This is about two recent Krivit articles on his blog, New Energy Times, that showed his too-common misunderstanding of power and energy (crucial to understanding LENR research), combined with his yellow journalism that interprets conflict with his beliefs as “lies” and attempts to explain this to him as “cover-up.”
I was searching for the company that Michael J. Shaffer worked for in 1999, when he wrote part of a story on Scientific American that I am planning on reviewing (particularly because it included critique from Morrison), and came across these pages, Google showed them, but Steve Krivit’s blog, “New Energy Times” had taken them down. I had written a critique of his articles, somewhere, but now I can’t find it, and suspect that it was lost when I wrote it for lenr-forum.com, where the software often loses drafts if something interrupts the editing. So I can’t crow “I told you so,” because I probably didn’t.
Steve Krivit article on “Discrepancies in ITER” (taken down)
Steve Krivit article on “The $21 Billion ITER Lie” (taken down)
Krivit has little science training, but has a high reactive opinion index. He is quick to claim, too-often with flimsy or circumstantial evidence, “fraudster,” “falsified data,” and, here, “Lie.” In the past, at least one offended author threatened to sue him, and he was defiant, he published all the emails, obviously intended to be private, presenting the image of a brave journalist who will not be intimidated.
Years, ago,however, he became, effectively, a one-man show, and clearly was publishing shaky material without adult supervision. A journalist who is his own managing editor has a fool for an author. He fired or lost his scientific review board, and ditto for his nonprofit board. His behavior since roughly 2009 has become one of someone at least resembling a shill for Lewis Larsen of Lattice Energy and Widom-Larsen theory, attacking serious scientists who either dare to critique W-L theory, or who have published experimental results that imply conflict with Krivit’s “not fusion” theory.
(In fact, W-L theory is a variant of general electron catalysis theory, where an electron shields the positive charge on a proton or deuteron by converting the proton/deuteron to a neutron or dineutron, thus allowing the proton to be inserted. It still accomplishes fusion as a result, and the general meaning of “fusion” is defined by result, not process, the common “explanation” of fusion as “hot fusion” is like someone who only knows about apples and bananas defining “fruit” as “apples or bananas.”
If higher-Z nuclei are created by some process that puts together lower-Z nuclei, that is “fusion” as process, whereas the common “d-d fusion” process, normally — but not always — very hot, is an example, not a complete description. This is all basic physics, which is often beyond Krivit.)
That behavior is accepable for a blog, which is intrinsically the opinion of the blogger, and only becomes more that this, generally, if there is a review process. It is not acceptable for an “investigative science journalist,” purporting to provide reliable information and analysis.
Here, Krivit took the pages down, pending “internal review.” Why not review his “journalistic articles” before they are published, instead of after? They were obviously in major error, and anyone who understood the issues would see this immediately. Krivit is a yellow journalist, and when he smells dirt — a polite term — he splashes it all over his site, accusing scientists and others of fraud, deception, and, here, lies and cover-up.
Oops!
Some of the unravelling of this is still visible. My emphasis.
On Twitter: Krivit tweets on ITERgate (shows links for tweets).
New Energy Times @NewEnergyTimes Dec 14
#LENR New Energy Times Uncovers Serious Discrepancies in ITER Fusion Facts
New Energy Times @NewEnergyTimes Dec 14
#LENR #ITERGATE First response from thermonuclear fusion researcher. Denies cover-up. Blames journalists for not reading thoroughly.
This would be the December 14 comment from Shaffer, see the comments on the NET page. “There is no cover-up, but one must read thoroughly and not report just one number.” The letter does not blame anyone, “blame” is a Krivit theme. Krivit’s response is classic for him.
“Yes, I contacted [sic] and you gave me lots of technical details but you did not clearly answer my simple question about real net power. The reason, as I soon came to understand, was because you never think about real net power and you and your colleagues never measure real net power.”
Of course they don’t, because there is no “real net power,” this is not well defined. Does it include the coffee-maker in the JET employee lounge? Obviously, for a practical plant, the full impact would be very well-considered. Krivit extrapolates from JET to ITER without realizing that some power inputs establish an environment and will not take additional power that increases with output power. He looks at the total power consumption of JET, based on the available power, then assumes that available power for ITER can then be used to predict true COP. Krivit makes a face-palm error (actually several, as I recall). Shaffer attempts to explain, but I’ve seen this with such errors: the explainer doesn’t get, at first, the depth of the misunderstanding, and the one in error applies a host of preconceptions, and “coverup” is a strong one, with emotional impact, and finds more reasons to object.
Here, if there is a problem, it is, according to Krivit, Shaffer’s fault for not clearly answering Krivit’s question. We don’t see that correspondence (sometimes Krivit has published this, and, in the past, as in his conversations with Violante, where Violante answered and Krivit completely — and grossly — failed to understand and then attacked Violante for inconsistent data based on his misunderstanding.
New Energy Times @NewEnergyTimes Dec 15
#LENR #ITERGATE. Letter from Milo in Serbia published
New Energy Times @NewEnergyTimes Dec 15
#LENR #ITERGATE The fusion fiction unravels further.
In response to another letter, Krivit writes:
Thank you for your letter. I have changed one sentence in my article to read as follows: “ITER is not likely to produce any excess power, let alone excess energy.” An additional clarification would, I think, also be helpful: Because there has never been any excess power in fusion experiments, there has never been any excess energy, nor a need (in this article) to report duration of power.
This is so appalling that I’m giving it its own page: Steve Krivit on excess energy in fusion experiments. I can think of no excuse for someone who has been covering LENR for so many years to have this depth of misunderstanding.
New Energy Times @NewEnergyTimes Dec 20
#LENR Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery?
[this is odd for the front page of NET. Like many NET “reports” this is more about Krivit than anything else. However, the topic that is eventually revealed, if one follows the links, is quite interesting and I may cover it. This has nothing to do with “ITERgate.”]
New Energy Times @NewEnergyTimes Dec 21
#LENR #ITERGATE More letters, more grasping at straws
Embarrassing. I’ve done this, read the riot act to someone, and was totally wrong. The fast and deep way out, and beyond, is to admit errors ASAP, and apologize for the social gaffes. We will see what Steve does with this. However, given his history of total persistence with his accusation of others, and his common revelations of material provided to him with an expectation of confidentiality, I’m putting this up. I don’t intend to delete it, but I don’t necessarily have to keep rubbing his nose in it. We’ll see.
Response on Twitter:
I think Steven Krivit is confused over the difference between input power and electrical input. Not the same thing.
[showed the “Lie” article]
On Facebook:
New Energy Times
December 16 at 2:30pm ·
[link to the “Lie” article with image showing initial text]
http://news.newenergytimes.net/…/15/the-21-billion-iter-lie/
New Energy Times
December 14 at 5:41pm ·
$21 Billion. Zero Watts. Major ITER Discrepancies
[link to the Discrepancies article.]
Zero Watts, eh? This is a yellow journalist creating shocking headlines out of basically nothing.
Other references to the Krivit article:
There appear to be more, but I’m stopping here.
Update
Krivit has “withdrawn” but saved the original articles, and has continued beating the “lies” drum.
The original articles are at NET Discrepancies and NET Lie, both after a disclaimer document that denies any identified error.
I examine the continued situation in Krivit continues con-fusion.
