Update on Rossi's LENR and Chennai Cold Fusion Conference

Brian Westenhaus provides an updated look at Rossi's Nickel-Hydrogen low energy nuclear reaction project.

Rossi hasn’t been waiting around. As it sits reports are saying that one customer – a newly formed consortium of energy distributors – should exist in Greece, and two others in the United States. These customers will sell energy catalysts in Europe and the USA. It seems the Greek media knows the Rossi catalyser is going to affect their country.

Andrea Rossi, founder and chief technology officer at Leonardo Corporation, gets a royalty on sales. Sergio Focardi is being taken care of with a commercial agreement with Rossi.

At the core of this is a metal tube of 1-2 liters containing as yet unknown catalysts, to which approximately one gram of 99.999 percent pure nickel powder is introduced. It’s then pressurized with hydrogen to between 2 and 20 bar.

The contents are heated by an electrical resistance source at a power of about 1 kW, which is then lowered to about 700 W.

The reaction starts producing 10-12 kW of power, which in Bologna was used to heat water to 101º C. During the demonstration, 13 liters of water were vaporized in approximately one hour.

The reaction forms copper – according to Rossi, higher levels of copper than nickel have been detected after the reaction. _New Energy and Fuel

Reportedly, Rossi is beginning to manufacture the reactors in Miami Florida.

In Chennai India, the 16th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science this week produced a call for inter-disciplinary studies in "cold fusion."

Inaugurating the conference, Mustansir Barma, Director, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, called for a deeper engagement by the scientific community in the new area.

Pointing out that the “disparity of scales” in the postulation of a lower energy phenomenon driving a high energy reaction was at the heart of the problem in getting a wider acceptance, he said some of the questions that scientists need to find answers for were how condensed nuclei can influence nuclear physics and whether the phenomenon can influence nuclear properties.

Later, interacting with reporters, William Collis, US scientist, pointed out that the big difference with the new discipline of condensed matter nuclear was that it required very modest levels of investment. This has led to several small-scale individual and group research efforts across the world.

M. Srinivasan, chairman, ICCF organising committee, said interest was reviving in this discipline and the potential it seemed to hold even though the phenomena was not yet fully explained in terms of textbook physics.

US scientists David Nagel and Michael Melich said inter-disciplinary research was the only way forward to establish cold fusion as hard science. _TheHindu

Nuclear scientist M. Srinivasan stated from Chennai that scientists are now closer to solving the energy crisis, thanks to Rossi's and Focardi's work.

Speaking at a tutorial school on the theme, ‘Introduction to the Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions’, he said the recent development involved a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor that could produce a few kilowatts of thermal energy . Its significance was that it watered down the conventional theory of relying on high temperatures for nuclear reactions. Low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) or cold fusion refers to nuclear fusion of atoms at conditions close to room temperature, in contrast to that of well-understood fusion reactions such as high-energy experiments.

India started research in this field in 1989, after scientists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons discovered the phenomenon of cold fusion in March 1989. However, research suffered a blow in mid-1990s due to lack of consensus among mainstream scientists and the US denunciation of it.

But now, the research has once again gained momentum. In fact Dr S Kailas, director of physics group on LENR at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, announced that the group wanted youth to start working from where the older generation has left. The tutorial - organised by Indian Physics Association, Federation of Science Clubs of Tamil Nadu and The Science Club of Chennai - saw the participation of a large number of students.

On the positives, Srinivasan said low energy reactors do not have to go critical and the coolant could be even water. No reports of significant levels of radioactivity are associated with them either. When compared to a normal reactor, it does not use uranium, plutonium or tritium.

Research professor at the LENR laboratory of George Washington University David Nagel told Express that LENR could help produce clean water. Though products associated with LENR would come out in a year, it would take another five years before the reactors go commercial as it involved validation and independent testing. _IE

One would naturally expect researchers into low energy nuclear reactions (LENRs) to be guardedly optimistic following reports of the Rossi/Focardi work. The prediction that LENR will go commercial within 5 years is decidedly optimistic, and should be viewed sceptically.

On the other hand, if an inexpensive way of tapping into non-radiative, small-sized nuclear reactions has been found, the discovery could well provide some of the tools needed for more viable pioneering on Earth, the seas, and in space.