New Energy Times

By Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
Sept. 3, 2008
[This article is Copyleft 2008 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

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On Sept. 1, 2008, New Energy Times received a letter from Roger Bennett, counsel for Lefteri Tsoukalas, accuser of Rusi Taleyarkhan, in response to our Aug. 27, 2008, article, Purdue University Punishes Bubblegate Researcher.

Tsoukalas and Taleyarkhan are professors in the Purdue School of Nuclear Engineering. Tsoukalas was once Taleyarkhan’s boss, though Tsoukalas was removed as the head of the school (according to a congressional investigation report) midway through this still-brewing intra-departmental and inter-University controversy. Originally, the controversy was about science, but now the focus is on an administrative breakdown in Purdue’s School of Nuclear Engineering.

Act I of the multiyear controversy was published in The New Energy Times Special Report on Bubble Fusion/Sonofusion on July 10, 2007. Act II went into full swing at the beginning of this year as the Purdue University C-22 investigation committee completed its work and issued a guilty verdict for Taleyarkhan for research misconduct.

In his letter from Sept. 1, Bennett listed three matters regarding an affidavit pertaining to the Purdue University controversy:

1. The Mize affidavit it not referred to or attached to Taleyarkhan’s complaint. In no sense is it part of the complaint as you report.
2. The Mize affidavit has not been filed, provided in discovery, or otherwise made part of the record of the litigation between Taleyarkhan and Tsoukalas.
3. The Mize affidavit technically is not even an affidavit for several reasons.

With regard to Matter No. 1, John Lewis, counsel for Rusi Taleyarkhan, advised New Energy Times that, in the state of Indiana, only complaints involving contracts require that documents (the contract) be attached to the complaint.

Lewis confirmed that Bennett is correct: The Darla Mize (administrative assistant to head of School of Nuclear Engineering) affidavit has not been “provided in discovery.” Lewis says that the reason the affidavit has not been provided in discovery is that discovery has not occurred. The complaint against his client, Tsoukalas, was filed in Indiana Superior Court on March 7, 2008. Lewis says that, were Bennett to initiate discovery (or when he does), the affidavit would have (and will be) provided to him.

With regard to the terminology, the signed statements have been called “affidavits” since January when they were collected by Neville Bilimoria (previous counsel for Taleyarkhan) and discussed and shared with William P. Kealey (counsel for Purdue) and Peter Dunn (associate vice president for research). From Bilimoria’s e-mail, both parties seem to have discussed the matter of notarization of the Mize and other affidavits to their satisfaction.

Apparently, neither Kealey nor Dunn shared the affidavits with Bennett.

An e-mail from Bilimoria on Jan. 31 indicates that he asked Dunn and Kealey to provide the affidavits to the committee that was investigating the conflict in the School of Nuclear Engineering.

Taleyarkhan wrote that, several months later, in March, he met with Dean Leah Jamieson (the chief executive officer of the College of Engineering and the person who appointed the committee members).

“She told me that she was shocked at what I told her about Mize’s affidavit,” Taleyarkhan wrote, “and that Purdue’s attorney [Kealey] or Dunn had not revealed the affidavits to her. I then took the initiative and sent them directly to her after consulting with my attorneys.”

Taleyarkhan told New Energy Times yesterday that he then provided the affidavits, along with a letter of protest, to Jamieson, David Williams (leader of the Senate’s Faculty Affairs Committee), and Victor Lechtenberg, the interim vice provost.

Taleyarkhan said yesterday that, at the time, he received confirmations of receipt from Williams and Jamieson. What happened after that is a mystery.

“I have no idea if the committee that was investigating me received these key documents. It’s a big black hole. Based on what happened and how unfairly they treated me, it looks like this key evidence never got to the committee,” Taleyarkhan said.

He also told New Energy Times that he has evidence that Purdue’s attorney may have blocked key testimony.

“We have correspondence from Kealey that Erica Timmerman and Mize did not wish to be contacted for statements and to have [our counsel] refrain from speaking to them. When we asked Timmerman and Mize about this, they stated otherwise; they were actually wanting to speak with us. Timmerman and Mize subsequently provided their affidavits. Kealey’s communication was misleading; it seems like it was a trick to interfere with our lawful collection of evidence,” Taleyarkhan wrote.

Yesterday, New Energy Times received another affidavit, this one is from Jere Jenkins, director of Radiation Laboratories at Purdue. The names of students have been redacted.

On Aug. 27, 2008, Kenneth Chang of The New York Times asked this writer some questions about the Mize affidavit regarding verification of the affidavit, which was released by New Energy Times.

“She’s clearly a disgruntled employee,” Chang wrote, “which means everything she says could well be true, but you can’t take it on faith.”

Taleyarkhan has provided New Energy Times with evidence that the affidavits were shared and discussed between his attorneys and Purdue. In this article, we show an image of one e-mail that provides an example of this. Mize has stated in writing that she is willing to testify under oath. Consequently, this is news that New Energy Times deems fit to print.

On the other hand, The New York Times published a document allegedly written and signed by Adam Butt, a graduate student at Purdue. It was perhaps the most damning evidence, which caused great harm to Taleyarkhan’s reputation. This alleged statement also formed the basis of Taleyarkhan’s admonishment by Congress and punishment by Purdue.

Here is the version obtained by New Energy Times. Note that there is no signature, no notary stamp, no statement about a willingness to testify under oath, and no statement that the author wrote it “completely willingly and without influence and duress from any other individuals.”

However, something about the text is peculiar. The first three paragraphs are written in third person. The remaining text is written in first person.

Here is the version located on the New York Times Web site. It is the same as the version obtained by New Energy Times - the same unsigned document. Yet on May 11, 2007, Chang wrote in The New York Times that “Mr. Butt signed a statement that he did not participate in any of the experiments or the analysis of the data and that he had been added as an author to one of the papers a week before submission and was not aware that he was on the second paper until a week before it was presented at a conference.”

New Energy Times has created several new Web pages to help readers. The first is the Bubblegate Portal, an index to all of our related online reference materials and news stories. The next two are lists of the key people and a list of affidavits and key documents.

By Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times

August 27, 2008

[This article is Copyleft 2008 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

Purdue University has sanctioned nuclear engineering professor Rusi Taleyarkhan for research misconduct.

Taleyarkhan had appealed charges stemming from his claims to have discovered a new process for creating nuclear energy, which he calls bubble fusion.

Purdue administrators issued their report today affirming the charges.

Among the sanctions, Taleyarkhan will no longer be designated the Arden L. Bement, Jr. Professor of Nuclear Engineering. He loses all associated rights and privileges, including the allocation of discretionary resources.

Taleyarkhan’s mentoring of graduate students will be monitored and reviewed for three years.

The sanctions follow a string of challenges he has faced in recent years.

Multiple government investigations into allegations of scientific fraud and fabrication by Taleyarkhan have come up null. The final charges were made public by Purdue several weeks ago. Taleyarkhan called the charges “trumped up” and appealed.

He told New Energy Times today that he was advised months ago by a Purdue administrator of this inevitable outcome, before the review process ended.

The misconduct allegations first appeared in Nature as a result of communications from Purdue professors Lefteri Tsoukalas and Tatjana Jevremovic.

On July 28, 2008, New Energy Times began to reveal information that supported Taleyarkhan’s claims that the Purdue administration had threatened to intimidate and harm him. Taleyarkhan said today he has been made a scapegoat.

On March 7, 2008, Taleyarkhan filed a civil complaint against Tsoukalas and Jevremovic with the state of Indiana regarding events that occurred in the Purdue School of Nuclear Engineering.

The section of the complaint called “Nature of This Action” states, “This is a conspiracy involving certain individuals who made public statements to a worldwide magazine, Nature Magazine, through means that have falsely and maliciously defamed Taleyarkhan and have sought to harass, discriminate and intimidate Taleyarkhan on numerous occasions for the purpose of trying him and important scientific research, all with claims that have no merit.”

Taleyarkhan told New Energy Times today that Darla J. Mize, former administrative assistant to Tsoukalas and a key witness in the case, said that she received threats today from Purdue administrators for her support of Taleyarkhan.

In her signed affidavit that is part of the Taleyarkhan complaint, Mize describes fraudulent behavior by Tsoukalas and Jevremovic in the School of Nuclear Engineering.

Aug. 27, 2008 - Purdue Press Release
Aug. 21, 2008 - Report of Appeal Committee
Aug. 27, 2008 - Purdue Sanctions
July 28, 2008 - New Energy Times: Welcome to Bubblegate
July 10, 2007 - The New Energy Times Special Report on Bubble Fusion/Sonofusion

By Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times

August 26, 2008

[This article is Copyleft 2008 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

Purdue University professor Rusi Taleyarkhan and colleagues have published another paper on their bubble fusion research. They believe the research could lead to a new source of clean nuclear energy.

“Modeling, Analysis and Prediction of Neutron Emission Spectra From Acoustic Cavitation Bubble Fusion Experiments” will appear in the October issue of Nuclear Engineering and Design.

Along with Taleyarkhan, other authors are Joseph Lapinskas (Purdue), Yiban Xu (Purdue), JaeSeon Cho (affiliated with Seoul National University), Robert C. Block (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) , Richard T. Lahey Jr (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), and Robert I. Nigmatulin (Russian Academy of Sciences.)

A press release issued by Taleyarkhan’s legal counsel, Lewis and Wilkins, states that the new paper corrects misconceptions that originated from a Web posting by bubble fusion researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The press release states that the authors “address the confusion resulting from the misguided simulations for incorrect experimental configurations and omission of key physics” on behalf of UCLA researchers Seth Putterman and Brian Naranjo.

The release also states that multiple government investigations into allegations of scientific fraud and fabrication by Taleyarkhan have come up null, though two “trumped-up” allegations from Purdue University are pending appeal.

Link to press release

http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/08/12/acs-endorses-quackery/

Mitch André Garcia

ACS Endorses Quackery

August 12th, 2008 by mitch
Mitch André Garcia: (mitch@berkeley.edu) is a chemist at Berkeley trying to finish his PhD, one day…

I’ll be attending the ACS-Philadelphia conference next week. One of the sessions sponsored by the Environmental division is called “New Energy Technology” on Wednesday morning out at the DoubleTree-Maestro B. The title implies itself to wonderful talks discussing frontiers in applied energy chemistry. Unfortunately, the session is completely dominated by cold fusion nuts. A list of the talks are shown below

• Cold fusion in light of green chemistry (Jan Marwan)
• Low energy nuclear reactions research: 2008 update (Steven B. Krivit)
• Overview of LENR research: Critical steps on the pathway to technology(Michael Charles Harold McKubre)
• Macroscopic quantum dynamics and the problems of loading in Pd-H(D) systems (Antonella De Ninno, Emilio Del Giudice, Antonio Frattolillo)
• CR-39 studies of Pd/D codeposition (P. A. Mosier-Boss, Stanislaw Szpak, Frank E. Gordon, Lawrence Forsley)
• Study of the nanostructured palladium deuterium system (Jan Marwan)
• Sonofusion from deuterons to helium (Roger Stringham)

My feelings on cold fusion research have been stated previously here: The difference between cold fusion and cold fusion

It would be in good taste to attend the session, and let the nuts have the opportunity to present their research, but I question whether I can stomach it. If you find yourself bored on Wednesday morning and ready for a lively debate, I’d recommend attending this session.

P.S. Expect dispatches from the conference. I’ll be covering a wide slice of the sessions with my new ACS press-pass: ACS-2008 Philadelphia.

Mitch

Welcome to Bubblegate
by Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times

July 28, 2008

[This article is Copyleft 2008 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

According to nearly all reports in the media thus far, nuclear engineer and Purdue professor Rusi Taleyarkhan appears guilty of science fraud.

However, none of the allegations of scientific fraud from Taleyarkhan’s challengers and competitors have stuck.

His revolutionary claim is for a novel nuclear process known as bubble fusion, or sonofusion. He said that it may lead to a new source of clean nuclear energy.

University of Illinois chemistry professor Kenneth Suslick is one of those accusing Taleyarkhan of scientific fraud.

However, not a single investigation report concurs with Suslick’s statements to the media and to investigators. Suslick declined to comment to New Energy Times in our earlier investigations.

Science skeptics commonly believe that a failure to replicate a novel phenomenon confirms the claimed phenomenon’s nonexistence. It does not. Failure to replicate means failure to replicate.

Failure to replicate could imply that a) the claimed phenomenon does not exist, b) the claimed phenomenon is not sufficiently understood by the originator, c) the claimed phenomenon is not sufficiently understood by the replicator, d) the replicator lacked the skill or tools to perform a successful replication, e) the originator did not want the replicator to succeed or f) the replicator did not want to confirm the originator’s work.

For example, an attempted replication of Taleyarkhan’s work at UCLA, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was scuttled by physics professor Seth Putterman and his colleagues. New Energy Times exposed this on Pages 49-56 in our Special Report on Bubble Fusion/Sonofusion. Putterman declined to comment to New Energy Times in our earlier investigations.

Putterman and his associate Brian Naranjo helped Nature journalist Eugenie Reich believe that Taleyarkhan’s claims were bogus, but it turns out that UCLA’s allegations didn’t hold water. The damage to Taleyarkhan’s reputation and career, based on the bogus UCLA claims, spread like wildfire.

Journalists always question the motives of sources and try to identify potential conflicts. In her articles, Reich failed to report that Putterman was a direct competitor of Taleyarkhan’s for both funds and fame and that a longstanding competition to be the first to achieve bubble/sonofusion had been running.

Our Special Report reveals Putterman’s close collaboration with Reich as well as the details of this bubble battle.

[Article continues]

Cold Fusion: Winds of Change Approach
by Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
July 21, 2008
[This article is Copyleft 2008 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

PDF Version

In a comment to one of my recent blog postings, CMNS/LENR/”Cold Fusion” Journalist Silenced, Albert Alberts of The Netherlands, a LENR enthusiast, offered some kind comments about me. He also called my efforts “examples of unmitigated audacity.”

Alberts’ description of my scientific journalism is largely accurate.

I spoke before some members of India’s Atomic Energy Commission earlier this year. I told them that I’ve learned enough about LENR research to know its strengths - and its weaknesses.

By “audaciously” discussing weaknesses as well as the strengths of LENR research, I demonstrated that I was not afraid to tell the truth and report all the facts that I discover. Unless someone takes drastic action to interfere with New Energy Institute’s funding - or silence me - my truth telling will not change. Gene Mallove, editor of Infinite Energy, was murdered. Cause of death: crushed trachea. I do not take the right to freedom of speech lightly.

Alberts refers to unseen dark forces - massive research cartels and knowledge monopolies - working in the background to block progress in and acceptance of LENR research. However, the field itself may have room for improvement to make it stronger, more resilient to scientific criticism and attractive to industries, government agencies, or other groups that may have an incentive to profit from the field.

I suggested such improvements in September 2007 in an e-mail to David Nagel and Michael Melich, organizers of the 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. I urged them to demand a higher level of scientific integrity in work presented by some LENR researchers at conferences. Several months earlier, I had attended, as did they, the 13th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science in Sochi, Russia. Among generally good work, I observed two cases of what I can most charitably call “significant sloppiness.”

“Folks in the CMNS community better get their act together,” I wrote. “I don’t know how to get this across. But there is rampant sloppiness that will not go over well for the gaining of public respect for the subject.”

By rampant, I did not mean widespread; I meant unchecked, condoned and, most important, uncorrected by presenters themselves, other participants, or conference organizers. I pointed out an example of this to Nagel and Melich that involved a relatively dramatic claim made at the Russian conference of an experiment that one group claimed had produced 5 Watts of excess heat.

The group’s presentation concerned an experiment that appeared to be credible; it was detailed, thorough and clear. The audience was enthusiastic and supportive. But in my follow-up with the researchers involved in the claim, and after some obvious reluctance on their part to discuss it with me, I learned that the data indicated only 2.5 Watts of excess heat, which is still not trivial. The researchers told me that they had made an interpretation error, and I simply reported that fact in the following issue of New Energy Times without criticizing them.

I told Nagel and Melich about another researcher at the Russian conference who represented that he had produced 300 Watts of excess heat. When I interviewed this researcher, it became clear to me that he was making, at a minimum, a gross misrepresentation of the experimental results. In this particular case, I did not report on the results because his claims were so weak that most people in the audience completely disregarded them. I strongly encouraged Nagel and Melich to set higher standards, and I cautioned them that continued incidents of sloppiness like this would hamper the progress of the field, particularly if mainstream reporters began to develop an interest in it.

“If any other reporters cover ICCMNS-14,” I wrote, “you can bet they won’t be as forgiving as me. And if I end up looking the other way at these sorts of things, then I will blow my credibility, so I’m not going to be able to cut people as much slack. If CMNS researchers do crap like this, the Washington, D.C., conference will make us all look like fools.”

I now realize that some LENR researchers have become uncomfortable with the knowledge and expertise I have gained about the field. Some of them also do not appreciate my public reporting of information that may relate to the field’s weaknesses or factual inconsistencies or exaggerated claims made by certain researchers.

In my presentations to India’s science leaders, I contradicted Mike McKubre (SRI International), who was in the audience, on one or two points. Quite audacious of me, I suppose. McKubre, of course, is a well-known LENR scientist, I am not. McKubre has advanced science degrees, I do not.

I recently heard from some people involved with the LENR field that it would be best served by a unified representation of work in the field. Their idea was that hiding or ignoring any weakness in the field is the best strategy to achieve respect and credibility for the field in the media and mainstream science.

I disagree with that approach; I believe that full, forthright, fact-based reporting and exposure of the truth about LENR research will only enhance the overall credibility of the results. Honest reporting and “audacious” journalism will build outsiders’ trust and confidence that solid scientific research does in fact form the foundation of the field. LENR research which does not meet basic standards of science, lacks rigor, or is based simply on wishful thinking should not be condoned.

For example, LENR researcher Ed Storms, retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory, recently discouraged me from reporting all of the key facts of LENR research. He wrote this to me in an e-mail recently: “You need to be more careful in how you reveal the truth about the field. Eventually, the field will be big enough and so well-accepted that a little plainly spoken truth would not cause you any problem.”

A minority of prominent researchers in the LENR field may have their own pet theories and may prefer to maintain the status quo. But after 19 years, perhaps it’s time to try something new; perhaps its time to have a more open mind, as I wrote in my recent editorial.

Maintaining the status quo inside the field is not likely to change the status quo outside the field - that is, the still-common perception of LENR research as pariah science. Perhaps the way to growth, acceptance and progress is to consider pursuing other paths.

A schism within the field, which Alberts would hope to avoid, seems inevitable, but it may well bring the benefits the researchers and their supporters seek.

Despite the fact that I choose to report all the facts, good and bad, I remain convinced that the results seen in this field may represent one of the most important science discoveries for future generations: a new source of clean nuclear energy.

On July 10, I wrote and posted a letter to the New Energy Times Web site about Brian Josephson: “My Experience With a Nobel Prize Winner.”

On July 14, Josephson responded with the following letter: “What Drives Steven Krivit.”

On July 16, I responded with this letter: “My Correspondence With a Nobel Prize Winner.”

Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
Original reporting on research in leading-edge energy technologies, with a focus on low-energy nuclear reactions, part of the field of condensed matter nuclear science historically known as “cold fusion”

Hi, Mel,

Thanks for copying me on the message you sent to the CMNS e-mail list. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with Mike McKubre, Antonella De Ninno and you in the coming weeks. I hope we can develop a more refined understanding, interpretation - or set of interpretations - of your collective work on this important topic. I would like to report it in the September issue of New Energy Times. I’m glad to see the interest in it.

I wrote to another researcher yesterday about the difference between measuring/observing 24.7 MeV versus hoping/believing/reasoning/rationalizing its reality. I expressed my opinion that the essence of science is cutting away what we know and observing from that what we don’t know, cannot know, or have not observed.

I do not know enough about John Fisher’s theory to have an informed opinion about it. However, I have seen plenty of situations in which minority opinions and dissenting opinions turn out to be worthy of attention. Certainly, our great country was born out of a dissenting opinion.

“In my opinion, our field of science has been crippled by wide acceptance of the belief that deuterium fusion of some sort is responsible for energy generation, and by rejection of alternative mechanisms. Progress is stunted when we reject a mechanism, because we then fail to undertake the experiments it suggests.” - John Fisher

To be precise, I did not leave the CMNS list because of the attacks from Brian Josephson and Bill Collis, but thank you for your kind words. My blog post “CMNS/LENR/Cold Fusion Journalist Silenced” explains the reasons for my departure.

Thank you for your compassion and diplomacy. I’ve grown to appreciate these qualities after learning the hard way from my less-than-compassionate article about Marianne Macy. I do hope that she and I can bury the hatchet. We both have important tasks ahead of us.

Anyway, this will all work out. So will the truth. It always does.

Steven B. Krivit

Steve Krivit’s comments regarding helium-4 ash were properly labeled as an editorial (opinion), thus I did not see any urgent need to respond. However, I agree with what Mike McKubre and Ed Storms have already stated on this issue.

Our initial goal at the Navy, China Lake laboratory was not to determine the MeV per He-4 produced because the experimental errors in measuring the excess power and in measuring the amount of helium produced would combine to produce large errors in the numerical value for MeV per He-4 as reported by Steve Krivit. Also the unmeasured retention of He-4 in the palladium would further compromise this number and skew it to high values as found.

Our basic goal at China Lake was to determine if the excess power and helium-4 were correlated. The end result was that all 12 experiments that gave NO excess power produced NO excess helium-4 (12/12). For 21 experiments that produced excess power, 18 produced measurable excess helium-4 (18/21). There were two results from a Pd-Ce cathode that gave excess power but no excess helium. Apparently, the helium remains in the cathode for Pd-Ce. Similar results for Pd-Ce were found at SRI by Ben Bush. Nevertheless, obtaining the correct excess power/ helium-4 correlation in 30/33 experiments corresponds to a very small probability of 1/750000 that these China Lake results were due to random errors. Furthermore, the amount of helium-4 produced was always in the appropriate range expected for D+D fusion.

We also monitored tritium and radiation , including neutrons, at China Lake, but we never measured amounts that could come close to explaining the excess power or excess heat. My conclusion remains that the basic F-P experiment using Pd/D2O + LiOD produces helium-4 as the major product (ash).

P.S. I am sorry that Steve Krivit has left this group, but I don’t think that very many of us would have remained under such attacks.

Mel Miles

“ICCF-14 Workshop: Transmutations Related to Low Energy Nuclear Reactions”

George Miley of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign announces a special workshop on low-energy nuclear transmutations, in conjunction with the 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science.

A session on transmutations will also be included in the main conference program, as shown here on this July 6 version of the conference schedule.