Universal Appeal for Support
for New Energy Science and Technology
| by Dr. Eugene F. Mallove President, New Energy Foundation, Inc. Editor-in-Chief, Infinite Energy Magazine |
Dear Friend:
Here are some thoughts by wise thinkers—background for this urgent appeal for your consideration and support of research and development of radically new forms of energy. These are energy sources that have the potential to turn the present world order upside down and bring about a bright new day for civilization:
“The exception tests the rule.” Or, put another way. “The exception proves that the rule is wrong.” That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.American Nobel Laureate in Physics (1988) Leon M. Lederman is no proponent of research into radical forms of new energy; one might accurately call him a “pathological skeptic” based on at least one opinion he has voiced (see The God Particle, 1993, p.122). Nonetheless, he somehow senses that a physics revolution may be upon us. He said recently, “You can smell discovery in the air…The sense of imminent revolution is very strong.” (New York Times, November 11, 2003, p.D12). He is much more accurate than he can imagine, but not at all for reasons that he would readily accept! Perhaps he may be thinking of esoteric academic physics subjects such “string theory” or “cosmic dark energy,” but certainly not practical technologies based on radical new physics. Having the intellectual problems identified by physics Nobel Laureate P. W. Bridgman in the quotation above, Lederman has not been looking at a large body of research that will indeed revolutionize the foundations of physics and give us command of fantastic new forms of energy. Too bad for Lederman; and too bad for us all that he has not been paying attention. We could use the support of people like Lederman…if they would only come to their senses, that is, examine open-mindedly the validity of experimental data that challenges their cherished theories.
Richard P. Feynman (1963), Nobel Laureate in Physics (1965)The progress of physics is unsystematic…The result is that physics sometimes passes on to new territory before sufficiently consolidating territory already entered; it assumes sometimes too easily that results are secure and bases further advance on them, thereby laying itself open to further possible retreat. This is easy to understand in a subject in which development of the great fundamental concepts is often slow; a new generation appears before the concept has been really salted down, and assumes in the uncritical enthusiasm of youth that everything taught in school is gospel truth and forgets the doubts and tentative gropings of the great founders in its eagerness to make applications of the concepts and pass on to the next triumph…But each new young physicist…is in danger of forgetting all the past rumination and present uncertainty, and of starting with an uncritical acceptance of the concepts in the stage of development in which he finds them.
Percy W. Bridgman (1961), Nobel Laureate in Physics (1946)
In an article in Science, November 1, 2002, eighteen experts reported that they examined all the conventionally understood alternatives to fossil fuels and found them all to have “severe deficiencies” in their ability to deal with environmental problems while also being adequate to growing planetary energy needs. Physics Professor Martin Hoffert, leader of that research group, told the press that the United States would have to undertake an urgent energy research crash program, like the Manhattan atomic bomb project or the Apollo lunar missions. According to the New York Times (November 4, 2003, D1), Hoffert stated that we would need “Maybe six or seven of them [massive projects] operating simultaneously…We should be prepared to invest several hundred billion dollars in the next 10 to 15 years.” Well, I have news for these experts: The solutions to our energy problems are very close at hand, and they do require initial research and funding, but not the billions of dollars that such Establishment “experts” are accustomed to from government largesse. Rather, all that is needed perhaps are only several tens of millions of dollars to create robust prototype electric power generators based on new energy physics discoveries that have already been made. That is what this Appeal for Support is all about: to raise consciousness and funding for these radical alternative new energy sources.
Question: Do you believe that it is possible that modern science has overlooked or ignored major scientific discoveries, which—if developed into technologies— would revolutionize almost every aspect of civilization? It has!
I will not catalogue the many horrors and troubles of this world that could be reduced or eliminated with an abundant, safe, and clean, radically new form of energy, if it were to be embodied in widely used technologies. You know these troubles already. But I do want to tell you about a significant path toward solving many of these problems, which we can all begin to take now, but about which you may have heard very little. You may have thought that no such path could exist. Let me assure you that it does and that thousands of researchers are already on it. They have traveled this unbeaten path to a new era for far too long without adequate support. I should know, I happen to be one of them. Yes, we have not reached our goals, but thanks to meticulous scientific research, huge sacrifices, and tireless work against great opposition, these objectives are now much closer to being realized. The basic scientific direction of the path forward has already been mapped out. We need your support to go further on the path and reach our common destination: A world of abundant, clean, and safe energy from sources that have no centralized geopolitical control.
Please attend to this appeal. I am most certainly not asking you to accept my claims at face value. But you must read, consider, study or review the compendious referenced material, investigate it, and then, I hope, you will be moved to take action. If you still have questions about these claims that need answering, I and my colleagues are available to answer them with facts, not hand-waving.
Who am I to ask anything of you on behalf of others, whether your attention for these brief moments, or for your financial and moral support? I am a scientist and an engineer with two engineering degrees from MIT (1969, 1970) and a doctorate from the Harvard University School of Public Health (1975). I have worked all my adult life as a dedicated scientist, despite my engineer’s stripes. I have always sought to learn how the cosmos really works, and I find this process to be an exciting, difficult, and unending adventure, despite those who so erroneously claim that we are approaching “The End of Science” or a “Final Theory of Everything.” Apart from my work in government-funded research at MIT and Harvard and later in corporate settings, I have also broadened my horizons by writing about science as an author and a journalist. Articles by me and about me have appeared in such venues as MIT Technology Review, The Washington Post Sunday “Outlook” section, the New York Times, Popular Science, Analog, TWA Ambassador in-flight magazine, Wired, and New Hampshire Magazine. I have appeared on many national radio programs, and for a time in the mid-1980s I was proud to have been a regular science and technology broadcaster for The Voice of America.
I am telling you something about me, not to elevate myself, but to convey to you something of my experience, sincerity, and integrity. I have written three acclaimed science books for the general public: The Quickening Universe: Cosmic Evolution and Human Destiny (1987, St. Martin’s Press), The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer’s Guide to Interstellar Travel (1989, John Wiley & Sons, with co-author Dr. Gregory Matloff), and Fire from Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor (1991, John Wiley & Sons). The late Nobel Laureate in physics (1965) Julian Schwinger endorsed my book Fire from Ice with these words: “Eugene Mallove has produced a sorely needed, accessible overview of the cold fusion muddle. By sweeping away stubbornly held preconceptions, he bares the truth implicit in a provocative variety of experiments.” (He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize with Richard P. Feynman and Sin Itiro Tomanaga.) I am most proud of this latter book, because it began a jarring quest that led to finding out not only dramatic new truths about new accessible forms of energy in nature, but more important for me and you, the following most astonishing truth about modern “official” science: Official science is not really intent on truly expanding scientific knowledge, in particular when some very, very fundamental scientific dogmas and theories are put at risk.
Here is how one famous nuclear science professor at my alma mater MIT reacted to my request to him in 1991 to study the summary reports from two pioneering Ph.D. scientists, who had compiled seminal reviews about frontier experiments in low-energy nuclear reactions (a.k.a. “cold fusion”). One of the reviewing scientists was 34-year veteran researcher at our Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the other was a leader of research at India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC):
“I have had fifty years of experience in nuclear physics and I know what’s possible and what’s not!…I will not look at any more evidence! It’s all junk!” —MIT Prof. Herman Feshbach, May 1991, on the telephone to Dr. MalloveI hope you recognize that the late Professor Feshbach’s most unfortunate and ill-considered reaction was fundamentally unscientific. It reminds me of the Church leaders at the time of Galileo, who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope at the Moon or at Jupiter, because they “knew” that nothing new could be seen! Yes, many modern scientists are filled with catastrophic hubris; they have become in many ways mere “technicians of science,” and guardians of what amounts to a pernicious “Holy Writ.” Don’t bother me with the experimental evidence, my theory can tell me what is possible and what is not!
If by chance you are one of those who believe that “all is well in the house of science” and that “official science” can be counted on to behave itself and always seek the truth—even in matters of central, overarching importance to the well-being of humankind—you are sorely mistaken, and I could prove that to you with compendious documentation. (If you want to read what happened at just one institution, MIT, when a paradigm shift threatened established hot fusion research programs and “vested intellectual interests” such as those Prof. Feshbach so vehemently defended, read my 55-page report about this monumental tragedy at www.infinite-energy.com.) But as a first step, you should reflect on the broader history of science, which is so fraught with revolutionary leaps and paradigm shifts. These have often been made against great opposition—with revolutionary data staring an older, unaccepting generation of scientists right in the face! Read this Appeal carefully and then reconsider your opinion about who is telling the truth and who is defending falsehood about revolutionary new prospects for science and civilization.
For almost nine years I have been the editor of Infinite Energy, the magazine of new energy science and technology. Though it is now small in circulation, Infinite Energy is received worldwide in some forty countries. And, Infinite Energy is distributed to newsstands across the United States and Canada. My friend and colleague, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, has supported with words and resources some of our efforts on behalf of new energy. The research that Infinite Energy covers suggests that there are at least three major categories of radically new sources of energy that civilization is on the verge of being able to tap and reduce to practical technologies. These are the completely new forms of energy for which this Appeal for Support is being issued. New Energy is the term that we apply to new sources of energy that are currently not recognized as feasible by the “scientific establishment,” but for which overwhelming and compelling evidence exists, we suggest, in at least these major categories:
Category 1. New hydrogen physics (a.k.a. “cold fusion,” more generally Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions or LENR, “hydrino” physics, and other water-based energy sources.)
Copious technical and other information about this research may be found on these two diverse websites: www.lenr-canr.org and www.blacklightpower.com as well as our own site, www.infinite-energy.com. The upshot of this energy-from-water field is that within ordinary water there is a heretofore unimaginably large energy reservoir that may be as great as 300 gallons of gasoline energy equivalent within each gallon of plain water! This energy would be non-polluting, would have no hazardous radiation, and would, in effect, have a zero fuel cost. Only one cubic kilometer of ocean water would provide energy equivalent to all the known oil reserves on Earth. In responding to a special plea by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the White House requested from me a technically-based Memorandum on this topic in February 2000. This 8,500-word Memorandum, “The Strange Birth of the Water Fuel Age,” was submitted to the Clinton Administration and later to the Bush Administration. It is now posted on www.infinite-energy.com. It asks for a review of the substantial evidence—in particular the copious evidence developed over the past 14 years in U.S. Federal laboratories—for this category of anomalous new physics energy. Unfortunately, apart from polite “Thank You” notes, no discernable action has been taken by either administration. The 10th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF10) was held near and at MIT in August 2003. Actual public demonstrations of excess energy production in electrolytic cells occurred at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Wall Street Journal science journalist Sharon Begley attended ICCF10 and wrote a fine column in the September 5, 2003 issue of WSJ, “Cold Fusion Isn’t Dead, It’s Withering From Scientific Neglect.” Among other surprising technical developments at ICCF10 was the presentation by a well-funded Israeli corporation, Energetics Technologies, which appears to have made enormous strides in overcoming some of the problems with the low-energy nuclear reactions phenomenon. Isn’t it time that the experimental data from this significant field of scientific work is reviewed by an unbiased panel, unlike the rush-to-judgment hostile group in 1989, which inexcusably botched that investigation? Why aren’t the many politicians who have been informed about this taking action? Are they perhaps fearful of the all-to-common “sneer review” from the Scientific Establishment?
Category 2. Vacuum energy, Zero Point Energy or “ZPE” for short, aether energy, or space energy.
These are descriptions of vast energy sources from the vacuum state. Information about this most radical and paradigm-shattering physics and technology research can be found on websites: www.aetherometry.com, www.energyscience.co.uk, and www.aethera.org. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Paulo and Alexandra Correa in the Toronto area obtained three US patents on an astonishing technological device, the so-called Pulsed Abnormal Glow Discharge (PAGDTM) reactor. In its several embodiments, it already produces kilowatt-level electrical, thermal, and mechanical output power. A Quicktime video of one such device, working in 2003, may be viewed at www.aetherometry.com/cat-abrimedia.html. Successful testing of the PAGD by outside parties, including Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Ontario Hydro, regrettably did not lead to commercial arrangements to further the development of this scientific wonder, which has been meticulously documented in the three United States-granted Correa patents. (Uri Soudak, former Chief Technology Officer of IAI, is still involved with the project here in the U.S.) The Correas and Dr. Harold Aspden, IBM’s former chief of patent operations in Europe (from 1963 to 1983), have provided convincing theoretical explanations, based on concrete experiments with a variety of fundamental phenomena, all of which illuminate how this unsuspected vacuum state energy can be extracted by the PAGD reactor. The advent (possibly in only 2-3 years) of self-sustaining electrical power-generating units in the multi-kilowatt power range appears to be only a matter of gathering a relatively small amount of engineering/scientific development funding, in the low several tens of million dollars range.
Category 3. Environmental energy, i.e. energy from sensible thermal energy (in particular, energy of molecular motion), through significant extensions to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The Proceedings of an important scientific conference dealing with this subject gives great insight into this work: Quantum Limits to the Second Law: First International Conference on Quantum Limits to the Second Law (San Diego, CA, July 28-31, 2002), Professor Daniel P. Sheehan, Editor, American Institute of Physics, Conference Proceedings, #643, 2002. A strong consensus of a significant number of the scientist attendees, as reported by the author, is that it will be possible to make utilitarian machines that convert the thermal energy in the environment to useful work, without a lower temperature reservoir to dump waste heat. This would be in direct contravention of the supposedly sacrosanct Second Law of Thermodynamics. These devices would be nearly perfect “free energy” machines. Accurate simulations of such devices have been carried out and the results published in peer-reviewed journals. Some of the authors predict that such prototype devices could be reduced to small prototype units within five years.
The foregoing brief descriptions of the three categories of New Energy identified so far is only the tip of the iceberg of the verifiable and testable information that is available on these energy sources. It is amenable to critical and precise scientific review. Of course, if the Scientific Establishment trusts only in its textbook theories and if disbelieving people of good will who have the means to move this work forward choose “not to look through the telescope,” the consequences will be that these wondrous technologies will not be developed as rapidly as they could have been otherwise—or they may not be developed at all! This has been and will be a monumental tragedy for virtually every category of human experience, all of which would be transformed by these now apparently “unwanted” discoveries.
I could write much more in this memorandum about the corrupt machinations within the supposedly well-ordered and ethical house of science, actions that have kept the information that Infinite Energy publishes from where it should be: prominently considered in such publications as Science and Nature. Don’t worry, many, many peer-reviewed technical publications have indeed courageously published pioneering technical papers about new energy, but the prominent mainstream publications that set the boundaries of the public scientific discourse—journals such as Science and Nature—reject without review any and all papers that challenge the foundational paradigms of physics, chemistry, and biology. You may find that difficult to believe, as I would have a mere fifteen years ago when I wrote Fire from Ice, but it is a sad and demonstrable truth. Let us not dwell on that, however, but rather move forward together with an end-run around this grotesque, anti-scientific obstruction.
Infinite Energy Magazine has been published bi-monthly since March 1995 and I have been its Editor-in-Chief and Publisher since that time. It is a technical magazine with editorial outreach to the general public as well. Many of its articles are very accessible to laypeople and non-specialists. You may download for free some 117 pages of representative sample articles, which we have gathered together for you at www.infinite-energy.com. Other key articles are posted for free downloading on our website on a continuing basis. To maintain the highest editorial standards, Infinite Energy is written and edited by scientists, engineers, and expert journalists. It is aimed at pioneering scientists, engineers, business people, environmentalists, philanthropists, and investors who are concerned about an exciting R&D area that we believe will change the world dramatically.
New Energy Foundation, Inc. (NEF) is an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) public charity corporation, based in New Hampshire; it has a five-member board of respected citizens. (Prior to July 2003, Infinite Energy had operated under a for-profit corporation.) NEF also has a research grant-awarding function, which was initiated in 2003. NEF dispenses to outside researchers and developers carefully targeted research and development funding grants from its reserves of charitable contributions. These funds are beginning to grow, but are nowhere near the level they need to be.
The current subscription price and newsstand price of Infinite Energy provides less than 30% of what it costs to carry on a publication of this quality at the frontiers of knowledge—and for which no significant advertising base yet exists. And this frontier knowledge is neglected (and not infrequently mocked) by most of the scientific and media establishments. Therefore, charitable contributions are needed to carry on this important information networking function. Here is the other basic motivation for NEF: It has been far too difficult (so far) to persuade venture capital to invest in new energy technology that is not quite ready yet for “prime time,” so the vicious Catch 22 (“We won't invest because it is not successful already.”) must be broken. We appeal to the humanitarian and charitable instincts of those in a position to invest charitably in and/or to spread the word about the most fundamental aspect of our future: The triumph of truth over falsehood on the frontiers of science—in which the new energy field, in our view, will be the first paradigm-shattering example.
What we have today in the fiery menace of hydrocarbon fuels and its associated geopolitical nightmare is very ugly indeed. There is almost no area of human activity that would not be dramatically affected by the advent of new energy technology—especially matters of war or peace and health and the environment. Therefore, if your review of the referenced material convinces you that this is a reality and not “pathological science,” as the unrepentant critics—who have not studied the scientific findings objectively or at all—would have you believe, we hope that you will view your tax-deductible support of the New Energy Foundation as a significant investment in your future, for your loved ones and for civilization at large. Just try to imagine our world twenty or fifty years hence without the advent of a dramatic source of new energy such as low-energy nuclear reactions, aether energy (or Zero Point Energy/space energy/vacuum energy, if you prefer), or some other very powerful new physics energy source. It is not a pleasant picture.
What about solar power, wind power, or hydrogen fuel cells, you ask? Those are fine, and Infinite Energy devotes some smaller space to writing about these. But a future of abundant, clean energy has almost no chance of emerging from the well-intentioned, beneficial, but extremely limited world of wind-power, photovoltaics, hydropower, and other conventional renewables. And the so-called controlled hot fusion tokamak reactor program, which is lavishly funded with billions of dollars by governments to the exclusion of workable new energy science and technology, will never bring about an era of clean abundant energy from the heavy hydrogen in water. Conventional hydrogen fuel cells, which are widely discussed by the news media today, rely on the conventionally understood energy from hydrogen when it combines with oxygen to form water. This is thousands to millions of times less powerful per gram of hydrogen than already demonstrated new energy sources! Furthermore, the hydrogen for conventional fuel cells must come from some other energy source that must be used to break down abundant water to get hydrogen fuel (if we reject the other hydrogen source: hydrocarbon fuel). But in all conventional hydrogen fuel processes using water as the starting material, this requires more energy than one gets back when the hydrogen is consumed. So ordinary “hydrogen power” is a misnomer at best—it is no solution at all to the world’s real energy needs. Hydrogen, conventionally employed, is an energy storage medium period. New Energy Foundation supports radically new forms of energy, not the relatively weak examples of alternative energy within conventional renewables. We acknowledge, of course, that there are now no robust new energy devices on the market—not yet. But when adequate, well-targeted research funding is applied, a revolution in energy technology will occur that will dwarf the personal computer revolution in intensity. It will have much in common with that revolution too, since power sources will be highly distributed. The very troublesome and erratic power grid is doomed to obsolescence.
At this time, New Energy Foundation is in need of financial support from a broader community than heretofore. NEF disseminates information about potentially world-changing technologies—about the science, technology, patents, investment, and politics thereof; we measure and investigate new claims about new energy devices to determine whether they are sound. This latter can be tough, because there is no question that there is much bogus “free energy noise” that obscures the good research. Most important, we are now processing grant applications by scientists and inventors from around the world, so that the most promising work—now highly under-funded, due to the very heretical nature of this work—gets the financial support that it so much deserves. We are very demanding about these grants; we insist that the research must be headed in the direction of developing publishable scientific results and/or actual commercially useful technologies that operate on new scientific energy principles.
Please help us today, either with your financial contribution—of any size—or by passing along this letter and our message to those who may be better able to help NEF. Whatever you or they can afford, no matter how small an amount, will be deeply appreciated—and will be acknowledged in the pages of Infinite Energy (unless you or others tell us that anonymity is requested). Some day we will live in a world in which the discoveries of New Energy science will be taken for granted. No one will be able to deny the devices, processes, and science, whose validation we are struggling so hard to achieve. In some sense, we will then have succeeded in our mission and thus will have “put ourselves out of business.” Those scientific publications and general media, which should have been dealing fairly with this topic all along, will then be forced to write about it and recant past inexcusable excessive skepticism. Billions of dollars in R&D money will then flow from corporations and individuals, as should have been happening already based on what scientists have already discovered! The huge funding for infrastructure conversion to New Energy will flow naturally from private sources, as it has in the rise of the personal computer and Internet industry. Nothing would make me happier than to have that day come. But until then, we very much need increased financial support.
We would like to reach soon our target of at least $500,000 per year in approved research funding for New Energy. That may not seem like a lot of money to do significant research, but let me assure you that even this amount—wisely distributed to the best researchers—could soon begin to have a dramatic catalytic effect. New energy researchers are accustomed to low budgets and are fantastically creative, unlike the wasteful government energy research programs that have demonstrably failed already. It will not be easy to obtain even this level of modest research funding—and, of course, several millions of dollars per year would accomplish much more, but the sooner well-targeted funding reaches under-funded researchers, the more likely we are to accelerate the inevitable New Energy Revolution. Yes, we understand that there is room in parallel for corporate start-ups, and we definitely encourage that to take place. But some of the charitable grant money can help the struggling inventors and scientists to do sufficient research, so that their work can be of greater interest to corporate start-up models.
I think you would agree with me that in these often very dark times the world would benefit immensely from a realistic hope—followed by on-market technology—that a new era of abundant, clean energy resources will be dawning. Please do your best to help us make that happen. Study the hard-won information that we have brought to your attention, if you do not yet accept what I have tried to convey to you. When you have become convinced, if you are not already, please act! You may donate charitably to the efforts of New Energy researchers at www.infinite-energy.com. Please also help us to bring this critical issue to others who may be able to help. Why not satisfy your curiosity and also help New Energy Foundation by subscribing to Infinite Energy. Thank you in advance for joining with us now or in the very near future.
Sincerely,
Dr. Eugene F. Mallove
President, New Energy Foundation, Inc.
Editor-in-Chief, Infinite Energy Magazine
Purchase Fire From Ice here: http://amzn.to/1TxUg95
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20150414170823/http://www.enterprisemission.com/_articles/05-18-2004/eugene_mallove.htm
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