LENR Needs Commercial Success

From various reports from around the world, such as the recent ICCF-21 conference in Colorado, we know that there is a dedicated group of researchers who are working hard in the LENR field, and are having some experimental success demonstrating that LENR is a valid field of scientific research. This has actually been the case for many years now, but it is still basically a neglected field, still struggling for respectability after the tarnishing that took place soon after 1989.

Based on publicly available information, I don’t see any prospects for LENR entering the commercial space in the near future beyond Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat. There may be some dark horses working behind the scenes, but one would expect that if Leonardo is really getting ready for a commercial launch, that anyone else ready to produce marketable products would be gearing up to fight for customers.

So my perception is that if Rossi comes through with a working commercial E-Cat within the next year or so, the field will get a real boost in new interest, and if he gets even some initial traction in terms of customers signing up for his “heat as a service” business plan, then one would expect that established players in the energy field will sit up and take notice, and start to try and figure out how Rossi is doing what he is doing.

Rossi has been very careful to provide as little help to potential competitors as possible in terms of providing information about how the E-Cat works, but he must realize that success for him could unleash a huge amount of R&D into the LENR field from new players who will surely think that if a lone inventor can pull off commercial LENR, then it is not beyond the reach of organizations with vastly more resources than Rossi has had. Thus, Rossi’s first-to-market advantage (assuming he makes it) may be challenged quite quickly.

However, if Rossi doesn’t come through, I don’t expect a great deal of change in the field in the near term. Simply stated, LENR needs to be commercialized for it to take off. Without commercial products, or at least strong experimental evidence of commercial-grade energy production, I would expect there will continue to be low levels of interest in LENR and we’ll continue on the present levels of activity.