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.
New Energy Times obtained three of the slide presentations under a FOIA request.
Zawodny Slides
Nelson Slides
Bushnell Slides
At the meeting, Bushnell, the chief scientist at NASA Langley, 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.”
At the meeting, Bushnell also spoke about Andrea Rossi, the inventor of the Energy Catalyzer.
“We intend to core down on the Rossi stuff and find out what’s real and what’s not,” Bushnell said. “But Rossi’s business is hard to explain other than with some kind of LENR. The Rossi stuff is probably wholly Edisonian and not totally understood, which is an understatement. But we can probably understand it at some point.”
Bushnell failed to mention that NASA had already made attempts to perform due diligence on the Rossi device. Some of the people involved in those attempts were in attendance at this workshop.
In the timeline shown in Nelson’s slides, Nelson omitted the Sept. 5 and 6, 2011 Rossi device tests performed in Bologna for engineers representing Quantum Energy Technologies. NASA representatives were present both days.
One of the eye-witnesses, a former NASA staff member, saw problems from the moment they arrived there.
“Rossi changed the game totally.” the witness said. “From the test plan, the device, everything. There was nothing there that we had agreed on. He had a 30 liter reservoir in there and he wouldn’t even let us see what was in the box or weigh the box.”
The Sept. 5 demonstration was inconclusive; Rossi’s device sprang a leak. The Sept. 6 demonstration was inconclusive; there was no outflow of steam or water.
On the second day, when the former NASA staff member asked Rossi if his device had an internal reservoir, Rossi became enraged. Quantum’s engineers left but NASA engineers offered to come back in a few days to give Rossi time to fix the flow. Rossi declined their offer. He said he was “too busy.”
The ‘slides’ are in pdf format, downloaded, viewed them, and saved them with no trouble on my Vista 64bit system.
I think they are all worth having especially for friends that need to be brought up to speed without taking all day to do it.
also…this is off topic, but ‘Also obviously all the safety issues, labs have blown up studying this arena’……could anybody shed any light on this comment or does everybody know about this but me?
Bushnell may have exaggerated. There is a difference between an experiment blowing up and a lab blowing up. A few years ago, there were reports of a Russian lab that sounded like it did experience am explosion that severely damaged the lab. Before that, there were experiments that blew up; in reverse time sequence, Mizuno, SRI, LLNL, Pons and Fleischmann. Details in public domain available for P&F, SRI and Mizuno explosions.
Again, Dennis Bushnell states as a ‘matter-of-fact’ that Rossi DID indeed produce kW of excess heat.
When a chief scientist no longer relys on ‘the scientific method’ before stating something as fact, we are clearly barking straight into a chaotic territory where fact and fiction will be blurred for a long time to come.
Excellent scientific journalism.
I don’t know where LENR research is going or what NASA will fund, but I will check this blog
for the best reporting in the LENR field.
I hope Rossi is on to something but not enough information to tell.
Steve, you saw first hand what Rossi has; now after reading about how things went with NASA do you think Rossi has anything at all. I am in a total quandry.. I wonder what NASA thinks he has…..
I guess thats the crux no one knows….. but that tells us a lot doesnt it.
Nelson slides updated today. He sent me a copy that included source attributions and that also corrected the spelling of Piantelli’s name