As I understand it, Ed Storms views quantum mechanics as an abstraction that has gone too far to be useful. He sees it as an overgeneralization of messy data, and as a model that is unnecessarily complex, and, in its complexity, as something that is confusing people and leading them down unpromising avenues in trying to understand LENR. This prompts Ed to view attention given to quantum mechanics in trying to understand LENR as putting the cart before the horse. He would prefer that we look at the experimental data, draw the conclusions he draws, and then possibly reformulate quantum mechanics as a result once we have a fuller picture of the situation. Up to now I hope I have not said anything Ed would disagree with, although it's hard to know for sure.
As for my own view of Ed's effort, it seems to me that his theory is incompatible with the present understanding of quantum mechanics in various ways. One way has to do with the slow fusion he proposes. Assume for the sake of argument, as Ed does, that it is possible for deuterons to shed off mass-energy in small quanta as they approach one another in the hydroton molecule. In a nuclear context, photons are normally emitted when there is a rearrangement of nucleons into lower energy states of the nucleus. If we take Ed's theory at face value, the implication is either that there are many more levels available for the proton and neutron in the deuterons to settle into than previously known, or the concept of levels must be abandoned altogether. In the first case, the nuclear shell model is no longer relevant. In the second case, quantum mechanics is no longer relevant.
Another possibility here is that the nucleons (protons and neutrons) that make up the deuterons themselves are what are doing the shrinking and emitting the photons. This is in fact what I presume would be needed in the case of another process Ed suggests, in which two protons combine with an electron to make deuterium, for in the case of a proton, the proton is itself the nucleus which is yielding the photons. My understanding is that this stuff is in the realm of sci-fi. Jones Beene has colorfully explored the possibility that the rest mass of protons is not fixed on Vortex in recent years.
Another way that Ed's theory is incompatible with the present understanding of quantum mechanics has to do with the last stretch that must be crossed when the deuterons finally combine into 4H (and from there, 4He). As the deuterons get closer and closer, the cross section for normal (hot) fusion increases dramatically, at which point you'd expect the d(d,p)t, d(d,n)3He and d(d,G)4He branches, including neutrons and gammas, short-circuiting the slow fusion process before the two deuterons have approached sufficiently to shed only low-energy photons. This is my schematic understanding, drawing upon observations by people far more knowledgeable about this stuff than I am. To get what Ed wants, somehow the cross sections for the hot fusion branches must be zeroed-out in the context of the hydroton, so that the quantum mechanical process of the two deuterons tunneling together does not happen until the very last moment, at which point all the 24 MeV of mass energy will have been shed.
Another way that Ed's theory is incompatible with the present understanding of quantum mechanics has to do with the holding of the electrons between the deuterons sufficient for there to be screening of the kind Ed would like. Those electrons want to go all over the place, and under normal circumstances they would not want to maintain a narrow holding pattern between the deuterons.
One might suspect that Ed's theory is incompatible with the present understanding of quantum mechanics in connection with the conservation of spin as the low-energy photons are emitted, but I think there are some clever gymnastics that can be done to rescue things, even if they don't sound particularly plausible.
If we lump concerns about the operation of the strong interaction and the weak interaction under quantum mechanics, there are yet other questions that come up. This is my layman's understanding of the situation.
