Mike Carrell wrote: "Cold Fusion", "LENR" yet lack some fundamental understanding of the > phenomena to enable control and scale-up to commercikal usefulness.
I think the nanoparticle approach has probably overcome the control and scaling problems. > Only very recently have the efforts of Steve Krivit, and others, has the > tide begun to turn. Krivit has done a great job on the public relations front. That's important! But he has not made any technical contributions as far as I know. Frankly, in my opinion, in the last 10 years, Arata is the only person who has made significant progress, and he is the only one who deserves credit for pushing cold fusion ahead. Others have tried. The people at ENEA have learned a lot about materials and they are making real progress. Laser stimulation and the Superwave technique have improved the performance of bulk palladium electrochemical cold fusion. But these improvements are minor, and incremental, and at this pace it would take decades or centuries to lead to a practical device. In contrast -- as I said -- the nano-particle approach might lead to a practical device a couple of months from now. That's not a sure thing, but it is possible. It will take someone with real money and a real, fully equipped industrial lab decides to get serious and make a scaled up device. The people at Kobe U. are doing the best they can but they are working on a shoestring. (Various other people have claimed they have made breakthroughs, but they have not been independently replicated, so it is impossible to say whether they really have or not. Only Arata and the Superwave people have actually been confirmed.) > Millions have been invested in laboratories around the world without a > 'breakthrough' . . . I disagree. If Kidwell's results are not proof of a breakthrough, I do not know what would be. > No matter how enthusiatic the 'claque', "theory" does not tell us what to > do, what to spend money on. > Theory would be nice but it is not essential. Many technologies have been developed without a theory, albeit not often in modern times. > Meanwhile Mills announced to as investment group expectations of a working > prototype this year with scale-up to the megawatt powr plants next year. A Mills power generator has not been independently replicated (or at least independently tested), so there is no way to tell whether this claim is right or mistaken. If Mills turns on an actual power generator and shows it to the world and starts selling electricity, then of course independent replication will not longer be needed. That would be equivalent to flying an airplane in public in 1908. But until he is replicated or he does a public demo, HE HAS NO CREDIBILITY. Period. I wish him all the success in the world, but I do not give him a free pass. Everyone has to follow the rules: either the rules of experimental science, or the real-world inventor who proves to the world his machine works. Mills does not get an exemption. Neither did Fleischmann and Pons or Arata. > At Rowan university, members of the chemistry faculty, using commercially > available chemicals, were able to create hydrino-bearing compounds. That is not the same as making a power generator, or even an Arata-style self-sustaining heater. > Bottom line: the physical existence of the hydrino state of hydrogen can no > longer be reasonably doubted. Rowan has also repeatedly verified the 50+ kW, > 1 megajoule energy burst from a half-gram of BLP 'solid fuel'. > When several others -- 4 or 5 at least -- also verify this independently, using different instrument types, then we should believe them. Not one moment before! I am sure that Mills and the people at Rowan are honest and sincere but I have seen many people fool themselves. Many results that the researchers were convinced were rock solid have turned out to be nothing but a misunderstanding or wishful thinking. (Wishful thinking works both ways. At CalTech they looked straight at a clear, 1 deg C excess heat signal and managed to convince themselves it was an instrument error, even though they had no evidence for such an error and they made no effort to confirm it.) - Jed
