A US company called NanoSpire Inc. claims to be able to achieve fusion through a process that involves boiling water. The company is using a process called cavitation which involves heating water to high temperatures so it sounds like a hot fusion process. Yet this seems to involve some of the same phenomena involved in low energy nuclear reaction so it could be LENR.
This is Apparently NanoSpire's device at its workshop
Cavitation apparently involves heating water to high temperatures which creates jets of water. The jets collapse and create bubbles that apparently result in some sort of fusion. NanoSpire claims to have received four patents for this process and that will have applications in several fields including nanotechnology, targeted drug delivery (biological treatment of disease), micro fabrication of materials, extraction of oil from algae and photovoltaic solar panels.
NanoSpire Inc. was apparently founded by Mark L. LeClair who claims to have discovered a crystalline form of water while researching cavitation jets. He has worked with Albany Nanotech and has received grants from the Maine Technology Institute, MIT and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Another researcher named Serge Lebid is apparently the other person involved in NanoSpire. LeClair has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering.
Another shot of NanoSpire's work it makes Andrea Rossi look high tech in comparison
LeClair has worked in the defense industry and as a consultant. He apparently has some connections to the US Navy’s research establishment. It is unclear if he has any connections to the US Navy’s cold fusion research efforts which have reportedly been shut down. NanoSpire’s website lists Edmond Pope a retired Naval officer with experience in Intelligence and Research and Development as the only member of the company’s board of advisors.
NanoSpire’s website claims that it is producing a machine tool that is capable of welding, shaping, cutting and drilling materials that are only a few nanometers in length. The company itself is described as an Intellectual Property holding company which means it was founded to keep ownership of patents.
Some more of NanoSpire's equipment it looks like another garage operation.
A blurb on the website states that NanoSpire’s process produces something called the LeClair Effect which produces both fission and fusion. Note I don’t see how it is possible. On its own website NanoSpire admits that the LeClair Effect appears to violate the first and second law of thermodynamics because it extracts energy from a quantum reservoir in amounts large enough to achieve fusion.
The process described on the website is a little different than that described in the press release. Among other things it mentions a crystal that moves at super sonic speeds. The site also mentions that LeClair has apparently performed what he calls “an experimental investigation of the use of crystallized cavitation jets for the production of energy.” He claims that his apparatus produces excess heat of up to 28 degrees Celsius (that doesn’t sound very hot) and a coefficient of energy or COP of 3.4 more energy than he puts into it.
This is pretty hard to describe but this does sound like low energy nuclear reaction. At least one other LENR process that developed by George Miley also uses nanotechnology. It’s actually pretty hard to figure out what LeClair and his team are doing. Although they claim that they will be able to develop a fusion technology that is safer, simpler and more inexpensive than competitors. They also state: “We have already gone beyond breakeven, producing significantly more energy than is required to trigger the process.”
Despite these bold claims there is no evidence anywhere that NanoSpire has built any sort of reactor or generator. Until they can actually build a device that makes energy it is hard to tell if this is a breakthrough or simply an interesting experiment.
To me it sounds like they’ve discovered a new effect but haven’t figured out how to harness it. Obviously this process deserves a lot more investigation. Only time will tell if this is for real or not.