New Energy FAQ [Part 1/3]

New Energy FAQ

To AKRONOS Main Page Table of Contents 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.