Vote me up! See:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000004qPn&srPos=1&srKp=087
This is the message from the news section.
Here is another cold fusion related message, quoted in full:
The Department of Engergy should not actively
discourage privately-funded energy research that
it does not choose to fund itself
In implementing its energy research program, the
new administration should NOT use its influence
in such a way as to actively discourage
privately-funded research that goes in directions
the government has not chosen to fund itself. I
have personal experience with a previous
administration that discouraged private research.
In 1989, 1990 and part of 1991, I was a member of
a small company that was designing a
privately-financed cold nuclear fusion research
project. There was one item we needed that we
couldn't provide for ourselves--a neutron
detector. So we sought to enter into a contract
with a nearby university that had a nuclear
engineering department and a neutron detector,
for a location to perform our tests, for use of
its neutron detector, and for technical advice in
designing the experiment. We had a nuclear
engineering professor who was interested in
working with us. However, for almost two years,
the university balked. Ultimately, a high
administrative officer of the university told us
(I was personally present to hear this) that the
university was afraid to proceed with the project
because the U.S. Department of Energy had let it
be known that they intended to withdraw grant
funding from any institution that allowed itself
to become involved in cold fusion research.
Ultimately, the university agreed to allow us to
run a single test (recall that Edison required
several hundred tries in inventing a
commercializable light bulb) on the condition
that we maintain extreme secrecy. In subsequent
years, most of the university's nuclear
engineering funding was lost and it disbanded its
nuclear engineering department, because the U.S.
government largely abandoned nuclear energy
research as a priority (not because we breached
secrecy). The US Department of Energy should not
attempt to to intimidate private entities to
abandon research directions it does not support itself.
0 Comments ยป Posted by
<http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/ideaProfile.apexp?c=09a800000004fo6&u=00580000001miFz>Ian_Johnson
to
<http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/ideaList.apexp?c=09a800000004fo6&lsi=0&category=Energy+and+Environment>Energy
and Environment on 1/12/2009 5:20 PM
- Jed
