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Posted Oct. 1, 2011: On Dec. 12, 2006, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency held a meeting in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, to review several controversial areas of research. Low-energy nuclear reactions were among those topics. New Energy Times has obtained the first public record of this meeting through the use of a Freedom of Information Act request. Click here for a copy of the document.

For readers interested only in LENR, the following PDF page numbers contain related information:

Page, Item

12, Schedule of LENR speakers
19, Summary of David Nagel's presentation
21, Summary of Mitchell Swartz's presentation
22, Summary of Michael Melich's presentation
22, Summary of Lewis Larsen and Allan Widom's presentation (Download PDF)
23, Summary of Yeong Kim's slides. Kim did not give a presentation at this meeting, though he was in the audience. He provided slides to DTRA after the meeting.
28, Advisory Board Findings and Recommendations
29, Summary
31, Recommendations
43, LENR Summary
43, 44, Widom-Larsen Theory Summary
57, Quotes from Frank Gordon and New Energy Times

The following text is excerpted from the report.

Advisory Board Findings and Recommendations for LENR

- There is good evidence of excess heat and transmutation.
- New theory by Widom[-Larsen] shows promise; collective surface effects, not fusion
- Low-energy implantation of ions

Summary
Low-energy nuclear reactions are showing some remarkable progress with respect to energy (excess heat) production and transmuted element detection, but experiments remain only thinly reproducible. LENR also suffers from a basic lack of understanding of the governing physics.

There is also a compelling need for a theory that can explain production rates and lead to specific electrode treatments and electrolyte compositions and predictions of reaction power, energy and products. The Widom[-Larsen] theoretical construct appears promising but lacks robust experimental verification and rigorous peer review.

The polarizing history of LENR is a detriment to expanding research efforts, and it seems unlikely that deployable/useable devices could be expected within a five- to ten-year horizon. Some low-level funding by 6.1 agencies seems appropriate, both to exploit the possibility of a breakthrough and to monitor other (international) research in this field. Nonetheless, DTRA should not go it alone; rather, it should provide the leadership to build interagency research consortia with a focus on fostering improved research facilities and rigorous experimental protocols.

Recommendations
LENR still suffers from negative publicity associated with cold fusion and is viewed as being conducted outside the domain of legitimate, mainstream science. Nonetheless, the persistent and increasingly repeatable demonstrations of excess heat and transmutation suggest that there is something here worth pursuing. DTRA should not do so alone but rather foster consortia that would help bring discipline and rigorous experimental protocol to this field. Additionally, efforts to better understand the physics of LENR as well as the development of first-principle predictive models are encouraged.

Factual errors
New Energy Times has found factual errors in four places: PDF pages 12, 23, 29 and 43. We have annotated the text as follows:

pg. 12, Allan Widom spoke as well. His name was also listed on the cover page of their slides.
pg. 23, Yeong Kim did not present on the 12th or 13th, though he was in the audience.
pg. 29, Widom-Larsen theory published in peer-reviewed Eur. Phys. J. C in March 2006. This is shown on page 11 of the Widom-Larsen slide presentation.
pg. 43, This is incorrect. The hypothesis of "two branches" is obsolete. Excess heat occurs in both D/Pd as well as Ni/H. So do transmutations.