Multiple sources have confirmed to New Energy Times that a team comprising NASA engineers and an investment group from the U.S. is expanding its interest in the low-energy nuclear reaction research of Italian biophysicist Francesco Piantelli. A meeting with the group and representatives of Piantelli will take place in the next few days.
According to Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, NASA was working months ago on experiments based on Piantelli’s research.
Piantelli’s work with LENR goes back two decades and includes two dozen scientific publications and conference presentations. Piantelli and his colleagues’ only significant challenge came from a group at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, but Piantelli’s group published an effective rebuttal.
The Piantelli group’s nickel-hydrogen LENR work remains the most promising demonstration of LENR technology. New Energy Times wrote two feature articles on Piantelli’s work in 2008. We also wrote a summary of the work in the Wiley and Sons Nuclear Energy Encyclopedia, excerpted as follows:
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Whereas electrolytic D/Pd experiments have typically produced scientifically meaningful levels of excess heat, such effects were generally observed only in the milliwatt range. The Piantelli group’s Ni-H gas experiments produced excess heat in the tens of watts.
The researchers explain that an anomalous heating effect in the Ni-H cell takes place “when a cell containing a nickel rod is maintained at temperatures above a critical value and is filled with gaseous hydrogen at subatmospheric pressures.” The critical value is obtained by a heater in the cell that provides constant input power to initially raise and keep the cell temperature at its working value, about 700K. When the heat production rises above the equilibrium condition, the authors identify this as the excited state. Because the experiment can run in the excited state for months a time, the researchers were also able to observe sporadic evidence of both neutrons and gamma rays, which are generally hard to detect in LENR systems because those experiment run for much shorter periods.
Whereas excess-heat-producing electrolytic D/Pd experiments typically ran for days before the electrode corroded or the researcher stopped replenishing electrolyte, the Piantelli group’s hydrogen gas experiments ran continuously in a stable state for months at a time. In November 1998, the group reported two experiments in Il Nuovo Cimento.
Cell “A” produced 38.9 +/-1.5 watts of heat, and cell “B” produced 23.0 +/-1.3 watts of heat. The cells produced excess power continuously at a slowly increasing rate during that period: cell “A” for 278 days; cell “B” for 319 days. The integrated excess energy was 900 MJ for cell “A” and 600 MJ for cell “B.”
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New Energy Times has published a bibliography of papers (and download links where available) from the Piantelli group here. The list includes Piantelli’s patent applications. Among other things, the Piantelli work requires very specific surface preparation performed under an ultra-high vacuum.
A few related events happened in September.
On Sept. 2, Samantha McRoskey, an analyst with Diligence Global Business Intelligence, representing an anonymous investor, contacted New Energy Times to learn more about Ni-H LENR research. We directed her to our published reports and analysis.
On Sept. 5 and 6, a team comprising representatives from an investment group and NASA visited Andrea Rossi’s showroom in Bologna. The team went there with an explicit agreement about test parameters and opportunities to observe and evaluate Rossi’s claims. They did not observe any positive results.
On Sept. 22, NASA conducted a LENR Innovation Forum workshop at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Speakers included NASA scientists Joseph Zawodny, Gustave Fralick, Michael Nelson, Jim Dunn and Dennis Bushnell and retired University of Illinois professor George Miley.
At the meeting, Bushnell said that LENR has a strong potential for a new source of energy. He was optimistic about nickel powder LENR solutions.
“The temperature you can get out of [LENR] is interesting,” Bushnell said. “We’ve had to be careful [in our research in] terms of the energetics. I don’t think there is a power [limitation] problem.
“I think the problem now is of raw courage to look into something that is new. We’ve been fortunate to have a center director at Langley that has the courage to support us to do this. We’ve been at it for three or four years.
“The U.S. efforts on this, for reasons I don’t understand, haven’t gone to the Widom-Larsen theory. They also haven’t gone to try to understand the 18 years of hydrogen-nickel [work] with really superb intellectual content. We need to get off of the Pons-Fleischmann electrochemistry and get into flow systems.”
Was the Sept 22 event this Aug 30 event?
http://www.jumpstartinc.org/Resources/Events/Archive/Details.html?EventID=953
The Aug. 30 talk was canceled due to weather and became part of the Sept. 22 workshop.
I find the information about the visit to Rossi’s shop a bit vague. It would be good to know what the visitors were given access to and what tests they conducted and of course with what result.
The continuing uncertainty about what Rossi has or doesn’t have is disconcerting because it is completely unnecessary. What is needed is to repeat the experiment Dr. Levi claims he performed with an entirely liquid coolant and no steam. Supposedly he ran 18 hours with typical excess power generation of 15kW and max output of over 100kW. That should be very easy to measure properly with calibrated equipment. Why do people not simply redo this? Why doesn’t Rossi encourage it?
Mary,
I will be permitted by agreements I made with sources to tell more of the story in several months from now.
SBK
“On Sept. 5 and 6, a team comprising representatives from an investment group and NASA visited Andrea Rossi’s showroom in Bologna. The team went there with an explicit agreement about test parameters and opportunities to observe and evaluate Rossi’s claims. They did not observe any positive results.”
In several months we will either have a gigantic sh*t storm from the one megawatt e-cat being successfully rolled out, or Mr Krivit will be able to say with vindication that he was correct about Rossi and his secret Italian sauce with the quantum leap in energy return that is claimed.
Frankly, I am curious as h@ll what happened there in Bologna – it is hard to believe that “did not observe any positive results” translates into Rossi unable to demonstrate a working e-cat.
Is the team that’s interested in Piantelli the same one that visited Rossi’s place in Bologna? Can you give any more information, including sources, about the latter?
Mark,
I will be permitted by agreements I made with sources to tell more of the story in several months from now.
SBK
Steve could you provide clarification on the “did not observe any positive results”
Luke,
I will be permitted by agreements I made with sources to tell more of the story in several months from now.
SBK
Finally, after 9 months of contrast bathing, this is good news!
Received via e-mail:
Ciao Steven,
Would it be possible to have more details on this, or maybe a source to query?
> On Sept. 5 and 6, a team comprising representatives from an investment group and NASA visited Andrea Rossi’s showroom in Bologna. The team went there with an explicit agreement about test parameters and opportunities to observe and evaluate Rossi’s claims. They did not observe any positive results.
Many thanks and regards,
Stefano Bagnasco
I.N.F.N. and University of Torino
Stefano,
I will be permitted by agreements I made with sources to tell more of the story in several months from now.
SBK
Interesting, but obviously the the surface area of the metal contact with gas will be maximized if using a nickel powder rather than a solid rod of Nickel.
Yes, one would think that the powder would be a far better way to obtain surface area for the hydrogen to contact. If the effect is more associated with the hydrogen within a volumn of nickel, then more surface area would mainly allow quicker loading. Heat transfer out of the metal might become an issue as the powder size becomes smaller. This could result in sensitivity to temperature and melting.
Now that the lid is finally coming off this suppressed technology the days of oil, nuclear, coal, hydro, solar, wind, etc, energy are numbered. Jim Patterson, 16 years ago, demonstrated a cell with one watt of electricity going in and 1,000 watts of heat steadily coming out, at an energy conference. I published the scientific explanations by top physicists such as Professor Hideo Kozima of how and why this worked in my Cold Fusion Journal. Google: “Tech Visionary” to check on my record.
Andrea Rossi’s response from his blog:
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=510&cpage=15#comment-83748
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Andrea Rossi
September 29th, 2011 at 3:53 AM
WARNING:
THE SNAKE HAS WRITTEN IN HIS BLOG THAT NASA MADE A NOT POSITIVE TEST WITH US. THIS IS TOTALLY FALSE. I AM BOUND FROM A CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT AND I CANNOT GIVE DETAILED INFORMATION, BUT I CAN SAY THAT:
1- WE ARE IN CONTACT WITH NASA, WHO WANTS TO TEST OUR ECATS TO TEST THE POSSIBILITY TO MAKE THEM USEFUL FOR THEIR PURPOSES
2- NASA’S DENNIS.M.BUSHNELL HAS SAID PUBILCLY THAT NASA WILL BUY AN E-CAT AS SOON AS IT WILL BE POSSIBLE TO TEST IT
3- OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH NASA IS TOTALLY POSITIVE
IN A SEPARATE STATEMENT, A SNAKE’S ACCOLITE WROTE THAT THE TEST WE ARE GOING TO DO ON THE 6TH OF OCTOBER WILL BE ALWAYS MADE WITH STEAM. UNFORTUNATELY, WHEN YOU SPEAK WITH THIS PEOPLE YOU DEAL WITH PERSONS THAT HAVE REAL DIFFICULTIES TO UNDERSTAND A TITLE OF A NEWSPAPER IF THEY ARE AT THE SAME TIME CHEWING A GUM, BUT, JUST TO AVOID CONFUSION I REPEAT THAT:
THE MEASUREMENTS WILL BE MADE ON LIQUID WATER. WE WILL HAVE THE STEAM PRODUCED FROM THE REACTOR THAT WILL WORK IN A CLOSED LOOP, WHICH IS THE PRIMARY CIRCUIT, AND THE STEAM ITSELF EXCHANGES HEAT WITH THE LIQUID WATER IN A SECONDARY CLOSED LOOP, SO THAT THE WATER IS HEATED BY THE STEAM THROUGH THE WALLS OF A HEAT EXCHANGER. WE WILL MEASURE THE ENERGY TAKING THE DELTA T OF THE WATER, THE WATER, THE WATER, NOT OF THE STEAM NOT OF THE STEAM, NOT OF THE STEAM, THEREFORE THE ISSUE OF THE QUALITY OF THE STEAM HAS ABSOLUTELY NOT IMPORTANCE, BECAUSE WE DO NOT MEASURE THE ENERGY FROM THE STEAM !!!!!!! WE COULD PUT IN THE PRIMARY CIRCUIT STEAM DIATHERMIC OIL, GLYCOLE, COCA COLA: IT IS ABSOLUTELY IRRILEVANT WHICH IS THE FLUID IN THE PRIMARY CIRCUIT AS FOR CONCERNS THE MEASUREMENT OF THE ENERGY BECAUSE WE MEASURE THE ENERGY ONLY MULTIPLYING THE CUBIC METERS OF WATER FLOWING THROUGH THE SECONDARY CIRCUIT IN ONE HOUR BY THE DELTA T OBTAINED SUBTRACTING, FROM THE TEMPERATURE OF THE WATER (LIQUID) OF THE SECONDARY CIRCUIT AT THE EXIT FROM THE HEAT EXCHANGER, THE TEMPERATURE OF THE SAME LIQUID WATER AT THE INPUT OF THE SAME HEAT EXCHANGER.
ANDREA ROSSI
On 9/28/11 11:44 AM [EST], “Steven Krivit” ; wrote [to Dennis Bushnell]:
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/09/28/nasa-advances-evaluation-of-piantelli%E2%80%99s-lenr-research/
At 08:45 AM [PST] 9/28/2011,[Dennis Bushnell] wrote [to Steven Krivit]:
“Well done, as usual. Look forward to your reporting of the upcoming Rossi tests.”
Dennis Bushnell
Dr. Bushnell you are going on the record as agreeing with Mr. Krivit that tests were performed in September by Rossi for NASA and the tests were not positive.
If this is not your intention then please state otherwise.
Thanks
Luke