A leading American physicist has come out and asked for a national cold fusion research effort in the USA. Dr. Robert Duncan, Vice Chancellor of Research at the University of Missouri told The Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper that he thinks Low Energy Nuclear Reaction claims like those made by Andrea Rossi deserve investigation by the US government.
Duncan said a national research program to look into cold fusion and its merits is needed. He told Daily Tribune reporter Janese Silvey that he is in the early stages of drafting a proposal for such a program. Duncan’s program would involve federal grants to university researchers working on LENR.
Robert Duncan Courtesy University of Missouri
Such research is needed because cold fusion is poorly understood and scientists don’t really know what causes it, Duncan said. He also noted that nobody seems to know how the excess heat in devices like Rossi’s e-cat is created. Such knowledge would be necessary to engineer large systems powered by LENR devices, Duncan added. He also believes that physicists need to reevaluate their opinion of Cold Fusion.
Interestingly enough Duncan predicted that there will be more inventors like Rossi producing results nobody understands. The article also quoted Steven Krivit who said the process was already understood.
Duncan is a very distinguished scientist he is a fellow and a lifetime member of the American Physical Society. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Doctorate in Physics from the University of California-Santa Barbara. Duncan would be well qualified to head up research into LENR because he is a recognized expert in low temperature physics.
In his career Duncan has been director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a fundamental physics researcher for NASA, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico and a visiting member of the Physics Faculty at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Duncan has also consulted with industry, he helped found three companies dealing with alternative energy and minimally invasive cancer diagnostics and surgery.
Dr. Duncan has been working as a consultant with Energetics Technologies an Israeli-American company that has been doing cold fusion research for about a decade. He helped Energetics Technologies set up a facility at the University of Missouri’s Life Science Business Incubator in Columbia, Missouri.
Dr. Duncan became involved in cold fusion research when Scott Pelley of the popular American TV news program 60 Minutes asked him to comment on it. Duncan was so impressed by the field that he got involved in it. Pelley is now anchor of the CBS network’s national news broadcast the most watched in the US so Duncan has friends in the media who can help him.
He would be in an excellent position to spearhead a national research effort into LENR. He heads the University of Missouri’s research enterprise which has more than $250 million a year in contracts and grants. Its facilities include multidisciplinary research centers and an incubator that tries to commercialize new technologies.
The point is not in power production (it already works, isn’t it?) but in overhauling the chemistry from Lavoisier or even Boyle on. Up to now, there was the eV range (domain of electrons=chemistry) and the MeV range (domain of nucleons=nuclear physics), and 6 orders of magnitude (in energy terms) separating them. Now we discover that there is something in between, a bridge spaning such a chasm! It’s back to alchemist’s “naive” credo that elements could be transmutated by essentialy chemical reactions. That’s huge, nuch more dramatic both in concept and in consequences, than production of “free” energy. It could change not only our world, but our whole idea of the Universe and its workings. It’s not about zero utillity bill, but about, who knows, interstellar travel, worm-holes, synthesis not of novel compounds but of the whole new Universums. If blind experimenting could have such dramatic consequence, where’s the limit of a really enlightened mind?
Note e-cat is not producing free energy. Indeed its energy production capacity seems to be quite limited. For a lot of people a zero utility bill would sound good. Especially when the money spent on utilities could go for mundane things like food, college for the kids, healthcare. There are people from Washington state spending the winter in shacks in the California desert because they cannot afford to heat their homes. To those people a zero utility bill is infinitely better than interstellar travel. We need to improve life on earth for average people before reaching for the stars. The Soviet Union tried your thinking and look where it got them. Energy is the key to everything. The production of copper without mining could be interesting though.
In good time, we are seeing the wonder of the networks, the Internet and communications in a resounding theme that has the scientific world in suspense. In good time we are encountering individuals with an altruistic sense of criticism of new knowledge.
Indeed we note that, as humans we are tiny in a world full of unknowns and surprising findings. Already, many scientists such as Mike McKubre, as Dennis Bushnell, as Sven Kulander, as Robert Duncan and many other serious men of science have more clarity to the existing real progress can now be having in the Fusion Energy LENR or cold.
From many parts of the world today, many follow closely every contribution you can give every leader in this field full of hope for mankind in terms of survival and better future. Notable is every report or newspaper article that is objective and clear, hidden letter or partners.
Closely followed this story that many hope will be the answer to resolving the crossroads where the world is Quie and the next year 2012 will be a big change in energy for the world, real possibilities of lasting peace and thriving and vibrant democracies in the world.
Was wondering if there shouldn’t be an extended self sustaining test of the E-Cat. A self sustaining test of 6 months or longer would help show its reliability over a long period of time. The longest that it has been run in a self sustaining mode is only 5 hours.
Maybe the designers of the E-Cat did not think that a longer test of the E-Cat was necessary.
Looking forward to the time that the E-Cat will be available to the general public. With the high price of fuel and electricity it would be an ideal thing for heating a home. It could be used with a fan and heat exchanger .
I agree we need to have an e-cat up and running in such a test. Note the US military’s DARPA research agency and the Navy might be performing such a test right now.
Sorry there is no working Ecat, just a huge SCAM. Not one piece of confirmed information since January 2011. If Rossi sold anything to the gov., there would be records and lots of confirmed information. Money, Shipping,costoms,ETC nothing moves without records. With the excetion of a scam. Rossi calls other people snakes. Who is the snake oil saleman?
If this is scam I have just one question to ask: how is Rossi making money. It’s been my observation that con artists’ principal activity is asking others for money. Note Rossi has not been doing that. I might also note that the money for e-cat might be coming from the Pentagon’s black budget so all records would be classified. Saying that there is no working e-cat proves your closed mind note that both Dennis M. Bushnell and Francisco Celani seem to think it works just not as well as some of us would wish.
Before you-all get too pissy you might want to check out the slide presentation given by Dr. Zawodny of NASA Langley Research Center to NASA employees.
A freedom of information request was needed in order to have these be made public.
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/government/NASA/20110922NASA-Zawodny-GRC-LENR-Workshop.pdf