Issue 59
January/February 2005
Infinite Energy Magazine

Book Review

The Rebirth of Cold Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, Real Energy

by Steven B. Krivit and
Nadine Winocur

ISBN 0-9760545-8-2, $25.95 Paperback, 298 pp.

Pacific Oaks Press, 2004

Review by Scott R. Chubb

From Infinite Energy #59, January/February 2005

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The Rebirth of Cold Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, and Real Energy, by Steven B. Krivit and Nadine Winocur, should be required reading for anyone interested in cold fusion and LENR. Not only is this book technically sound, but it is so well-written that experts, novices, and newcomers to the field will all enjoy reading it. Remarkably, the book covers virtually all of the most important technical details of LENR, but also includes an important record of the politics and history of the field, and the potential impact of the associated discoveries on world development.

The book is also remarkably timely: To their credit, because Krivit and Winocur have published their book immediately after ICCF11 and just prior to the much-anticipated re-evaluation of cold fusion by the DOE, they are providing accurate information about an evolving, new, important area of science that has been seriously misrepresented, at a time when candor is absolutely necessary. For this reason, the book itself actually might help to foster the “Rebirth of Cold Fusion” by advancing the process of disseminating accurate information about the field. Thus, it is entirely possible that the book will be remembered not only because it is well-written and accurate but because its publication conceivably could alter the actual history of the associated debate.

All books, of course, reflect particular biases and trends that are in vogue at the time that they are published. An important difference between The Rebirth of Cold Fusion and the earlier books that have presented a “positively biased” account of cold fusion is associated with developments in the field. In particular, as opposed to the apparent confusion in the field that prompted Gene Mallove to use the phrase “Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor” as a subtitle to his 1991 book Fire from Ice, or the decision by Charles Beaudette to identify a single effect (Excess Heat) in the title of his book (in 2000) as the key phenomenon in cold fusion research, Krivit and Winocur have written their book at a later time, when the relevant science is now known to be quite real. As a consequence, in a very real sense, their book can be viewed as documenting the birth of an entirely new field, as opposed to a narrative that depicts fragments of the relevant story.

An additional important difference is that Krivit and Winocur became involved with cold fusion more than a decade after the initial debate began. As a consequence, their book resonates with optimism and hope, and their perspective, both figuratively and in fact, reflects an idealism that has been lost by many of us, who have been involved with the controversy since the beginning.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I give it my highest recommendation. In writing it, Krivit and Winocur not only have done a tremendous service to the cold fusion field, but to science as a whole.