Physics Today appears to have come down heavy, and somewhat inaccurately, on the DOE report.
"Claims of cold fusion are no more convincing today than they were 15 years ago.
That's the conclusion of the Department of Energy's fresh look at advances in
extracting energy from low-energy nuclear reactions.
A report released on 1 December 2004 echoes DOE's 1989 study that
followed the headline-making claims of cold fusion by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann."
Those who have followed this are aware that this is not accurate.
First, eighteen anonymous DOE reviewers "split approximately evenly"
on whether or not there is excess power observed in the cold fusion phenomena.
That is a great change since the 1989 ERAB report.]
That is true, and it is important, but the DoE paid no attention to that split in its own official "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." In other words, Physics Today accurately describes the DoE position: "claims . . . are no more convincing today than they were 15 years ago."
Looking at it another way, the 1989 ERAB report was actually more open to research than people realize. The latest report is no better or more open-minded than ERAB was. The critics claim both reports support their point of view, that cold fusion has no merit whatever, but that is not the case. However, that has been the de facto policy of the DoE since 1989, and it has not changed. I do not detect any moderation in the establishment at the DoE, the APS, or any U.S. university. Well-informed people have told me things are changing behind the scenes. I would not know about that, but I have not seen any official statements reflecting this.
Well-informed people have also told me that LENR-CANR.org has played a small role in this hidden glacial change. I have seen some evidence for that. For example, anonymous reviewer #7 wrote about the Iwamura experiments, and cited documents that were not provided to the DoE as far as I know. It seems likely that #7 read them on LENR-CANR.org. I disagreed with #7's conclusions, but anyway I am pleased that he or she looked at the web site.
Second, not all 2004 cold fusion data was reported to the DOE.
Ah, but fortunately at least some of the anonymous reviewers went out and found the data by themselves, at LENR-CANR.org and elsewhere. I do not suppose we should not congratulate them for this show of initiative. They are professional scientists, after all; it is their job to think independently and find things out for themselves. They do not deserve brownie points for taking a trip to library or spending an hour on Google. Anyway, the lesson for CF researchers is clear: if you want people to find out about your research, you must publish it on the Internet. Any web site that costs nothing and requires no registration will do, just so long as Google finds and indexes the paper. There is no advantage to publishing on LENR-CANR.org or any other web page. In fact, readers hardly notice where a paper is uploaded nowadays.
- Jed
