New Energy Times Adds NRL Report to Archives

Feb. 25, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

New Energy Times has added a long-lost report on low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research to its archives.

On Feb. 17, 2016, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, New Energy Times obtained a copy of a 1996 technical report from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) that has never been publicly available.

Between 1992 and 1995, three U.S. Navy laboratories tried to collaborate and replicate results in palladium/deuterium systems. Dawn Dominguez, an organic chemist, was the principal investigator at NRL. She attempted to replicate experiments performed by Melvin Miles, an electrochemist, at the Naval Air Weapons Station, in China Lake, California.

Dominguez searched exclusively for excess heat. None of her experiments showed positive results. In Miles’ critique of the experiment, he explained that, although Dominguez had zero experiments that showed positive results, she also had zero experiments that were done properly.

“This NRL report,” Miles said, “is useful because it provides an excellent example of the wrong things to do.”

Robert Nowak, a program manager with the Office of Naval Research, managed the project. Nowak invited researchers at what was later renamed the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California, to participate in the program, but he offered no financial support. The SPAWAR researchers, Stanislaw Szpak, an electrochemist, and Pamela Mosier-Boss, an analytical chemist, were, therefore, unable to participate fully.

New Energy Times also obtained a copy of the NRL report from Miles with his handwritten notes. After discussing the long-lost NRL report with Miles and Mosier-Boss, they each wrote summaries of the Dominguez report.

All versions of the reports and summaries are available at this New Energy Times Web page.