LENR Panel Session at American Nuclear Society National Meeting

Nov. 12, 2012 – By Steven B. Krivit –

Originally published Oct. 3, 2012

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, the American Nuclear Society will hold a panel session on low-energy nuclear reaction research at its winter national meeting at the Town and Country hotel and resort in San Diego, Calif. The last LENR session at an ANS meeting took place in June 1998.

The session will explore the surprising possibility that highly energetic nuclear reactions and elemental transmutations result from LENRs. Although the term was not used a century ago, examples of LENRs go back that far. LENRs are weak interactions and neutron-capture processes that occur in nanometer- to micron-scale regions on surfaces in condensed matter at room temperature. Although nuclear, LENRs are not based on fission or any kind of fusion, both of which primarily involve the strong interaction.

The speakers and topics for the panel session are:

• Steven B. Krivit, publisher and senior editor of New Energy Times, from San Rafael, Calif.: “The Big Picture of Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction Research”
• Yasuhiro Iwamura, a LENR experimentalist with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan: “Transmutation Reactions Induced by Deuterium Permeation Through Nano-Structured Pd Multilayer Thin Film,” co-authors Takehiko Itoh (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.), Yasuko Terada (Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute), Tetsuya Ishikawa (Coherent X-Ray Optics Laboratory, SPring-8/RIKEN)
• Domenico Cirillo, a LENR experimentalist with Cirillo Labs in Caserta, Italy: “Slow Neutron Generation by Plasma Excitation in Electrolytic Cell”
• Lewis G. Larsen, a LENR theorist and chief executive officer of Lattice Energy LLC, from Chicago, Ill: “Electroweak Neutron Production via e + p –> n + v and Capture During Lightning Discharges”

Steven B. Krivit
Krivit is an investigative science journalist, editor, and international speaker with specific expertise in the topic of LENR research. He began looking at LENRs in 2000, when most researchers in the field initially presented it to him as “cold fusion.” Krivit has contributed requested analytical reviews of LENR research for the American Chemical Society, Royal Chemical Society, and Indian Academy of Sciences and for encyclopedias published by John Wiley and Sons and Elsevier.

Yasuhiro Iwamura
More than a decade ago, Iwamura developed a novel LENR method that demonstrated heavy-element LENR transmutations. He has shown, in experiments with pairs of starting elements and target elements, the gradual, simultaneous decrease of protons in the former and the increase of protons in the latter. The results of his experiments provide permanent nuclear signatures that can be, and have been, verified by a variety of third parties and conventional nuclear diagnostic devices.

Domenico Cirillo
Cirillo has been working with the plasma electrolytic LENR system and has also recorded nuclear evidence. He has shown evidence for the presence of anomalous elements on a tungsten electrode post-electrolysis. Recently, he developed a novel method using solid-state nuclear track detectors (CR-39) to show evidence for low levels of neutron emission from LENR experiments. His CR-39 calibrations have been confirmed by the Italian National Institute for Ionizing Radiation Metrology, part of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development in Casaccia, Italy.

Lewis G. Larsen
In 1998, Larsen conceived of the idea that ultra-low-momentum neutrons were created by weak interactions in LENRs and that these processes, along with collective effects (see “Widom-Larsen Theory Simplified“), were the fundamental explanation for LENRs. Allan Widom, a condensed-matter physicist with Northeastern University, worked with Larsen from 2004 to 2008. Together, they published their initial theory in European Physical Journal C – Particles and Fields. [1] From 2007 to 2008, Yogendra Srivastava, a physicist with the University of Perugia, Italy, worked with the team, and they extended the original theoretical concepts.

The ANS meeting will be the first time that Larsen will appear publicly to speak about the group’s LENR theory. The panel members’ papers will publish in ANS Transactions in November. New Energy Times subscribers who would like a pre-print of the papers may send an e-mail request to New Energy Times. Some or all of the slide presentations will be available on New Energy Times after Nov. 14.

1. Widom, A., Larsen, L., “Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on Metallic Hydride Surfaces,” European Physical Journal C – Particles and Fields, Vol. 46(1), p.107-110 (2006)