"Now figure out how you would detect that and you can get a job as an analytical chemist...."
You're making it sound like it's untestable outside of LENR calorimetry, where you've proposed some tests. If it's a general phenomenon, and not specific to LENR calorimetry, I think there should be a way to test it. Am I mistaken?
"Am I mistaken?"
Yup. I'm trying to make the point that you don't have to test simple math. If your technique is unstable over the span of the measurement, it can't be used as a 'good' analytical technique, becasue of the prblem I outlined above.
I don't recall the number, but the EPA has a protocol for trying to use highly unstable devices, often at or near their detection limit. It requires the analyst to run a standard immediately before and after 1 unknown. If the before and after don't match within accepted error limits, you do the test over.
In F&P electrolysis, the system is slowly creating and destroying the 'special active (surface) state'. What controls the creation and destruction rates is unknown and therefore uncontrolled. Therefore you get 'turn-on' and 'turn-off' of the FPHE at apparently random times. Storms' data on Pt was the most stable I've ever seen, which to me would flag it as the system to use to figure out what creates and destroys the active state.
But, the community has never followed up on that.
Thank you Shane for the encouragement. Yes, I threatened to quit several times. This year really is my last year if I do not get the financial support needed to do proper studies. The skeptics complain about not enough information being available to accept LENR as real and then they work to prevent money from being used to get the information. After all, since the claim is based on error, why waste money getting more useless information.
I do not know what goal Kirk has, but he is not helping to get the information he claims is required. Like most skeptics, Kirk thinks only he knows how to do experimental studies and how to interpret the results even though he has never done an experiment. I believe we are dealing with a psychological problem, with science being used as a fig leaf.
As for the future of LENR, I see none. The Mills method of energy production from hydrogen is better and more robust. In addition, Mills has assembled a team who are being guided by a coherent theory and an intelligent leader. No accepted theories or leaders exist to guide LENR to commercial development, the Rossi work not withstanding. In fact, Rossi has become an anti-leader by creating only confusion and doubt.
The use of oil and coal is going down along with the price. The economic incentive to use LENR is slowly disappearing. Even the threat of global warming is not enough to cause meaningful change in the source of energy. Obama tried to encourage use of renewable energy but the Supreme Court immediately stopped the attempt. In other words, the Shanahans of the world have won. I suggest if you live near the coast, you move because the future is going to get very wet.
"Yup. I'm trying to make the point that you don't have to test simple math. If your technique is unstable over the span of the measurement, it can't be used as a 'good' analytical technique, becasue of the prblem I outlined above."
Your CCS conjecture applies to calorimetry, i.e., real-world experiments involving calorimeters in real buildings, and hence is not simply math. You should either be able to specify a real-world, non-LENR calorimetry experiment using comparable equipment to that used in LENR experiments, in which a failure to follow the teachings of your thought experiment will result in quantifiable error, or you should abandon the claim that the scope of the CCS conjecture extends beyond LENR calorimetry.
If you abandon the claim that the CCS conjecture applies to calorimetry other than LENR calorimetry, we can justifiably ask, How does the CCS know to kick in only when people are looking at LENR?
Eric - Kirk has given an abstract description (Flappenjammers above). All that is needed if for the instrument calibration (taking the simplest case of a linear fit between measured and actual data) to be unstable wrt time or some other uncontrolled experimental condition.
Kirk is not saying anything new - except to note that some sets of LENR data fit such a model and the fit is significant.
The relevance of his work is both over and under estimated by many here. He is not claiming (how could he) that his meta-hypothesis explains all LENR data. In fact he is not even claiming that it is certainly the explanation for the data he has looked at.
Kirk is saying that for data viewed as incontrovertible in the LENR world, there could plausibly be a mundane solution. He has proposed a class of such solutions, and (with much less confidence) specific artifacts that could exist and would lie within this class. He has shown that much LENR data fits such a hypothesised class of artifacts.
That is not a proof. And hence the straw man, when [anyone here] says he is claiming proof of causation for any set of LENR data, let alone all, they are over-estimating the strength of his argument.
On the other hand it is something that needs to be addressed, because he shows how systematic, not random, effects could give rise to LENR data. In that sense for as long as Ed continues to conflate systematic and random errors (as he did - perhaps inadvertently - in his reply to Kirk's comment quoted by me above) Ed is under-estimating the strength of this argument.
It actually cuts to the heart of Ed's good-sounding but scientifically flawed statement:
Quote[the is LENR real question] can only be answered with any confidence by comparing the results of many measurements. Analysis of a single measurement has no meaning because the potential for error is too great. We now have many experiments with common agreement about the basic behavior. This collection shows that LENR is real, it involves fusion and transmutation reactions, and it takes place in a chemical structure without applied energy. We know how to make it work if the required conditions are used and many of the nuclear products have been identified. If a person does not accept this conclusion, they are ignorant of the information available in the literature. General skepticism is not longer rational.
This is a very strong claim, from Ed. It implies that Kirk, I, and many others are irrational.
I want to deconstruct it here. Ed is saying that in individual experiments the errors are too large for the evidence to be strong. There we agree. He is further saying that "common agreement between many experiments" changes this and makes the evidence stronger.
Now, that can in some cases be true. For example an observation buried in noise can be revealed by performing multiple observations and doing statistical analysis on the results. The certainty derived from this analysis, done properly, is no practically no less than the certainty from a single, reproducible, deterministic experiment.
However it can also in some cases be false, via two general mechanisms.
The first, addressed specifically by Kirk, is when the experiments share some unrecognised systematic error. The statistical certainty here remains real, but its interpretation is no longer sound because there is no way to know whether the result comes from systematic error or the claimed real effect.
The second is more subtle and to do with (unavoidable) selection bias in the experiments.
The field of LENR is one in which a variety of experimental conditions and equipment are tested, some produce the desired LENR-supportive results (or "work"), some do not. The ones that are more likely to work are naturally subject to further experiment. This is a selection effect. The problem is that it is capable of selecting systematic error as well as optimising a hypothesised real effect.
We might (for example, and without much thought) look at a number of common characteristics of LENR excess heat experiments as capable of optimising (different) systematic errors:
(1) use of H or D (both highly reactive and diffusive, capable of changing surface characteristics of many materials)
(2) use of relatively high input power, or relatively high input/output power flows.
(3) use of high operating temperatures - likely to result in stresses for equipment not encountered in lower temperature work
I don't know (or even think particularly likely) that any single mechanism is responsible for LENR errors. (The above mechanisms are all separate from those hypothesised by Kirk). Mechanisms that are difficult to detect and systematic, therefore affecting multiple experiments, are very possible and represent a simpler explanation for extraordinary results than the LENR hypothesis.
This is my reply to Ed's accusation of irrationality. Reckoning the above arguments to be strong is not irrational, and no amount of study of individually weak experimental results from disparate experiments can change that.
Acute readers at this point will ask how any stochastic effect could be recognised by science given this apparently intrinsic difficulty. science seems to be constructed in such a way that LENR will never be recognised.
That is true - but only if LENR is in fact not a real scientific effect. Were it real proper evidence could be developed in the following ways:
(1) A single experimental procedure, reproducible, would give definite (possibly stochastic) repeatable results. it could be run in multiple labs with iteratively better instrumentation and each time (due to better instrumentation) it would naturally get stronger.
(2) an LENR physical theory could be developed that made specific and falsifiable new predictions. Those new predictions would be found true thus adding credibility. This works even with wrong but partly correct theories, so it is pretty powerful. Based on predictive power better theories can be developed.
Now, LENR researchers have been trying to obtain both of these. A classic example was Kim's testable BEC hypothesis for LENR. The problem so far has been that the vast amount of observational data fits "systematic and one-off error" well, and these desiderata badly.
That is the strong case for general skepticism. Specific skepticism (Lugano, Kirk's CCS applied to F&P) is then also possible, but requires much more effort. I think the general case is strong enough that few people bother with specific skepticism.
LENR research should be welcoming with open arms anyone interested enough to provide specific skepticism. That would show an interest in conducting better experiments. In that context Ed's remark above is wholly unhelpful and epitomises what is wrong with the field of LENR research. Any scientific community that views skepticism as an enemy, rather than a welcome friend, is on a slippery slope to dogma.
Alain, why are the Low Energy <i>NUCLEAR</i> Reactions (re)searchers never trained <i>NUCLEAR</i> physicists?
As it is they all act more like witch doctors trying to cure cancer by magic spells and healing.
I've not been following these threads. So I don't know if anyone whacked this. LENR researchers are not (generally) nuclear physicists because the experimental methods are not -- at all -- those of nuclear physics. There are exceptions, such as Akito Takahashi and others.
Pons and Fleischmann made a major error in measuring neutrons probably because it was out of their field. We now know that these reactions produce very few (underscore very) few neutrons.
The comment about "witch doctors and magic spells" waves a big red flag with Pseudoskeptic written all over it. I came here today to look over what Dr. Kirk Shanahan has brought. Kirk is, or was, at least, the last-standing hard-line skeptic to be published in the field. I'll see where all this went.
"Kirk is saying that for data viewed as incontrovertible in the LENR world, there could plausibly be a mundane solution. He has proposed a class of such solutions, and (with much less confidence) specific artifacts that could exist and would lie within this class. He has shown that much LENR data fits such a hypothesised class of artifacts."
With regard to the CCS conjecture, we've neither established that it is plausible nor that it is mundane at this point. It is easy to cook up conjectures that explain possible artifact, but not sufficient. Kirk Shanahan has used terminology that, each term taken on its own, does not raise any alarms. But his conjecture would have sweeping implications for all of calorimetry if it was a significant source of error. The burden of proof lies with him to show that it exists in the wild.
I personally do not rule out Shanahan's CCS conjecture at this point. I myself consider it unlikely, but still something that can be tested (or can it?). I believe it would be best to test it outside of the context of LENR, in order to keep experimental complexity to a minimum. Once established as a real thing outside of LENR, it will then be clear that it also might apply to a whole set of LENR experiments.
The principle here is that we're doing experimental science, and that practical results are what matters, not vague hypotheticals. This is the empirical method. A hypothetical source of error cannot be used to set aside real experimental results. If it is ambitious enough but untested, it will not be sufficient even to introduce doubt.
OK, so Let's have another look at Shanahans "thought experiment":
First we have the
1. "True # flammenjammers = reported # of flammenjammers / .98 + .05."
2. --> then happens the " Matrix effect" ( which is.... Some unexplainable mysterious hypothetical occuring and disappearing something)
3. This results in ---> True # flammenjammers = reported # of flammenjammers / .96 + .5. But this is unknown to you.
4. Then a test result of "52" results in 53,11 by point 1 but the real answer is 54,67 by point 3.
BUT, but, but:
If LENR where a 1% effect, then we could question accuracy of calorimetry. But it is NOT.
Most of the scientific community still believes that the effect reported is small, so that the existence of the effect is still in question because per cent level effects are presumed hard to measure.
This statement is inconsistent with the 20x or greater excess power observations of Fleischmann and Pons in their early experiments ( ref Below) and it is inconsistent with more recent work. There are a great many reports of subsequent observations of excess power bursts where the excess power is 50% to 300% of the input power, as well as a smaller number of reports of excess power events with very high power gain between 1000% and 3000%.
So, Shanahan (and we may add Thomas) is of the opinion that researchers carrying out Fleischmann-Pons experiments are not able to develop and calibrate calorimeters that can get the right answer to within an order of magnitude.
And it is rather curious why not the CCS hypothetical error would show up in the large number of control experiments.
And why would not large bursts of endothermic power show up, since hypothetical CCS should work both ways?
And Shanahans and Thomas answer is that when the LENR Power signal is strong it's recombination, not CCS
But recombination was measured by F&P to a maximum Value of 1%, far from 20x input power.
Ref.
M. Fleischmann, S. Pons, M.W. Anderson, L.J. Li and M. Hawkins,``Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system,'' J. Electroanal. Chem., 287, p. 293-348 (1990)
Quote: “They were quite certain of the results, and indeed these results were soon replicated by over 100 laboratories worldwide. They were experts in calorimetry. They were quite certain of the results, and indeed these results were soon replicated by over 100 laboratories worldwide. They were experts in calorimetry”
This is from a split thread, so I don' t know who wrote this. There is only one phrase in this which could be misleading, "soon replicated." It took time. The response here jumps on that, completely neglecting the arc of this research. In the first year, negative papers outnumbered positive; by the second year, positive outnumbered negative. There never was a definitive, controlled experiment disconfirming the Pons and Fleischmann findings on heat and later review of their calorimetry concluded it was sound. However, as we all know, it became very difficult to continue the research. The rejection cascade grew until only relatively few researchers could afford to risk their reputations, with anything positive or even considered to be looking for results. The field was abandoned by the mainstream, based on reputation, not science, and that is a classic cascade. By about 2004 or 2005, publication rate (almost entirely positive) had reached a nadir, at roughly six papers per year (in mainstream peer-reviewed journals). However, the tide turned.
At this point, the preponderance of the evidence is clear. It was actually clear by the time of the U.S. DoE review in 2004, and that review rewards careful study, as distinct from the narrow, eager to jump to conclusions approach, encouraged by Wikipedia, that just wants to know Yes or No. If anyone is interested, the individual review papers are available on lenr-canr.org. It is a remarkable story, showing the effects of shallow consideration, defective process, and "persistence of vision."
QuoteF&P's open cell results were subject to the artifacts that you well know, which is why replication led to most of the claimed excess disappearing, with results inside the (much lower) margin of error.100 labs worldwide did not find any evidence of inexplicable heat or reaction at the time would have been different.I think, as early UFO enthusiasts, you confuse "unexplained" - a fact of life given limited resources to tighten experiments - with "inexplicable except by aliens/supernatural stuff/LENR".
I'm surprised to read this from Thomas Clarke. Notice, "at the time." With that qualification, he is correc, on that point. There were not 100 confirmations at first, at least not published or communicated to the ERAB panel. That figure would be a rough idea of how many labs ultimately confirmed the heat effect, or associated effects, such as tritium production (which does appear to occur at roughly a million times down from helium, the product of the heat-producing reaction).
As evidence of nuclear reactions, heat is circumstantial evidence. Generally, the argument has been that the heat exceeds what is possible from chemistry, and, remember these were, after all, world-class chemists. Nevertheless, unknown nuclear reaction (their actual claim, not "fusion," which was an unfortunate speculation in a news conference and in their first paper). However, unknown nuclear reaction or unknown artifact, take your pick. Perhaps an unexpected energy storage mechanism combined with some systematic calorimetry error. What is the truth here?
It was very obvious from the beginning that there was a huge problem. What was the ash? The expected products from ordinary deuterium fusion would be tritium, lots of it, and massive neutron radiation at levels that would be fatal, given the claimed heat. That was obviously missing, there was no "dead graduate student effect." There is another possible reaction product, helium. Pons announced, soon after the original announcement, and after the publication of a paper by "two innocent chemists," predicting helium, that helium had been found in mass spectrometry. Because helium could so easily be from leakage from ambient, this was not particularly impressive, but, in fact, a massive collaboration was set up to look for helium in Pons and Fleischmann cathodes. That effort went down in flames, a truly spectacular comedy of errors, something I found largely overlooked when I came into this field in 2009. Something went drastically wrong. I can only speculate as to what actually happened, it would be thhis:
Helium, if generated in the lattice, would mostly stay there, it would not escape in outgas. Pons and Fleischmann believed that the reaction was taking place in the bulk, their entire original speculation (that there might be some measurable nuclear effect) was based on the idea of the high fugacity of deuterium in palladium. I suspect that they realized that there was no helium in the bulk, and if that became known, it would be one more nail in the coffin. So they did not cooperate, and basically blew the collaboration out of the water, by submitting a cathode with much lower excess heat than their routine claims, and by submitting a contaminated cathode as a control. Friggin' mess. Fiasco of the century, indeed.
But by 1991, Miles reported not just helium, but helium, in the outgas, correlated with heat. This was no longer circumstantial evidence, it was direct. Huizenga wrote in 1993 that "if confirmed," this was an astonishing result, and would explain a major mystery of cold fusion. Was it confirmed? Yes. By many. It is difficult work, requiring expensive equipment or very careful sampling protocols, but it was done by enough. Storms lists twelve labs. There is a currrent initiative, a collaboration between Texas Tech (Robert Duncan) and ENEA, the Italian alternative energy agency, to repeat this with increased precision, which will be valuable data for vetting cold fusion theories, but ... the correlation is already unmistakeable.
Kirk Shanahan submitted a Letter to the Journal of Environmental Monitoring in which there was the last known attempt to dismiss the work of Miles et al. It contained the heaviest face-palm blunder I have ever seen published in that kind of venue, and Kirk has never acknowledged this publicly. It was so bad that the scientists responding to him may not have noticed it, they simply denied his claim without understanding it (as far as what they wrote showed.) It was that bad, as they say, not even wrong.
We will get to that, because the core of this discussion is the science, and replicable experiment, and the huge difficulty in cold fusion work has been unreliability. The effect is apparently due to conditions that are not well-controlled, so it is quite difficult to set up, and experiments with what appear to be the same conditions produce differing results at different times.
This points to poorly-controlled shifts in material conditions. The unreliability could also result from confirmation bias; however, this is not consistent with the evidence. For example, ENEA has developed material that shows the effect more reliably. That points, again, to material conditions with a real effect. But to truly address the problem, and nail it down, requires direct evidence, not merely circumstantial. This is heat/helium. Until and unless much more reliable protocols are developed for generating LENR heat, this stands, because what Miles showed was that, with the only visible variable being the generation of heat, or not, helium measurements correlated with the heat.
Shanahan actually showed that in his last Letter study, thinking he was showing the opposite.
Now, as to the rest of Clarke's comment, once again, "UFO enthusiasts," "Aliens/supernatural stuff/LENR" show major attachment, what is called "pseudoskepticism." As I say, I was surprised to see this. It's an emotional phenomenon. I am just beginning to read this thread. I hope to see better commentary from Clarke; but these debates lead people into some very strange states, far from science, i.e., we routinely see pseuodoscience and pseudoskepticism in them.
The question of importance is whether LENR is a real phenomenon. The answer comes from similar behavior being observed during many studies. That is one of the essential criteria of science for any claim to be accepted. That criteria has been satisfied in the case of LENR. It is not an insult to say that rejection of LENR is now irrational. This is simply a statement of fact similar to how a claim for a flat earth would be described.
All individual studies contain some error and some studies contain so much error they need to be rejected. Whether the error Shanahan proposes actually is operating in a study would require a level of effort I'm not interested in investing here because I have already gone down that road in papers and in my books. Please realize that calorimetry is a VERY mature method, being applied for over 200 years. All the errors are well understood by anyone who takes the time to learn the method. Granted, some people in the LENR field do not take the time to master the method and skeptics rarely make the effort. Consequently, the discussion gets bogged down in distraction, with no relationship to the important questions. Eric is right, "A hypothetical source of error cannot be used to set aside real experimental results," especially after the experimental results have been now carefully evaluated in published reviews and books.
"Thomas Clarke wrote: "F&P's open cell results were subject to the artifacts that you well know, which is why replication led to most of the claimed excess disappearing . . .""
Actually Thomas I don't think hardly anyone ever retracted claims except for a couple of cases. I recall researchers at Georgia Tech did so. Can't recall the others....…
Thanks, Dr. Shanahan. Yes, Georgia tech thought they found neutrons and held a breathless press conference, then realized it was artifact. That wasn't published work. But later it was extrapolated into a pattern as part of the rejection cascade ("positive results were retracted.") We can see that operating here, Clarke thought this was so. So I appreciate that you corrected it.
Quote""A Systematic Error in Mass Flow Calorimetry Demonstrated", K.L. Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta 387 (2002) 95
"Thermal behavior of polarized Pd/D electrodes prepared by co-deposition", Kirk L. Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta, 428(1-2), (2005), 207
"Reply to 'Comments on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explain anomalous heat generated by cold fusion', E. Storms, Thermochim. Acta,2006", Kirk L. Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta, 441 (2006) 210
"Comments on “A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction research”", Kirk L. Shanahan, J. of Environ. Monitoring, 12, (2010), 1756-1764
SRNL-STI-2012-00678, "A Realistic Examination of Cold Fusion Claims 24 Years LaterA whitepaper on conventional explanations for‘cold fusion’", Kirk L. Shanahan, Oct. 22, 2012
... the papers by W. Brian Clarke (peer reviewed) showing SRI messed up their He analyses
thanks for the list, Dr. Shanahan.
In the lenr-canr.org bibliography, I found papers:
Clarke, B.W. and R.M. Clarke, Search for (3)H, (3)He, and (4)He in D2-loaded titanium. Fusion Technol., 1992. 21: p. 170.
B. W. Clarke, B. M. Oliver, M. C. H. McKubre, F. L. Tanzella, P. Tripodi, Search for 3 He and 4 He in Arata-style palladium cathodes II: Evidence for tritium production. Fusion Sci. & Technol. 40, 152-167 (2001).
W. B. Clarke, B. M. Oliver, Response to "Comments on 'Search for 3 He and 4 He in Arata-Style Palladium Cathodes II: Evidence for Tritium Production'' (Lett. to Ed;). Fusion Sci. Technol. 41, 153 (2002).
W. B. Clarke, B. M. Oliver, Response to "Comments on 'Search for 3 He and 4 He in Arata-style palladium cathodes I: A negative result' and 'search for 3 He and 4 He in Arata-style palladium cathodes II: Evidence for tritium production'". Fusion Sci. & Technol. 43, 135 (2003).
I will review those, where I can find copies. Right off I notice that the latest full paper by Clarke was co-authored with McKubre and Tanzella of SRI. I somewhat doubt that the story of "messed up" is quite as simple as claimed. The 1992 paper could not possibly cover the most important SRI analyses, only, if it refers to SRI at all, the earliest. The Arata cathode results, at least the original ones from SRI, were problematic, something happened there that is unexplained. The Arata cathode approach was very different than the normal PdD electrolysis. that work shows, however, as I recall, tritium production, as evidenced by 3He trapped in the palladium outer cathode, apparently from tritium decay.
(It is important to understand that tritium as a product from FP cold fusion is a million times down from helium, but tritium can readily be detected at very low concentrations. Helium is more difficult, particularly requiring highly sensitive mass spectrometry that can distinguish between 4He+ and D2+.)
This should also be noticed: The work of Dr. Shanahan is essentially the last gasp of a dying breed, full-on, full LENR skeptics, with more than a rejection cascade knowledge of the field. Shanahan's Letter was published by JEM in 2010, answered by a phalanx of scientists, and JEM refused to print Shanahan's follow-up. The Letter itself was obviously not carefully reviewed, and my suspicion is that it was the best reply they got, so they published it. We will probably come back to that, because Kirk touches on heat/helium there.
I see that Dr. Storms has replied. He's correct. Shanahan has become an isolated critic, pushing a theory that nobody else is defending, certainly not in print. There is no experimental confirmation of his theory. There is strong circumstantial and direct evidence against it, as anything more than what might, with some stretch, explain some results, not all.
...
MY unwittingly brings up a good point...if MFMP does not produce a kit with COP well above noise, would the science mainstream accept it? Or take notice at all?
I think Shane meant "does produce." I'm responding as if that is what was intended.
An reasonably inexpensive kit that reliably demonstrated XP "well above noise," would blow the extreme skeptical position completely out of the water. It might take a little time, that's all. Time for people, including skeptics, to verify that it works. Such a kit would demonstrate what has never been done. The problem is that creating such a kit has not been possible, so far, with known technology. The kit would make serious investigation of the effect far easier.
It would start with the kit, and there would be multiple reports verifying the specific exxperiment. One of the problems with the LENR field is that, attempting to find the Holy Grail (reliable results), people varied the hell out of the protocol. So results are only "general confirmation," not specific, and, then, of course, negative confirmation is meaningless. SRI did exact replications, at least more so than most. And that is why the SRI work is so important. This was work done by professionals, retained to investigate the effects, with no agenda other than honest report of results.
So far, MFMP has not found anything that could be used to produce this. I don't consider it an established fact that NiH approaches work, their prime focus. The idea that they do work is based on unconfirmed reports, anecdotal evidence, and unverifiable reports from, say, Andrea Rossi. Let's not go there. We will know about Rossi, almost certainly, within a few years.
If such a kit existed, it would be all over, quickly.
“If LENR where [were, I presume] a 1% effect, then we could question accuracy of calorimetry. But it is NOT.
Most of the scientific community still believes that the effect reported is small, so that the existence of the effect is still in question because per cent level effects are presumed hard to measure.This statement is inconsistent with the 20x or greater excess power observations of Fleischmann and Pons in their early experiments ( ref Below) and it is inconsistent with more recent work. There are a great many reports of subsequent observations of excess power bursts where the excess power is 50% to 300% of the input power, as well as a smaller number of reports of excess power events with very high power gain between 1000% and 3000%. “
Most of the scientific community believes the reported signals to be false. See below for a comment on heat transfer coefficients (one of the many cal constants built into the F&P model).
And just to be clear, the possibility of other errors is not excluded by anything I say. I spent a lot of time looking at the Patterson Power Cell (reported 30,000% excess is I recall correctly), and concluded a new error had sprung up due to the different cell construction. There was no way to test it without Patterson’s help, and he was like Rossi, so I dropped it. For the really large signals reported to date, I personally suspect some other error(s) are appearing, but there is usually less information available when the numbers get larger.
“So, Shanahan (and we may add Thomas) is of the opinion that researchers carrying out Fleischmann-Pons experiments are not able to develop and calibrate calorimeters that can get the right answer to within an order of magnitude.”
No, I am of the opinion that the very good calorimeters built by F&P (and others) are working fine. But there is a process going on in electrolysis cells that mucks it up…an unrecognized process, for which I suggested an identity. Again you insinuate what is not true, a typical groupie method of dealing with critics. I think the common saying is: “If you can’t attack the facts, attack the messenger.” Bottom line, you have no idea what my opinion is, especially since you prove immediately below that you haven’t bothered to read what I write.
“And it is rather curious why not the CCS hypothetical error would show up in the large number of control experiments.”
“And why would not large bursts of endothermic power show up, since hypothetical CCS should work both ways?”
I already said this once, but just for oystia I’ll do it again. The _normal_ operational mode of an F&P cell is to bubble along merrily with no FPHE present (i.e. no excess heat). This is where the calibrations are done. Then something happens and the FPHE starts up, and excess heat appears. Note, heat show up, not goes away. Any scientist who proposed an explanation of this and didn’t have that explanation follow reality is a fool, and I’m no fool. (But observant readers may notice a reason why the 10 authors would suggest I claimed 'random'.)
The calibration constant shifts in the Storms data that I propose causes the excess heat signals all produce exothermic signals because that’s what the real world does. It’s a one-way effect because the reality is that the electrode gets modified somehow to produce apparent excess heat, produce not consume. We all agree a special active state is formed. CFers call is a nuclear active state. As shown in my papers, the magnitude of the signal is dependent on the extent of the shift, and since it has to be towards something that produces excess heat, that’s what the CCS does *in this case*. In other experimental studies it could go both directions, but not here. The trend is to go from the normal inactive electrode to an active one. And the Storms data shows this process took more than 1 run to maximize, which is the systematic nature noted.
So do you get it yet? Your groupie-heroes tell you that my *”random”* theory is silly because they didn’t observe randomness, but they have lied to you. I never proposed anything but that which fit the data, all of it. The active state has to develop, and that is controlled by chemistry, so sometimes in experiments where the researcher has not tweaked the controlling factors for it, (usually by accident) he/she doesn’t get a FPHE because the stuff that forms the active state doesn’t happen.
“And Shanahans and Thomas answer is that when the LENR Power signal is strong it's recombination, not CCS”
Boy, you really don’t read do you. I say recombination at the electrode, under the electrolyte causes a heat distribution shift which negates the prior calibration and necessitates a new one. It’s not one or the other, they work together, at least in my proposed mechanism.
“But recombination was measured by F&P to a maximum Value of 1%, far from 20x input power.”
There’s a problem though, actually three that I can see right now. First, your ref is to a 1990 publication and early on I literally had to scream at the CFers to get them to realize the known electrochemical recombination that typically did not exceed 2% was NOT what I was talking about. They really had it drilled in their minds that that was the only recombination that happened at the electrode. But I am proposing _normal_ recombination, i.e. the same reaction that occurs at the recombination catalyst. They seem to have caught on to that now.
Second, the maximum possible heat effect from recombination (assuming no magnifying effects of ‘bump-up’ from the calibration procedure) is given by what percentage the thermoneutral voltage is of the applied voltage. The Figures in you ref suggest an input voltage of about 6V. The D2O thermoneutral voltage is 1.54V, which is 26% of the input. So the maximum possible excess heat in my proposal would be 26% times whatever the magnification is.
Then there is the cal constant problem too. In your ref there is a figure showing the ‘heat transfer coefficient’ (HTC) (Fig. 7C). It shows the HTC for temperature rises of 6 to 9 degrees. Yet the blip claimed to show that 20X shows a 27 degree shift. If we take Fig 7C, digitize it, and fit it, we can extrapolate to a 27 degree shift. And we find that the HTC goes negative with a linear fit. Likewise, but less so, for a quadratic fit. The correlation coefficients are extremely high on this, 2 nines plus higher.
But a negative HTC doesn’t make any sense. That means we need a theory that keeps the HTC positive, and that requires some steep changes as the temp difference gets larger. In other words, I suspect another modeling error in their work, where they get HTCs that look good for low delta Ts but go crazy at high delta Ts.
In other words, oystia, there is good reason to suspect their results are exaggerated by their data analysis methodology. (Wow, imagine that…)
“Ref.M. Fleischmann, S. Pons, M.W. Anderson, L.J. Li and M. Hawkins,``Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system,'' J. Electroanal. Chem., 287, p. 293-348 (1990)”
" Eric - Kirk has given an abstract description (Flappenjammers above). All that is needed if for the instrument calibration (taking the simplest case of a linear fit between measured and actual data) to be unstable wrt time or some other uncontrolled experimental condition.
Kirk is not saying anything new - except to note that some sets of LENR data fit such a model and the fit is significant.
The relevance of his work is both over and under estimated by many here. He is not claiming (how could he) that his meta-hypothesis explains all LENR data. In fact he is not even claiming that it is certainly the explanation for the data he has looked at."
There is no objection on my part to questioning the suitability of applying a potentially oversimplified mathematical model that has previously been fitted to a calibration run to an active run or runs. This seems like a fertile source of errors. In particular, carrying out calibration runs after active runs seems wise; if there is any kind of hysteresis in the post-active calibration results, it suggests that something changed in the calorimeter, and the data for the live runs should be disqualified.
But I think Kirk's CCS is different than this. The suggestion, if I have understood it, is that in the course of a calibration using a resistance heater, the calibration constants do not shift, while in the course of a live run the constants systematically shift in response to a change in conditions (e.g., on-cathode recombination), and then shift back to their original values afterwards. This is worthy of exploration. But it seems to be something quite new. Indeed, a new initialism was coined to refer to it -- CCS, for "calibration constant shift." We might suspect that it is new when ten CF researchers go to the effort to rebut it. I think it's something that needs to be shown to be real, and not something that can just be allowed to impugn carefully collected results. The burden of proof, of course, lies with Kirk and anyone else who finds the CCS conjecture plausible.
Oystia wrote a lot of wrong stuff that needs correcting…. I will preface his/her comments with “O:”
O:” I notice Kirk Shanahan has listed his CF critique papers in a post on this thread (A software programmer for Westinghouse Savannah River…
Frustrating for Kirk, I'm sure. Silly. Kirk Shanahan is well-known, he has been a vocal critic of LENR since the 1990s. To describe him as a "software programmer" is seriously misleading. This is what happens with cold fusion discussions, they polarize, and people take fixed positions, which can be summarized as "I am right and you are wrong." This happens on all sides, and it is well-known that attachment to being right is fatal to scientific inquiry. I will respond to a few points from Kirk's post, which is remarkable for what it reveals, if we step outside the world of fixed positions and "right and wrong." What's actually going on?
QuoteOystia wrote a lot of wrong stuff that needs correcting….
OMG, someone is wrong on the internet! Honey, I'll be right there, I know dinner is getting cold, but this is important. I get it. Been there, done that. Bad Idea. Dinner may be much more important, as well as all of our relationships. Scientifically, it can wait, if we simply react, well, what we write will show our reaction more than anything else. It's about us.
QuoteI actually work in the Savannah River National Laboratory in a group that supports the tritium process. I am a PhD physical chemist, currently the senior chemist that deals with metal hydride materials (like Pd). I’ve been doing that since 1995, which is when I also started looking into CF. I also had 3 years experience at Sandia National Laboratory in the groups that dealt with explosives, so I know a little about that too, which is relevant to the CR-39 issue.
Yes, Dr. Shanahan has relevant credentials. He is, by far, the most informed strong skeptic remaining, and the only one to have recent publication in peer-reviewed journals. Jones was published, years ago, with a critique of Miles, and I went up to him at !CCF-18 and shook his hand, congratulating him as being the only one to address that work. And yes, his critique was inadequate. So what? At least he tried. (He missed and did not address the correlation between heat and helium, only claiming that the heat could be in error, and the helium could be in error, therefore, garbage in, garbage out. However, that misses -- completely -- the power of correlation in the presence of noise. Kirk did the same, later, only with a much larger error.)
QuoteO:”And in his critisism, - Shanahan chooses to ignore the preponderance of reliable scientific evidence for nuclear effects in LENR that has accumulated since 1989.”You might want to try to prove that instead of just shooting off what others in the field have told you. If fact I seriously doubt anyone on this blog has read more than I have. And I folded all of that into my analyses and critiques…
Present company excepted, of course. That might have been true at one point. It isn't now. For example, Storms showed up. There is a problem: if one reads literature -- and life -- searching for reasons that one is right and others are wrong, they can always be found. Science actually suggests that we search for reasons we are wrong. But one who gets caught in the game is ... caught in the game, and frequently becomes impervious to correction.
Shanahan is here tooting his own horn. That, by the way, doesn't mean that it is wrong, but we will notice that Shanahan has become a frustrated outsider, leading him to be reduced to this. I do thank him for expressing his views here, even though he readily falls into what amount to ad hominem arguments, directed against an entire field, as if everyone in the field was the same. If there was one tinfoil hat in the room, or two or three, "they wore tinfoil hats." There are examples below.
QuoteO:”- Shanahan applies highly selective criteria to cherry-pick certain experimental data with potential deficiencies which are vulnerable to attack.
I'd agree, but the field needs critique, and especially, it needs it now, because we are heading into a series of critical experiments, and every possible artifact should be proposed, so that it can be tested and controlled. Unless it is already conclusively rejected, and that decision will be up to those who organize the research. It's an issue of funding. Funding may be limited. But, at least, every remotely plausible artifact should be on the table. Kirk is invited to focus on that, and this is probably not the venue for it.
QuoteO: “Anyhow, scientists in LENR community has answerred his critique, proven his mistakes and his misunderstandings.
"O" has written some cogent critique, but as soon as someone talks about "proven," my skeptical radar sets off an alarm. Science rarely proves anything, and, especially, a single review may answer critiques, but the closest thing to proof in science is experiment to test a claim. It is not clear that Shanahan's claims have been tested, as such. They are, instead, rejected on theoretical and circumstantial grounds, as not worth effort, perhaps. However, this is the paradox: the mainstream, at least in physics, still largely believes that cold fusion was conclusively rejected long ago. So the mainstream is not interested in Shanahan. Shanahan's claims offend the high experience of researchers who have seen the effect, and funding is scarce, so they are also not motivated to test his ideas.
Unfair!
It must drive Kirk crazy.
What has happened to him is more or less what happened to the entire field in the early 1990s. Real results were being found, answering earlier objections, but few were listening by that time. In spite of the clear recommendation of both US DoE reviews (1989 and 2004), "modest research" -- what was needed -- was not funded. (to be continued)
Quote... This paper was issued in 2010." Really? You think so? Did you actually read my papers and their response? I think the answer to that is “No” or you would realize what a fiasco Hagelstein, McKubre, Storms, et al made.
We will look at that. It is possible to criticize the response to his Letter. However, Shanahan has become obsessed with himself, a common human hazard. Here, he will essentially focus on one word, "Random." I've been reading Kirk for years, and he has not always been clear what he is claiming. "Calibration Constant Shift" would seem to someone who hasn't studied it all as a claim of random error, which, then, is easily dismissed. Kirk claims a systematic error, not random. Obviously. However, as to "fiasco," Kirk's Letter contained one, and before publishing a critique of it, I wrote him. His response was to claim that I would do anything to continue believing in LENR. He was displaying the kind of attachment to invented story about others that characterizes attachment to being right and others being wrong. Later, he admitted, I forget where, that there was an error in what he'd written, but then minimized it.The error was about the only direct evidence we have that LENR is not only real, but is nuclear in nature. This was not a small thing! Basically, what he had erred about blows his CCS theory out of the water, makes it impossible as an explanation of the LENR experimental results. Even if his theory is sound, that a theory is sound does not show that the theory actually describes reality.
QuoteO:”Part of conclusion:"Indeed, peer-reviewed published papers and conference presentations have long disproved Shanahan’s chemical/mechanical suppositions regarding LENR observations.
O is showing some sophistication here. Shanahan claims a "mechanical" explanation for CR-39 tracks, which is one of the most Rube Goldberg ideas I've seen in the field. Perhaps we will come back to it. It is remarkable as and explanation of "die-hard." Shanahan has gotten no traction with these ideas.(There are problems with the SPAWAR charged-particle radiation claims. However, the neutron claims are far stronger, and it is those "back-side" tracks that demolish Shanahan's idea. With a gold cathode substrate (nobody knows why), there are far more tracks on the back side, away from the cathode, than on the front, and an explanation is obvious. Perhaps this will be discussed further down.)
QuoteNo one has disproved my thesis on why apparent excess heat signals are artifacts of the data analysis process.
Right. It has merely become exceedingly unlikely. Like one in a billion unlikely. And nobody is going to spend money to confirm/disconfirm Shanahan's ideas because there are other, far more direct and useful ways to spend cold fusion research funds. Such as by tightening up on the heat/helium ratio. Increased precision. Classical test of "pathological science." Do results fall into the noise when measurement precision increases? And with heat/helium, it is two correlated measurements being increased in precision, not just one. A systematic error might not disappear with increased precision, but calorimetric error would not plausibly be correlated with helium measurement error, they are radically different. I have seen one argument made as to how they might be correlated, but it depends on an error in understanding the full range of CF results. For example, "excess heat" does not mean a hotter cell. In experiments where excess heat and cell temperature vary together, the difference in temperature is usually quite small, on the order of, say, one or two degrees C. And heat-caused leakage would vary radically with exact details of each experiment.
Quote... CFers do however refuse to understand my simple thesis and thus continue to this day to repeat the mistake that can be tracked all the way back to F&P.
This is an obvious ad hominem argument that identifies people as "CFers," and thinks that all such think alike. Kirk's problem. He has not convinced anyone who knows the evidence. There is only one other strong skeptic I know with similar knowledge of the field, and he keeps his identity secret, probably because he doesn't want to trash his career. His critiques are more cogent -- or more misleading -- than Shanahan's ... but still are defending a dying position.
QuoteOf course CR-39 tracks are not milliwatts, so we’ve switched gears here, another typical CFer tactic.
Notice the personalization. Shanahan is in a debate, involving many areas and subtopics. What is the topic of the debate? It's not clearly defined. If the topic is the reality of LENR, then there are many evidences. So, indeed, what about that radiation evidence? This is what should be understood. The FP Heat Effect produces almost no radiation, nor any other measured product, correlated with heat, than helium. Tritium is a million times down from helium, and neutrons are about a million times down from helium. The "other effects" are tiny, and have not been correlated with heat or helium. They add to circumstantial evidence, such that many consider the circumstantial evidence overwhelming. (I.e., something nuclear is happening.) However, my position became that this is massively confusing. It distracts from the elephant in the living room (heat/helium). Tritium and radiation evidence were known early on, and did not convince, because results were all over the map. However, Kirk comments further:
QuoteThe plates that show those levels of tracks were placed in the electrolyte during runs. Plates placed outside the cell show much lower counts.
That's true. However, what does that indicate. This is confirmed: these experiments do not produce significant radiation at normally detectable rates, above 20 keV, the "Hagelstein limit." If charged particle radiation is being generated by the cathode, it's penetration would be very, very low. Now, the SPAWAR work that Kirk is talking about did not measure heat. There is no correlation other than spatial. The technique detects very low levels of radiation, and they showed spatial correlation with the cathode. (It's unmistakeable). I suspect there are two kinds of radiation being detected. In their experiments, there are extremely low levels of neutrons being generated, at about 14 MeV. They speculate D-T reactions. These neutrons cause knock-on protons, which will show up mostly on the other side of the CR-39, not the side near the cathode. But there will be some tracks there (there could also be knock-on deuterons or the like). Front side results could be showing another effect, low-level alpha radiation, below 20 keV, but copious, explaining the "hamburger" that is seen. But this could also be a chemical effect. The back side tracks could not. We will see if Kirk goes into his "explanation" of the back-side tracks.
(to be continued)
Quote... As I said in my earlier post, there is a real effect at work in F&P cells, but it is not nuclear. But it *does* produce artefactual excess heat signals. So anyone doing F&P-type experiments has a good chance to see this real phenomenon.
Notice: Kirk is acknowledging an effect, claiming that there is a good chance of seeing it. If so, it should be possible to test this. He wants others to test it, presumably on their dime and time. He has not convince anyone that it is worth the effort.The problem they have is they keep trying to control this putative nuclear reaction that isn’t there instead of the chemical/physical conditions that would theoretically give the effect. So many times, their control does nothing, but sometimes it appears to do something by coincidence.Kirk is voicing what is probably a common thought among pseudoskeptics. The basic pseudoskeptical explanation of cold fusion is pretty much what Garwin said, "They must be making some mistake." This is pseudoscientific, though. "Some mistake" is not testable. But Kirk's explanations could, perhaps, be tested. I haven't seen him propose a precise experiment, though. It has all been on the level of "You have not proven me wrong," which is common among obsessed theorists in many areas, who develop complex reasons why appearances are other than their theory, and why mainstream scientists (those actually involved in a field) are wrong and there is a conspiracy, the journals won't publish the Truth, etc.
QuoteO:“Kitimura and Ahern have both replicated excess heat from Arata and Zhang’s gas-loaded Pd/ZrO2 nanostructures." Again, there is real chemistry going on here. I actually wrote a comment on Kitimura’s work showing why it was unlikely that he got what he claimed, and instead got ‘standard’ hydride chemistry, and submitted it to Phys. Letters (PL). It went through the review process, and I got the comments back plus the Kitimura response. However, the reviewer recommended not publishing it because it wasn’t a fit subject for PL and I didn’t have any real data anyway. *But* the subject had already been opened by the first publication *and* while I didn’t need new data to comment on a paper, I actually *did* show a Pd-H isotherm from nanoparticulate Pd on alumina that illustrated spillover. But, I said OK, and redid the comment, deleting the data, and resubmitted. I never got an official response from PL, just some words from the editor that he didn’t want to continue the debate in his journal. I protested that too, to no avail. (SRNL-SRI-2009-00616, Comments on “Anomalous effects in charging of Pd Powders with high density hydrogen isotopes”, Kirk L. Shanahan, October, 2009 – check OSTI)
Yup. "Debate." Kirk has gotten himself stuck in a nearly useless debate. It is ironic. If Kirk has something of value, surely it could be published somewhere. Maybe JCMNS would publish it. Would it pass peer review? I'll try to create some value from it, but Kirk is arguing for a dead position, thoroughly obsolete, he might be completely right as to "not proven wrong" by what he's been looking at, but heat/helium completely bypasses his arguments. That is why it is so important and that is why the real scientists involved want increased precislon. It is not exactly to prove CF is real -- they already know that -- but to create two results: better data for vetting CF theories (is the full heat/helium ratio, if all the helium is captured, close to 23.8 MeV/4He, or is it at some other ratio?) and measurement with increased precision would put the nail in the coffin of the "not real" argument, killing it. Dead. Nice try, but gone. Ancient history.
QuoteAfter that and the experience with the 2010 publication, I gave up on trying to publish in the scientific literature. Just takes too much time for too little return.
I don't wonder. There is little return for beating a dead horse. Most people turn away in embarrassment.
QuoteOh yes…the fiasco. If you had read my 4 journal publications, you would have noted that I clearly label the artifact-causing effect I have mentioned as “non-random” and “systematic”. Yet the 10 authors of the 2010 paper you reference go to great lengths to disprove the “random” Shanahan CCS(H).
Now, I am not rereading these papers yet. Suppose he is right. They misunderstood his argument. I already think that they misunderstood another argument of his. This is what those who get caught in debate don't get: that the other side makes a mistake doesn't make them wrong. Debate, in fact, proves almost nothing other than the clarity and understanding of those debating. Reality, in science, is demonstrated by controlled experiment or similar work. Actual evidence. Not "he said, she said," which is the province of those who are obsessed.
QuoteNow, these authors are: J. Marwan, M. C. H. McKubre F. L. Tanzella P. L. Hagelstein, M. H. Miles, M. R. Swartz, Edmund Storms, Y. Iwamura, P. A. Mosier-Boss, and L. P. G. Forsley.
Those are almost all experimentalists, with high experience. they know what they saw, and it is very difficult to explain, say, SRI P13/P14 with CCS. I once wrote about this that P13/P14 was like trying for months, even years, in a lab, to see the chimera, and only seeing traces. And then, one day, it walked in and licked the worker in the face, then sauntered out. After that, the experimenter doesn't wonder any more if the chimera is real. He's been frikkin' licked in the face!But that will not necessarily convince others. It takes much, much more work, and SRI has done that work, and more would still be useful. There is still unpublished work of high potential value, I've been encouraging publication. It is, however, heat/helium that nails it.
QuoteAnd they had to resort to wrong logic to attempt to rebut my comments! Sad state of affairs isn’t it. Once I saw this, I asked the editor of J. Env. Monitoring if I could write a reply, but he said no. I then asked him if not, wasn’t he going to make these authors correct their clear mistake, but he again said no. So I was again left with no recourse but to get the word out myself. Meanwhile, they all have crowed extensively about how they have ‘answered’ all my criticisms. I think not…So no, oystia, no one has ever adequately addressed my comments. That’s primarily because my comments are right and the CFers can't imagine anything but a nuclear reaction. (So Eric, do you think I am the same guy?)
I had no doubt that this was Kirk. If it's not Kirk, someone has put in a lot of effort to understand exactly how Kirk would write. For better or for worse. Kirk has displayed high certainty that he is right and others are wrong, since our first communications in 2009. Notice, again, his reference to the "CFers." Kirk has the Truth(TM) but nobody will publish it. Obviously, the CFers have taken over the journals! He must have had an absolute conniption fit over last year's Current Science special section, with 34 papers. In fact, I think I might have mentioned him. Checking, yes, I did. See Replicable cold fusion experiment: heat/helium ratio Note 20, a reference to his 2010 Letter. Kirk has not attempted, to my knowledge, to respond to anything in that issue. I presume that if he responded to my paper, with anything remotely cogent, I'd hear about it.
What I discovered by back-calculation is that if you vary the constants a little (+/- 2.5% or so) you can wipe out the signals. So then I came up with a *reasonable* mechanism to do that which involves recombination occurring on the electrode surface(s) under the electrolyte. (Szpack, et al, have taken pictures of this happening and published them. They called the bright spots in an IR camera image 'mini-nuclear explosions though. I think they are just H2 + O2 explosions.) I proposed a chemical/physical mechanism to do that, and that is what has been constantly attacked by the CFers. But it really explains a lot, and doesn't require unbelivably large shifts to get it., 1-3% is not unusual at all in chemistry experiments. In any case, the math has never been questioned, so if I'm wrong on what causes the shift, then so be it. The point is that tiny shifts in the calibration constants eliminate the signals.
Now, a toe in the water. All this has been critiqued in the past. As a scientist, Kirk is surely interested in arguments showing possible error in his own ideas. So what would be the best critiques of the above, and how would Kirk respond to those?
I will just go into a little detail, those so-called explosions. What is known is that surface features appear in certain experiments that look like little mini-volcanoes, with molten ejecta. (These have been shown by a number of groups.) Szpack et al did examine an operating cathode with an IR camera, and saw "sparkles." They also, with a cathode that had a piezoelectric sensor as a substrate, showed transient "shock waves."
Now, what would be the possible errors in the proposed "mechanism?" First of all, would such chemical explosions occur? What is the chemistry here? Secondly, what effect would this have on flow calorimetry, in closed cells where all the oxygen and hydrogen are already recombined? Any other issues?
Kirk?
I assert here that I have looked at *ALL* of Miles work, and it fits the CCS perfectly. Now go prove I’m wrong.
Kirk has set up a sitting duck. Kirk has already attempted to shoot down Miles, in his JEM Letter (2010) and completely fell on his face. Kirk is supremely self-confident, fatal in a scientist. We'll see if he can do any better this time, though there is a high possibility he will vanish. Let's see.
He is, here, a claimant, of a specific theory explaining LENR results. He has misapplied the principle that the burden of proof is on the claimant, by insisting that "CFers" are the claimants, while he is just a bystander, pointing out problems. He seems to think that there is an obligation on the part of "claimants" to keep proving their work, over and over, to all comers, forever. The "burden of proof" argument is frequently abused by pseudoskeptics, but it does have an application where claims don't have strong experimental evidence.
What is needed, in practice, is sufficient evidence to warrant the funding and work of doing experimental testing of "claims." "Proof" is not required. Yes, with extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence is needed, which is also commonly abused. As if "extraordinary evidence" means "absolute proof beyond the shadow of any possible doubt."
Cold fusion is already established, quite sufficiently to warrant funding of basic research (and, in fact, that was the unanimous conclusion of the last DoE review, 2004).
Now, what research will be done? CCS testing? Not likely!
What will be funded first would be, for anyone wishing to check the reality of the effect beyond reasonable doubt, will be improved heat/helium measurement, with increased precision. This completely bypasses the whole CCS claim, makes it irrelevant. Further, this work is merely confirmation, not speculative. It is highly likely to produce usable results. Improved measurement of the ratio has substantial benefit in vetting cold fusion theories, for some theories predict different values.
And then, there investigation of the Nuclear Active Environment. What are the exact conditions under which the effect arises? How can these be controlled? This is difficult work, and will be expensive. There will be a search for radiation, and particularly for low-energy photons, not so easy to detect, because additional measures of the reaction will be highly useful in studying the effect.
I suspect that Kirk's CCS will never be tested, because it will become completely irrelevant, and, in fact, already has, he just hasn't accepted reality yet. Kirk will get some support from pseudoskeptics, looking for anything to throw at cold fusion. But not actual research funding, unless someone is willing to take a big risk of a total waste of money and time.
Here is a graph comparing two cells, P13 (D2O) and P14 (H2O):
I'm glad that Eric posted this here. This is the "chimera." I have long regretted that Mike did not publish the same plot for the earlier runs with P13/P14. This chart has much less impact, in my view, without knowing the context. At it appears, there is some effect correlated with input current. So, big deal. Wouldn't some systematic error in power measurement produce that? Okay, against that, the deuterium and hydrogen cells were in series. So they both experienced the same stepped-up current. Only the deuterium cell showed the effect. That's considered remarkable, and it is. However, there is more.
Notice that the high excess heat period is well over a hundred hours.
This was the third run with that current protocol. The first two runs showed, for both cells, only an increase in noise with higher input current, as did the third for the hydrogen cell.
This was the chimera, licking Mike in the face. Once he saw this, he knew it was real, if he didn't know before. Sure, maybe there was some loose connection or something. But this experiment would have generated wonky results with something like that. An artifact had to mysteriously appear the third time, but not push readings off too far. This was, after all, only a few percent of input power. and then it all returned to baseline when the increased current was lowered back to what would maintain loading.
