I thought the overall quality of papers at ICCF-14 was better than
previous conferences. The field seems to be getting more
professional. As David Nagel said to me, "if someone wandered in off
the street, they would think this is a normal scientific conference.
Most of the presentations were about research that has been reported
before, and that is progressing. There was a lot of impressive work
from Italy along conventional lines, such as Violante (paper #12),
Castagna (52) and Sarto (53). I think there were fewer "rehashes" of
previous results with no new data.
The replications of Iwamura's method such as Hioki (29) are not
impressive. They have the sample installed upside-down for some
unfathomable reason. Why do people do things like that?
Here are some papers that caught my attention because they are
unexpected or novel, to me, anyway:
Cravens & Letts (4, 63) and Letts & Hagelstein (81). They finally got
laser stimulation to work again, based on advice from Peter
Hagelstein. It stopped working after they ran out of a particular
type of palladium, and they could not get the result again in 50+
attempts over 3 years (I think they said). They finally tried the
wavelengths Peter suggested (8, 15, 20 THz) and the effect now turns
on reproducibly. Not only does the heat appear when the laser is
applied, but when the laser is turned off the reaction stops. They
turned on a particular cathode a second time after putting it aside for months.
The paper from Letts & Hagelstein (81) just came into my computer 2
minutes ago. I hope I can upload it soon.
Celani (17). This is the abstract I uploaded just now. They claim
they are getting 5 watts consistently with only milligrams of
palladium, and they have improved the output ratio by a factor of 80
over the past 6 months. Some people doubt the calorimetry, but it
seems unlikely to me that it is a 5-watt mistake. I hope this is
independently replicated soon. Celani said he is making rapid
progress partly because he is being funded by a corporation and they
pushed him to produce "practical results" quickly. He told me he is
glad they insisted. So am I.
Celani hopes that he can soon increase the ratio of output power to
input by a factor of 5. This would be a smaller improvement than he
has made in the last 6 months. If he can do this, and produce 10 or
20 W absolute, he thinks he can use thermoelectric devices to make a
self-sustaining cell that runs for weeks or months on its own,
unplugged, without any external energy input. That would be the Holy
Grail of cold fusion. An exciting possibility, but let's believe it
when we see it.
David & Giles (77). A confusing title and a rather blurry abstract.
What these people have (or think they have, anyway) is a cold fusion
battery. It outputs microwatts of electricity. Fairly high voltage, I
recall it was 1 or 2 V, but very low amperage. It is 0.5 V per
junction and I think they have 2 or 3 lined up.
There is some slight concern that what they have is a conventional
chemical battery. They acknowledge that and are taking steps to rule
it out. If they can boost the power and run it for a long time,
beyond the limits of chemistry, I would feel a lot more confidence.
A cold fusion battery is another Holy Grail of cold fusion. (Not sure
how many Holy Grails are permitted.) Electricity is by far the most
useful form of energy.
Mizuno (59). We have discussed this here. The paper will be available
as soon as I get off my butt and finish editing it.
Mizuno was upset with the conference organizers for shoving his and
other interesting experimental results into the last day. I agree
that experimental results should be the focus of cold fusion. It was
a shame that Cravens, Letts and Hagelstein's laser stimulation was
pushed into a poster session.
I was in Pennsylvania until yesterday, doing absolutely nothing, far
from telephone or Internet. I have to get back to work. I should
probably upload a News item about the ACS meeting now underway in
Philadelphia. The News section at LENR-CANR.org is not our
outstanding feature, mainly because I often do not hear the News
until it is stale. I was only vaguely aware of the ACS conference. I
do not pay attention to important developments and I tend to have
tunnel vision, focusing on whatever paper I am editing or trying to
understand at the moment. Go to Krivit's website for up-to-the minute
reports, or the Atomic Motor Blog for news that isn't news at all, such as:
Bill Gates Surprises Energy Debate (Spoof )
That's getting kind of old, Jonathan.
- Jed
