A document revealed under the Freedom of Information Act suggests that the U.S. government is interested in low-energy nuclear reactions, but remains cautious due to the issues such as the "lack of robust experimental verification and rigorous peer review." [New Energy Times. Thanks, M!]

  • phisrow

    The only part of this that seems surprising(if not very so, unfortunately) is that an FOIA request was involved.
    Low temperature/energy nuclear reactions, while comparatively unlikely(or at least deeply under-demonstrated at the present time) would be all sorts of interesting if they were to pan out. Enormous potential * low probability = roughly enough interest for a low-key conference about the subject.

    Why the “Defense Threat Reduction Agency”, rather than the DOE, was doing this, presumably their nuclear forensics people would be quite interested in nuclear reaction pathways that they don’t currently know about.

  • http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker

    but remains cautious due to the issues such as the “lack of robust experimental verification and rigorous peer review.” 

    That would do it, yes. 

  • Wally Ballou

    Translation:   As of today, the development of this technology has insufficient potential for graft.

    • John Aspinall

      Oh, I dunno about that.  Plenty of people got bilked when it was called “cold fusion”.