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Why did NASA scientist do video on LENR (formerly misnamed ‘cold fusion’)?

A two-minute video clip uploaded to the NASA technology gateway website is making waves. The promotional video released January 12 is exciting some people while agitating critics of the research field called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR).

It’s not aimed at techies.

Instead, in public-friendly language, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Langley research center says “NASA’s method” of LENR which uses materials such as nickel, carbon and hydrogen has shown that it can “produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation, and without producing nasty waste.”

Notice that the scientist, Joseph Zawodny, says LENR “has the demonstrated ability to produce excess amounts of energy.” He doesn’t say whose experiments demonstrated it. He could mean that NASA scientists have witnessed repeatable experiments and have maybe paid for further research into LENR. Or maybe they do have a working prototype themselves, who knows?

The video also doesn’t mention the Italian entrepreneur Andrea Rossi whose announcements about his own hydrogen/powdered nickel/catalyst invention are making news around the world. But hey, it’s only a two-minute clip. To get the public’s attention you have to be short-and-to-the-point.

Critics object to the vagueness of the video and accuse the scientist of jockeying for future research grants by giving NASA credit for theoretical work others have done. But is that the most important question? Read more

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