There has been a lot of coverage in the mainstream media about cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money. There is no physical coin or bill. It all takes place online. There is a brisk trade in cryptocurrency and many people are investing in it by buying units of one the cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
      Cryptocurrencies are based on the blockchain process where a ledger of transactions is distributed to all the players in the game. Another way to obtain cryptocurrency is called crypto mining. This is a process where computers are used to carry out mathematical procedures that verify a block of ledger transactions. It is based on “first come first served” where the first miner to correctly process a block receives cryptocurrency as a reward. One of the problems with crypto mining is that it requires a great deal of electricity to power the computers that are competing to verify blocks of the ledger.
     Now some financial experts in Ukraine have decided that crypto mining could be a proper asset that could solve significant issues involving spending in the Ukrainian energy sector. The Ukrainian government is pushing for the use of nuclear-powered crypto mining to help with this problem.
     Alexei Mushak is an economic advisor to the former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk. He said that Ukraine needs crypto miners to take advantage of nuclear power plants that favor smooth operations. It will also help lower the cost of nuclear power.
     Mushak explained that “Modern equipment (ASIC miners) can turn on or off in the space of a minute. Crypto mining can smooth out fluctuations in consumption and generation [at nuclear power plants].” The basic concept behind nuclear-powered crypto mining is to shift the output of nuclear power plants to crypto mining when the demand for electricity falls.
     In addition, by boosting crypto mining in Ukraine, NAEC Energoatom, the state-owned company that operates all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, could have the future ability to expand its sales markets. This is important because NAEC suffered a loss of one hundred and seventy-one dollars during 2020.
     Nuclear-powered crypto mining in Ukraine has been a project since May of 2020. This project was started by the former acting Minister of Energy Olga Buslavets. It intends to construct data centers near four of NEAC’s nuclear power plants in the first phase. The project is aimed at launching these data centers in 2023.
    Government approval has already been given for the construction of these data centers. They could have the ability to mine bitcoins and other major cryptocurrencies although this was not specified in the plan for the project. Ukraine has picked a company to build one of these massive data centers in Rivne for crypto mining.
    This data center will be based in the Rivne nuclear power plant. The construction firm has been awarded about three hundred and seventeen million dollars for the project. The company expects to complete construction of the data center by the end of August, 2022.
     Overall, Ukraine has a significant portion of the global crypto mining market. According to analysts, Ukraine currently has about thirty percent of the bitcoin market. However, mining activities have been slowing down for the past few years.

Ambient office = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Jalapeno pepper from Central Market = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 76 nanosieverts per hour

Part 4 of 4 Parts (Please read Parts 1, 2 and 3 first)
     The story in the September 2018 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine about LENR research goes on to list several other potentially revolutionary applications for LENR energy sources – if they are ever developed:
     “Other options abound. LENRs could power and provide operational flexibility for undersea surveillance and could provide increased capability for acoustic tomography. Towed sonar systems could cut their tethers, becoming power-independent of their host ships, able to operate at greater distances to prosecute contacts. Logistics and resupply change dramatically when refueling becomes almost an afterthought.”
     “In Near-Earth orbit, applications could include onboard power, space propulsion, and sustained orbital repositioning capability. Space propulsion thrust requires reaction mass, but a LENR-based system could produce extended thrust at high efficiencies by separating the energy source from the propellant mass.”
     The article was attributed to an employee of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). He said, “failure to thoroughly evaluate and develop LENR and its by-products risks missing a window of opportunity for establishing an early foothold and first-mover advantage in a disruptive technology with direct value to the Navy, as well as military, strategic and geopolitical implications. Radical innovations invariably fall outside existing development efforts. Their unfamiliarity can cause strong, sustained, systemic pushback. The Navy has encountered this pushback on many occasions: when steam displaced sail, when coal gave way to oil, and oil to diesel electric; when wooden ships gave way to ironclads, battleships gave way to aircraft carriers, and when conventional forms of propulsion yielded to nuclear.”
     The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) reviewed the literature on LENR in 2006 and reviewed more recent research in 2016. The Agency said, “there are indications that the field of LENR is slowly gaining acceptance,” and that “both SPAWAR HQ and SSC-Pacific say that the phenomenon is real and that it is nuclear in nature.”
     The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD R&E) recommended in 2016 that the Secretary of Defense hold a briefing on the “military utility of recent U.S. industrial base LENR advancements to the House Committee on Armed Services.”
     The wording in the 2018 Proceedings article echoes a statement given in 2017 by Admiral John Richardson who was the Chief of Naval Operations at the time. He said, “My sense is that we’re on the dawn of something very substantial in terms of naval warfare. Something as substantial as the transition from sail to steam, as the transition from wood to ironclad, as substantial as the advent of nuclear propulsion in terms of what it means for naval power.”
     The Proceedings report concluded that “additional research is needed to determine the mechanism by which low energy nuclear reactions occur.” The main purpose of the DTRA is to counter and deter the proliferation or mishandling of weapons of mass destruction. A big part of their work is to “anticipate and understand future threat networks” and “understand basic revolutionary sciences and battlespace changing technologies.” It is obvious why such a potentially game-changing technology as LENR would come under their mission given that the Navy, DTRA and DIA describe it as being revolutionary.
      NSWC-IH intends to publish their initial results on their LENR experiments and reviews of other research by the end of 2021.

Ambient office = 59 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 128 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 135 nanosieverts per hour

Eggplant from Central Market = 121 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Part 3 of 4 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
     Despite the dismal record of cold fusion and lack of interest in funding research, the U.S. Department of Defense has maintained an interest in LENR research up to the present. Previously, the Navy conducted LENR research at the Systems Command (SPAWAR) Systems Center – Pacific. Steve Krivit is an LENR subject matter expert and author. He has said that SPAWAR “produced some of the most interesting experiments and observations in the field and published more LENR papers in mainstream journals than any U.S. LENR group.” LENR research at SPAWAR was ended in 2011.
     In 2009, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) published a report on LENR research. In the report, they stated that based on the available scientific data from around the globe, “nuclear reactions may be occurring under conditions not previously believed possible.” The DIA report stated that Italy and Japan lead global research on LENR. Unfortunately, the stigma associated with the subject in the U.S. means that most of the information about LENR research is presented at international conferences, with U.S. data in the hands of foreign researchers.
     The DIA ultimately concluded in their 2009 report that “if nuclear reactions in LENR experiments are real and controllable, whoever produces the first commercialized LENR power source could revolutionize energy production and storage for the future and that the potential applications of this phenomenon, if commercialized, are unlimited.” The report goes on to say that LENR could lead to batteries that could last for decades. That would revolutionize power for sensors and military operations in remote areas and/or space. “The military potential of such high-energy-density power sources is enormous.” This could potentially lead to one of “the greatest transformation of the battlefield for U.S. forces since the transition from horsepower to gasoline power.”
     The DoD is very interested in new forms of energy production and storage. Energy and fuels are one of the most important logistical challenges for military operations in remote locations or areas of conflict. Establishing supply chain infrastructure can be a major problem. The DoD has been reviewing a variety of new forms of energy production. These include modular solar energy units, miniaturized nuclear reactors, and beamed energy from space to the battlefield. In addition, DoD-associated contractors have recently been bragging about progress in nuclear fusion technologies as have rivals of the U.S. on the international scene. Obviously, energy has become one of the most critical subjects for defense research and development. A potential energy revolution has the potential to upset the global power balance with respect to nations’ abilities to project their power in conflict zones and remote, contested areas.
      The U.S. Naval Institute journal Proceedings published an article in the September 2018 issue that suggested that LENR research could lead to a wide ranges of new technologies including near-room-temperature superconductors and new energy dense power sources that could permit “near-indefinite loiter times” and “facilitate a wide range of subsurface swarm tactics for offensive, defensive, reconnaissance, decoy, or diversionary purposes.” The article includes a list of some other potentially revolutionary applications for LENR energy sources, providing that they are ever developed.
Please read Part 4 next

Ambient office = 63 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 123 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 125 nanosieverts per hour

Bannanna from Central Market = 137 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 78 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 4 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     In 2004, there was a second review of cold fusion by the DoD which included research during the 1990s and early 2000s. They reached the same conclusions of the 1989 DoD review and did not believe that the U.S. government should fund any research into the subject. Currently, articles about research into cold fusion or LENR are seldom published in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals. Because of this, such research does not attract the level of scrutiny that is expected of research published in mainstream scientific publications.
     However, there many researchers believe that there is something going on with LENRs and that the subject deserves a serious second look. In the Scientific American guest blog in 2016, an article was published with the title “It’s Not Cold Fusion… But It’s Something.” This blog post claims that “Hidden in the confusion are many scientific reports, some of them published in respectable peer-reviewed journals, showing a wide variety of experimental evidence” for LENRs, “including transmutations of elements.” The same post says that studies have shown that LENRs “can produce local surface temperatures of 4,000-5,000 K and boil metals (palladium, nickel and tungsten) in small numbers of scattered microscopic sites on the surfaces of laboratory devices.” A more recent theory suggests that the LENR reactions have nothing to do with nuclear fusion. Instead, they are produced by weak interaction and are perfectly consistent with known physics.
    The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division (NSWC-IH), intends to finally find definitive answers as to the nature of LENR phenomena. The NSWC-IH will take an unbiased look at all the available data and will also conduct new experiments. The NSWC-IH specializes in energetics which is a branch of research involving the development and testing of explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, fuels, and other reactive materials with regard to propulsion and weaponry.
     Oliver Barham is a project manager at NSWC-IH. He says that despite past controversies regarding LENRs, the laboratory believes that the science behind these poorly understood reactions is worthy of a second serious examination. He went on to say, “I’m not as worried about looking into something that is considered controversial as long as there’s good science there. The whole point of our effort is we want to be doing good science. We’re not out to prove or disprove anything, we’re out to assemble a team of scientists who want to take it seriously.” Barham added that he hopes the lab will serve as an “honest broker” in the examination of decades worth of data collected by the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
     Carl Gotzmer is the Chief Scientist at NSWC-IN. He remarked that researchers risked ending their careers if they even mentioned “cold fusion”. However, since NSWC-IN is a government funded laboratory, the researchers there have a little more freedom to pursue controversial subjects if there is a possibility of obtaining important scientific results.
Please read Part 3 next