Future Energy eNews IntegrityResearchInstitute.org Dec. 5, 2004

1) Yucca Mountain and Nuke Waste - Still a major dilemma for Congress to decide. Why not use photoremediation of the waste first? Apparently MIT's Technology Review never heard of it.

2) Peak Oil and the Big Picture - Find out how the world is preparing for the already declining oil production...hoarding.

3) DOE Gives the Expected Brush-off of Cold Fusion - With so many skeptical reviewers who have no lab experience with cold fusion, DOE makes claims of measurement errors; suggests more research.

4) Europe's Impractical ITER Fusion Project - Another wasteful Tokamak for $6 billion which is not capable of commercial electricity production. Why not spend 0.1% of it on Focus Fusion instead?

5) Chronic Fatigue and Electromedicine - How the cell's membrane voltage potential can be boosted with electrotherapy.

1) A New Vision for Nuclear Waste

By Matthew L. Wald, Technology Review, December 2004, http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/12/wald1204.asp

Storing nuclear waste underground at Yucca Mountain for 100,000 years is a terrible idea. A better approach may be to buy some time—until new containment technologies mature.

When American Airlines Flight 11 flew at low altitude down the Hudson River valley on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, its target was the north tower of the World Trade Center. But its impact is still being felt at a cluster of buildings it passed about five minutes before it reached lower Manhattan, at a nuclear-reactor complex called Indian Point in Buchanan, NY. Adjacent to the site’s two operating reactors are two buildings packed with highly radioactive spent-fuel rods, in pools of water 12 meters deep and tinged Ty-D-Bol blue by boron added to tamp down nuclear chain reactions. The soothing hum of the pumps that circulate the building’s warm, moist air—and, critically, keep the water cool—lends an atmosphere of industrial tranquility.

Without that cooling water, the fuel cladding might overheat, melt, catch fire, and release radiation. Whether the impact of a Boeing 767 like Flight 11 could drain one of the pools and disable backup water pumps, starting such a fire, is far from clear. Nevertheless, the threat of terrorism in general and the flyover of Flight 11 in particular have reignited the debate about why all of this dangerous fuel is still here—indeed, why all spent fuel produced at Indian Point in three decades is still here—and not at Yucca Mountain, the federal government’s burial spot near Las Vegas, where it was supposed to be shipped beginning six years ago.

Late this past summer, a construction project began at Indian Point that will allow the fuel to be pulled out of the pools. But it’s not going to Yucca. The government says Yucca won’t be ready until 2010. Executives in the nuclear industry say a more likely date is between 2015 and never. So instead of traveling to Nevada, Indian Point’s fuel is traveling about 100 meters, to a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. On a late-summer day this year, a backhoe tore out maple and black-walnut trees to make way for a concrete pad. Beginning next year, the first of a planned 72 six-meter-tall concrete-and-steel casks will be placed there, a configuration that adds storage capacity and thus allows the twin power plants to keep operating. Though they provide a hedge against a worst-case fuel-pool meltdown, these casks are merely another temporary solution. The fact that they’re needed at all represents the colossal failure of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Yucca plans and technology.

Yet as engineering and policy failures go, this one has a silver lining. Conventional thinking holds that Yucca’s problems must be solved quickly so that nuclear waste can be squirreled away safely and permanently, deep within a remote mountain. But here’s the twist: with nuclear waste, procrastination may actually pay. The construction of cask fields presents a chance to rethink the conventional. The passage of several decades while the waste sits in casks could be immensely helpful. A century would give the United States time to observe progress on waste storage in other countries. In the meantime, natural radioactive decay would make the waste cooler and thus easier to deal with. What’s more, technological advances over the next century might yield better long-term storage methods. "If it goes on for another 50 years, it doesn’t matter. It could go on for 100 or 200 years, and it’s probably for the better," says Allison Macfarlane, a geologist at MIT and coeditor of a forthcoming book on Yucca. "We’ve got plenty of time to play with it."

The government must now accept that its Yucca plan is a failure and that casks are the de facto solution. Indian Point’s cask pad will not be the first; about two dozen operating reactors have them already. Others are likely to soon join the list. And some casks—at Rowe, MA, Wiscasset, ME, Charlevoix, MI, and a site near Sacramento, CA—are nuclear orphans, having outlived their reactors. Each cask pad is roughly the size of a football field, floodlit, watched by motion sensors and closed-circuit TV, and surrounded by razor wire and armed guards. Given the homeland-security concern posed by nuclear-waste facilities, and the need to guard them individually, do we really want 60 of them—serving all 125 commercial reactors that have ever operated—to rise around the nation, many near population centers? If casks are the solution for the next generation or two, they should be put in one place.

Yucca is already on tenuous ground; in July a federal appeals court said that to open the mountain burial site, the government would have to show that it could contain waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Extensive scientific analyses by the Energy Department show it cannot. The court’s decision throws the whole question back to the U.S. Congress, which must now decide whether to proceed with Yucca at all. This presents an opportunity to align policy with physics and abandon the Yucca-or-bust dogma that has dominated the debate for nearly 20 years. Casks, centrally located, could make the high-level-waste problem a lot easier to solve and increase national security much sooner, too.

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ED. NOTE: The solution is photoremediation of nuclear waste which offers a "pre-treatment" process for the Yucca Mountain dilemma from J. of Physics D: "Laser-driven photo-transmutation of 129I—a long-lived nuclear waste product" - http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0022-3727/36/18/L01/ . Download the pdf version: http://www.iop.org/EJ/S/UNREG/vscR4TOSDFCsQ97Z1AQBZQ/article/0022-3727/36/18/L01/d3_18_L01.pdf

The US DOE also has confirmed its efficacy in a Congressional Report:

----- Original Message -----

From: <David.Hamilton@EE.DOE.GOV>

To: <info@worldenergy.org>

Cc: <iri@erols.com>; <Dave.Goodwin@hq.doe.gov>

Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 8:22 AM

Subject: nuclear remediation via half-life acceleration


I have read that the US DOE Congressional report for nuclear remediation
using particle accelerators (circa 2002) showed most radioactive species
could be half-life accelerated by gamma energy in the 6 to 10 MeV range.
This is in agreement with the late Dr. Paul Brown's work and publications
at his "Nuclear Solutions" firm in Colorado.

I feel we should rethink nuclear power with remediation as a requirement
before any mass production like China and Africa are planning, as well as
others.

Respectfully,

David B. Hamilton

2) Peak Oil and the Big Picture
by Michael C. Ruppert <http://www.hopedance.org/new/issues/47/article2.html>

The following comes from a speech Michael Ruppert gave at the prestigious
Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on August 31, 2004. He is the author of
the recently released Crossing of the Rubicon: The Decline of the American
Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, published by New Society. Copies can
be purchased through the offices of HopeDance, New Society or Mr. Ruppert's
organization called From the Wilderness (<http://www.fromthewilderness.com>).
Permission to reprint has been granted by the Commonwealth Club
(http://www.commonwealthclub.org).

Oil and natural gas are indispensable to our way of life. The world consumes
ten calories of hydro-carbon energy for every calorie of food that is eaten.
All commercial fertilizers are made from natural gas. All pesticides are
made from petroleum. All irrigation, plowing, harvesting and transport is
accomplished by either oil-powered machinery or oil- or
natural-gas-generated electricity.

There are between 600 and 700 million internal-combustion-powered vehicles
on the planet and the demand for them is exploding exponentially, especially
in China where GM's sales rose 300% in one year alone. According to the
National Geographic this last June, there are seven gallons of oil in every
tire. Want to suddenly build 600 million new vehicles that run on something
else, hydrogen perhaps? How much oil will be required to do that? To mine
and melt the ore? To transport it to factories that don't exist, using
electricity that isn't there? To make the paints, solvents and all of the
plastic needed? All plastic is made from oil.

Hydrogen is a cruel joke that creates false hope. A recent study from EV
Magazine reported that the average life expectancy of a very expensive fuel
cell engine was just 200 hours. Commercial hydrogen is now made from natural
gas. We're nearly out of that too.

China's economic growth has seen that country replace Japan as the world's
second largest importer of oil, and China is now coming into direct economic
and political competition with the US for what oil remains.

I have attended two international conferences on the subject of peak oil and
its implications for civilization, one in Paris in 2003 and one in Berlin
this year. For almost the entire year between the Paris and Berlin
conferences, the icons of the mainstream press - the ones known and employed
to mold public and business perception - have been acknowledging peak oil's
reality [see Resources], sometimes reluctantly, sometimes less than
directly, but also sometimes very boldly. CNN, the BBC, the New York Times,
The Economist; dozens of media giants had begun to respond, like a giant
ship turning slowly in the water. The subject of peak oil is one which
requires a little study to get your brain around. It does not, however,
require much science except for basic arithmetic. Discoveries of large oil
deposits have been in steep decline since 1962. Demand, on the other hand,
has been soaring.

To quote my energy editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer, a geologist: it appears that
the year 2007 will be important. A new study published in Petroleum Review
suggests that production might not be able to keep up with demand by 2007.
The study is a survey of mega projects (those with reserves of over 500
million barrels and the potential to produce over 100,000 barrels per day of
oil). Mega projects are important not only because they provide the bulk of
world oil production, but also because they have a better net energy profile
than smaller projects, and they provide a more substantial profit than
smaller projects.

Bear in mind that the planet consumes a billion barrels of oil (or two mega
fields) every 11-1/2days.

The discovery rate for mega projects has dwindled to almost nothing. This
can be seen in the data for the last few years. In 2000, there were 16
discoveries; in 2001 there were 8, and in 2002, only 3. From discovery to
first production generally takes about 6 years. If a new project can make
use of existing infrastructure, then the start-up time might be cut to 4
years.

In 2003, seven new mega projects started producing. 2004 expects to see
another 11. 2005 will be the peak year for bringing new projects on stream,
with 18 new projects expected. In 2006, the pace drops back to 1l. But in
2007 there are only 3 new projects scheduled to begin production, followed
by 3 more in 2008. There are no new projects on track for 2009 or 2010. And
any new mega project sanctioned now could not possibly come on stream any
sooner than 2008.

The study points out that currently about a third of the world's oil comes
from declining fields, with a likely overall decline rate of about 4%. As a
result, global production capacity is contracting by over 1 million barrels
per day every year. New production is the only thing offsetting this
decline.

Of course, recent events have clearly demonstrated the fragility of a global
production system that is operating at full tilt. Sabotage an Iraqi
pipeline, and in one day the price goes up. Announce that Vladimir Putin is
easing up on Russian oil giant Yukos, and the price drops. Announce that
Putin is moving to sell off its assets and confiscate its cash, the price
soars. Worry that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela might be ousted in a violent
coup, and the price jumps. Watch Chavez - who is despised by the Bush
administration - win his seventh election in as many years, and the price
drops.

In spite of repeated assurances from the Saudi government that they can and
are increasing production, the evidence is growing that they cannot. My
organization, From the Wilderness, was the first to report, a year before
the New York Times did, that Saudi Arabia may have actually peaked. New
studies are reporting that Saudi wells in the mother of all oil fields,
Ghawar, are showing 55% water cut. That means that 55% of what is pumped out
every day is the same seawater that was pumped in to push the oil up.
Experience has shown that when the water cut gets to between 70 and 80%, the
field collapses.

The rush to produce more oil is hastening the destruction of fields that
could last longer otherwise.

Ghawar, the super giant of all fields was discovered more than 60 years ago.
It had estimated reserves of almost 100 billion barrels. Professor Michael
Klare has told us that, in order to keep pace with accelerating oil demand,
the world will have to discover three new Ghawars in the next 10 to 15
years. There was only one Ghawar. There hasn't been another since.

So when we look at the paltry and rapidly diminishing rate of discovery for
the so-called mega fields, the prospects become a bit more chilling. In the
year 2003, for the first time since the 1920s, according to a leading
petroleum consulting firm, not a single so-called mega field - 500 million
barrels or more - was discovered.

By 2007, production capacity will have declined by 3-4m b/d. Yet this
decline will be offset by 8m b/d of new capacity drawn from the many new
projects expected to come on stream over the next few years. This leaves a
surplus of 4m b/d in spare capacity. Yet global demand is growing by over 1m
b/d each year. So 3 years of demand growth will reduce our spare capacity to
1m b/d by the start of 2007. As very little new capacity is set to come on
stream in 2007, that remaining 1m b/d spare capacity will likely disappear
before 2008.

The oil supply appears sustainable, barring major wars or destruction of
infrastructure, until 2007. With so much new production coming on stream,
there may even be periods of price weakness. However, it is likely that we
will begin suffering oil shortages after 2007, especially if anything
happens to disrupt a portion of the production. If new projects are not
found and online by 2008, then by the end of that year we are certain to see
severe shortages without any cause other than rising demand.

But there is another factor to this oil calculus. We hear complaints that a
major part of the problem with current oil prices has to do with a lack of
refineries. Why are no more refineries being built? The answer is simple and
an irrefutable confirmation of peak oil. The refineries are not being built
and massive expensive exploration projects are not being undertaken because
the oil companies understand that there is very little oil left to find.

Finding 10 new North Sea fields somewhere By 2015, global oil demand is
expected to increase by over two-thirds, that is, 60m b/d beyond current
global consumption of between 75 and 80m b/d. To meet that demand we will
have to find the equivalent of 10 new North Sea oil fields within a decade.
In the meantime, Britain's North Sea, just like Alaska's North Slope did a
decade ago, is running dry. Rigs are shutting down and employees being laid
off. Yet we are hard pressed now to discover even another mega-sized field.
To quote former British environmental minister Michael Meacher, we are
facing "the sharpest and perhaps the most violent dislocation (of society)
in recent history."

There are many out there who refuse to believe that oil and natural gas are
running out. There are those who insist that alternative energies can be
snapped into place. But aside from looking at the events since 9/11 and
seeing that they match a world of diminishing energy, let's take a look at
some recent developments around the world and see what they tell us.

Britain's largest electricity provider has announced that prices will soar
as much as 40% next year. Wholesale energy prices have doubled in the last
year as Bloomberg has announced that the decline in North Sea production is
creating a trade gap which is now threatening to cause widespread
unemployment.

In March, Reuters reported that Argentina, facing its worst energy crisis in
15 years, is becoming unstable to the point of threatening the security of
the entire region. It has cut its natural gas exports to Chile by 15%, which
is threatening Chilean power generation. Argentina is now moving into the
world oil market in search of oil for power generation and transportation as
its own domestic supplies have dwindled.

The BBC reported recently that high oil prices are threatening many Asian
economies.

Just two weeks ago, the Australian government ordered an emergency fuel
review in anticipation of future crises. In June it conducted a test to see
how the government and country would respond to a "disruption" in oil
supplies.

On August 25, it was reported that Brazil was opening negotiations with
Ecuador to replace diminishing oil supplies.

China, in the midst of rapidly diminishing harvests, is fearing a major food
crisis. This, even as Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and Shanghai are facing mandatory
blackouts which are disrupting manufacturing, trade and retail activity.
Chinese oil imports have increased by 15% in just the first quarter of 2004
alone. In anticipation of pending military conflict in the region, China has
decided to build a pipeline through Burma to the Indian Ocean so that
tankers supplying China's growing thirst will not have to travel through a
region that is becoming increasingly dangerous.

Germany has moved to institute home energy passports and undertaken serious
and well-planned efforts to reduce energy consumption. Chancellor Schroeder,
in the wake of recent revelations that Shell revised its reserve estimates
four times in one year, called upon the G8 nations to mandate total and
verifiable transparency in all oil reserve figures.

India, whose oil imports jumped 23% in one month, has moved to create a
strategic petroleum reserve.

Indonesia, a member of OPEC, has announced that its oil production will drop
significantly by 2008.

Japan, ignoring stiff opposition from Washington, has signed a major oil
contract with Iran, at the same time that it is feuding with China, Vietnam
and the Philippines over relatively small oil and gas deposits in the
Spratly Islands of the South China Sea. Three bills have been introduced in
the Japanese parliament that would suspend its nonviolent constitution and
permit a full-scale rearmament.

Russia, having recently admitted that its oil reserves are finite and that
production might start to decline sharply within the next five years, has
announced it will build a pipeline from its Siberian fields to the Pacific
ports of Vladivostok and Sakhalin, thus agreeing to sell its oil to Japan,
Korea and the Philippines. Russia's other choice was to have the pipeline
terminate in central China.

"This Week in Petroleum," an industry journal, has reported that non-OECD
countries have begun to hoard petroleum and are buying all they can even at
what some analysts call "inflated" prices.

In Thailand, mandatory curfews have been imposed two nights a week,
requiring all businesses to shut down in order to conserve energy.

On August 24, Britain's Oil Depletion Analysis Center confirmed, citing data
from "Petroleum Review," that daily oil depletion is now exceeding 1m b/d.
In other words, every day, the world is producing 1.14 million barrels per
day less than it did the day before. By analyzing data from the 18 largest
oil producing nations, "Petroleum Review" calculated that production from
these countries peaked in 1997 at 24.7 m b/d and that by 2003 it had fallen
to 22.1 m b/d.

On August 21, the Houston Chronicle posed a great question. If oil prices
are soaring and there's insatiable demand, why isn't there a boom in hiring
and corporate expansion? The Chronicle, paying due heed to the financial
markets, offered the dubious explanation that the oil companies just didn't
want to overdo things and look greedy. In fact, all over the world, oil
companies are downsizing, selling off assets, laying off employees and
merging. Just last week it was announced that French giant Total was
considering a tender offer to purchase Royal Dutch Shell.

And here in the United States, rising oil prices have forced major airlines
like United to consider raiding corporate pension funds in order to offset
rising oil costs as an alternative to bankruptcy.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is just the beginning. And neither presidential
candidate has even remotely addressed the real issues or dared to tell the
American people the worst. The one overriding concern I have seen expressed
everywhere is "Oh, no. We can't do that. It will crash the markets."

Is that the sum total of human expression and achievement? The markets?

To close this presentation tonight, I would like to offer you a quote from
John Kenneth Galbraith, from a 2002 article, "The Unbearable Costs of
Empire":

"It is a straightforward fact that if global oil production starts to
decline but U.S. consumption does not, everyone else will be required to cut
purchases of oil. But how can oil prices be held stable for Americans yet be
made to rise for everyone else? Only by a policy of continuing depreciation
in everyone else's currency. Such a policy of dollar hegemony amid worldwide
financial instability, of crushing debt burdens and deflation throughout the
developing world, is perverse. It will make our trading partners' exports
cheap, render their imports dear and keep their real wages low. It will
price American goods out of world markets and lead to unsustainable
dependence on foreign capital. This is the policy that Bush and Cheney are
actually imposing on the rest of the world. But they cannot make it last. It
will make lives miserable elsewhere, generating ever more resistance,
terrorism and military engagement. Meanwhile, we will not experience even
gradual exposure to the changing energy balance; we will therefore never
make the investments required to adjust, even eventually, to a world of
scarce and expensive oil. In the end, therefore, that world will arrive much
more abruptly than it otherwise would, shaking the fragile edifice of our
oil economy to its foundations. And we will someday face a double explosion:
of anger against our arrogance and of actual shortage and collapsing living
standards, when the confidence of investors in the dollar finally gives way.

Compared with this future, a new commitment to collective security, to a new
world financial structure, to a rational energy and transportation policy,
and to spending to meet our actual domestic needs would be a bargain. At the
end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what type
of government the framers had given our new country. He famously replied, "A
republic, if you can keep it."

In 49 BC, Julius Caesar, fresh from a battlefield victory in central Italy
ordered his legions to cross a small creek called the Rubicon. Under the
laws of the Roman Republic, the army was not allowed to enter the capital
city.

As Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the Roman Republic died and the Roman
Empire was born.

Our task, if we and much of human civilization are to survive, is not to
keep our republic, but to take it back.

Thank you.

© Michael C. Ruppert

RESOURCES
Some Books about the End of Oil:
The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World, by Paul Roberts (2004)
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, by David Goodstein (2004)
PowerDown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, by Richard Heinberg
(2004)
High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis, by Julian Darley (2004)
Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
(2003)
The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, by Richard
Heinberg (2003)

Mainstream Sources for Peak Oil:

[If anyone has the suspicion that this material about Peak Oil is all
fringe, the following will certainly stifle that delusion really quickly.
The folllowing source material has been compiled by Michael Ruppert which is
in both his new book and from his speech at the Commonwealth Club. - Editor]

I have attended two international conferences on the subject of peak oil and
its implications for civilization, one in Paris in 2003 and one in Berlin
this year. For almost the entire year between the Paris and Berlin
conferences, the icons of the mainstream press - the ones known and employed
to mold public and business perception - have been acknowledging peak oil's
reality, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes less than directly, but also
sometimes very boldly. CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, The Economist;
dozens of media giants had begun to respond, like a giant ship turning
slowly in the water. The ship has clearly changed course, but was it enough?
Was it in time? I have saved close to 200 of these stories.

Looking at just a few of them makes the point well enough.

"The End Of Cheap Oil" - National Geographic (cover story), June 2004.
"What To Use When The Oil Runs Out" - BBC, April 22, 2004
"Adios Cheap Oil" - Interpress News Agency, April 27, 2004
"G7: Oil Price Threatens World Economy" - Moscow Times, 4/26/04
"World Oil Crisis Looms" - Jane's, 4/21/04
"US Procuring The World's Oil" - Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2004
"Are We Running Out Of Oil? Scientist Warns Of Looming Crisis" -
ABCnews.com, 2/11/04
"Blood, Money, And Oil" - US News, 8/18/03
"Soaring Global Demand For Oil Strains Production Capacity" - Wall Street
Journal, 3/22/04.
"Check That Oil" - Washington Post, 11/14/03
"China's Demand For Foreign Oil Rises At Breakneck Pace" - Knight Ridder,
1/26/04
"World Oil And Gas Running Out" - CNN, 10/02/03
"Debate Rages On Oil Output By Saudis In Future" - New York Times, 2/25/04
"Fossil-Fuel Dependency: Do Oil Reserves Foretell Bleak Future?" - San
Francisco Chronicle, 4/02/04
"The End Of The Oil Age: Ways To Break The Tyranny Of Oil Are Coming Into
View. Governments Need To Promote Them" - The Economist, 10/23/03

3) Evidence on Cold Fusion Remains Inconclusive, New Review Finds

By KENNETH CHANG, New York Times, December 2, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/science/02fusion.html

In a new review of cold fusion - the claim that energy can be generated by running electrical current through water - the Department of Energy released a report yesterday that says the evidence remains inconclusive, echoing a similar report 15 years ago.

Over the past several months, 18 scientists reviewed research in cold fusion, and two-thirds of them did not find the evidence for nuclear reactions in the experiments convincing. Almost all of them, however, said that aspects of cold fusion merited consideration for further research.

"I think the new review has shed some light on the status of research that has been done over the last 15 years," said Dr. James F. Decker, deputy director of the science office in the Energy Department who agreed to the review at the request of several scientists involved with cold fusion research.

Dr. Decker said the department was open to proposals for cold fusion research, but added that was not new. "We have always been open to proposals that have scientific merit as determined by peer review," he said. "We have never closed the door to cold fusion proposals."

Cold fusion briefly appeared to promise an unlimited energy source in 1989 when Drs. B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah announced that they had generated fusion - the same process that powers the sun - in a tabletop experiment using a jar of water containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen.

They claimed that an electrical current running through the water pulled deuterium atoms into two palladium electrodes, generating heat. The speculation was that the heat was coming from the fusion of the deuterium atoms.

Other scientists, however, had trouble reproducing the findings, and at the end of 1989, a review by the Energy Department recommended against a specific cold fusion research program, although it did support further investigation into some aspects.

After that, most scientists regarded cold fusion as a discredited farce, but a small group of scientists continued work in the field. Measurements have become better, but cold fusion experiments still produce heat at best half of the time. At the end of last year, several cold fusion scientists approached Dr. Decker, asking for a review. Dr. Decker agreed.

In the review, nine scientists chosen by the Energy Department considered a paper submitted by the cold fusion scientists. Another nine listened to oral presentations by cold fusion scientists in August.

"This was a very, very scientific, very level-headed, review by everybody," said Dr. Kirby W. Kemper, vice president for research at Florida State University and one of the reviewers of the oral presentations. But Dr. Kemper said, "I don't think we've made much progress since '89 in really nailing down the parameters that make it reproducible."

He said there were interesting scientific questions on the behavior of hydrogen within metals that merited research, and he said his comments tried to offer a future research path.

Dr. Michael McKubre, a scientist at SRI International, one of the scientists who approached Dr. Decker last year, said the conclusions were at least "mildly positive" in endorsing consideration of further research.

"All we set out to demonstrate was there were serious issues of science that had to be developed further," Dr. McKubre said. "If you look through the materials, the majority, if not the entirety, agree on that point."

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ED. NOTE: Look at the DOE Report - http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/index.htm

Visit a website dedicated to the DOE Report - http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:DOE_ColdFusion

Visit Bamboo Web online encyclopedia for a good tutorial on Cold Fusion with lots of embedded links - http://www.bambooweb.com/articles/c/o/Cold_fusion.html

4) Europe threatens to go for fusion alone

Declan Butler, Nature, Nov. 26, 2004, http://www.nature.com/physics/

EU says it could build a new reactor without Japanese support.

The ITER fusion reactor could pave the way for a new source of energy.

European ministers today agreed to build the $6.1-billion ITER experimental nuclear-fusion reactor with less than all its international partners, if that proves necessary to secure a French site for the project.

ITER will try to prove the principle of creating fusion energy by heating plasma constrained by a magnetic field. But a deadlock among the project's six partners over the choice of host has stalled it for more than a year.

China and Russia are backing the European Union's Cadarache site in France, whereas the United States and Korea support Japan's rival site at Rokkasho.

The latest international meeting, held on 9 November in Vienna, ended yet again without decision (see "Stalemate over fusion project threatens to provoke split").

On 26 November, the EU Competitiveness Council mandated the European Commission, the union's executive arm, to start ITER with fewer international partners if no deal could be reached with Japan. It also stated that the commission should complete the legal agreements needed to build ITER by next June, meaning that it would need to close any deal by the end of the year.

Informed of the development by Nature, Satoru Ohtake, director of fusion energy at Japan's science ministry, expressed doubts that Europe was committed to its declared stance, suggesting that the move might equally be intended to raise the stakes in the ITER negotiations. "If they think this will put pressure on us, they are wrong," he warns.

Ohtake argues that if Europe were to pursue this route, it would damage an important international scientific collaboration. "If they break the negotiations by pursuing their own desires, they will be the ones that break international mutual trust," he says. "This is divisive; it is not acceptable to us."

"The partners must remain united in the search for a compromise even if this takes time," he adds. "If both sides just insist on their own point of view, there is no way out."

5) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Electromedicine

Thomas Valone, Ph.D., P.E., Washington DC, Future Energy Annual 2004, http://www.rejuvenetics.us/uploads/Chronic_Fatigue_Syndrome_and_Electromedicine_Final.doc

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a condition that has become quite prevalent in the last 50 years. It is defined as a debilitating lack of vitality that includes symptoms lasting at least 6 months. These symptoms may include:

More women are affected than men are by this syndrome. Even more disturbing, a muscle disorder that also causes weakness, called fibromyalgia, has been found in many CFS patients, according to a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov). With more than three-quarters of a million people in the United States exhibiting a CFS-like condition, it is becoming a serious health concern.

The causes for CFS are still undetermined. Some studies suggest multiple nutrient deficiencies can trigger chronic fatigue. Therefore, proper nutrition, consisting of a well balanced diet is vitally important. Fresh fruits and raw foods are especially recommended. Herbs that are helpful include ginkgo, astragalus, red clover, dandelion and short term use of echinacea to help boost the immune system, which is always affected by CFS. To help improve the interrupted sleep pattern, valerian root or melatonin at bedtime is helpful.

Although numerous studies have been conducted to find the underlying causes of CFS, none have succeeded in understanding its physiological or chemical pathways. Some studies have shown that deficiencies of the adrenal or thyroid glands have been found in CFS patients. This has prompted the belief that stress can trigger CFS, whether it is of mental or physical origin. Therefore energy boosting therapies as well as vitamins and antioxidant supplementation to combat free radical proliferation is often considered to be extremely important.

How do free radicals deplete cellular energy? Free radical proliferation is linked to pathological changes that cause cellular malfunction or mutation (i.e. cancer) as well as protein degradation. Free radicals also play a large role in causing damage to all cells of the body but particularly the immune system. Free radicals also deplete cellular energy by interfering with mitochondrial function and contribute to shortened lifespan, according to studies with animal species. Cellular energy generation in the mitochondria is both a key source and key target of oxidative stress in the cells. Seeking an electron to complete the radical, free radicals cause chain reactions as electrons are ripped from molecules, creating another free radical. Cellular energy generation in the mitochondria is both a key source and key target of oxidant stress in the cell. One can therefore envision a model whereby the inevitable increased production of free radicals compromises mitochondrial efficiency and eventually energy output in a detrimental feedback loop.

Antioxidants such as vitamin A, vitamin E, selenium and coenzyme Q10 supply free electrons and are usually prescribed by naturopathic doctors in order to provide limited relief in counteracting free radical ravages, as long as they are taken regularly. However, electronic antioxidants produced by bioelectromagnetic (BEM) therapy can also satisfy and terminate free radicals, by abundantly supplying the key ingredient usually found only in encapsulated antioxidant supplements…the electron. Indeed, such a pattern of confirmation has been found through our preliminary studies before and after electrotherapy with the Pharmanex BioPhotonic Scanner which tests for carotenoid (vitamin A) levels in the blood. The carotenoid levels of the blood are noticeably higher after high voltage electrotherapy, suggesting that free radical levels have dropped since they are not consuming carotenoids at the same rate as before therapy.

Another indicator or immune system status and energy storage level of the body is the voltage that is maintained across all of its cell membranes. The so-called transmembrane potential (TMP), typically in the hundred thousand volt range per centimeter, is often found to be much lower during stress and disease states, indicating lower energy levels in the body. In this case, modern medicine does not offer a chemical supplement or pharmaceutical concoction to provide relief. However, the high voltage electric fields presented to the body by bioelectromagnetic therapy can be reasonably expected to boost the TMP directly.

It is known that damaged or diseased cells present an abnormally low TMP about 80% lower than healthy cells., This signifies a greatly reduced metabolism and, in particular, impairment of the electrogenic sodium-potassium (Na-K) pump activity and therefore, reduced ATP production. The sodium-potassium pump, within the membrane, forces a ratio of 3Na ions out of the cell for every 2K ions pumped in, for proper metabolism. An impaired Na-K pump results in edema (cellular water accumulation) and a tendency toward fermentation, a condition known to be favorable toward cancerous activity.

A Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgi, proposed that cell membranes also rectify alternating currents since structured proteins behave like solid-state diodes. (A diode passes electricity in only one direction.) It is reasonable therefore to conclude, based on these biophysical principles, that an endogenous high voltage EMF potential of sufficient strength will theoretically stimulate the TMP, normal cell metabolism, the sodium pump, ATP production and healing. This far-reaching generalization has already been found in the literature: "TMP is proportional to the activity of this pump and thus to the rate of healing." Furthermore, "increases in the membrane potential have also been found to increase the uptake of amino acids." Electromedicine therefore, appears to connect to and recharge the storage battery of the TMP, just as sunlight baths connect to and recharge the storage battery of biophotons in cellular DNA.

Will high voltage electrotherapy become the medicine of the future? Similar expectations were voiced 100 years ago when pioneers such as Tesla, Rife, and Lakhovsky served medical doctors with their remarkable inventions in electromedicine. Only superior clinical studies along with perseverance and determination to change the pharmaceutical dependency in this country may make the difference this time around. In the meantime, those suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome may find that relatively simple steps can be taken to reduce debilitating free radical attack and boost ATP production through TMP recharging by regular, brief electromedicine treatments.

Further information on TMP, ATP and BEM therapy can be found in the book, Bioelectromagnetic Healing: A Rationale for its Use by Thomas Valone. Related websites are www.novaliteresearch.com , www.zephyrtechnology.com , www.rejuvenetics.us , www.designmed.com, www.lightbeamgenerator.com , and www.IntegrityResearchInstitute.org .

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