In the last BTE post I wrote of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR): “With these measurements completed I’m starting to think we are witnessing an energy revolution in the making. If testing continues to hold up – and at this point I think that it will – this is a really, really big deal.”
The reason I say “and at this point I think that it will” hold up is due to more than just the new tests run on Andrea Rossi’s ECAT by independent experts.
Consider the broader scope for evidence that Low Energy Nuclear Reaction devices will soon be with us.
First, many companies claim to be on the verge of having marketable LENR products. Three are Brillouin Energy Corporation in California, Defkalion Green Technologies in Greece, and Kresenn Ltd in the UK.
Brillouin Energy Corporation has just raised $20 million more in venture capital funding from Sunrise Securities Corporation. So if it was just one inventor claiming to have a LENR device, I would be far more reluctant to say that LENR devices likely work. But there is a race going on to get to market with LENR devices. And there is also a lot of scrambling going on to protect IP with patents. (BTW, you can’t blame people for not telling you exactly how their devices work to create excess heat.)
Second, scientists heading these companies having been working on LENR devices for many years. If they did not believe something here is real – meaning that genuine excess heat can be measured and this heat cannot be explained by known chemical processes – they would not be devoting so much of their life’s work to this.
Thirdly, many reputable scientists beyond the guys at the companies above now believe something is going on with LENR. Listen to Dr. Joseph Zawodny at NASA. Watch this talk by Dr. Frank Gordon. You can tell these are serious people that believe they have found something. And there are many, many more scientists doing LENR research where they believe they have found results. MIT claims to have a LENR device that has run for 6 months. SRI International, a research lab in Menlo Park, CA, one of the largest contract research institutes in the world, will soon sign a contract with Brillouin Energy Corporation. Dr. Michael McKubre of SRI recently independently evaluated the Brillouin Boiler and subsequently became a member of their science advisory board. Listen to him here.
Fourth, theories are evolving to explain LENR devices. For example see this slide set of a theory be researcher Lewis Larsen. Listen to him explain LENR here. He is pretty convincing that LENR devices are possible and he seems level headed. (And it’s really interesting that LENR devices are taking advantage of the “weak interaction” forces in atoms, something neglected in energy technologies to date.)
Fifth, the ECAT is now for sale! You can order one here. As people buy these and use them, the proof may soon be in the pudding.
In summary, the evidence is pretty strong that these claimed Low Energy Nuclear Reactions are real, and all the research will likely soon start leading to commercial products.
In a future post I’ll tell more of the benefits if LENR devices are real.
Well, they aren’t exactly “for sale” yet, you can only “sign up” to be prioritized when they do become available. You cannot order now. But I do see your point. Looking forward to more info on how this could specifically be applied to benefit the Enterprise.
Is this turns out to be real and a new serious way of producing power, lets hope they don’t get a very broad patent… Imagine how the world would be like now if the piston engine was patented or the turbine
Lewis Larsen, mentioned in the post, says that hundreds (or thousands of patents) will be written around LENR devices. Yes, hopefully nobody nails a really board one.
And actually, I don’t think anyone is really understands for certain how these devices work. In fact Rossi was having trouble getting a patent because the patent office said the device didn’t abide my known physics. Rossi says he knows how it works, but it seems to me that it’s still speculation about what is truly going on at the atomic level. What is needed are experiments to validate theories of what is going on, and these experiments have to be replicated many times by other researchers.
But if it works, it works, that is what is most important. Eventually there will be a good, well-validated atomic model to explain it all. And once that model is in place, that will drive further refinements of LENR technology. A valid theory leads to new insights and new ideas for technologies.
Out of curiosity, how exactly would it be used on the Enterprise?
I will do a post on this soon.
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