A.C.C. Cold Fusion update

Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Tue, 02 Sep 1997 12:02:59 +0000


I asked Arthur Clarke his current opinion. He says:

`Things are happening so fast I can't keep up with them, but the first
multi-million dollar funds have now been launched in the US and I can't
believe commercialisation can be delayed much longer. But for which process?
That's the trillion dollar question. (BLACKLIGHT - see web - seems to lead.)
I hope this is settled before I address the leaders of ASEAN at their summit
conference in Dec. and tell them that the Oil Age is over...'
=20
He kindly forwarded this report (including the weird open- and close-quote
characters):

------------------------------------

Infinite Energy Magazine
Cold Fusion Technology, Inc.
PO Box 2816 Concord, NH 03302-2816
Phone: 603-228-4516; Fax: 603-224-5975
editor@infinite-energy.com =09

PRESS RELEASE

Official Japanese New Hydrogen Energy=20
(Cold Fusion) Program to End=8B
Missed Opportunities and Botched Management

Commercial Development and Research Continues in the US, Japan, and=
Elsewhere

Concord, NH: Infinite Energy Magazine has learned that the official Japanese
cold fusion program (the New Hydrogen Energy Program), sponsored by Japan=B9=
s
MITI since 1993 will not receive continued funding beyond the spring of
1998. The New York Times, the Nikkei and Reuters have also reported this
week that MITI intends to close down the New Hydrogen Energy cold fusion
research program.

Infinite Energy reported on the astonishing weaknesses of the NHE program in
Vol. 2, No. 10, published after the Sixth International Conference on Cold
fusion (ICCF6), which was held in October 1996 in Hokkaido, Japan.
Contributing Editor Jed Rothwell pointed out several major technical
problems with the research in his ICCF6 review and in An Open Letter to
Japan's NHE Lab Directorate, written in Japanese and English, on page 28 of
Issue #10. The letter includes 17 references to the literature, and it lists
concrete problems with the protocols and materials used at the NHE lab,
including low cell temperatures, improper cell and cathode materials,
inadequate preparation and pre-testing of cathodes, and so on. These
technical criticisms did not originate with Infinite Energy. They were
suggested by Drs. Stanley Pons, Martin Fleischmann, John Bockris, Edmund
Storms, T. Mizuno, Hideo Ikegami and the others cited in the footnotes. We
pointed out that the French Atomic Energy Commission has successfully
replicated the Pons-Fleischmann IMRA boil-off experiments (originally
reported in Physics Letters A, 176 (1993) 118-129), because they were more
careful about replicating every detail of the experiment, without making any
changes.=20

The NHE is staffed mostly by scientists and engineers new to the cold fusion
field. They are on 6 to 12 month assignments to the NHE lab. We urged the
NHE researchers to pay more attention to the literature; to hire some
electrochemists for the research; and to try the techniques suggested by
these leading workers, but as far as we know they have not done so. We did
not receive any official response to the Open Letter, nor did we expect any.
Unofficially, NHE researchers denied that there is anything wrong with their
techniques, and they refused to address any of the technical points in the
Open Letter. They accused us of plotting to bring down the lab in league
with arch-enemies of cold fusion such as John Huizenga and Frank Close.

A MITI spokesman, quoted in news reports, pointed out that the $20 million
spent on cold fusion was =B3was a pittance=B2 compared with what is spent on=
other
energy programs, like nuclear fast breeder reactors. Unfortunately, Japan=B9=
s
official NHE program could have had a major impact on the world=B9s future=
in
sustainable energy=8B eliminating not only the need for fossil fuels but
dangerous and problem-plagued programs such as breeder reactors. Instead
the news about the NHE program, certain to be abused by critics of cold
fusion, will simply muddy the waters.=20

Let there be no misunderstanding: The prospective NHE closing has nothing to
do with determining whether excess energy and low energy reactions are real
or not. The evidence for excess heat and nuclear reactions at low energy is
overwhelmingly established by numerous published peer-reviewed and non-peer
reviewed papers and reports.

Excellent experimental continuing work that totally confirms the original
cold fusion claims, and more, has been done in Japan. We cite, in
particular the work of Drs. Yoshiaki Arata and Yue-Chang Zhang, which was
recently the topic of a 56-page special issue of the High Temperature
Society of Japan., =B3Solid State Plasma Fusion (=8CCold Fusion=B9)=B2 Vol.=
23,
January 1997. This work has also been published in several papers in the
Proceedings of the Japanese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Arata is an esteemed
physicist who had been instrumental in Japan=B9s hot fusion program.

Among other continuing activity in Japan, Infinite Energy has profiled the
work of Dr. Mizuno on excess energy from solid state (solid proton
conductor) cold fusion devices and established transmutation in metals of
more conventional cold fusion devices. Drs. Ohmori and Enyo have obtained
excellent excess heat results in light water systems. They have also
observed and published evidence of metal transmutation phenomena. These
scientists have been ignored in the official NHE program. In general, the
NHE program has not given serious, appropriate attention to the excess
energy phenomenon in light-water cold fusion cells, which is the preferred
embodiment in many US-based efforts.

In the United States, commercial activity in cold fusion energy has
accelerated beyond the Japanese work. Clean Energy Technologies, Inc. of
Sarasota Florida (CETI), BlackLight Power, Inc. of Malvern, Pennsylvania,
and ENECO of Salt Lake City=8B to name the more well-known efforts=8B are
developing commercial heating and electricity generating devices. Several
major utility companies have established investment positions within some of
these companies. The Cincinnati Group in Ohio has recently announced for
sale a commercial demonstration device that transmutes radioactive thorium
into benign nuclides in less than an hour. CETI, whose cold fusion heating
devices have been profiled several times on Good Morning America and
Nightline, also has a radioactivity reducing processes for which a United
States Patent has been allowed. A cold fusion New Energy Technhologies
investment fund, directed from Greenwich Venture Partners of Greenwich,
Connecticut has just been launched (see Infinite Energy, Vol.3, Issue=
#13/14.)

The New York Times, which influences all other science reporting in the
United States, has regrettably not been covering progress in cold fusion
research. Its last comprehensive report on cold fusion was on November 17,
1992, by Andrew Pollack, who is based in Japan. Mr. Pollack has not
attended cold fusion conferences in Japan or anywhere else, but he was quick
this week to report MITI=B9s decision on the NHE program. The Times report=
was
published on August 26, 1997, in an article titled =B3Japan, Long a Holdout,
Ending Cold Fusion Quest.=B2 He states that the research =B3has failed to
confirm that the phenomenon exists.=B2 This is a gross misunderstanding of=
the
situation. We also point out that New York Times science reporter, William
Broad, recently shown the work of Drs. Arata and Zhang by a representative
of Dr. Arata, refused to report on it. Broad has previously (1991) written
on accusations by cold fusion critics of alleged (and disproved) ethical
violations by Drs. Pons and Fleischmann. While giving major attention to
announcements of US hot fusion program achievements, Mr. Broad and his
US-based colleagues have not covered cold fusion in the United States or
Japan since his article in 1991.

The recent Times article by Pollack quotes Hideo Ikegami: =B3We couldn't
achieve what was first claimed in terms of cold fusion. We can't find any
reason to propose more money for the coming year or for the future.=B2 Jed
Rothwell of Infinite Energy points out that hot fusion scientist Ikegami
himself obtained positive results in his lab, which he transmitted to
Rothwell. But Ikegami never published them, for reasons that remain unclear.
Unless he is being misquoted by the New York Times, we do not understand
why he is ignoring the many positive experimental results in Japan.

The Nikkei reported the NHE story on August 24, 1997. It quotes a MITI
spokesman, =B3regrettably, we have not seen the effect in our experiments,=
=B2
but =B3we do not deny that the cold fusion effect exists.=B2

Infinite Energy Magazine will have a comprehensive report on cold fusion
research in Japan in its next issue, Issue #15, to be published in October
1997.

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The suggestion has been made that NHE's closure is a cover for continued
effective military work. But of course such a suggestion *would* be made,
if only by The Lone Gunman...

Damien Broderick