There have been further significant developments in LENR since my last report and perhaps the most important in terms of its academic respectability is that the prestigious Aarhus Nano Technology University in Denmark will be partnering with the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project, to conduct open science research into LENR. This was explained in detail, together with some history, by MFMP project leader Bob Greenyer during his presentation to an invited group of interested persons in Silicon Valley, fully half of whom were Venture Capitalists(!) The project will be overseen by a professor of Chemistry, Kim Daasbjerg. One graduate student will work on the project full-time and another part-time.

So this will be the arrival of a new generation of “serious academic muscle” to LENR, both in terms of qualified manpower and professional laboratory facilities. By itself, it may not yet herald the “tipping point” that might finally neutralize Professor Price’s Reputation Trap but, combined with another report, this time from Japan, it may. In this, researchers in the Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS) Department at Tohoku University, Japan have reporting successful production of excess heat in experiments that are apparently still ongoing. Most importantly, in this paper (translated by LENR stalwart Jed Rothwell), they claim to have developed a process that is 100% reproducible. If the claim stands up, it will answer the long standing objection of the LENR skeptics – that the effect cannot be consistently reproduced. If it does result in a recipe that all other scientists (including at Aarhus) can replicate anywhere in the world, it will be “game, set and match”. Granted, some hard core skeptics may then adopt a fall-back position and question whether this particular procedure could ultimately produce industrial amounts of net heat but, if they did, they would be shifting their ground: the Japanese researchers have seemingly demonstrated that the currently accepted laws of Physics have been broken and it will be time to break out the champagne – or perhaps, in this case, the sake!

So the focus of LENR research may have drifted away from Andrea Rossi, who is still exchanging legal salvos with Industrial Heat, while working on safety issues around his latest version of the E-Cat, the QuarkX. On the other hand, Robert Godes’ Brillouin Energy, Rossi’s major competitor in terms of tangible industrial progress, is seemingly untroubled by significant legal complications and Godes has recently produced this investor-friendly video.

However, three significant conferences focused on open research into LENR will be starting shortly. In the first, Ruby Carat, publisher of ColdFusionNow, documentary filmmaker and long-time advocate of cold fusion/LENR will host a Webinar on Saturday, September 24, starting at 10 am CDT (3PM GMT). Next will come a Satellite Symposium on September 28-30, at Xiamen University in China and then the main one, the ICCF20 Conference in Sendai, Japan. Note that representatives from the above-cited Tohoku University will be presenting at ICCF20, along with a virtual who’s who of open science research into LENR. Neither Rossi nor Godes will be there (that I am aware), which is a shame but it does highlight the opposing forces of open science on one hand and IP-guarding commercialization on the other.

There have been other recent developments, including an article in New Scientist but, in the light of the above, its conclusions may already be out of date. So, for now, let’s see what new revelations the above three conferences produce or verify. See you again shortly.

P W Power
September 2016