A Must Read, with "repaired" URL

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The two previous postings for "This is a must read" have resulted in a URL reference error. My attempt to answer with the actual content of the URL resulted in a terse valid URL reference being replaced by a server error instead. This is probably also what happened the first time. Apparantly there is a length limit beyond which postings cause not only the answer but the question also to fail. This replaces the failed links.

"Replaced" URL: http://www.mv.com/ipusers/zeropoint/IEHTML/FEATURE/cover/32/fset.html

Summary Excerpt from URL:

The Strange Birth of the Water Fuel Age: The Cold Fusion "Miracle" Was No Mistake

by Eugene F. Mallove, Sc.D.*

SUMMARY for President Clinton

Beginning in 1989, a class of new energy technologies has been developed that has the potential to provide pollution-free energy of a magnitude far greater than fossil fuel, using forms of hydrogen from water as the fuel in novel catalytic conditions. The technologies challenge the understanding of physics which has been used to justify continued investment in fossil fuels, nuclear power plants, and the so-called "hot fusion" energy research programs. The U.S. government has spent at least $15 billion on hot fusion without achieving the "breakeven" point already achieved by the new energy technologies. Hydrogen as a fuel in engines and fuel cells has been discussed and demonstrated for several decades. Fuel cells are emerging into the commercial market, using hydrogen-rich chemical compounds. These systems are based on chemical reactions whose energy density (energy per unit of fuel) is very low. There are serious problems in making, storing, and transporting hydrogen. The new energy technologies use hydrogen in a far different way that extracts thousands to millions of times the ordinary chemical combustion energy of hydrogen. Thus, water is fuel! In 1989, after five years of work and investment of $100,000 of their own money, Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced the release of nuclear-scale energy from an electrochemical cell using palladium as the cathode metal. In the cell, heavy hydrogen is forced into the palladium until a new class of nuclear reactions occurs, in which energy of great intensity is released without the deadly radiation or radioactive by-products produced by other nuclear energy processes. The Pons-Fleischmann announcement ignited a controversy that is documented in the body and references of this memorandum. The DOE Energy Research Advisory Board "Cold Fusion Panel" was convened at the direction of President Bush to review the "cold fusion" controversy in its early days. The panel relied heavily on misleading reports from the California Institute of Technology, Harwell (England), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reports from all three sources were negative, and ERAB recommended against any government investment in "cold fusion." This had far-reaching consequences, which seriously impeded but did not stop advances in the field. After over a decade of work, hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers from laboratories around the world confirm the Pons-Fleischmann discovery. It was just the tip of an iceberg of a whole class of nuclear reactions--and other new hydrogen reactions--which occur in metals that are heavily loaded with heavy or normal hydrogen by any of several means. These are often called Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), or Chemically-Assisted Nuclear Reactions (CANR). There is also a process, pioneered by BlackLight Power, Inc., that produces catalytically altered hydrogen atoms. What these processes have in common is the release of intense, nuclear-scale energies without damaging radiation or radioactive by-products. Reactors are small scale, requiring simple apparatus and common materials with hydrogen as the fuel. Transmutations of the metal cathode materials are commonly produced. In some cases, where radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium are used in the cells, these are rapidly transmuted into harmless by-products without production of harmful radiation or explosions. In principle, radioactive waste from nuclear reactors can similarly be deactivated without the political and economic costs of burial. Collectively, these emerging technologies point to a much brighter future for mankind. They do not require resources controlled by any small group of countries. They are concentrated, portable, and democratic. Low cost realization and distribution of devices and systems based on these technologies will require the resources of a market economy and the removal of internal opposition from vested interests in the U.S. government and industries, including arbitrary blocking of "cold fusion" patent applications by the U.S. Patent Office. Originators of these technologies may make fortunes, but in the end mankind will be the beneficiary. Mr. President, you need do only one thing now: Publicly state that you are going to investigate this matter and then do it.

© Copyright Infinite Energy Magazine, 2000. All Rights Reserved. Fair Use for Educational and Research Purposes Only

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), May 14, 2001

Answers

Good summary.

I post here from time to time. I had never had a problem. I even tested the URL. It worked fine.

Funny that 3 postings in a row failed. I'm probably full of it but, and not really serious when I say CARNIVORE.

-- Tom Flook (tflook@earthlink.net), May 14, 2001.


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