is a false positive or not.

4 comments:

James R said...

For those interested, a U.S. company, Industrial Heat, announced on January 24 that it has acquired the rights to Andrea Rossi's E-Cat in the U.S. Industrial Heat is owned by a partnership, Cherokee Investment Partners. Here is an article about the acquisition.

James R said...

Hmm…Here is an article about the acquisition.

James R said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alain_Co said...

Thanks to relay the event in the LENR domain.

For a summary you can read those summaries:
http://www.lenrnews.eu/lenr-summary-for-policy-makers/
http://www.lenrftw.net/home/are-low-energy-nuclear-reaction-devices-real

about the question whether is is scientifically proven (yes), replicated (yes), published(yes), reliable(better), or is there are still survivors (none) of the (4) written critics, you should absolutely (yes ABSOLUTELY) read the (free) book of Charles Beaudette
http://iccf9.global.tsinghua.edu.cn/lenr%20home%20page/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf

Technical but accessible and didactic, with many citation for the experts (unlike the conspiracy books of Huizenga and Taubes).

Note that Defkalion seems lost in troubles, and failure to delivery.
there are serious buzz about some internal problems, break with Defkalion Europe.
After 6 month, They did not answer to question by Luca Gamberale on measurement problems, and some buzz says it is more than serious.
Their only 3rd party report is by nelson, and the condition don't allow to be definitively positive. I'm very concerned about their capacity to deliver.

However Rossi seems to have engaged the long gear with Cherokee fund.

Brillouin seems to be strangely supported through SRI and military research
http://www.lenrnews.eu/dod-darpa-and-cold-fusionlenr-are-they-watching-or-trying-to-save-usa-industry/

NASA is preparing discreetly
http://www.lenrnews.eu/about-nasa-research-are-cold-fusionlenr-planes-already-feasible/

2014 seems to be the year of cold fusion awareness... but for the real delivery I am afraid it won't be before 2015-2016.