Differences between low energy nuclear reaction and cold fusion

Cold fusion has recently become somewhat of a buzz word for modern scientists and investors alike. This is because cold fusion has once again taken a major spotlight in the media for the first time since the original experiments which led to the discovery of cold fusion so long ago in 1989. Originally when cold fusion was discovered, the discovering scientists Fleischmann and Pons were so ecstatic about their results that they immediately started reporting findings to their superiors and to the media before any of their claims could be confirmed. Because of their haste in reporting data, they received much pressure later on to make sure that results were the same. Of course, not fully understanding what they were working with, they were unable to repeat results. Unable to back their claims, they were ridiculed by the scientific community at large. They went on to continue researching their discovery of cold fusion later on with other companies, but saw no results and eventually faded into obscurity.

Since then, many other scientists had been trying to reach the same conclusions as Pons and Fleischmann did so long ago. Korean researchers, as well as the U.S. army, and one well known auto industry have been trying to develop cold fusion for many years since, but usually due to lack of funding or lack of results, these operations were eventually shut down, as they had been completely fruitless for all of the researchers. This still did not discourage anyone from attempting it though; it only drove cold fusion researchers underground, outside of the mainstream. Research continued, but the scientists involved were urged to stay quiet unless something of a really important nature was discovered, such as undeniable evidence of the power of cold fusion.

Though the existence of cold fusion as a valid science still has not been conclusively proven, scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi with their new E-Cat device have been throwing that into question over the past year. Their device is designed to contain a nickel hydrogen fusion reaction and the energy resulting from that, to be later used for other purposes such as conventional electronic devices. Nobody, including Rossi or Focardi has been able to conclusively state whether the reaction is cold fusion or not. Despite this, Rossi, the main scientist behind the project has started discussions with Defkalion green technologies and Ampenergo in order to produce and market the device even without full scientific endorsement. With a close colleague and friend of Rossi, Francesco Piantelli, working on new methods of cold fusion and even founding his own company, it is no wonder that cold fusion has been so often discussed in the media lately.

However, most of these scientists and any other modern scientists that have been studying this science have now taken to referring to it as LENR, partly because it does have a few differences from the standard cold fusion methods, and partly in order to completely distance themselves from the old practices in cold fusion because of its negative reputation. LENR has been shown to work in a few occasions while cold fusion was too grandiose in scope, and has not been proven to work as of yet. There are a few very important similarities and differences though.

One of the major similarities between cold fusion and LENR is that they both focus on trying to combine two nuclei to create an energy source. However, cold fusion attempts to combine two nuclei directly in the hopes that a huge source of energy will be created in the process. LENR acknowledges that combining two nuclei directly may be too difficult or impossible, so this focuses on smaller reactions, or low energy reactions. These reactions combine reactants together on a broader spectrum, such as putting two reacting agents into a tube like the E-Cat and simply letting them react, and taking the resulting energy to be used for other purposes. Cold fusion works at a more microscopic level in theory, while LENR focuses on relying on less powerful reactions in a great enough quantity that the small amount of energy created from each individual reaction will be enough to power a device. There are a few different things that make the two types of reactions, but the most important one is that LENR researchers have set their sights lower in order to work with a proven method whereas cold fusion researchers work in vain with expectations that are simply too high.