Cold fusion is rising again, thanks to allegedly successful experiments and demonstrations. Now interest in the field, also known as low energy nuclear reactions (LENR), has reached the highest levels, as the House Committee on Armed Services has asked the Secretary of Defense to provide "a briefing on the military utility of recent U.S. industrial base LENR advancements" by September 22.
The Committee quotes a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that says if cold fusion works, it would be a disruptive technology that could revolutionize energy production and storage. That is putting it mildly. Commercial cold fusion as claimed by Andrea Rossi and others, outlined in our April article, would remove dependence on oil or other fossil fuels, domestic or imported. In military terms, it would enable ships, aircraft, and tanks to continue indefinitely (or at least for months) without refueling, with abundant power for lasers or other directed-energy weapons.
Full at link.
Seeing current events as they are is wrecking me emotionally. So I say 'farewell' to this forum. For anyone who wonders.
...the House Committee on Armed Services has asked the Secretary of Defense to provide "a briefing on the military utility of recent U.S. industrial base LENR advancements" by September 22.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the House, I have been asked to get you up to date on advances in cold fusion.
Zixinus wrote:Has Congress been deeply interested in other pseudoscientific things before?
not directly (granted my knowledge of US history isn't flawless) as far as I know but US goverment agencies (seriously) studied this like telepathy during the Cold War.
I may be an idiot, but I'm a tolerated idiot
"I think you completely missed the point of sigs. They're supposed to be completely homegrown in the fertile hydroponics lab of your mind, dried in your closet, rolled, and smoked...
Oh wait, that's marijuana..."Einhander Sn0m4n
Zixinus wrote:Has Congress been deeply interested in other pseudoscientific things before?
not directly (granted my knowledge of US history isn't flawless) as far as I know but US goverment agencies (seriously) studied this like telepathy during the Cold War.
The alphabet agencies have had a history of investing in questionable projects. Operation acoustic kitty is one of their more notorious failures.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
Really this article is borderline Rupert Murdoch levels of tabloidism. Only instead of talking about a celebrity's private life they're talking about a thoroughly debunked piece of junk science as if it was legit. It's pseudoscience tabloidism.
As for Congress, I'm not surprised. An effective leader should be at least somewhat knowledgeable in science, but my fellow countrypeople tend to vote based on who they'd most like to have a beer with.
Seeing current events as they are is wrecking me emotionally. So I say 'farewell' to this forum. For anyone who wonders.
To be fair a person who knows popularization-level factoids about science might reasonably think of cold fusion as "a cool thing that we'll hopefully figure out how to make work" rather than "a hoax." It's a case where you have to have a pretty solid understanding (by lay standards) in order to know why it doesn't work.
Simon_Jester wrote:To be fair a person who knows popularization-level factoids about science might reasonably think of cold fusion as "a cool thing that we'll hopefully figure out how to make work" rather than "a hoax." It's a case where you have to have a pretty solid understanding (by lay standards) in order to know why it doesn't work.
The problem is that this is true with nearly anything Congress legislates on. And they don't always consult actual experts or remain up to speed on real issues. Look at what happened with SOPA or current encryption debates, or the fact that conservatives repeatedly cited the debunked Reinhorf-Rogoff study(which claimed a connection between government debt and increased chances of a recession).
at link.
