Posted on 05/25/2012 2:42:24 PM PDT by Kevmo
More on LENR at NASA: Bushnell and Zawodny Speak
May 24, 2012
Two interesting publications have just come out from NASA, one an article, and the other a video showing that NASA recognizes the promise of LENR and is getting involved in understanding what is going on in this field, and how to develop LENR technologies for real world applications.
Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist and NASA’s Langney Research Center has written an article entitled “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, the Realism and the Outlook” in which he discusses the current state of research in the field of LENR. First, he contends that there is indeed something real going on in the multitudes of experiments that show excess energy being produced.
By any rational measure, this evidence indicates something real is occurring. So, is LENR “Real?” Evidently, from the now long standing and diverse experimental evidence. And, yes – with effects occurring from using diverse materials, methods of energy addition etc. This is far from a “Narrow Band” set of physical phenomena.
He then goes on to ask what is happening in these reactions, and indicates that NASA is attracted to the Widom-Larsen theory as an explanation of what is going on. He summarizes the theory as follows:
The theory states that once some energy is added to load surfaces with hydrogen/protons, if the surface morphology enables high localized voltage gradients, then heavy electrons leading to ultra low energy neutrons will form– neutrons that never leave the surface. The neutrons set up isotope cascades which result in beta decay, heat and transmutations with the heavy electrons converting the beta decay gamma into heat.
Bushnell is careful to say that there is still much research to be done in order to understand LENR phenomena, but says that NASA has begun studies to test the validity of the Widom Larsen theory.
Simultaneous to the release of Bushnell’s article is a video featuring NASA’s Dr. Joseph Zawodny, Senior Research Scientist at Langney Research Center entitled Abundant Clean/Green Energy. Zawodny’s focus in the video is also on the Widom-Larsen theory, and explains how they are trying to test its correctness.
The ultimate goal, according to Zawodny is to find a way to create an inexpensive, clean form of energy which could be used not only by NASA in its space operations, but also something that could provide cheap, abundant energy for the whole world.
With NASA once again coming out with an endorsement of LENR as a potential solution to energy needs, we see that there is some kind of momentum building in the field — perhaps before too long a critical mass will be reached, and there will be a much more widespread acceptance of LENR as an important technological innovation.
76 Responses to More on LENR at NASA: Bushnell and Zawodny Speak
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Why don’t they just hire Rossi? Or better yet, you?
Why don’t they just hire Rossi? Or better yet, you?
Why don’t they just hire Rossi? Or better yet, you?
Ummmm, NASA is also big on believing in man made global warming. Just sayin’.....
What in blazes is a “heavy electron”.
I still fail to see how this works. There has to be some kind of gamma flux due to the mass defect that results from the reaction. Part of the energy could go to gamma, or into the kinetic energy of the fusion end product. Still, you are talking about a reaction that is exothermic on the level of MeV’s!
It’s just a question of Faith.
The have to get the buzz going so that Obama can take credit for it during this election cycle.
They ain’t hiring. I’ve tried both.
Ummmm, NASA is also big on believing in man made global warming. Just sayin’.....
***You’re quite right. They go for the politically correct course of action most of the time. And with LENR, they’re doing exactly that, by going in hard for the Widom-Larson theory. The W-L theory is among the weakest LENR theories but it is attractive because they claim it is NOT cold fusion. However, once you scratch the surface you see 2 hydrogen atoms going through lots of rigamarole due to the weak nuclear force and, in the end, being fused together. I call it Roundabout Cold Fusion.
Why? This is the constant refrain of the "hot fusion" types who adamantly attack LENR/CF. What makes you think Mother Nature will confine herself only to the mechanisms known to occur in plasma physics?? Chemists well know that low-probability reaction mechanisms occur much more strongly when they occur on surfaces as opposed to "free space". All catalysts are based on that science. That an analogous phenomenon should occur for nuclear reactions shouldn't surprise anyone.
"Part of the energy could go to gamma, or into the kinetic energy of the fusion end product. Still, you are talking about a reaction that is exothermic on the level of MeV’s!
OR, it could be transferred into the lattice, which is what the available evidence suggests. Gamma rays (and neutrons, and charged particle emission) all occur in LENR, but the data says that those are not the primary pathway of energy transfer by several orders of magnitude.
Very careful work has been done in the Pd/D2 system that shows that 1) Helium is by far the main product, and 2) that the amount of helium so formed and the amount of heat released is a very close approximation to the mass deficit between D2 and He4:
Miles, M., et al., Correlation of excess power and helium production during D2O and H2O electrolysis using palladium cathodes. J. Electroanal. Chem., 1993. 346: p. 99
The above paper can be found in full at LENR/CANR.org:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMcorrelatio.pdf
LENR/CANR.org is nothing more than a cold fusion blog.
Rigmarole according to the dictionary is confused and meaningless talk, an appropriate word for cold fusion.
Still lying, I see. I fail to see much, if any, "blogish-ness" at LENR/CANR. I see an introduction to the science, news about the subject, collections of items of interest on the subject, and the library section has one of the most extensive compilations of scientific publications on the subject of LENR to be found anywhere, with both abstracts or full papers depending on the publication policies of the originating sources.
The only similarities to a blog are that the site is dedicated to a particular subject, and it is "on the web".
To all you lurkers out, I invite you to visit the site yourselves and see which of us is prevaricating.
Anybody who looks at the source code can see it’s a Wordpress blog.
The fact that the site is hosted by Wordpress has exactly zero to do with the contents thereof. And the paper I cited upthread is, once again, originally from a peer-reviewed science journal. You seem to think that having a copy of that peer-reviewed publication hosted on a Wordpress site somehow invalidates its scientific content.
Lies and spin, it's what you do. Intellectual dishonesty at every turn.
I await your analysis of the actual linked paper, with a detailed list of the scientific mistakes that invalidate it's content as regards LENR. But I suspect that, once again, you will refuse to actually look at it.
I hate stuff.
The Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry (ISSN 0022-0728) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal on electroanalytical chemistry, published by Elsevier.The journal, which the New York Times describes as "a specialty publication not widely circulated,"[1] became more broadly known in 1989 when Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons published a description of their controversial cold fusion research in it, withdrawing their work from publication in Nature after questions were raised during peer review there.[1]
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