‘According to Italian web site Webmasterpoint.com, a scholar claiming that nuclear reactions could be taking place beneath the surface of earth has attracted negative attention from many in the Italian scientific community. Alberto Carpinteri, president of the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRIM) gave a presentation at the recent “Atom Unexplored” conference held in Turin on May 4th, 2012 entitled “Piezonuclear Fission Reactions in Rocks: Evidences from Microchemical Analysis, Neutron Emission, and Geological Transformation” in which he argues that low energy nuclear reactions could be responsible for much geological activity in the earth’s crust. (see video below)
It seems that Carpinteri’s position has been quite controversial. From the webmasterpoint article (Google translated):
To put the brake on possible developments and applications of these reactions are more than 750 Italian researchers have called for the intervention of the Ministry of Education, University and Research (the INRIM is a public research supervised by MIUR) to “see if they correspond to true statements that you intend to put as a priority activity INRIM the study of reactions piezonuclear “. In their view, these studies are not reliable and we would be facing a situation “very worrying because it is located outside the tradition of the scientific method and is likely to bring discredit on the whole system of Italian research in addition to producing a waste of human resources and Financial.
The objection here seems to be the use of public funds in the study of a phenomenon (LENR) that is considered off limits as a subject of serious scientific research — certainly not the first time we have seen this.
You can see professor Carpinteri’s presentation below.