Of Links, LENR and Wunderkids

China, the Czech Republic, Japan and the UK are taking steps to keep nuclear in their energy mix, while Canada, Germany and France back away from atomic power. The U.S. government cannot wean itself from fossil fuels and nuclear power; it leaves private firms to lead research for alternatives.
Helping academics, politicians, business leaders and the public with their linking and thinking processes in consuming breaking news is often facilitated by professional journalists and their big media employers. Whereas they adequately cover renewable energy field, they leave the emerging Cold Fusion/LENR story to internet forums and bloggers.
Regardless, serious investors are connecting intermittent links and following the big money.

Earlier posts on this blog attempted to link developments on such events as the E-cat tests, research on adapting LENR technology to mutation of radioactive wastes and the untimely push to stuff ever-accumulating atomic waste into geologic caverns.
Here is a list of energy related posts for 2013 and to date for 2014. Note: Some of the updates are more electrifying than the stale posts.
1. Canadian Economy and LENR Oct 27 2014
2. Today, A Key Date in History Oct 8 2014
3. Quick Fix for Adverse Climate Change Sep 16 2014
4. The E-Cat Works & is Marketable Sep 10 2014 .........+ Comments
5. LENR Cities –Averting Chaos in Energy Market Aug 26 2014
6. Fast Roll-out of BlackLight Power Jun 10 2014
7. Coupling LENR With Photovoltaics Jun 15 2014
8. Canuks Deliver Uranium-free Medical Isotopes Jun 10 2014
9. IAEA – The UN’s Nuclear Watchdog May 27 2014
10. Fission vs LENR & Waste Treatment vs. Internment May 9 2014
11. US Homeland Security Weighs in on Nuclear Waste Apr 29 2014
12. Clean Planet Startup Leads Nippon LENR Launch Apr 13 2014
13. New Jersey’s BLP Goes for Gold Apr 5 2014
14. Untimely Candu Nuclear Waste Dump Mar 5 2014
15. LENR –Disruptive Electricity Generation Feb 6 2014
16. Shortcut to Smart Economic Development Jan 27 2014
17. Canuck Funding of LENR R&D Dec 27 2013
18. Distributed Power vs GRID Dec 13 2013
19. Regional Electricity Distributors Become Generators Nov 22 2013
20. New Electricity Strategy for Ontario Jul 5 2013
21. LENR Race to Market Jun 28 2013
22. Electric Utilities Face Crisis Jun 1 2013
23. E-Cat –Grid-shattering Development May 20 2013
24. Spread of E-cats vs Revival of Atomic Plants Apr 9 2013
25. Third-party Test of E-cat Positive Mar 25 2013
26. LENR & Distributed Production of Electricity Feb 23 2013

And, while Industrial Heat LLC fine-tunes its 1 MW heating plant for a big customer, here are a few more links to help you follow events on the ever-changing energy front:

http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/10/24/mfmps-project-dog-bone-has-begun/
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2014/10/14/fast-lithium-ion-battery-recharge-breakthrough/
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2014/10/almunia-says-hinkley-approval-sets-no-precedent.html
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2014/10/16/lockheed-martins-skunk-works-builds-a-fusion-reactor/
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Fusion-Power-Race-Heats-Up.html
A noteworthy article by Gordon Docherty published by E-Cat World, concludes with this teaser:
"Instead of being doomed to live in a dying, poisoned world, where mass extinction (including ours) is all that we have left to look forward to, it is time to change the argument by bringing into the equation, something new, something that would:
1. Eliminate the need for oil, coal, gas, uranium, plutonium as fuel sources.
2. Address the global warming issue -with a concerted effort, carbon dioxide emissions could be all but eliminated.
3. Adress the clean water shortage issue.
4. Redress imbalances in the geopolitical system, reduce scaricity, and increase stability.
5. Provide enough fuel for over 1.5 billion years -more than enough time to provide us with enough chance to move beyond our current limitations."

The "new fire" may not be refined in time to escape nuclear and environmental disasters, let alone a stray comet. So, some of you latter-day space kids might live long enough to realize the dream of saving humankind by deploying massive LENR-powered interstellar craft.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)

Canadian Economy and LENR

A Canadian panel on Preparing for Energy Future has just submitted its report.

Their assessment appears to be based on the assumption that global energy rates will continue to rise. Regardless of whether energy prices surge or collapse, the main competitive response is to adopt the lowest-cost power generation. Some foreign governments, already benefiting from low-cost labour and warmer temperatures, are expanding solar power and planning deployment of Low Energy Nuclear Reactors. They take a big lead in cheap heat, electricity and transportation.

Canadians are left out in the cold; oil and gas exports plummet and domestic prices of fossil fuels jump because of high extractive and transportation costs. Under such a scenario, how do Canadian businsesses survive? Some would say, “Pray for global warming.” A worried few would push funders and researchers to catch-up in alternative energy research by taking a page or three out of the Scandinavian play book; Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all involved in LENR research while naturally endowed with hydro power. They won't need North Sea oil to buoy their economies in disruptive energy markets.

In the 1960s Canada was not sleeping; it developed and deployed the Candu reactor.
Today, its leaders have their heads in oil sands and in burying ever-increasing radioactive waste in limestone.

Update #1
Evidence of Scandanivian alertness to to the possibility of the dawn of a new energy era is a symposium in Oslo to address what happens if LENR becomes competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear.

Today, a Key Day in History ...LENR Confirmed

"We live in interesting times; it's just sad that there is so much stress and strife in so many parts of the world."
Suddenly there is new energy ...and hope.

A quote in Forbes Magazine by NASA scientist, Joseph Zawodny:
"LENR has the demonstrated ability to produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation, without producing nasty waste.” -

A comment by Nobel Laureate, Brian Josephson buried in http://www.nature.com/news/seven-days-3-9-october-2014-1.16087:
"The most important news of the year, perhaps, not just the last seven days? The results of a new investigation into the Rossi reactor (allegedly a high-power cold fusion reactor), involving running the reactor over a 32-day period, are now out. The report not only confirms output power far in excess of anything possible by chemical reaction, but also gives a clear indication that a nuclear reaction is occurring, on the basis of a substantial change in the isotopic proportions of Li and Ni over the period of the run."


Indeed, the high temperatures achieved in the latest E-cat test run augurs well for pollution-free distributed electricity generation -and for transmutation of radioactive legacy wastes.


KEY FINDINGS
A COP of 3.2 to 3.6 over a period of 32 days, and a substantial isotopic change in nickel and lithium.

Here is the abstract released on October 8, 2014:

ABSTRACT
New results are presented from an extended experimental
investigation of anomalous heat production in a special type
of reactor tube operating at high temperatures. The reactor,
named E-Cat, is charged with a small amount of
hydrogen-loaded nickel powder plus some additives, mainly
Lithium. The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from
resistor coils around the reactor tube. Measurements of the
radiated power from the reactor were performed with
high-resolution thermal imaging cameras. The measurements of
electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth
three- phase power analyzer. Data were collected during 32
days of running in March 2014. The reactor operating point
was set to about 1260 ºC in the first half of the run, and
at about 1400 °C in the second half. The measured energy
balance between input and output heat yielded a COP factor
of about 3.2 and 3.6 for the 1260 ºC and 1400 ºC runs,
respectively. The total net energy
obtained during the 32 days run was about 1.5 MWh. This
amount of energy is far more than can be obtained from any
known chemical sources in the small reactor volume. A sample
of the fuel was carefully examined with respect to its
isotopic composition before the run and after the run, using
several standard methods: XPS, EDS, SIMS, ICP-MS and
ICP-AES. The isotope composition in Lithium and Nickel was
found to agree with the natural composition before the run,
while after the run it was found to have changed
substantially. Nuclear reactions are therefore indicated
to be present in the run process, which however is hard to
reconcile with the fact that no radioactivity was detected
outside the reactor during the run

The full report can be found at:
http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf

A quote from William Zabuhr, Chairman of the New Energy Foundation should awaken Canadian academics, CEOs and politicians to the paradigm shift in energy production:
“This report demands worldwide attention, so that our current understanding of nuclear science can be expanded. It is a challenge to science that these results so far have no convincing theoretical explanation, but the experimental results cannot be dismissed or ignored just because of lack of theoretical understanding.”

Being slow (or absent) at the LENR starting gates will cost the Canadian economy dearly by the end of the next decade; dependence on dirty, expensive fossil fuel and dangerous nuclear power leads to loss of jobs and a lower living standard.


Venture Capitalists are beginnig to show interest in funding of energy startups. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/business/venture-capitalists-return-to-backing-science-start-ups.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

Up date #1
Professional IT journalist, Mark Gibbs, reflects on the bumpy start to media and scientific coverage of electrochemists Pons & Fleishmann 1989 announcement, and updates on the most recent happenings.
Up date #2
In a scientific article, Mike Lammert, Senior Project Engineer connected with the U.S. Department of Energy, observes:
"Although the COP in the experiment is a modest 3.5, the experimenters chose not to run the E-cat in a more favorable on/off mode that would greately have reduced the overall input power. This version of the E-cat should be able to be operate at a COP greater than 30 (perhaps at a temperature somewhat below the 1,400 C in this experiment).
An E-cat operating in this temperature range has unlimited commercial applications."
UPdate #3
According to an October 21, 2014 response by Andrea Rossi to an E-Cat World query, there is great progress with the 1MW unit being readied for a customer:

"I honestly am very positive: it is a magnificence... our model is NASA: how many failures before arriving on the Moon with the boots... I think that we will be able to reconcile everything with good sense and in full respect of the Standars Model.
...Obviously this effort is shared by all the Team, in particular the electronic engineers, who are making a masterpiece to harmonize an orchestra of 103 E-Cats with a quite complex play of Cats and Mice."

Left unsaid, is the fact that the COP will be much in excess of the 3.5 reported for the March 2014 Lugano test.
Update #4
Dr. Bob leaves us a take-away of 26 bullets on the E-cat test.