Spreading Awareness of Cold Fusion

I can’t help but reflect on what Barry Simon said in the video he released of his visit to MIT. I think that many of the readers here can identify with his sentiments.

“I’m going to get off my computer chair and try to do something about this . . . There are cold fusion machines surfacing all over the world . . . It’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of when it’s going to happen . . . To all you politicians out there, ninety some percent of us want this to happen, we don’t want an oil-base economy . . . to all you reporters out there, why aren’t you covering this? Educate yourself because something is happening every week now . . . cold fusion has already given me something, I don’t have to wait any longer — cold fusion has given me hope.”

I started this site last year for many of the same reasons that Barry expressed. I learned about something — Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat — that I believed could have a very important effect for good on the world. Since that time I’ve learned that it is not only Rossi who has discovered anomalous effects in his research — there are many researchers and inventors who are finding that a new way of extracting energy from matter is possible.

The natural inclination when you learn about something you think is good and exciting, and could be beneficial to lots of people is to share it — hence this site. The miracle of the Internet is that you don’t have to be in a position of power or wealth to communicate something with the world, all you need is a connection. Still, there are plenty of obstacles facing one person in a world of billions in getting a message out. The weight of prevailing wisdom is great, and entrenched thinking is hard to change.

My sense is that in time, as more people learn about the evidence for cold fusion/LENR, and as that evidence grows stronger that there will be a thaw in the glacier of indifference to the topic, and perhaps it will be a very fast melt once a working product is in the marketplace.

The odd thing is that one would think that it would be professional scientific reporters from media sources well-known for uncovering important breakthroughs that would be covering this story, and alerting the world to the potential of this technology. But that is not the case. There are a number of web sites and blogs that are following the story, none of which are connected with traditional media outlets. Myself, I am a distinctly non-technical person who struggles to understand much of the science discussed in relation to LENR. And the first video of the MIT NANOR device comes from an interested musician.

To my knowledge, the only substantial coverage of cold fusion in the traditional media has come from Europe — NyTeknik in Sweden, and Focus and REI TV in Italy, Wired.co.uk — but practically nothing from US media.

So what should be done? I actually don’t see the necessity for protesting the lack of media coverage, or starting an organized campaign to build awareness. At one time, and not too long ago, the Internet was unknown to all but a few people in academic and military circles. Now it is an essential part daily life. There was no organized campaign to build awareness — knowledge of it spread because it was a useful technology that had obvious benefit to the average person.

I think that with a revolutionary technology like cold fusion, awareness will grow naturally by word of mouth, internet posts, youtube videos, etc. And when cold fusion products come on the market it will be impossible to ignore. Eventually professional journalists will come around.