Twenty-seven years later we now know that what Fleischmann and Pons were observing was some kind of nuclear reaction but certainly not fusion. Why do we know this? Because isotopic shifts have been observed in room temperature experiments conducted at many other places, many with very prestigious credentials. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Naval Research Laboratory have all conducted experiments roughly akin to Fleischmann and Pons. At Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in India, researchers noted the phenomenon occurring in tritium.

What appears to not be fusion, but rather a neutron-induced reaction, has now been observed in many labs. The moniker LENR standing for low-energy nuclear reactions seems apt. Fusion is not what is happening. Rather the ambient room temperature chemical reaction being observed appears to be caused by weak interactions of ultra-low-momentum neutrons and neutron-capture processes. This is equivalent to the transmutation of elements something once thought of as being an alchemist’s wizardry rather than science.

Anomalous heat detected in E-Cat devices built by Andrea Rossi, the name most associated with cold fusion other than the original experimenters, may have a non-cold fusion explanation. And the reason that no commercial product has ever been shipped despite imminent promises of delivery has more to do with the fact that the anomalous heat generated is not always consistent, at least not enough to be a reliable new energy generating source.

States David Nagel, formerly with the Naval Research Laboratory and currently on the faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at George Washington University, “LENR is real experimentally, and not understood theoretically…..here are results that you just can’t explain away. Whether it’s cold fusion, low-energy nuclear reactions, or something else—the names are all over the place—we still don’t know. But there’s no doubt that you can trigger nuclear reactions using chemical energy.”

Nagel calls LENR “lattice-enabled nuclear reactions.” One thing for sure, this is new science.

It is certainly not nuclear fusion as we understand it because the transmutation of elements as described by those who purport to have developed cold fusion reactors defies the laws of physics. Once the quest of medieval alchemists, transmutation of the elements sought a way to convert dross metals like lead and turn them into gold. Well it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work today, that is, unless you compress two chemical elements with such force that they fuse to create a new element and emit elementary particles, gamma rays and a ton of heat. But that is not cold fusion. That’s what processes in the Sun do, and what a tokamak reactor does. And that’s the force behind hydrogen bombs.

But nothing to date quite explains the anomalous excess heat that appears to be the outcome of the chemistry that goes on in low-energy nuclear reactors or LEN-Rs, the newer term for what Pons and Fleischmann initially called cold fusion. When they first announced they had discovered anomalous heat in their experiment they were using deuterium (heavy water) and palladium. The interaction between these two was reported by them to be fusion although they found no evidence of fusion having actually occurred. There were no elementary particles discharged. And certainly no transmutation of deuterium to another element. What they observed was anomalous heat.

But if fusion were occurring what would it look like? Two deuterium atoms fusing together could become Tritium, Helium 3 or Helium 4. In all three cases elementary particles and gamma rays would be byproducts. But Pons and Fleischmann never detected any of these three elements, nor the elementary particles, just anomalous heat.

That takes us to Andrea Rossi, who I have written about on several occasions in the past. He is the developer of the E-Cat which he describes as a low energy nuclear reactor or LEN-R. He claims that in combining powdered nickel and hydrogen and introducing a secret catalyst that the output is transmutation to copper with anomalous heat as the byproduct.

Rossi is seen by many to be a fraud. Recent tests of his E-Cat however indicated net power output six times greater than input. How could that be? Well one thing we don’t know about Rossi’s device is what’s under the covers. He calls it a catalyst and has declared it an industrial trade secret. When he has attempted to file patents for the device, however, they have been rejected. And the recent independent testing that has verified anomalous heat output did not get a peak inside to see what physically is happening. Not only that the testers reported “that the device was already in operation when the trial began,” that observation cameras and sensors were placed by Rossi and not the independent team, and that elements introduced into the device were not weighed prior to the test. Does this suggest a bit of larceny? Perhaps! One thing we do know, Rossi’s claim that what is happening, the transmutation of nickel and hydrogen to copper and heat, is not possible under any current known physical laws.

But what Rossi is peddling is not the same as what Pons and Fleischmann detected. And that remains a mystery that to-date no single theory explains. A simple explanation may be that we are witnessing spontaneous combustion occurring when two chemical elements in the presence of a third generate a catalytic heat response. To date 66 different theories have been propounded to explain what Pons and Fleischmann observed. But one thing for sure as an article published in Forbes yesterday stated, we know there is anomalous heat but the term “cold fusion” needs to go away so that the alchemy and magic is finally removed from the equation.

Miley, seen in the image below, is a big believer in the potential of cold fusion and his credentials lend weight to his claims. The device he has created differs from that created by the controversial Andrea Rossi, the name most associated with LENR, that is after Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who first reported the phenomenon and gave it its moniker, cold fusion.

Today the term LENR has replaced cold fusion. LENR stands for low energy nuclear reaction. Miley’s device, seen in the drawing below, does not require an external heat source, relying on the chemical reactions within it to produce the heat energy needed to run the unit. The fuel is ZrO2 (zirconium dioxide) and deuterium pressurized to 413 kilo pascals (60 psi). And unlike Andrea Rossi, Miley’s results should be available to the public since he is working in an academic institution. I tried to find a journal reference to Miley’s experiments using Google Search but was unsuccessful. Maybe it’s a bit premature.

Miley has stated publicly that the phenomena he is observing is not chemical but nuclear. His LENR device is small and the question is, will it scale to yield enough energy to become commercially viable? Recently, Miley obtained the first U.S. patent for a LENR device, something no other LENR researcher has accomplished to date. And recent reports state that Miley is working on 3 Kilowatt and 30 Kilowatt LENR designs.

I will keep you posted. I’ve written to Professor Miley to see if he will agree to an interview and will keep you informed. Are we a step closer to a real commercial LENR? I hope so but will remain a skeptic for the moment.