IH funding many LENR research

Irrelevant?

I would debate this point, but I get the impression that it would be useless to do so.

Personally, I am very much looking forward to learning the results of these real scientific investigations.

It sure would be nice if more investigators were inclined to at least discuss their in-progress work, even if they decide to reserve disclosure of results until final analysis completion.

I am quite happy to be able to follow the progress of Bob Higgins here - best of luck to you, Bob!

Quote from THEDEBATEISUSELESS

Milliwatts from electrets with a permanent electric field pushing electrons around, . . . even if they did demonstrate a "real" anomalous effect they aren't immediately useful towards solving the world's energy issues.

Milliwatts would contribute little the world's energy issues, but if they were real, and reliable, they would be worth billions of dollars. The most expensive energy on earth measured per watt is milliwatts of electricity delivered by things like ear-phone batteries, pacemakers, or on a somewhat larger scale, cell phone batteries. A long-lasting replacement for these would be a gold mine. It would bring in huge sums of money, giving the inventor and the manufacturers an opportunity to scale up the effect. It seems unlikely to me that any effect works on a small scale only. If it works at all, it should be possible to scale it up, so eventually this process would work for a wide range of applications.

Quote from maryyugo

Tons of money being spent based entirely on unsubstantiated claims to excess heat without one shred of consistency, competent independent replication,

1. I do not think they are spending tons. They are not spending enough, in my opinion.

2. Some of those claims are unsubstantiated. Others have been widely and independently replicated by some of the most competent researchers on earth. Since you, Mary Yugo, brag about how you have read nothing about the research, and it is indeed obvious that you know nothing about it, you have no business dismissing any of these claims.

3. Why does consistency matter? If this were 1900, it would be wise to invest in cars run by gasoline internal combustion, steam, and batteries. In the late 1960s there were 4 or 5 major computer RAM technologies being developed, quite different from one another. It made sense for IBM and others to invest in all of them. Integrated circuit transistors won out, and the others disappeared, but that outcome was not clear at the time. MRAM (magnetic RAM) still exists, it still has advantages, and it might yet make a comeback.

Quote from THEDEBATEISUSELESS

None of them have kilowatts of output power that I'm aware of.

No one does. Rossi claimed he did, but he lied. He has nothing.

But there is no advantage to kilowatts. A ten-watt reaction that can be controlled, turned on, and turned off, on demand would be far more valuable than an unreliable kilowatt-scale reaction. Once you learn to control a small reaction, you can scale it up as much as you like. A large scale uncontrolled reaction would be dangerous and useless for most applications.

What Alain's list makes very clear is that IH are putting their money where their mouth is (to the extent that they have said much in public, which they haven't) and are infusing real capital into a field that has languished. Concerns about them cornering LENR are no doubt justified on some level, but when divorced from an appreciation of the fact that IH are making real efforts in this area, such concerns come across as detached from reality.

Surely in a perfect world there would be other significant funders as well, and there would be less risk of a single funder having too much sway over the course of LENR research. But we must concern ourselves with the world we live in.

For those researchers who prefer and can afford to remain independent, this is also a sensible approach. It is probably one that will eventually need to be revisited when one hopes to make and commercialize a product.

Yes, thank you, Alan. I stand corrected on a point of detail. I'll give a list I know about for sure, then, from Marianne Macy's IE article:

• Peter Hagelstein
• Dennis Letts
• Brillouin
• Rossi, of course (and I feel sorry for IH in this instance)

Anecdotally I understand they've provided funding to others, including Yoeng Kim. And there is a long list of developments and potential developments in doc. 214-35. So my main point still stands up quite well.

Pjotr, consider only the case of Rossi himself; that's 10.5 million (and legal fees). I've heard that Kim has been provided millions, although I do not have a source, so take it as speculation.

Quote from Pjotr

Unless it's significant amounts, it's the other people who are putting money where the mouth of Darden/Vaughn is.

I agree about the "significant amounts" — if they're just giving people 5,000 here and there, that's nothing to even mention, in contrast to 50,000, 500,000 or 5 million, say. But Darden and Vaughn at any rate are not being flashy at all about what they've been doing. They did not even want publicity and were forced out of stealth mode by circumstances. And if they have simply served as a conduit for other people's money rather than their own (the details of which I would like to better understand), this does not seem to be something to criticize them for if they've been transparent with the other parties. That funding would not have otherwise been available.

I appreciate your point, Alan, about thinking twice before swallowing tempting morsels.

Quote from maryyugo

I've read extensively about it including most of the "best" papers you recommended and I found much of it poorly written and documented, confusing, and the rest inconclusive.

Ah. When I last heard from you, you bragged that you had read nothing. So, what have you now read? Which papers by which authors?

If you are confused, perhaps you are not capable of understanding.