The Industrial Heat Answer

Quote from Alan Smith

Admirable in principle - but how would you know for sure? But not my worry, not being an Admin.

It is not necessary to know for sure. Preponderance of the evidence is quite enough. "George Hody," given that we know who the real George Hody is with relation to this field, is almost proof of impersonation, enough to assert it and then allow the person to establish "not impersonation," if it is not.

Which "George Hody" is quite unlikely to bother with.

Quote from Hermes

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Another bizarre part is that pundits think that the Q/4He ratio can be meaured when there is no heat and no helium.

That is freaking ridiculous. 0/0 is part of the evidence for correlation. It supports the ratio, but obviously cannot be used in determining its value. There is no "pundit" who thinks as Hermes states.

(To be more accurate, there are no "0/0" results. There are results where the values are in the noise. So what actually exists are results of heat < X and helium <Y, and a calculated ratio will be scattered. There was a plot in Storms (2007) showing the ratio vs average power for the collection interval for results from Miles and from Bush and Lagowski. You can see how the measurements at the lowest power have high scatter, and as power increases (and helium increases), the results settle. (Storms, The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, 2007, p. 87, seems to settle around 60% of the theoretical ratio, indicating that about 40% is held in the palladium).

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The fact is, nobody has tried to measure helium in heat producing natural hydrogen systems.

That may be true. Heat producing natural hydrogen systems are rare, and measuring helium is difficult, it takes special care both to collect the helium and to measure it. The mass spectrometer must be able to resolve He-4+ and D2+.

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This illustrates the the bizarre non-scientific nature of this research field. People are far more interested in appearing to be right at any cost than in discovering new science. It's pathological.

Again, that is freaking ridiculous. To do this measurement, one would need a substantial heat production with natural hydrogen. One would not waste time with only a little heat, even if it is significant. Then, helium is *extremely unlikely* as a product. Yes, if access is available to heat producing H systems, helium should be checked if possible. But where has that existed?

Hydrogen was used, as I mentioned, as a control in experiments with deuterium, including the FP Heat Effect. Under FPHE conditions, hydrogen produces no heat or only a little. I think that Hermes is describing himself, as one of the "people interested in appearing to be right." That motivation is common for human beings, but would not suppress the investigation of hydrogen systems and helium; what suppresses it is the body of experimental evidence so far, and, yes, what is known, leads to no expectation of payback for the substantial work involved. Quite simply, this is not a research priority. Finding ways to generate heat is. And if a way can be sustained for a long time, even at low power, then testing for ash is obviously on the menu. The one to look for, though, is deuterium, probably, and that is present as a major impurity already.

I appreciate there may sometimes be non-scientific reasons for say demonstrations. But I suggest that excess heat, with or without helium has not been very successful so far and is unlikely to be so in the future. On the other hand nuclear measurements, isotopic anomalies, etc. are orders of magnitude more sensitive and allow the measurement of multiple correlated parameters. (e.g. intesity, energy, decay pattern of gamma peaks).[/quote]
This ignores the experimental evidence. The FP Heat Effect does not produce other effects that can easily be detected. These other effects have long been sought; some are found, but at very low levels, obviously having nothing to do with the "main show." I usually state it this way: with the FPHE, tritium is a million times down from helium, and neutrons are a million times down from tritium. Neither have been well-correlated with heat. Helium has.

"Isotopic anomalies" have not been confirmed at levels higher than tritium. These searches come up with nearly useless information. They show "something nuclear" might be happening, but artifacts abound, and the studies tend to be unconfirmed. There is a huge body of unconfirmed results of possible interest. Cold fusion researchers have done what they can, given the limitations that existed with funding and institutional and similar support (such as the availability of grad student labor, a major factor that is starting to shift toward normal).

Heat is readily detected with enough precision to be used for correlation studies. The no-heat experiments become controls.

"Successful" or "Not successful" is a weird non-scientific description of excess heat. The scientific issue is whether or not there is significant heat and then the quantitative study of it.

Now, there is one part of the suggestion that is open. I take it as an operating assumption that the FPHE is deuterium -> helium + 23.8 MeV that shows up as heat. The actual reaction is unlikely to be as simple as d+d -> 4He, and that would be expected to produce a 23.8 MeV gamma, which is not detected (and it would be unavoidable and dangerous). However, how is the fusion energy converted to heat? One of the common proposals is a "burst of low-energy photons." Those would be in the frequency region we think of as soft X-rays. They are difficult to detect because they are absorbed in the experimental materials, but it may be possible to detect some of them. There are results from exposing X-ray film (dental films) to the materials, radioautographs have been shown.

The quantitative detection of soft X-rays, under properly controlled conditions, would be a fundamental investigation. (Technically, these would be gammas, as being nuclear in origin.) Even if most of the X-rays are absorbed, I would expect detected X-rays to be correlated with heat. If the heat is produced by the absorption of these X-rays, that would be obvious!

First things first. The research priority that I suggested started with the measurement of the heat/helium ratio with increased precision. Since the last time this was done, it's been over a decade as far as I know, we have realized that anodic stripping probably releases all the helium; this is a trivially easy step that should tighten up the results, since they will now scatter around the actual production ratio, rather than the gas-release ratio without stripping. That is being done. I hope to have more news about it soon.

That was first because, while the work is difficult and somewhat expensive, it is known how to do it, and, with people with skill and experience involved, the money won't be wasted. And then because the ratio is the only truly direct evidence that the FP Heat Effect is not only real, it is nuclear in nature, and because this will be new work, it should be eminently publishable, and could puncture the balloon of the rejection cascade. This is not something to publish in JCMNS!

However, identifying X-ray emissions, if they exist regularly, could be extremely valuable and could point to a possible immediate measure of the reaction other than heat. There may be others.

For years, research was focused on dealing with the collective chip on the shoulder, trying to prove that the effect was nuclear and mostly trying to get More Heat, instead of studying the reaction-as-it-is. Scientifically, this was a huge distraction.

The basic study will eventually lead to improved technlogy. Peter Gluck wants to jump the gun. "LENR+!" is his motto. When we have LENR, and clearly and reliably, then we can develop Plus. It will be a natural progression. Peter is trying to push the river, and this colored, and still colors, his feelings about Rossi. Only Rossi's results were "plus." But every little trickle of heat from NiH was considered a 'confirmation" of Rossi.

At this point, the focus returns to what is known: PdD. NiH investigations will continue, and the long-term future of LENR might well be there. But first things first! With NiH, what is first is establishing reproducible results, and not just file-drawer effect results. Results that are robust, at least statistically. The sample space for statistical analysis cannot be just the collection of "successful" results. It must be all results, at least from a pre-defined experimental series.

I'm waiting for skeptics to show up who are excited at the possibility of helping design the future of LENR research. That would be turning the corner, for sure.