Bill Gates Sponsoring Palladium-Based LENR Technology

Baldrson writes Kitco.com reports that: "Low energy nuclear reactor (LENR) technology, and by extension palladium, is attracting the attention of one of the richest men in the world and a pioneer inventor of new technology... In a recent visit to Italy, billionaire business man, investor and inventor Bill Gates said that for several years he has been a believer in the idea of LENR, and is a sponsor of companies developing the technology... During his trip to Italy he visited the national agency for new technologies energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA) where scientists have made significant progress towards a working design for low energy nuclear fusion. The centerpiece of their design is the same as in Mitsubishi's, palladium. Creating palladium foil with just the right parameters, and managing stress levels in the material was a key issue, one that the researchers at EMEA were able to resolve several years ago."

Comments

just a new name for cold fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good that he has a lot of money, because this is going down the toilet.

Gates is a very lucky man

[BoxRec]

I think this story really illustrates the fact the Gates was a very lucky man. He was in the right place at the right time (and with the right mother who was a friend of the Chairman of IBM) to be successful. Under any other circumstance it seems he would be pursuing a career in alchemy.

Re:Gates is a very lucky man

[JaredOfEuropa]

Many of us have had a few good business ideas at some point. The success of many entrepreneurs can be attributed to luck, being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the right people, rather than just having that great idea. But they then also have to recognize the idea as being good, recognize the opportunity presented by Lady Luck (timeliness and the right friends), have the guts to seize the opportunity and stake one's future on it, and then have the wherewithal to build a company around that idea.

Re:Gates is a very lucky man

[JaredOfEuropa]

Absolutely, and the skill and factors I mentioned are things that increase your chances of success, they by no means guarantee it. While I do believe that there's more to success than stupid luck, I also think that what we can learn from successful entrepreneurs is a great deal less than what MBA teachers and writers of business books lead us to believe. Perhaps Steve Jobs started in a garage at an early age, went for morning walks, always had cereal for lunch, and asked his mom for one piece of business advice every weekend, and made it a point to publicly humiliate at least one of his execs every week, or whatever (I made these up to make a point), but there's little point in blindly copying that behaviour to try and achieve our own success.

Re:Rossi

[Anonymous Coward]

An 'independent' group of LENR researchers who were not allowed to 'independently' setup/inspect the equipment nor 'independently' operate it (Rossi did) watched it with ridiculously inadequate measuring equipment for 30 days and said it 'works'.

I think they also independently claimed that the Brooklyn Bridge was a 'good deal' and they should buy it from me, but I haven't seen any money from them yet.

LENR is not fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

LENR means Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, and is most decidedly NOT fusion; the coulomb barrier is not applicable. The mechanism is completely different, the best theory so far is that of Widom-Larsen which explains it using Ultra Low Momentum neutrons. See http://news.newenergytimes.net for details, for the theory http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/WL/WLTheory.shtml .

Re:LENR is not fusion

[JaredOfEuropa]

Are there any credible, scientific publications on LENR? Most articles on the subject are on Newenergytimes and E-catworld, which are hardly serious.

Cold Fusion

[mentil]

640 Kelvin ought to be enough for anybody.

Scam

[AgentElrond]

This smells like a scam of some sort - I can't find any credible sources that link Gates to LENR, and the linked page also includes predictions by a financial astrologer. All the related links I dig into go nowhere but the same set of fringe / crackpot cold fusion sites. Anyone have anything firm on Gates involvement?

Re:Whoops

[TheRaven64]

Bill Gates is far more intelligent than you,

That needs a big 'citation needed' next to it, but:

and has already seen a working plant, which is why he is investing on a technology that is going to displace oil and outright kill renewables.

You don't understand risk analysis. He's investing a very small proportion of his wealth in something that may have massive returns. The probability of said returns may be small, but that doesn't make it a bad investment if the potential payoffs are huge, as long as you can afford to take the loss if it doesn't pan out. Most people with his money will invest a few millions in a few fringe ideas, because it only takes one to pay off to more than make up for your investment. The majority of his portfolio will be in relatively safe investments with a close-to-guaranteed return, a bit will be in risky venture.

Other ideas for Blliy

[Ol Olsoc]

I was just on Youtube, and they have energy figured out:

You can heat your house with two tea candles and a couple clay flower pots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Perpetual motion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

There is a lot more. These guys and gals have us to the point of completely free energy.

But while the communist cabal of evil "real" scientists are all busy trying to shackle the world with their hoohaw global warming money and freedom grab when they aren't out killing puppies, and figuring out ways to break Jerry Sandusky out of jail - the true inventors working tirelessly in their garages have solved all our energy problems

WAKE UP AMERICA! from a cave in Idaho, where men are still men, and the sheep are pretty nervous

Re:"pioneer inventor of new technology" ???

[Marginal Coward]

I don't know if this was an invention, but it certainly was pioneering: Microsoft 8K BASIC. It was originally written by Gates and his buddy Paul Allen personally. (You've got to start somewhere.)

MS 8K BASIC came built in ROM with all of the microcomputers of a certain era: TRS-80, the Apple II, and my own beloved (but obscure) Ohio Scientific. Note that Apple's own Integer Basic, written by Woz, wasn't nearly the success on the Apple II, though it had its following. The Apple II wouldn't have been nearly the success it was without MS 8K BASIC to help make it mainstream.

I learned assembly language originally by studying Gate's and Allen's handiwork. My Ohio Scientific had a 6502 processor, and after reading a book on 6502 assembly language to learn some basic principles, I *really* learned 6502 assembly by studying disassembly listings of 8K BASIC. It was a marvel of clever assembly techniques. It may be hard to appreciate at this point the impact of that little 8K piece of code. It's what made the fledgling microcomputer business viable for hobbyists a few years before the IBM PC made "personal computers" viable for businesses and your grandma.

Oh, and let's not forget Gate's innovations as a monopolist. I don't know the details, but one can't logically disparage him as a monopolist without recognizing his pioneering innovations in the field of monopoly. For example, his ongoing rant at the time about "Microsoft needs the freedom to innovate", while having built a business on doing nothing but copying the (technical) innovations of others was actually kindda innovative, in a business sense. Of course, John D. Rockerfeller and others had pioneered monopoly a century earlier, but one can't help but recognize that Gates must have pushed the monopolist's state-of-the-art of a bit further. For example, Rockerfeller certainly didn't invent "embrace, extend and extinguish". So, let's give credit where credit's due.

(Note to moderators: before you down-mod me for saying positive things about Bill Gates here, please note the ironic undertone of the last paragraph.)