Senate Candidate Hekman on LENR

America’s economic growth is strongly related to our access to low-cost energy sources. During the past 14 years, I have been studying a promising area of energy creation called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR). I devoted three of those years to full time direct research in a lab. Fortunately, I had only one tiny (non-nuclear!) explosion when a small amount of hydrogen gas ignited in my laboratory.

This area of LENR began with a bang itself in 1989 when researchers in Utah, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann, claimed to have created nuclear fusion at room temperatures on a tabletop. Called at the time “cold fusion,” this announcement caused a great stir among scientists worldwide. While some research facilities were able to replicate the “cold fusion” findings, most facilities could not. But, ultimately, the scientific community was nearly unanimous in saying that known principles of physics would not allow fusion to occur at room temperatures on a tabletop.

Despite this scientific consensus,  a sizable group of researchers from around the globe continued their experiments and kept documenting anomalous results that were consistent with a nuclear process occurring. How could this be?

It took a man I met at a conference in France five years ago to discover the answer.  Lewis Larsen, now CEO of Lattice Energy LLC in Chicago, looked at the voluminous data from the many experiments and together with a partner, Dr. Allan Widom of Northeastern University, developed a theory now called the Widom-Larsen theory. This theory explains the data in ways that are totally consistent with accepted concepts of science. Their conclusion: LENR is neither fission nor fusion but is still nuclear. It also has the potential of providing energy for a wide variety of applications at low cost but without harmful radiation or leaving harmful residue. Leading physicists from NASA concur that this theory best explains the data and believe the potential is so great as to ultimately grow into a trillion dollar industry. For more information on this theory, see a website developed by a friend of mine who has been reporting on this area for a number of years:

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/WL/WLTheory.shtml

So where do we go from here? The temptation is to look to Washington, but I totally disagree. The US Department of Energy (DoE) has a very dismal record in picking winners and losers in the energy area. We do not need more Solyndras. In fact, I support elimination of this department and allowing private investment and market forces to drive new energy technologies like LENR. I fully expect adventuresome private investors will support Lewis Larsen whom I believe has the knowledge base to turn good theory into good, useful technology.

This is a new, potentially trillion dollar industry that has the ability to solve our nation’s energy crisis, secure our country by not depending on foreign oil and turn America into an energy and technology exporter. Scientists in China and India are hard at work developing this technology and attempting to bring it to market. We cannot be left behind in our generation’s space race.

We need America to be the world leader in solving our energy crisis. And I believe we have the ability to make it happen.