Maker

electric power into a cell before it generates out- Storms isn’t trying to put, you have to be able to measure the differ- explain why cold fusion ence between input and output power accurately _{while eliminating environmental factors and occurs. He is simply} other sources of error, such as ordinary chemical changing variables one ^{reactions that produce heat of their own.} The first step in this direction is to place your ^{at a time in the hope of}

LENR cell inside an insulated container known hitting a combination
as a calorimeter. This protects the cell from that will make it occur
outside temperature fluctuations while enabling _{accurate measurement of internally generated more reliably.}
heat. “Anybody can build a calorimeter,” Storms
says with a shrug. “A man named John Dash, Indeed, the history of science is peppered
at Portland State, actually teachers high school with instances where chance events enabled
students how to do it, for cold-fusion experiments.” individuals to make radical discoveries. In the
On the LENR website, Storms has provided his 1700s, Galvani learned accidentally that muscles
own step-by-step guide for calorimeter con- can be triggered by electricity. French physicist
struction — which seems appropriate, since he Henri Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of
has been fabricating his own scientific equip- uranium entirely by chance, in 1896. Penicillin,
ment on and off throughout his life. When he was smokeless guncotton, organometallic com-
still a high school student, he constructed a Geiger pounds, and the industrial synthesis of poly-
counter, not only soldering electronic components ethylene and Teflon all entailed an element of
onto circuit boards but learning to do glass blow- chance, often because equipment was poorly
ing so that he could make his own detector tube. maintained or accidentally contaminated.
Even that wasn’t the end of the story: to create a If Storms does manage to hit upon the ideal
good enough vacuum inside the tube, he had to conditions to trigger LENRs, he believes the
build his own mercury diffusion pump. phenomenon will be harnessed for commercial
purposes almost immediately. “Nanotechnol-
ogy is coming along,” he points out, “and the
The same spirit still computer industry knows how to put down any
motivates him now as he machines his own morphology on a microscopic scale.” As soon
metal parts and does his own computer pro- as the ideal configuration of microdomains is
gramming. He insists that others can make their established, semiconductor labs should have no
own contributions to the field if they are willing trouble mass-producing nuclear batteries.
to make this kind of effort. “There’s a lot of room Currently, however, the stigma associated with
for the solitary experimenter. I can name half cold fusion continues to discourage well-funded
a dozen people in the United States right now research and development. A recent review by
doing what I’m doing and having mixed success, the Department of Energy refused to advocate
and I get email from students who see that this the allocation of public money, and the academic
work is real and valuable, and they want to get in community remains hostile. “In the United
on the ground floor.” States, they simply are not willing to explore new
He feels that individuals will continue to play ideas readily,” Storms comments. “That’s why a
an important role in LENR research so long as lot of the work now is being done in Italy, Russia,
the phenomenon remains elusive and poorly and Japan.”
understood. “Anything truly creative in science is Almost all peer-reviewed journals still refuse to
usually done on a small scale by a people outside publish LENR papers, while open communication
^{of the mainstream of academia or the govern-} ment. Entrepreneurs, little companies. And then, _{if it works, it grows. It becomes Microsoft.}” >>