LENR -Disruptive Electricity Generation

With ever-declining reliability of supply and escalating electricity costs, more Ontario manufacturers are moving south. Remaining employers are hesitant to expand or to hire. At the same time the government talks about reducing the number of regional distribution utilities in a desperate attempt to get economies of scale needed for upgrading legacy infrastructure. Old nuclear and coal plants require expensive retrofits, and transmission lines need to be expanded. Solar installations by major industries and big-box retailers cut into the traditional captive customer base.

Such then are some of the background economic metrics as a specter suddenly appears of compact LENR reactors replacing both fossil-fueled plants and nuclear ones. And, the new distributed generators ultimately makes redundant an extensive national and international electrical grid.

Many readers will say, “What the hell is LENR?” Basically it is a litle-understood form of energy where hydrogen interacts with nickel to create excess heat. LENR is not radioactive and there are no waste products. Low Energy Nuclear Reactors were perfected over the last couple of years by Italian and by American experimenters. As soon as the portable units reached the manufacturing stage, a couple of aggressive Asian countries granted patents while the US Patent Office played domestic politics by declaring “Cold Fusion had no utility.” It is likely the US government wanted to ensure that research grants continued to support hot fusion.

A South Korean company promptly secured rights to produce and market the Brillouin LENR boiler, and a Chinese firm* did much the same with Rossi’s E-Cat(now owned by Industrial Heat LLC.) China will now move quickly with these cheap and clean units to fix its air pollution problem -and allow its energy-intensive industries to become even more competitive in world markets.

So until another company, perhaps Defkalion (Can) or BackLight Power (US) get Canadian and/or US patents, North American countries have no alternative but to import game-changing products. If Canada does not get a US green light on critical pipeline proposals, it might consider an end-run by granting Canadian LENR patents. Such action is inevitable anyway, so we might as well start now to fix our unemployment problem while our ostrich-like policy makers continue to stick their heads in the tar sands.

In fine tuning Ontario’s Long Term Energy Plan, the Minister in charge seemed to sense that on the horizon was a cool solution to the energy mix quandary, and so he opted not to entrench new nuclear plants in the plan. Surprisingly, he had the courage to quench coal-fired units and to defer refurbishing of aged nuclear ones. Our astute visionary might have made funds available to universities for research on the means to replace dirty coal and dangerous nuclear.

Would the next Sir Adam Beck please step forward?

Readers are encouraged to do some research and to engage their associates in debating the issues. Then mobilize in putting politicians' feet to the "new fire." A great place to follow the unfolding LENR saga is Frank Ackland's E-CatWorld.com.

Watch this eye-opening video:
http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/02/mit-cold-fusion-the-revolution-has-begun-video/


PS 1
*Apparently, a facility located in China by a foreign firm must have at least 51% Chinese ownership.

PS 2
The comments on the E-CatWord item above prompt a couple of observations:
1. Boston oncologist, Mitchell Schwartz is markeing his Nanor-V7 LENR product. See DrBob's report here.
2. Vienna's UN agency, I.A.E.A.(International Atomic Energy Agency)may be left with little atomic activity to monitor in a couple of decades.
3. General Electric to invest $1.4 billion in distributed energy.

PS # 4
David Crane, President and CEO of NRG Energy predicts electric grid's future.
PS # 5
Fraser Institute Study confirms uncompetitive electricity rates across Canada, but does not identify lack of vision on LENR emergence.