Low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), also known as cold fusion, use chemical processes to create energy from fusion reactions without the need for magnetic fields or lasers. Despite being discredited in 1989, LENR has continued to be studied by government and academic research laboratories. Recent experiments in Italy have shown positive power generation, and NASA is interested in the potential of LENR. The three main approaches to LENR include palladium-deuterium reactions, nickel-hydrogen reactions, and muon-catalyzed reactions. While the success of LENR remains unknown, it offers enormous potential for clean, inexpensive energy.
A low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) is an atomic-molecular-scale fusion experiment that relies on certain chemical processes to create excess energy from a fusion reaction instead of using the enormous pressures and confinement processes of magnetic fields, lasers or electrical impulses on which traditional fusion energy research is based. The first evidence that low-energy nuclear reactions might be possible, originally called cold fusion, was demonstrated in 1989, but was quickly discredited as global attempts to reproduce the scientific results of these experiments met with unpredictable success. Since that time, LENR has received a reputation in the world media as largely fraudulent, when, in fact, many government and academic research laboratories continued to study the process in 2011. Of particular recent interest to the scientific community are the experiments carried out in 2011 by Italian engineers Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi, who may have successfully used LENR with a small, hand-sized reaction chamber known as an energy catalyst (eCAT).
Although LENR or cold fusion has come under severe scientific and public criticism since it was first theorized in 1989 by researchers at the University of Utah in the United States, further development work has continued due to the enormous potential that the concept offers from many top organizations around the world. These include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US military research at the Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SSC Pacific), and organizations such as Osaka University in Japan. These and other research facilities are taking three main approaches to creating chemical-assisted nuclear reactions. They include the original approach using palladium-deuterium reactions, the Rossi-Focardi approach using nickel-hydrogen, and a muon-catalyzed approach that is being investigated at research centers in Australia and Japan.
Based on the preliminary research success in Italy, where positive power generation in the range of 2.6 kilowatts to 130 kilowatts has been demonstrated, the reactor design is scaled to a level that, by 2012, is expected to produce 1 megawatt of excess energy to a facility located in Greece. NASA scientists, while not trying to replicate the Rossi process itself, are intensely interested in it. NASA Langley chief scientist Dennis Bushnell revealed the nature of their interest when he commented regarding LENR and the Rossi process in particular that “…it alone is capable of completely changing geoeconomics and geopolitics… ”
However, as the details of the Rossi trial have not been fully made public and as it has not yet been replicated under controlled conditions elsewhere, conclusive evidence of its success still remains unknown. Facilities like NASA have been testing the basis of Rossi’s theory since 2011 before starting the extensive process of trying to replicate his results. Through October 7, 2011, however, Rossi ran another test of the eCAT reactor which ran for 9 hours, with the reactor running for 4 hours with no energy input from an external source. Plans to duplicate the experiment on Oct. 28 using 2011 nuclear reactor test chambers simultaneously are intended to provide more scientific data to verify that the LENR process is actually underway.
The first results for palladium-deuterium reactions were based on the concept that, under an electric charge, deuterium atoms naturally pack so tightly between palladium atoms in a metal rod that the hydrogen begins to fuse, releasing energy. Because palladium and deuterium are cheap and abundant compounds, as are nickel and other LENR reagents, the process offers enormous potential for clean, inexpensive energy. Researchers at the US Navy’s SSC Pacific verified that these early results were producing nuclear reactions in 2007, and their verification of the results was published in June of that year in Naturwissenschaften, literally translated as “The Science of Nature ”, a prestigious scientific journal in Germany that published a research by Albert Einstein a generation earlier.
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