2012 LENR Colloquium at CERN – Q&A Session
Jan 012012
2012 LENR Colloquium at CERN – Q&A Session
2012 LENR Colloquium at CERN – Q&A Session
Jun 062013
Motto of the U.K. Royal Society: “Nullius in Verba.” (Take no one’s word for it.)
– June 6, 2013 –
Steven B. Krivit
Publisher and Senior Editor, New Energy Times
369-B Third Street, #556
San Rafael, CA USA 94901
To Drs. Giuseppe Levi (University of Bologna), Evelyn Foschi (INFN), Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson, Lars Tegnér (Uppsala University), Hanno Essén (Royal Institute of Technology)
Dear Drs. Levi, Foschi, Hartman, Höistad, Pettersson, Tegnér and Essén,
This is an open letter about your preprint submission to arXiv on May 16, “Indication of Anomalous Heat Energy Production in a Reactor Device.”
In your preprint, you claimed that you made an independent test of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat device and that, according to your test, his device produced energy that was an order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources.
This letter is prompted by my concerns about your preprint, the validity of the device’s thermal output that you claimed to confirm, and the integrity of the inventor whom you have endorsed.
In June 2011, I traveled to Bologna, Italy, to meet Rossi in person and to observe his device. He offered to demonstrate it to me while it was running and allowed me to videotape. In the opinion of skilled engineers who later viewed the videotape, the steam output appeared to be equivalent to a 1,000 Watt electric tea kettle. Rossi, however, claimed it was producing 5,000 Watts of heat. In fact, his results were consistent with the 770 Watts of electrical power that he was putting into the system. (Please see “The Failure of Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer, Caught on Video.”)
Despite the obvious problems with Rossi’s public claims of extraordinary output of excess heat from his E-Cats, I am convinced that LENRs are real nuclear phenomena. Continue reading »
Jun 042013
The motto of Uppsala University is “Truth through mercy and nature.”
June 4, 2013 – By Steven B. Krivit –
On May 27, Alessio Guglielmi, a researcher in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath, in England, published an open letter that addressed ethical questions about Uppsala University researchers involved in the promotion of Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat) device. Today, New Energy Times reports additional information that raises more questions about the scientific ethics of the Uppsala researchers.
The story began two years ago (full timeline of events here). On Feb. 23, 2011, Sven Kullander, an emeritus professor of physics at Uppsala University and chairman of the Swedish National Academy of Sciences Energy Committee, told a Swedish journalist that the public “must embrace” the Rossi claim. Kullander had not seen the Rossi device or tested it.
There hadn’t been and still isn’t any published peer-reviewed paper in a real journal to confirm the device. There hadn’t been and still isn’t any independent replication of the Rossi device. There hadn’t been and still isn’t any successful test of the Rossi device in any independent laboratory.
On Nov. 23, 2011, Kullander gave a public science lecture at Orebro University, in Sweden, primarily on the Rossi claims. John Olov Hampus Ersa Ericsson, a sociology student at Umeå University, in Sweden, attended the lecture and provided New Energy Times with his personal report of the lecture. (See New Energy Times article “ Hampus Ericsson Report on Kullander Lecture at Orebro.”)
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Professional Journalism – LENR Facts
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According to Ericsson, Kullander said that he asked Rossi whether Uppsala University could independently test the device, with the requirement that all information would become public.
The failed test attempt took place in the fall of 2012. Kullander never publicly revealed anything about it.
On Dec. 19, 2012, Goran Ericsson, a professor in the Applied Nuclear Physics Division of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University, provided New Energy Times with detailed information about the attempted E-Cat test. New Energy Times did not report this information at the time because the Rossi story appeared to have already died out.
However, in May the story came back to life as a result of the manuscript submitted by Kullander’s colleagues to arXiv. (See New Energy Times article “Rossi Manipulates Academics to Create Illusion of Independent Test.”)
Here is the report we received from Ericsson:
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Jun 022013
CERN Invites 2012 LENR Colloquium
June 2, 2013 – By Steven B. Krivit –
Last year, a LENR colloquium took place at one of the most prestigious nuclear physics institutions in the world, CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research.
On Feb. 8, 2012, New Energy Times reported that CERN had scheduled an invited colloquium, “Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)”; it took place on March 22 in CERN’s council chamber.
Ignatios Antoniadis, a member of the theoretical physics division of CERN, invited two speakers. Francesco Celani, a physicist with the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy, spoke about experiments, and Yogendra Srivastava, a physicist with the University of Perugia, Italy, spoke about theory. Srivastava is a co-author of LENR theoretical work, along with Alan Widom and Lewis Larsen, developers of the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs.
A paper that Larsen published on Slideshare on Dec. 7, 2011, may have had triggered the colloquium. Larsen’s paper discusses a possible relationship between low-energy nuclear reactions and unexplained observations with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
New Energy Times did not write a report after the colloquium. However, interest in LENR has grown recently in Europe, and this is a good time to take a quick look back.
CERN holds a distinct place in cold fusion history, because it was the home of physicist Douglas R.O. Morrison, who published weekly newsletters, distributed worldwide, that depicted the entire field as pathological science.
Jun 022013
June 2, 2013 – By Steven B. Krivit –
A meeting to discuss LENR research will take place on Monday in the Jozsef Antall room at a European Parliament building. Contrary to rumor, the European Parliament did not request the meeting and is not promoting it.
The room was provided as a courtesy and at the request of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment (ENEA) in Frascati. Several LENR researchers will give presentations.
Two of the researchers are Michael McKubre, the former director of the SRI Energy Research Center, and Vittorio Violante, a researcher with ENEA. McKubre and Violante have extensive experience in LENRs and have worked in the field for two decades.
On May 30, New Energy Times sent an e-mail to Amalia Sartori, an Italian politician, a member of the European Parliament and chair of the Industry, Telecommunications, Research, Energy (ITRE) Committee, to learn more about the meeting.
According to a May 31 e-mail New Energy Times received from Sartori’s assistant Valentina Zilio, the meeting was organized by ENEA Frascati after Sartori’s office received a request from ENEA to hold the meeting at the European Parliament building.
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May 272013
Cover of David Goodstein’s Book on Science Fraud
May 27, 2013 – By Alessio Guglielmi–
From: Dr. Alessio Guglielmi
To: Drs. Giuseppe Levi, Evelyn Foschi, Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson, Lars Tegnér, Hanno Essén
Dear Doctors Levi, Foschi, Hartman, Höistad, Pettersson, Tegnér and Essén,
I have read your recent manuscript `Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device containing hydrogen loaded nickel powder´ on arXiv and I am very perplexed.
You are aware that several alleged technical mistakes have been pointed out, such as omitting control on DC current input (which has been acknowledged by Prof. Essén in a recent interview) and the assumption that the output heat is released by a perfect black body (this assumption is contested by Prof. Gianni Comoretto, for example). The picture that emerges, and I am sorry if this sounds offensive, is that some crucial measures have not been taken seriously enough on a discovery that, if genuine, would alter the history of mankind.
However, I have an issue that appears to me even more important, because it concerns the very essence of your continued activities on Rossi’s device. Our job as researchers is to advance knowledge, and to do so, whatever we investigate must be reproducible by other researchers so that the knowledge we generate becomes established and we can move forward. This seems to be at odds with your behavior. You went to the workshop of a private individual who claims to be solving half of mankind’s problems, and performed measures on a device that you could not fully control and that is not available to other researchers. Therefore, your manuscript does not contain any reproducible experience. So, how does it advance knowledge? What do we learn?