MFMP: 18 steps to LENR excess heat (BasE-Cat recipe)

    Bob Higgins wrote:


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    Piantelli was seriously burned on his arm by radiation emitted from a window on his reactor at one point.


    He got burned, and he couldn't report a quantitative measure? Sounds fishy. In fact, a radiation burn in university lab would have been big news.


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    Celani is a skilled nuclear researcher. I trust his report.


    The doubt arises from the nature of the measurement, not the measurer. It was anecdotal, and brief. Which is to say not systematic, repeatable, and unequivocally connected to the experiment.


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    Celani's detector was NaI, which is a more efficient scintillator.


    It's not more efficient than NaI, and Mauro Villa used 2 NaI detectors in the same experiment in much closer proximity to the reactor. Bianchini used a NaI detector for the Lugano experiment also.


    In any case, Celani claimed a huge surge far above background. All the detectors were efficient enough to detect background, and therefore would be able to detect a surge far above background.


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    In the Oct 6, 2011 test of Rossi's reactor a 2" NaI detector was used. I don't recall what was measured or if it was reported. That reactor was surrounded internally by 5cm of lead.


    But in the Jan 2011 experiment Villa drilled 1 cm holes in the lead and placed the NaI detectors just outside the holes. And in the Levi 2013 and Lugano tests there was no lead shielding.


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    This is a bunch of lead and Rossi is no fool. He put it there because he was seeing emissions and didn't want to be shut down by the regulatory agencies. Rossi is careful to have radiations checked and reported only on reactors he has carefully shielded - his product opportunity relies on that.


    Again, there were holes drilled in the lead in Jan 2011, and there was clearly no lead in Lugano.


    It's possible Rossi used lead to get people to think there was radiation.


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    The MFMP test was perhaps the least shielded measurement Ni-H spectrum ever taken because the mass/cm^2 between the fuel and the scintillator was VERY small compared to most test setups historically checked. It is even less than Rossi's original, unshielded eCats.


    I don't believe that. The Jan 2011 experiment with the holes drilled and the detectors much closer represent a more sensitive measure.


    The Lugano experiment had no more shielding than yours, and Bianchini used NaI, GM, and 16 TLDs, and according to the report, "The active probes and the TLD positions was chosen to be at the closest position accessible by operators around the support frame."

    axil quotes Rossi:



    Yes, I know Rossi has claimed gamma rays. But if we are to simply believe Rossi, then there would be no skeptics.


    The question was why none of the measurements in the "independent" reports show radiation of any kind? Even when holes were drilled in the shielding. And even in the Lugano experiment where there was no shielding.

    Quote from BobHiggins

    Inside the reactor we have Ni, Li, Al, and the stainless steel fuel capsule having Fe, Cr, Mo, and there will be some Si in the mullite tube.


    Using this list of elements as a starting point, I looked into some possible beta emitters that might have been present:


    Isotope Decay mode Nat. abundance Q value (keV) Notes
    32Si β− trace 1300 Mullite
    70Zn (β−β−) 0.6 998 Ni impurity
    100Mo β−β− 9.63 3040 Fuel
    113Cd β− 12.22 316 Ni impurity
    114Cd (β−β−) 28.73 540 Ni impurity
    116Cd β−β− 7.49 2809 Ni impurity
    126Sn β− trace 380 Ni impurity
    124Sn (β−β−) 5.79 2287 Ni impurity
    210Pb β− trace 64 Ni impurity
    210Bi β− trace 1426 Ni impurity


    Ni, Al, Fe, Cr do not have natural isotopes that are beta emitters. Impurities of nickel are discussed in [1]. Other impurities in nickel not included in the table are Co, As, Sb, Al, Mn and Mg. No beta emitters that might go back to impurities in other elements in the list above have been investigated. The notation "(β−β−)" means that double beta decay is energetically allowed, although it has not been observed. If decay is being induced in one of these isotopes, the half-lives, which have not been included, will no doubt be a factor in the intensity.


    In normal double beta decay (in contrast to neutrinoless double beta decay), there will be four daughters -- two beta electrons and two neutrinos. Presumably the energy spectrum in this case will look quite different than that for a single beta decay.


    Quote from BobHiggins

    We have no lead, bismuth, or tungsten in the reactor


    Note the inclusion of bismuth and lead in the list above, as known impurities of nickel.


    [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/s…cle/pii/S187538921200987X

    joshua cude
    In the spring of 2011 Sergio Focardi gave an interview (transcripts available):


    "A radio interview with Sergio Focardi, the father of 'Ni-H Cold-Fusion' "


    In this interview, Focardi states:
    "There's a little bit of gamma rays, I'll explain presently. But these can be shielded with lead. So there are no neutrons. This is very important: you can protect yourself from neutrons as well, you need boron, water, you need ... whereas for gamma rays you can use lead. Besides, these are not high energy gamma rays they're easy to shield."


    Even Rossi's early 2011 eCats with the steam chimney had 2cm of lead shielding when being operated.

    Quote from Eric Walker

    Note the inclusion of bismuth and lead in the list above, as known impurities of nickel.


    Bi and Pb may be impurities in raw Ni, but these were not in the AH50 Ni that was used in any measureable quantity. We had EDS done on the AH50 and neither Bi or Pb were present in a quantity that would be measured. This certainly put those impurities at less than 1%.

    After consuming a couple hundred ml of a certain complex hydrocarbon, I had a unique germ of an idea regarding theory, the Lugano device, and thermalization of gammas to mostly infrared outside the range of the Optris camera.
    A few assumptions are in order.
    Lets say that Thomas Clarke's temperature of 780 C is the real temperature instead of 1410 C.
    Lets say that the Lugano device actually makes a black body spectrum, not the selective emissivity spectrum of normal alumina. A grey body spectrum at 0.95 epsilon will also be acceptable, matching the average of the alumina spectrum versus a real black body for the Optris camera.
    What is the maximum power that could then be developed?
    What then is the maximum possible COP?
    Once the hydrocarbons pass, I'll give it a go.
    The answer should prove interesting, I think.


    In the 2011 initial reactor design, the gamma bust only lasts for a fraction of a second at startup just before the reactor reaches overunity heat production.


    In the new reactor design, the gamma burst must happen during fuel pretreatment

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    Rossi is careful to have radiations checked and reported only on reactors he has carefully shielded - his product opportunity relies on that.


    Bob - I don't understand this. The Lugano reactor was not shielded. and was carefully monitored for radiation.


    The whole "Rossisays" meme falls by the fact that Rossi has, at different times, said almost any conceivable thing he could about his stuff.


    I find the apohenic linking of your data to stuff Rossi has said unhelpful - there is no consistent picture and you can always extract little bits and make them appear to fit.

    Bob -


    Hydras have multiple heads, and each experiment has its own hydra. Piantelli's low-level radiation observations (quoted here somewhere above) look a good candidate for air currents and dust.


    Your observations are at a similar very low level. But they are one-off - a single event. They have a weird shape that fits no known or hypothesised nuclear process.


    For example, the Bremsstrahlung spectrum has a completely different shape:


    count ~ K(Emax - E)


    Other (genuine) emission mechanisms have peaks.


    Whereas noise mechanisms (of many sorts) are likely to fit a precise continuous spectrum of the type you observe, changing continuously over a wide range of energies.


    Without simulation of the exact pulse detection software and analog preprocessing used in the scintillator it is difficult to model what noise would do this, but at least it is plausible whereas a nuclear source is implausible.


    One-off noise sources (to add to your list):

    • power supply glitch
    • cabling
    • software glitch (from code)
    • software glitch (from soft error in memory chips)
    • dry joint
    • EMI
    • X (this signifies the large number we have not thought of yet, and I guess given current lack of data is the most probable.)


    That is without talking into account the inherent extraordinariness of LENR. I realise LENR advocates have convinced themselves that based on other evidence this most likley happens anyway, so its observation in their own experiments is expected. This is a statistically false argument, based on the assumption that the whole variety of different "LENR claims" are independent and unselected. If that were true "preponderance of evidence" would make a very strong case even when each element is weak.


    In reality we have:

    • systematic errors (not recognised, but selected through copying of "good" experiments)
    • experiment selection for systematic and specific error (for example CCS in F&P style excess heat)
    • result selection for expected phenomena (take for example the He results discussed a way above, where "too much He" is corrected as an clear leak, "too little He" is removed as a null experiment).
    • Historic accumulation of positives. LENR "evidence" is mostly historical. Over a long period the apparent positives get accumulated. The negatives are forgotten.

    In this situation the intuitive idea of "there is so much strange here there is likely to be a phenomena" does not stack up statistically, but it is human nature to believe it.

    @Thomas Clarke
    Yes, one is free to create with one's imagination any number of possible magic happenings to explain away data that one doesn't like. Much of what you are describing is so unlikely as to not be worth the words that were written. If you believe no person or equipment can be trusted, why are you here? Either you should be spending time with your children or running the experiments yourself.


    Yes, the GS5.2 gamma spectrum is unusual. It needs replication. Alan Goldwater has agreed to do a replication from scratch given the importance.


    Your comment about the Bremsstrahlung explanation suggests you did not read my article about the measurement. In that article, I specifically say that the spectrum could have come from Bremsstrahlung that is caused by electrons with an energy distribution as one might obtain typically from high energy beta emission.


    The most likely explanation for the GS5.2 spectra is that the equipment worked as it was designed. If I had to ascribe one possible source of error that has the greatest possibility of breaking the data, it is an incident flux of neutrons or exotic particles that could pass through the aluminum can and create isotopic activation of the NaI crystal elements. Piantelli used a neutron absorber between his reactor and the huge 4" NaI detector he has and he also simultaneously measured with HPGe.


    I have been to Piantelli's lab and met the man. He is a scientist's scientist - a by the book scientist. His lab is well funded and he has wonderful equipment with multiple high end detectors. He detects and reports radiation. You cannot meet him without a discussion of Galileo's laws for the scientific method.


    Focardi was a colleague of Piantelli's, and Piantelli has a great deal of respect for Focardi. They were cut from the same cloth. Focardi said explicitly of Rossi's apparatus that there was gamma - "not high energy gamma." This was not Rossi, it was Focardi. Rossi's actions with his devices are entirely self-consistent with the statements of Focardi about Rossi's apparatus, and the measurements on GS5.2.


    What exactly was measured and reported for radiation in the Lugano test? The description in Appendix 1 of the report indicates Bianchini primarily measured the dose from 20" away (about 4x farther away than GS5.2). His radiation measuring equipment was only setup to measure dose and not gamma spectra. They had their rate meters setup in alarm mode. There was a spot measurement of neutron flux that did show an increase for the reactor over the background. Clearly, gamma measurement was not a primary evaluation of the reactor, or it would have been monitored with a spectrometer. There was no lead cave to localize the measurement to solid angle direction of the reactor. My conclusion is that they could have easily missed an outburst (depending on where the alarm trigger was set, it would only have shown only as an alarm). And talk about possible places for outages - they used a Bluetooth connected ratemeter. Still, the measurements were probably correct for what it was Bianchini was tasked to measure.

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    Yes, one is free to create with one's imagination any number of possible magic happenings to explain away data that one doesn't like.


    Except that what I propose is what nature regularly doles up. Hardly magic, except in the way of regular wonderful events: sunrises, moonlit nights, etc.


    Whereas what you propose is indeed magic, and never before noted. There is a double standard at work here.


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    Much of what you are describing is so unlikely as to not be worth the words that were written.


    You judge glitches to be less likely that mysterious one-off gamma emissions from systems that have never previously shown such behaviour and which not only have no physical explanation, have no explanation consistent with the many varied LENR hypotheses.


    That is your privilege, but it is opinion, not fact.

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    If you believe no person or equipment can be trusted, why are you here?


    I think that question goes to the heart of our difference on this issue.


    Trust equipment? What does that mean? Scientists are well aware that equipment goes wrong, or reports weird results for unexpected reasons, all the time. That is why mostly when they observe an extraordinary event they check whether it is reproducible before announcing new physics.


    Trust people? I'm not doubting the integrity of the scientists claiming LENR positives, nor their observations, merely their interpretation of those observations. Of course scientists don't trust people, which is why companies claiming miracles based on non-independent tests get regularly ignored. And why no one scientist, announcing a new discovery, will be believed until it has been independently validated.


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    Either you should be spending time with your children or running the experiments yourself.


    I'm not quite sure what that means - unless you are saying that only those conducting experiments are qualified to analyse the results. That has never been the case.[/quote]

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    Yes, the GS5.2 gamma spectrum is unusual.


    Correct. Highly unusual. And I'm taking that evidence into account, as most experimenters would. Unusual results happen all the time, almost always from error. And those errors typically seem incomprehensible till they are discovered.


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    It needs replication. Alan Goldwater has agreed to do a replication from scratch given the importance.


    I'm glad we can agree this, and glad this will be replicated. If the phenomenon persists then it will be very interesting, also of course you will be able to gather more information about it and it will in the end reveal its true colors.


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    Your comment about the Bremsstrahlung explanation suggests you did not read my article about the measurement. In that article, I specifically say that the spectrum could have come from Bremsstrahlung that is caused by electrons with an energy distribution as one might obtain typically from high energy beta emission.


    Well, I may be wrong, but my understanding of Bremsstrahlung is that it has a spectrum that approximates:
    K(Emax-E) (where Emax is the cutoff energy)


    Making Emax here large does not help the fact that this spectrum is far away from that which you observe. That is much more concentrated at low energies.



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    The most likely explanation for the GS5.2 spectra is that the equipment worked as it was designed. If I had to ascribe one possible source of error that has the greatest possibility of breaking the data, it is an incident flux of neutrons or exotic particles that could pass through the aluminum can and create isotopic activation of the NaI crystal elements.

    I don't understand these two arguments, which do not make sense. When I have an experimental setup and get one isolated result that makes no sense, and has no explaining hypothesis, I reckon it most likely that there an equipment or setup glitch. It is fun to track these things down and determine cause. You seem to be ruling that out, or at least not crediting it is likely. It a mistake I might have made a very long time ago when less aware from personal experience of how easily apparently inexplicable things happen, and have (mundane) explanations.


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    Piantelli used a neutron absorber between his reactor and the huge 4" NaI detector he has and he also simultaneously measured with HPGe.I have been to Piantelli's lab and met the man. He is a scientist's scientist - a by the book scientist. His lab is well funded and he has wonderful equipment with multiple high end detectors. He detects and reports radiation. You cannot meet him without a discussion of Galileo's laws for the scientific method.Focardi was a colleague of Piantelli's, and Piantelli has a great deal of respect for Focardi. They were cut from the same cloth. Focardi said explicitly of Rossi's apparatus that there was gamma - "not high energy gamma." This was not Rossi, it was Focardi.


    I can understand and respect your strong feelings here. You have met Piantelli, and you look up to him. You know that Piantelli speaks well of Focardi. These things are all important to you. But they are not science, and the feelings they engender do not help you to think clearly about this matter. There is a good reason why the scientific method does not let papers of scientific heroes be treated as of more weight than a paper from a lowly PhD student.



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    Rossi's actions with his devices are entirely self-consistent with the statements of Focardi about Rossi's apparatus, and the measurements on GS5.2.


    Rossi was happy to let this unshielded gamma source be checked by radiation experts. And to have his testers near it during a one month test.


    Your arguments here are incoherent. If lead shielding is to thermalise gammas so generating heat we are talking about a much larger gamma source, one that would do severe damage to many people unshielded. If we are talking about a near background level source, then it can have no direct relationship to the claimed high levels of heat. Further, what is the point of shielding it? Far more likely that Rossi's lead shielding, like most of his ideas, are because that makes things look or sound good.


    Finally what you measured was a one-sample outlier. Not continuous gammas from some reaction. You are grasping at straws to link these things.


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    What exactly was measured and reported for radiation in the Lugano test? The description in Appendix 1 of the report indicates Bianchini primarily measured the dose from 20" away (about 4x farther away than GS5.2). His radiation measuring equipment was only setup to measure dose and not gamma spectra. They had their rate meters setup in alarm mode. There was a spot measurement of neutron flux that did show an increase for the reactor over the background. Clearly, gamma measurement was not a primary evaluation of the reactor, or it would have been monitored with a spectrometer. There was no lead cave to localize the measurement to solid angle direction of the reactor. My conclusion is that they could have easily missed an outburst (depending on where the alarm trigger was set, it would only have shown only as an alarm). And talk about possible places for outages - they used a Bluetooth connected ratemeter. Still, the measurements were probably correct for what it was Bianchini was tasked to measure.


    I don't understand the point you are making here? If the gammas measured are of such low level they can only be measured by very sensitive equipment that makes my point that these are marginal observations and subject to any number of artifacts. Marginal detected neutron flux values within expected error threshold is just not in any way relevant to your argument.

    https://mospace.umsystem.edu/x…sisReactionMechanisms.pdf


    I believe that the energy production mechanism in LENR is based on nuclear reactions that occur in a state of bose condensation. This is indicated by a comparison of the way gamma is produced in the Rossi type reaction as compared to the electric arc driven Defkalion type of reaction.


    In the Rossi reaction, a burst of gamma happens in a fraction of a second at startup just before the bose condensate is established in the reactor. Once condensation takes hold, radiation is not seen since super-absorption of gamma radiation takes hold to thermalize the gamma radiation.


    In the Defkalion system, a steady state generation of gamma radiation that ranges from 200 counts per second to 600 counts per second is seen. The reason for this condition for radiation production is because the DC arc that drives the DGT reaction destroys the Bose condensate through the production of a large magnetic field. DGT was noted for the production of very large magnetic fields. A bose condensate just as in superconductivity that state cannot exist for long in a highly magnetically active environment.


    I predict that if a Rossi type reactor that is producing overunity heat is subjected to a large magnetic field, the overunity heat production will cease and then will be replaced by a continuous production of gamma radiation as the magnetic field destroys the state of bose condensation inside the reactor.


    I am happy that we now have the chance to test these theories in a open source format.


    There are some posibility for errors. Many can agree that. There are big economical reason also to try show some unreal.
    But there are also people that want see such black magic and maybe try to understand how much magic it need and how much are natural.


    So what level magic or extraordinary thing need to happen to explain measured spectrum with known fusion reactions or some of them with slight modifications?


    There are measured gamma spectrum that might fit 1.4Mev braking radiation. Is there something else that can do that spectrum?
    Spectrum may come from reactor or from NaI crystall. Is other places where it can come to FMT output?


    If reaction go as claimed hydrogen fuse hydrogen do diproton that decay to deuteron, positron and neutrino. In star like enviroment it give 0.42Mev movement energy to positron. Is this correct and people can see it when sun is rising every mornig?


    And if play with quantum physic then H2 in everywhere are some super small moment in diproton mode. Heavy interaction is not strong enough to keep diproton togheter only 98% from needed. So diproton don't have needed time to decay deuteron. and that reaction don't go further and world is like we see it now.
    In stars there are hot and thick enough that give needed 2% extra support to keep diproton long enough together that it can decay to deuteron.


    Is this agreeable. Maybe not 100% correct, but give effect what we see naturally?


    And there is the hard piece:
    In some unknown place in Ni crystall lattice, maybe inside small capillary holes hydrogen get high pressure and density like star center. Then there holes are also quit lot of high electronegative metal ions, like lithium. Under high pressure H2 molecyle some times go diproton mode and it space shrink that works pressure relace way lengthen diproton mode time sometimes long eneough that it can decay deuteron. Electronegative metal helps, do reactions enchancement like ionic liguids.
    Same enchancement have seen in stars - supernovas, white dwarfs. (as some claims)


    This H2->D is "mouse" what Rossi speak long ago. In 2011 he had gamma emission. Later not. He invented something. It found in patent papers if it is new thing. If it is not then it find somewhere older papers. He have less stinking mouse now and have sure way it don't give accidentally emissions.
    But well 1.st we need study that emission mouse briefly.


    Or Rossi fools. But even worse thing if he dosn't fool and all usable ways go disclosed during people argue is energy blue or green.
    Best way is give guess/theory in public as fast as can invent. It give it free and protect from patenting.


    Back that beta broblem. 0.42Mev are writen in standard physics of stars. 1.4Mev say one theory, 1.4Mev is measured. Diffrence 1Mev. Where it can come?
    It is same level as coulomb barrier if I understand correct? Is there some known method that give that extra Mev betas? One claim are that deuteron is produced at rest. (in stars it have maybe 1Mev heat energy?)


    Second bigger broblem is missing 511Kev positron annihilation. What it can means if dirty mouse is produced and 1.4Mev evidence is given? Is there posibility for "inside" braking radiation?


    And there are known one other mouse from stars that don't produce betas but consume electron. Is it posible to subtitute electron for positron? Energy is same. And run dirty mouse + clean mouse in 50:50%.
    How badly it violates charge symmetry? Is there way that don't violate?


    In that 50:50 rate no 511kev, only low gammas.


    If that is case what we have seen - then how run it pure clean mouse mode? (it may produce 30kev brake radiation when e- drop down - if I understand correct?)


    Quote


    Well, I may be wrong, but my understanding of Bremsstrahlung is that it has a spectrum that approximates:
    K(Emax-E) (where Emax is the cutoff energy)


    I find that spectrum may wary plasmas, gas, metals and nucleus dropping. I don't understand enough yet to correct anything. Can you explain more briefly? Moust valuable is data if some medium produce spectrum we have seen.


    And sorry I have read things only some weeks. No educational preconceptions for quantum physics ;)

    Quote from axil


    Once condensation takes hold, radiation is not seen since super-absorption of gamma radiation takes hold to thermalize the gamma radiation.


    Hmm, in "clean mouse" route reaction go then almost invisible. Only very little heating from braking radiation that stay bose condensate when e- drops in nucleus. And lot of neutrinos but how we see them?


    Only way to observe is D2 produced from reaction. And that take time. Hard to know that reactor working or not..
    Nice magic from nature..

    I believe that the LENR reaction happens in two steps. First, Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPP) form. This marks the formation of the LENR reaction. This is the weak version of the reaction where the COP is limited to 1.2.


    The preferred state of SPPs is Bose condensation. After SPPs form, they will naturally form a Bose condensate. In this superconductive state, radiation is thermalized.


    From ECCO


    Holmlid also observed a depletion of ultra dense deuterium under a magnetic field larger than 0.05T.



    The LENR+ reaction is marked by the creation of Hydrogen Rydberg Matter (HRM). This special crystal structure will amplify the SPPs that accumulate on the surface of the HRM. It is the SPP cover that makes HRM superconductive. The nuclear reactions that are catalyzed by HRM are thermalized and stored in the SPP condensate in a dark mode on the surface of the HRM. The more energy that is stored on the HRM, the more LENR+ active that HRM becomes and the more indestructible that that crystal gets.

    Any dark mode energy accumulation on the surface of the HRM will eventually leak into the vacuum as hawking radiation. This leakage is the method of thermalization that converts gamma to thermal EMF.
    If a magnetic field is applied to the HRM, the Bose condensation on the surface of the HRM will be destroyed and all the energy content stored there will be released in a burst.


    But the SPP which is a photon plasmoid soliton will immediately reform if the magnetic field that destroyed the superconductive nature of the HRM is removed. While the magnetic field is in place, the nuclear energy will be released as gamma radiation and not thermalized by the vacuum.

    Axil:

    Quote

    I believe that the LENR reaction happens in two steps. First, Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPP) form. This marks the formation of the LENR reaction. This is the weak version of the reaction where the COP is limited to 1.2.


    Do the SPP:s form in micro cracks? If so it may be possible to find a connection to Ed´s theory. That would be interesting.

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