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ABSTRACT
In the last of a series of papers on energy science and technology, we survey the wide field of theories and devices that claim energy in excess of breakeven (with a coefficient of performance, COP>1). 1) On the side of nuclear reactions, it encompasses thermonuclear fusion, so-called cold fusion, its generic replacement by low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), and the aetherometric discoveries of heretofore ignored gravitationally-confined and electrodynamically-driven hydrogen fusion pathways. These two discoveries cast as much severe doubt on the feasibility of achieving controlled fusion by greater and greater injections of thermal power into magnetically and inertially confined hydrogen plasmas (a shotgun approach), as on the accuracy ("veracity") of claims that ubiquitous LENR reactions simply source excess heat. In effect, Aetherometry argues that there is no such thing as low energy reactions, for three reasons: 1) no fusion reactions directly generate blackbody photons (heat), period; 2) most claimed signature-transmutations are based on deficient and incorrect nuclear physical theory; and, worse still, 3) they stem from poor experiments whose data is insufficient (or nonexistent) to substantiate the claim. A case in point is the incredibly preposterous claim that the PAGD reactor is the simplest ever LENR reactor. In effect, though the PAGD reactor emits light and heat, what it primarily releases is electric energy in excess of breakeven. The whole LENR theory is a boondoggle that not even the Widom-Larsen (WL) theory can save. 2) On the side of anomalous cathode reaction forces deployed by particular plasma discharges, the present communication surveys the pulsed abnormal glow discharge (PAGD), vacuum arc discharges (VAD) and interrupted vacuum-arc discharges (IVAD). The metallographic signatures of these discharges in non-hydride, non-oxide and non- permeated cathode metals have long been known, and their deployment of energy in excess of breakeven, whether thermal or electric, is not directly connected to any particular set of LENR-induced transmutations. The absence of neutron and gamma-ray signatures in these discharges is also a strong argument against such a preconceived assimilation - and tallies with the willful disregard for simpler explanations, such as Aspden's law of electrodynamics, or the aetherometric treatment of the same. Other plausible devices ("electromagnetic", piezoelectric, etc) that claim COP>1 are also surveyed. Despite all the hoopla over the past 4 decades, few of these excess energy devices and theoretical approaches in each category are found to have survived detailed scientific and technical scrutiny. One of the worst outcomes has been a modern systematic falsification of basic science that charted successive metamorphoses which first turned "cold fusion" into LENR, and then illegitimately absorbed into the latter the electrodynamics of anomalous plasma discharges. Probably this perverse distortion could not be otherwise, since conventional and alternative physical theories all have in common an inadequate grasp of electrodynamics, starting with what is an electron and what it does - what it can and cannot do; so, given such limitations, how could their grasp of nuclear physics be better than their grasp of electrodynamics? It simply can't.
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