For ICCF 20, some information. In case they don't want to repeat previous mistakes.

The fact is that the august scientists at ICCF's should have called out Defkalion and Rossi early for their OBVIOUS and arrogant, lengthy string of lies and patently false claims on their own blogs/forum/interviews. The glaring deficiencies in their experiments and demos should have been discussed at ICCF. By either ignoring those claims or giving them tacit endorsement, ICCF participants made the entire field look questionable to outside observers. The reasoning went something like this: I admit I don't follow all the intricate and arcane stuff you do but if you don't call out obvious fraudsters, how can I trust that any of it is credible? You people don't seem to know the difference between meat and crappola. The best example for me was when McKubre paid interested attention to such a classical con man and crook as the late Papp and his farcical claims that you can extract limitless energy from noble gases. (I don't mean to suggest that was at ICCF-- I don't remember where he did it but he did it!)

Quote from AlainCo

You mix everything.

They are scientist and they never endorsed, always consistently warned, about all the commercial structures around LENR.
They watched, were interested, but they have since the beginning, like Jed Rothwell, and even more with Abd, always been warning enthusiast like me that it was not science but business, and there was no scientific grade evidences, and even many strange behaviors raising red flags.

At one point in 2011, it looked to me like there was some decent evidence for the Rossi Effect, but I quickly realized how dangerous it was to come to that conclusion; privately, I began warning the CMNS community not to appear to endorse Rossi.

Partly as a reaction to the rejection cascade, the community generally avoided "rejecting" claims, not wanting to be like those who had rejected them. My advice was to keep in mind that Rossi claims were not actually verifiable independently, because of the secrecy, and I also pointed out that any demonstration could be faked by someone with significant control over the process. It seemed like a 1 MW test could not possibly be faked, and I think that was part of the idea. But ... a 1 MW test can be faked; it is certainly possible, if one has control. We can see this with the Doral test. A magician will control attention. That Penon claimed it was not important what was happening in the "secret customer area" is part of that. What would be unmistakable in a 1 MW test would be the effect wherever the power is used! If there really was an "endothermic product," okay, how much? Who witnessed that?" To claim that it was not important was to be a tool of the magician, at best. The Plant instrumentation can be fooled, in any of many, many possible ways, and magicians know what we will assume that might be ... different from what we assume.

I do not think we know what actually happened in Doral, because it was so heavily concealed under Rossi control, and we might never know, unless someone confesses. If there was heat, Rossi made it impossible to confirm, and likely with the collusion of Penon. But just the fact that fraud is possible is enough to demolish any idea that Doral was an independent test. If there was a real customer, who actually used the power and can document that, the idea of Rossi Reality could still be alive, but the issue around heat dissipation is probably fatal to the idea.

I never concluded that Rossi had no real heat. However, the reasons to think he did have been heavily damaged.

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People like me considered those commercial claims with hope (In fact I moved about Rossi from deep skepticism to rationalized confidence , then now to final distrust), with open mind, like a venture capitalist do, ready to lose but optimistic, and looking for the chance to succeed more than the risk to lose, and accepting defeat only when the game is over, clearly and surely (the way some honest skeptic admit anomalies, when all is clear). This is how entrepreneurship and venture work.

The more I find out what Industrial Heat actually did, the more I'm in awe as to their vision and dedication to goal, opening up LENR for the world.

For some years I have been writing that LENR turned a corner -- probably somewhere around 2004 -- and what Industrial Heat and others are doing with funding research is a major sign of that. The Texas Tech/ENEA heat/helium initiative is highly likely to succeed, because it is actually only confirming with increased precision -- and improved publishability, I expect -- what was first found in 1991 and which was confirmed extensively over the next 14 years or so. And, it appears, they are quite adequately funded, for the kind of research that any genuine skeptic should be applauding. And some are!

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Science in fact is not so far, but there replace optimism and hope with curiosity and open skepticism. You research as long as their is any doubt a reality, like an entrepreneur try until it is sure hopeless. To be clear 21st century research is far from that ideal.

It often falls short. However, "curiosity" and "caution" -- skepticism! -- is characteristic of real science. Real science is also optimistic, that is, it stands on the idea that if we carefully investigate, we will learn. It also may see the potential of some discovery, but then remembers caution and thus does not fall into the blindness of rose-colored glasses, of belief in success that is not yet clearly demonstrated -- and accepted!

When we care about reality, we seek to see things as they are, trusting that reality is better than any fantasy.

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You can blame my VC way of mind as stupid and claim we should only try if sure to be right, but please don't rewrite the history like Pierre Ordinaire have done for the science.

I have learned how to live, and the simplicity of it is stunning. It is quite common for people to tell me it's stupid. Sooner or later, they claim, I will discover that truth will ruin all my joy, happiness, and trust. And I see what that is, clearly, and it is not a voice that seeks my welfare, it is not a voice of truth, but of hatred and enmity. I face death, literally, and laugh. Life is worth living, to the end, and what happens then, I don't know, but ... I trust it anyway.

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I moaned enough against the always pessimistic Jed and Abd, against the LENR scientific community politely doubting, who were all right finally, not to blame them of not warning us.

I was not pessimistic, I hope, but realistic. That realism did not tell me that Rossi was a fraud, but it did tell me it was possible, just as it told me that there could be a real effect. All of that.

I will still say that we cannot know that there is no "Rossi effect," but it might be useful to remember that this is more or less what the 1989 DoE review wrote. The problem with that DoE review -- and the later one -- is that "no convincing evidence" -- as of the time of the compilation of that report -- was not "evidence of no effect." The shortcoming was that no process was set up to monitor the situation to see if it had changed; the 2004 review was blatantly inadequate, for reasons I have covered many times.

And we, as a community, did not handle the rejection skillfully. Why do I say that? Because admitting that then empowers us, to handle it skillfully, and that is exactly what is happening.

Quote from AlainCo

Fralick89 is reproduced by Liu2005 Biberian2007 Nasa GRC2008 Fralick2012
Iwamura is reproduced by Takahashi
F&P is reproduced by Lonchampt, Miles, Storms,Bockris, Oriani, McKubre, and many many
Tritium is reproduced by BARC, Bockris, Storms
He4/heat is reproduced by McKubre, Miles, DeNinno...
Spawar co-deposition is reproduced (forgot who, Jed may help)

reproduction is a painful job like reproduced the first planes, because we have no theory, weak budget.
It is shoestring research not yet engineering.

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We are writing the history of LENR. I have, for myself, shut down the noise from pure Rossi fanatics and dedicated pseudoskeptics, including Pierre Ordinaire here, but they are always welcome to join us. each line above is an invitation to write a history. In each case some doubt is possible, though the core F&P claim, anomalous heat, has passed into a realm of massive general confirmation -- accepting that they made some mistakes, as humans do.

Heat/helium has also passed into the realm of heavy preponderance of the evidence.

However, the historical background makes general skepticism still reasonable, and this is how: it suppresses investigation. It can take a great deal of reading and study and conversation to understand the outlines of cold fusion. Most people will not have the curiosity to make that investment, nor do I expect it. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is not a scientific principle, it is a normal heuristic for optimizing personal efficiency as to where we put energy, based on Bayesian priors.

There will be those who are led by conditions and duties and opportunities to put in the work. Robert Duncan is an excellent example. He was normally skeptical, and would not have been looking at LENR, except he was asked to do so by CBS 60 Minutes. He took the responsibility seriously. Not all physicists would have done that, it appears that there were physicists ready to fill the role of "independent analyst" who believed they could provide all that was needed off the top of their heads.

The problem would, then, have been the dark place where their heads were stuck.

Duncan is now lead researcher in the Texas Tech investigation, having formed an LLC that appears to have been well-funded. Looking at the signature on that donation document ($6 million from an "anonymous donor" matched by $6 million from the State of Texas), we can see seeds, planted years ago, germinating and sprouting. That investigation will, predictably, confirm with increased precision the central heat/helium finding. What I cannot predict so confidently is the exact ratio they will find, but that is less important. It's of high theoretical interest, but the basic correlation is much more than that. It's direct, reliable, reproducible evidence that cold fusion is real. The exact ratio will tell us more. It would already be an "ordinary result" that it would settle near 23.8 Mev/4He.

I have been inviting people to join the team that is midwiving the rebirth, bringing cold fusion into the mainstream. I'm not overwhelmed with response, but this is normal. We only need a few good men and women. One can make a difference, as I know I have.

Genuine skeptics serve this purpose, just as much or maybe even more than "believers." Let's say that we need skeptical believers and skeptics who are curious and willing to doubt themselves as much as others.

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please document

That is mostly what I have done and do. And there will be those who complain about the length that deep exploration will open up. They want quick opinions, that they can agree with or dispute. I can write polemic, and have. My longer writings have prepared me for that.

Jed, you have some strange ideas about the limitations of scientific meetings. Let me write you an abstract which took me all of a minute (rewrites took me another 5 min):

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In the past three years, claims to the extraction of high levels of power (in the kilowatts) and energy have been made by Andrea Rossi and Defkalion. If true, these claims would revolutionize LENR research and development. Rossi's tests and experiments have been given preliminary approval by Kullander, Essen and Lewan (cite). In this paper, these claims were examined and found to be highly flawed and the claimed results to be highly unlikely. In particular, none of the tests included appropriate calibration and attempts to persuade the experimenters to provide these were met with scorn and sarcasm. Examination of Mr. Rossi's past business history shows only failures and legal misadventures (cite Krivit). Defkalion claimed in their internet blog that their Hyperions had been tested and approved by "seven of the world's largest companies" but they would not name the companies. (cite and quote blog in the actual paper). All of the claims to high power by Rossi and Defkalion are very suspicious. While efforts should be made to confirm and replicate them, they must be considered very questionable until much better confirmed. (long list of reference, most prominent would be Pomp and Ericsson). If the claims are scams and the research community does not disavow them, harm could be done to future credibility and therefore to funding. That the claims are true is improbable but if they are, much more effort should be made and much more funding directed at developing Ni-H systems, replicating the results and understanding the reaction.

If I'd had time, I would have refined the above and submitted it or something like it. And invited responses from Defkalion and Rossi.

This could be a paper, a poster, a portion of a seminar or discussion group. Now tell me ICCF would not be interested.

And Pomp and Ericsson provided a more scholarly version which would also have been appropriate at an ICCF meeting. See: https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.6364