Part 1 of 4 Parts
       Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division have begun a project to study what are referred to now as low-energy nuclear reactions (LENRs). LENRs are largely unexplained phenomena that are at the core of theories about “cold fusion.” Five different government-funded laboratories under the control of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and National Institutes of Standards and Technology will carry out experiments in order to settle the debate about this poorly understood and highly controversial subject. In spite of the controversy and even stigma associated with LENR, many experts in the U.S. military believe that there is sound science behind LENR. If actual working technologies can be developed, it could have major impact on military operations.
     LENRs are a theory that makes an attempt to explain some of results that some scientists have observed over the past several decades. These results seem to indicate that there is a unique type of anomalous energy production that arises from a particular class of non-fusion nuclear reactions which have been shown to occur at room temperatures. Interest in LENRs and “cold fusion” date back to the early Twentieth century. These results were never satisfactorily explained in terms of recognized scientific principles.
      One of the greatest controversies in the LENR field occurred in 1989 when chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that they had been able to reach a “sustained nuclear fusion reaction” at room temperature. They said that their experiment had produced an anomalous amount of heat which could only have come from nuclear processes. They also reported that they had been able to measure a small amount of nuclear reaction byproducts, including tritium and neutrons. Their small tabletop experiment involved the electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of electrodes made of palladium. There was a huge reaction in the mainstream media to their announcement which raised hopes of a new cheap and abundant source of energy.

      Scientists around the world began reviewing the Pons-Fleishmann data and not all of them agreed with the conclusions of Pons and Fleishmann. Some of these other scientists believed that low-temperature fusion reactions were taking place while others believed that some type of poorly understood chemical reaction was occurring. Still other scientists thought that the two chemists had observed some new type of phenomena. One scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) even went so far as to publicly accuse Pons and Fleishmann of deliberate fraud. No other laboratory was able to replicate the results and Pons and Fleishman eventually retracted their conclusions admitting that they had not actually measured any nuclear reaction byproducts as they had claimed.
     By late 1989, most of the global scientific community had decided that the claims for cold fusion were dead. Cold fusion was eventually labeled as pathological science. In that year, the DoE decided that the reported results involving excess heat were not convincing evidence of a useful energy source and they were against the allocation of any funding for cold fusion research.
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