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Sept. 14, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

A LENR report titled “Investigation of Nano-Nuclear Reactions in Condensed Matter,” with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) logo on the cover page, is circulating on the Internet. The report itself is factual. But it’s only connection to DTRA is that the agency was one of several government organizations that had sponsored research cited in the report. The report was written primarily by low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) researcher Pamela Mosier-Boss. The full story requires historical context.

Mosier-Boss is an analytical chemist who worked at the U.S Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego from 1989 to 2015. In 2012, she was abruptly ordered to immediately terminate all of her LENR research, return any unused funds, and cease all further publications on the topic of LENRs. The full story about why she was ordered to terminate her LENR research is explained in my book, Hacking the Atom, Explorations in Nuclear Research, Volume 1.

Mosier-Boss’ report “Investigation of Nano-Nuclear Reactions in Condensed Matter” is a summary of the LENR research at SPAWAR. After her LENR research was terminated, she had to fight to write the report and to win its public release, as she explained to me in an e-mail last year.

“Admiral Brady didn’t want us to accept money to write the final DTRA report,” Mosier-Boss wrote. “In the end, I was allowed to write the report. I can’t share it with anyone who is non-DOD. My department head had me release it DOD only, even though the sponsor ultimately decides the distribution.

“The sponsor tried to get it released, but his superiors required a technical review of the report. We got it reviewed, and the reviewers recommended full unclassified distribution. The report is still in limbo and has been since 2012.”

On April 4, 2016, I sent a Freedom of Information Act request to DTRA for the report. I received nothing, not even an acknowledgment letter.

On Sunday, I contacted Mosier-Boss again to find out more about the report. She and her colleague, Larry Forsley, a researcher with JWK International Group, who is a co-author of the report, worked for four years to get permission to release the report publicly. Forsley, Mosier-Boss wrote, did most of the heavy pushing.

“The project was unclassified, and the DTRA program manager William Wilson agreed it should have public distribution,” Mosier-Boss wrote. “But he had problems at DTRA getting it released. He had to get it reviewed by three reviewers, which is unheard of for a final report. They said it should have public distribution. … We included the distribution statement on the last page in case we get any grief from SSC-Pacific.”

I wrote to Mosier-Boss that the DTRA logo on the cover page on her report looked strange; it is pixilated, and the aspect ratio is wrong. I asked her who put the logo on the report.

“I did,” Mosier-Boss wrote. “I downloaded a copy of it. I thought DTRA would replace the front page with one of their own. But they didn’t. When we wrote technical reports at SPAWAR, they had their own standard cover page. I assumed DTRA did, as well. Apparently, they don’t.”

On Monday, I contacted Ron Lovas, a public information officer at DTRA. After I explained that I had received no response from my April FOIA request and that the document was now showing up on the Internet, he sent me a copy immediately.

I asked Lovas additional questions. Here is our discussion:

Krivit: Is this, in fact, a DTRA report?
Lovas: The documents are authentic.

Krivit: Did DTRA have anything to do with the authorship of this report, and if so, what role did DTRA play?
Lovas: The report was drafted by U.S. government-funded scientists and delivered to DTRA as the final report when the effort was closed out.

Krivit: Did DTRA have anything to do with the release of this report, and if so, where did it release this report?
Lovas: The work done by U.S. government-funded scientists, which is detailed in the final report, was reviewed by the agency and cleared for public release.

Therefore, the document is a SPAWAR report written for DTRA. The minor exception is the single-page DTRA distribution statement that the authors appended to the end of the report.

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Questions? Comments? Submit a Letter to the Editor.

Andrea Rossi (Photo: Mats Lewan)

Aug. 9, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

Thomas Francis Darden II, the manager, president, and director of Industrial Heat, has concluded that Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat) claims are bogus, according to recent court filings.

Darden is also the founder and chief executive officer of the $2 billion private equity fund Cherokee Investment Partners, the parent company of Industrial Heat.

On Aug. 6, the law firm Jones Day, on behalf of Darden and his associates, filed a complaint against Rossi and his company Leonardo Corp. in federal court in Miami, accusing Rossi of fraudulent misrepresentations. Continue reading »

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Continues Efforts to Commercialize LENRs
July 13, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries continues to make progress in its efforts to commercialize low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research, according to a December 2015 company technical review. The company is developing a LENR-based nuclear transmutation method that uses nanostructured multi-layer thin films.

Although Mitsubishi researchers have published their LENR research for two decades, this appears to be the first time in a decade that the company has issued a corporate document discussing the research. Furthermore, the Mitsubishi review reports that its researchers obtained significantly larger results between 2010 and 2012.

“So far,” the review says, “transmutation from cesium (Cs) to praseodymium (Pr), from barium (Ba) to samarium (Sm), from strontium (Sr) to molybdenum (Mo), etc., has been observed. If this technology is established, it is expected to contribute to society in the field of detoxification treatment of radioactive waste, including the transmutation of radioactive cesium into a harmless nonradioactive element in the future.”

Mitsubishi’s LENR method was developed by Yasuhiro Iwamura, who now leads a LENR research group at Tohoku University, in Sendai, Japan. In the early 1990s, Iwamura developed this multilayer thin-film methods using electrolysis. In 2000, Iwamura switched to the gas-permeation method with thin films in order to reduce questions of potential contamination from electrolysis.

Although the gas-permeation method succeeded in convincing many more scientists about the credibility of the results, the gas method had a downside: It did not allow researchers to pump as much deuterium through the samples, which resulted in lower transmutation yields.

In October 2010, the Mitsubishi researchers switched back to the electrolytic method and increased the magnitude of their transmutation yields, on average, by a factor of 100.

The Mitsubishi review identifies the staff members who are continuing research. They are the following: Shigenori Tsuruga and Kenji Muta, chief staff managers in the Electricity and Applied Physics Research Department of the Research and Innovation Center at the Technology and Innovation Headquarters; Yutaka Tanaka, chief staff manager at the Research and Innovation Center; Tadashi Shimazu, manager in the Advanced Nuclear Plant Designing and Fuel Cycle Engineering Department in the Nuclear Energy Systems Division, Energy and Environment; Koji Fujimori, manager in the Nuclear Project Department in the Nuclear Energy Systems Division, Energy & Environment; and Takehiko Nishida, director in the Electricity and Applied Physics Research Department of the Research and Innovation Center.

News of the Mitsubishi technical review was first published on Slideshare by LENR theorist Lewis Larsen.

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Questions? Comments? Submit a Letter to the Editor.

U.S. Navy Researcher David Kidwell

May 12, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

On May 6, 2016, David Kidwell, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, released his latest attack criticizing the work of Japanese LENR researchers. In an email to an invitation-only but public Google discussion group, Kidwell wrote, using his NRL e-mail account, “eventually, we will get to that the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries data is not real.”

Since 2008, Kidwell has criticized the heavy-element transmutation results reported by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in its long-standing low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research program.

Two days earlier, on May 4, 2016, as reported by New Energy Times, a U.S. congressional committee took the unprecedented step of requesting from the Department of Defense a national security briefing on the implications of LENRs.

The Naval Research Laboratory, along with the Office of Naval Research, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and possibly the Department of Energy’s national laboratories likely will be among the participants preparing the DOD briefing for Congress. Continue reading »

Ashton B. Carter, Secretary of Defense

May 11, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, in a May 4, 2016, report, directed the Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing on advances in low-energy nuclear reactions (LENRs) to the committee by September 22, 2016.

This is the first time Congress has issued an official request for a national security briefing on the implications of LENRs.

“This briefing,” the report says, “should examine the current state of research in the United States, how that compares to work being done internationally, and an assessment of the type of military applications where this technology could potentially be useful.”

The report quoted a 2009 Defense Intelligence Agency analysis which said that, if LENR works, it will be a “disruptive technology that could revolutionize energy production and storage.” The May 4, 2016, report also said that “Japan has actually created its own investment fund to promote such technology.”

On Aug. 24, 2015, New Energy Times reported that, for the first time in two decades, the Japanese government issued a request for proposals for low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research.

Excerpt from May 4, 2016, “Report of the Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives on HR 4909 Together With Additional Views”

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Questions? Comments? Submit a Letter to the Editor.

The DTRA LENR Report That Isn’t a DTRA Report

Cherokee’s Darden Says Rossi’s E-Cat Claims Are Fraudulent

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Continues Efforts to Commercialize LENR

Latest NRL Salvo Attacks Validity of Mitsubishi LENR Research

Congress Directs Secretary of Defense to Provide LENR Briefing

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