American Chemical Society News Release on Cold Fusion

The following is a news release that has been published by the American Chemical Society. This comes soon after the ACS publication Chemical and Engineering News published this article covering the current state of research and development in the LENR field.

The text is taken from this news release titled “What the ‘cold fusion’ debacle has revealed” that was published at Eureka Alert here: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/acs-wt110916.php

“Cold fusion” has a serious legacy problem. Back in 1989, researchers announced that they had demonstrated the phenomenon — a nuclear reaction producing excess heat at room temperature — that promised to revolutionize clean energy. Soon after, they were ridiculed for the assertion. Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, reports how the debacle scarred science and has tainted the continued search for similar energy technologies.

Since the initial claim imploded, the general consensus in the scientific community has been that the phenomenon simply isn’t possible. But a few researchers have independently reported similar experiments that have produced excess heat, if in underwhelming amounts. But consistently reproducing results has been an elusive goal. No one has put forth an accepted theory that would explain such energy generation. No commercial product based on the effect has successfully made it to the market. And those pursuing commercial opportunities have often come off as hucksters, further dampening interest in low-energy nuclear reactions or similar research.

Enter Brilliant Light Power (BLP). The New Jersey-based company claims that it has found a way to shrink hydrogen atoms into “hydrinos,” a term it has coined and trademarked. The process generates a huge amount of energy, says BLP founder Randell Mills, and the company is poised to release a commercial device next year that can harness this reaction to power homes and businesses at a fraction of the cost of current energy technologies. Many scientists harbor serious doubts about the device and expect yet another disappointment.

This ACS release was published on November 9, two days after the article in Chemical and Engineering News. Although the article did report on activities in the scene, it was fairly cautious, and emphasized that so far there is no marketable CF/LENR/BLP device available, and no accepted theory. It would seem that this release is an effort to underline the skeptical position.