On Bill Gates site, Robert E Godes propose an explanation why Cold Fusion is so opposed since 1989.
They are not the reason. In the case of LENR the real reason is that in 1989 the University of Utah broke many of the basic tenets of scientific research in an attempt to usurp some of the approximately 500 million dollars that was about to be released to the hot Fusion community that week. They got none of the money but they did disrupted approximately five hundred million dollars in US federal government funds that were about to be released to the hot Fusion community. Which explains why the scientists from the hot Fusion community engaged in personal attacks on Pons and Fleishman. They did their best to completely discredit the phenomena and anybody or anything associated with it, in an attempt to free up the funding for their own projects. They were so brutal in their attacks and the disruption was so great, that to this day the academic community refuses to even look at papers associated with this phenomenon. Julian Schwinger, a Nobel Laureate, resigned from the American Physical Society over their refusal to even look at one of his papers dealing with the subject. You should search for an article called the reputation trap for more information about why LENR is in the position it is within the academic community. Brillouin Energy Corp. is in the process of solving the engineering physics required to bring the phenomena to a functional technology status. SRI will be presenting some of our current work. The report at iccf 20 in Japan will also provide an up to the day status update.
EDIT: similar article by Ed Storms
Self-Interest and LENR (Edmund Storms)
I watched how the attitude toward LENR changed at LANL. I watched as tolerance changed to hostility. The change was not based on lack of reproducibility. I and many other people were able to cause the effect. Besides, many phenomenon are initially difficult to control and are not rejected for this reason. The rejectors only used this claim as a fig leaf to hide another reason. I believe the rejection had a more sinter reason. The real reason was simply protection of self interest, initially by people funded by the hot fusion program.
In 1989, hot fusion was in trouble because Congress was getting increasingly impatient with the slow progress. I believe certain very powerful people realized that LENR would siphon funds away from hot fusion and eventually kill it. They could not make this fear public so they set about convincing the public that LENR was bad science, which was easy to do. This was power politics at its worst. This worked because Fleischmann and the rest of us were playing the honest game of understanding nature for everyone’s benefit. In contrast, a few powerful people were only protecting themselves using any dishonest tool they could find. We and they were not playing by the same rules and we still aren’t.
We see this process unfolding every day in Congress and being applied to a range of issues. Facts and what is real do not count in government these days. Self-interest rules. We in LENR have not created a self-interest for anyone of importance outside of a few groups having special needs, such as NASA. Even these groups have to hide their work to avoid being tarred by the bad science claim. In short, no one of importance needs LENR. Once the need is demonstrated, the attitude will change instantly. Perhaps Rossi will show that need or perhaps another country will create the need for the US to take an interest. We have to wait and see where the need is revealed before we can expect acceptance.