Steve Krivit put up a provocative and insightful video on YouTube that has gone almost unnoticed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bujrxqwRwc0&feature=channel_page It centers on the Frascatti results, and the internal political workings and machinations, related to LENR in Italy. A similar situation was probably going on here in the USA, behind the scenes. The take-way message for me was the brief blip at the end - where the producer of the piece is trying desperately to make sense of the whole thing. He come to the almost the identical conclusions that many of us have come to, over the years. My first post on it was 15 years ago. It all goes back to the politics of uranium, and particularly depleted U as a disruptive fuel source which would render as worthless a large infrastructure related to enriching U (with the military implications); then there is the related issue of proliferation; and finally there is the transfer of "expertise" from one entrenched group and the loss of prestige (and of high paying jobs) for the keepers of the faith in hot fusion and enrichment, to a the group of raggedy outsiders. We as a nation do not want individual (or low lever) control over energy resources. That entrenched group of about a quarter million mostly PhDs and top-notch brain power has failed us miserably the past five decades, and wasted billions of R&D dollars on dead-end programs that almost any grad student today can see has zero chance of financial viability. I get sick to my stomach watching the Major Network and Smiling Politician back-slapping adulation over such incredible boondoggles as the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. It is almost criminal in the sense that it CANNOT ever be financially viable. Thinking small. This is almost anti-American. If we cannot Super-Size it, then it can't be good for Joe the Plumber. The final minute of this video is most thought provoking. It brings back flashes of the Spanish Inquisition, and other instances where an overwhelming but misguided majority opinion can easily quash the minority (and correct) opinion. Fortunately the torture devices are no longer physical. OTOH perhaps burning at the stake is preferable in some ways. At least its all over quickly. Jones
