Posts by joshua cude

Longview wrote:

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Quite a discouraging future we face from these media star "genii" who have conducted few if any experiments of note. But they "advocate hot fusion research", Cude contends.

This is a reference to an interview (maybe a questionnaire) in the Guardian in 2010, when they were asked what problem "do you hope scientists will have solved by the end of the century", and they both answered the extraction of energy from nuclear fusion, but made no mention of LENR at all. (And just to provide context, around that time, Cox did a documentary on BBC's horizon on fusion energy research, and did not mention cold fusion.)

The point was merely to show that prominent scientists, one of whom is extremely active in public outreach, essentially ignore cold fusion research.

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After many billions of dollars of funding, and over half a century of promises that controlled [hot] fusion is but "20 years away".

I did not intend to get into a hot fusion discussion. I am not qualified to argue the technical merits, and prefer to leave that to the experts consulted by the funding agencies.

But 20 years is optimistic. 50 years is optimistic. This century is conceivable. But if it works, it will be worth the wait. It's clear we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels *other* than fusion to bridge a gap, or possibly forever. But it seems to be worth the gamble to continue to work on hot fusion, even if no one living will benefit. I'm just that nice a guy. It would be a shame if a century from now, the world decides that all the energy sources suck, and to have to start researching fusion then, and have to wait another century for results.

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So, another $100 billion or more, and another 60 years.....

If it works, that would be a bargain. In the US, the fusion budget corresponds to about a dollar per person per year. That's a reasonable gamble for the holy grail of energy sources, given the solid scientific foundation, and clear unequivocal progress.

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But, in spite of its dismal history, hot fusion research remains a billion dollar a year "industry". One of many continuing legacies of the Cold War it would seem. One of those enterprises that military decision makers, DOD contractors, particle physicists and their lobbyists can continue to deceive the public and their politicians into "patriotically" supporting.

The history is disappointing, but not dismal. In contrast to cold fusion, it has shown quantifiable progress with each iteration increasing the value of the all-important triple product. In fact, it has done better than Moore's law in fusion research. Check out figure 3 at http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/368/1914/1091 for a graphical representation of the progress.

Considering that exploiting hot fusion requires no fundamental breakthrough, and considering the clean and abundant nature of the source, to me, it doesn't matter if it takes a century or two and if it costs 50 times more. We should look ahead and spare a thought for our descendants, because it's doubtful anyone living will benefit from fusion power (other than solar).

More is spent on research into erectile dysfunction than fusion. Subsidies and costs of wind and solar are a hundred times higher. The NASA budget is a hundred times higher, and the lion's share that has gone into human space flight, which has a far more vague and distant benefit than fusion power.

Now, if the (nearly) unanimous view of experts were that the practical problems had virtually no chance of being solved, or even being economically feasible, I'd have no problem seeing it all shut down. But that's not the case. There are delays, and escalating costs, but the general view remains optimistic. In that scenario, such a tiny amount of funding for a technology that could revolutionize a trillion dollar industry seems well worth it.

Longview wrote:

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What did you mean to write there? Surely "the early 90s" comes after 1989--- was that supposed to be 1999?

It was supposed to be 1998 -- last two digits were transposed. McKubre said this in his long EPRI report.

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And your accusation that Abd's advocacy "is paid for". Seems far more likely that your advocacy is paid for, considering the financial stakes and the immense resources of many of those with strong vested interests in opposing research in CF / LENR.

Likely or not, Abd admitted he has been funded. He said: "And my interest in a few odd topics got me published in a mainstream journal earlier this year, and funded with a grant that bugged my eyes out, more zeros than I’d seen on a check to me in many years." And also: "And, by the way, I’ve been funded, because I do what I do, write."

Funded because he writes. Seems like paid advocacy to me.

But I completely disagree that advocacy against cold fusion is more plausible. Arguments in obscure internet forums would be completely ineffective against real evidence for cold fusion, and in fact are completely ineffective against existing evidence. Companies like Shell, Amoco, Airbus, NASA, Toyota, Mitsi, etc have looked in to the subject. If they found something, no polemic in lenr-forum is gonna keep it down if it's real.

On the other hand, if it's not real, advocacy in forums like this is exactly the sort of thing that builds excitement and keeps a small fringe science alive, and makes for fertile soil for fraudulent claims.

Abd wrote:

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He pretends, and may believe, that his position is "mainstream." But he could not get his work published in a mainstream peer reviewed journal,

I could not get skeptical arguments about perpetual motion and phlogiston into refereed journals either, but that doesn't mean they are not mainstream. Indeed, it means they *are* mainstream. There is no point publishing skeptical arguments about a subject the mainstream is already skeptical about.

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while many positive cold fusion papers and reviews are being published.

Many? Many is a relative term. For subjects like carbon nanotubes or superconductivity or graphene, which are about accepted phenomena, there are thousands of papers published per year. In cold fusion, the average number of new experimental claims in the last decade is just over 1, and the number of new claims of excess heat is more like 0.2. That is not many. That is very very few. There are also theory and review articles that bring the average up above about 5, but still very low.

And those that are published are in low impact journals -- nearly all (perhaps all) with impact factors below 3. A subject like cold fusion, if it were accepted, would be impossible to keep out of Science and Nature and PRL, the first two with impact factors north of 20.

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if he thinks that he might be damaged, simply by presenting "the truth," well, he must, then, not really believe that his views are mainstream,

I simply prefer not to advertise to people I respect how much time I spend on the subject, and that is all the more the case the more cold fusion research is regarded as irrelevant, which is what I argue.

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(The current mainstream, i.e., the majority of scientists in general, do still consider cold fusion as bogus, but, as McKubre points out, this is only a knee-jerk reaction, not based on study.

It is based on their basic understanding of the claims from 1989, the clear exposition of the low quality of the evidence at the time, and their confidence that if better evidence came along, interest would expand exponentially, as one scientist examined it and then told 10 others, and so on. But instead of this sort of expansion, interest fizzles, meaning that those who do examine it, on average, do not consider it worth telling anyone else.

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I have only pointed out that the expressed positions in mainstream journals shifted, over ten years ago.

This is not accurate. The publication rate -- both negative and positive -- does not have any discernible change a decade ago. The publication rate has continued to decline for both. Indeed the average for the last decade is about a factor of 10 lower than the average for the last 5 years of the 90s, and a factor of 2 or 3 lower than the first 5 years of the naughts.

The J Electroanal Chem, one of the favorites of the field in the 90s, stopped publishing in the field in 2000. Naturwissenschaften picked up JEC's slack for a while in the mid naughts, but I understand they have also stopped publishing CF papers. ACS and APS both held symposia for a few years around 2010, but have now stopped. The ACS rejected an entire proceedings recently. CF authors still complain about the difficulty getting into good journals.

And while cold fusion is all about *heat*, in the last decade there are only a few new claims of excess heat in refereed literature, and none using electrolysis. The two papers on Arata-type gas loading have been disputed capably by Dmitriyeva et al.

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His [Cude's] history there [wikipedia] is remarkable...

Sorry, wrong guy, so no comment.

Abd wrote:

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However, I don't accuse him [Cude] of being a shill, though, you might notice, Thomas, he accused me of that in this discussion. He came in swinging. And then is "hurt" that he is confronted.

On ECN you *boasted* about getting paid. You wrote: "And my interest in a few odd topics got me published in a mainstream journal earlier this year, and funded with a grant that bugged my eyes out, more zeros than I’d seen on a check to me in many years." And also: "And, by the way, I’ve been funded, because I do what I do, write."

Drawing attention to something you have boasted about is hardly coming out swinging. And I wasn't hurt that I was confronted; I was hurt that I was called a liar without being confronted.

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I have never seen Joshua apologize for making misleading statements.

That is only significant if you establish (or for those who agree that you have established) that I have made misleading statements.

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Joshua is, as to cold fusion, a dying breed, a relatively informed skeptic.

If by informed, you mean familiar with many of the various claims of people still toiling away in the field, then that is probably true. As the field progresses inevitably toward oblivion, there will be less and less interest in keeping up with irrelevant minutiae. Most scientists are familiar with the claims of P&F from 1989, and the quality of the evidence from that time, and are satisfied that if something better were to come along, interest would grow exponentially, as it did in 1989. But the quality of the evidence has not improved, and that's why scientists continue to be skeptical, and to lose interest.

Abd wrote:

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It is not merely anonymity that is dishonest, it is "impugning the integrity of others,"

Impugning integrity is not automatically (or even usually) dishonest. I criticize the science and the interpretations of observations in cold fusion. It may be insulting to some, but that doesn't mean it's dishonest. It's not possible to criticize someone's science without implicitly criticizing the scientist.

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I have what might be called a strong inference as to Joshua's identity.... The real Joshua has aggressively attacked web sites that exposed him, but that doesn't mean he is "hurt," as in feelings. It means he knows that there is risk to his professional life, that is how I interpret it.

Given you can reach such certainty about my identity without good evidence about something I happen to know you are wrong about, it's not surprising you are so certain about other things with a similar lack of good evidence.

I know about Schroeder from your writings, but I have never participated in wikipedia editing, nor have I read any of Schroeder's writings (unless they were quoted in cold fusion forums, of which I don't remember any specific instances, or of course what ends up in wikipedia articles). If you have some examples of passages or arguments of his that are so similar to mine, I'd be very interested to see them, because I like to see intelligent debate. But I am not, nor have I ever been a student of astrophysics. It's a different guy. Sorry.

Eric Walker wrote:

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I'm saying that if you have Coulomb screening from some temporary non-equilibrium situation, we might see an increase in the rate of alpha decay in any alpha emitters present....

and that this might be part of what's going on in the Fleischmann and Pons heat effect. Heat and helium, and heat correlated with helium. Neither revolutionary nor even hard to imagine. Certainly not a radical departure from existing physics.

It's hard to imagine a vague description like "Coulomb screening from some temporary non-equilibrium situation" without some specifics. Whether it's a radical departure depends on the proposed mechanism, But just stating it does not make it plausible.

And then there's the question of alpha emitters present. Stable nickel and palladium are not alpha emitters, and for them to start emitting alphas would be a radical departure.

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If heat/helium is carefully studied and the study shows that the FP Heat Effect is not generating correlated helium, or if it is close to noise, not a clear correlation, then I don't reject cold fusion, as such, but would retreat drastically from the position I've been working to educate people about, because what I called the *only direct evidence that cold fusion is nuclear in nature" would have been badly damaged. I.e., this would "change my mind." I would not become a Richard Garwin, "There must be some mistake," but I would say, "There could be some mistake."

I shall keep this on file, and in 10 years, when the field will almost certainly be in the same place it was 10 years ago, I'll be interested in your assessment.

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Now, I have only seen Joshua ever accept massive, reliable heat as what would change his mind.

Not massive at all. The sort of thing that would convince skeptics (or me at least) are things that should be easy based on *existing* claims. Like Piantelli's, for example. He claims to generate heat in the tens of watts in Ni-H simply by heating a Ni rod up in a hydrogen atmosphere. If that's all it takes, as he *claims*, then suitable insulation would keep the Ni rod at the necessary temperature from its own heat, without input power at all.

A completely self-contained device generating tens of watts (or even a few watts) for an essentially indefinite period of time would convince nearly all skeptics that a new source of energy had been discovered.

That's why the claims of heat after death would not require any additional research at all. Just isolate an electrode in heat after death and present to skeptics an object that produces heat far beyond its weight in chemical fuel.

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To get to that point could take billions of dollars in research.

To get to the point of convincing skeptics would be chickenfeed if the claims had merit. No one needs a product at home depot. But as mentioned above, if claims already made had merit, unequivocal proof would be easy and cheap.

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I'm proposing and supporting confirmation of the heat/helium ratio with increased precision. Is there some way in which this would change his mind? Are there conditions he would place on this?

Certainly the unequivocal identification of nuclear reaction products (especially if correlated with heat) would be convincing. The only condition is that the identification *is* unequivocal, which I realize is vague. But that's the nature of it. Trying to define unequivocal evidence of flying was vague too, but when the Wrights flew in 1908, skepticism vanished. The same thing would surely be possible with cold fusion too, if it were real.

There is a wide variety of reaction products that have been claimed, and they are *all* marginal. It's comical really. Sensitivity to tritium is a million times better than for heat, and that's where it's claimed -- at levels a million times lower.

Neutron sensitivity is better still, and the levels are likewise, lower still.

Transmutations involving radioactive isotopes would similarly be a million times more sensitive than heat measurements, but conveniently, all the claimed transmutations start and end on stable isotopes, and necessary (radioactive) intermediates are completely absent. And not just any stable isotopes, but only the ones that are common in nature.

Gamma rays again observable at truly trace levels are seen near background, and when spectroscopy is done (Piantelli) show a spectrum characteristic of a calibrant found in any physics lab.

Only helium is observed commensurate with heat, and only helium is present in the background at levels high enough to produce the necessary artifacts.

But again, claims of excess heat in the range of a watt or higher could produce helium at unmistakeable levels without any great expenditures, but the experiments that report helium observe heat at far lower levels, or are not run long enough. The result is that helium levels have never significantly exceeded ambient levels, and the very few refereed publications on helium are equivocal at best, and in some cases negative.

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(Like, it must be done by someone who has never expressed a positive opinion that cold fusion is possible?

Well, this would be automatic if the claims were fully disclosed so others could repeat. If Rossi claimed an unequivocal heat-helium correlation, no, I would remain skeptical. But if he disclosed the method, and Koonin reproduced it, I'd be the first to cheer a new energy age.

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In prior discussion today, I identified a specific false statement, and referred to it again.

If you mean that I claim the DOE panel rejected cold fusion, I have defended that above.

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When one consistently takes one side in a dispute, insistently, for years, always presenting arguments one way, never the other, never admitting inconvenient fact, and even if one always "tells the truth," the sum of it is a lie.

Again, if what you mean by lying is vigorously arguing against your point of view then I am less hurt, because I don't agree that it's lying. Anyway, I don't know what you mean by never admitting inconvenient facts. I don't deny facts. I simply argue that the facts do not point to cold fusion. Moreover, I am no more partisan in this way than you are; I'm just on the other side.

Abd wrote:

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And Cude never says, "Sorry, that was a mistake." He just goes on to new arguments. I've seen this behavior before, it is more common among religious fanatics than scientists.

I'm not going to admit a mistake if I don't believe I've made one. But if I am challenged on a specific point, I will defend it or concede. On the other hand, I *have* challenged many of your specific claims, and I don't recall you ever saying "Sorry, that was a mistake."

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He wrote about my lack of a degree,

But this is as relevant as your frequent boast about sitting with Feynman, if you are going to base your judgement on your own credentials.

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but he has no credentials himself,

...whereas my arguments do not depend on my credentials. I strive to cite easily verifiable facts or observations, to use reason and logic to support an interpretation of them, and to cite credentialed scientists for authoritative support.

Abd wrote:

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(Me:)

In spite of challenges, Joshua has not shown this with actual evidence. He cited the 2004 Doe review as being an example of 17 to 1 convince that the preponderance of the evidence was against cold fusion, when that simply wasn't true.

We all know the importance of cold fusion, if it were real, so the unanimous decision by the DOE panel *not* to allocate money for the field is clear evidence that they considered the preponderance of evidence to be "against" its validity. Indeed, it would be unconscionable to reach such a recommendation if they considered there was even a small chance that it was real.

17 of 18 wrote that the evidence for nuclear reactions in "cold fusion" experiments was not conclusive. For a bold and extraordinary claim like cold fusion, inconclusive evidence in the face of such copious and robust evidence that it should not happen is damning. And that attitude was emphasized by the fact that the DOE has not funded cold fusion research since.

Aside from the DOE panels, I also cited the absence of reports in the most prestigious journals, where it automatically appear if it were taken seriously. And the complaints of Hagelstein and Boss an others that it is difficult to publish in high impact journals, and that there is a stigma associated with the field. All these things are indications of essential dismissal of the field in the mainstream.

We saw in 1989 what it looks like when mainstream scientists just thought LENR might be real. It was huge. And we know that accepted fields of far lessor potential importance (like graphene or nanotubes or superconductivity) generate thousands of papers per year, and show clear measurable progress. Meanwhile cold fusion generates a paper or two per year reporting new experimental claims, and the claims become more modest as the experiments improve.

And I also cited a list of prominent scientists who have expressed skepticism. The best scientists make it their business to be informed about relevant new results, which is why the subject was given such an enthusiastic welcome back in 1989, and why scientists all over the world went to the lab to get in on the revolution. None of them wanted to be left behind. It's probably not a coincidence that all the smartest scientists are skeptical, like Nobel laureates Gell-Mann, Weinberg, Glashow, Lederman, Seaborg, and also distinguished scientists like Close, Lewis, Koonin, Garwin, and Park.

Essentially all scientists working in the energy field (or advocating alternative energy) have rejected cold fusion implicitly. These people include Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox, who advocate hot fusion research, Frank Close, who (like Cox) is passionate about science and society, and Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, who has in fact given cold fusion an audience, and was involved in cold fusion experiments (including helium correlation measurements), but is now working on sub-critical thorium reactors.

Now, I know the response to this is always that these poor laureates don't have the benefit of having seen those all-important web sites and blogs, which hold the secret to utopia. But that's unlikely, because if the evidence were persuasive to even a small fraction of qualified experts, there would be an exponential explosion of interest (like in 1989). Because some scientists *do* see the data, and it is their nature to tell others -- many, many others -- and for a subject like this, to become involved themselves.

And there have been scientists who examined the evidence. Scientists like Ekstrom and Thieberger and Motl and Eriksson and Pomp have all been involved in the ecat debate, and will have looked at those all-important web sites. Ekstrom, e.g., has been active on some Swedish forums, and was involved in an exchange with Krivit, and wrote a critique of the Levi paper, so you can be sure he's seen much of the evidence. Thieberger wrote a rebuttal to the WL theory, so he is likely informed. Other scientists have written recent rebuttals to the WL theory (Cuiche et al and Tennfors), so they're clearly aware of the activity. Garwin was interviewed in 2009, so you can be sure he was made of aware of the claims up to then.

Duncan is an example of someone who was convinced by the evidence, and look at the exposure he's given it, with colloquia at Missouri and even a conference at Missouri, and the establishment of two institutes. Other physicists could not miss this exposure, and yet, the subject fizzles instead of explodes. Missouri had to issue a correction when Duncan claimed sponsorship. They were embarrassed instead of convinced. Much like the physics department at Bologna, which could not have escaped the publicity of Rossi's ecat, but instead of the belief spreading through the department like a virus, they had to issue statements denying formal support.

As you yourself said, scientific literature reflects the view of scientists. Any subject that is not fringe science appears in refereed journals. A subject like cold fusion would appear thousands of times a year if it were taken seriously.

And yet, not counting the special issue, there have been *zero* claims of excess heat in the literature in the last 6 years (according to the Britz bibliography 2010 - 2015), and *zero* papers on the helium correlation in more than 15 years. Even if you include the special issue, it mainly represents reviews of work from before 2010.

Abd wrote:

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First of all, there is a fundamental dishonesty involved in hiding identity.

Thank you for this, Abd. I feel much better about being called a liar if this is the sort of thing you mean by it. The epic poem Beowulf is regarded as one of the most important works of Old English Literature, even though it was written by what you would call a liar (i.e. it's anonymous). You can find a long list of anonymously published significant works in wikipedia.

Anyway, to me, and I suspect to many others, writing anonymously is not dishonest, it's just anonymous.

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Again and again, highly misleading arguments are presented, when they have, in fact, been answered long ago, but he repeats them in new fora as if those responses were never written.

Actually, most of my arguments are responses to your inaccuracies, and they have *not* been answered. I repeatedly point out the inaccuracy of your claims of publication rates both positive and skeptical, your claims of replications of Miles, your claims that the DOE2004 recommended research and that they found evidence for anomalous heat "conclusive", that cold fusion is accepted in the mainstream, and that skepticism is dead, but it is you that continue to repeat them. In contrast, you have not pointed out specific lies on my part.

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A genuine skeptic would present other points of view, would not always be arguing on one side.

You're saying a skeptic of perpetual motion should sometimes argue that it is real?

Abd wrote:

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Krivit's analysis of M4, and his analysis of Violante Laser-3, were corrupt, biased, motivated to find something wrong, and not careful.

Be that as it may, Krivit shows some pretty good evidence for unexplained migration of data points in McKubre's presentations. It is more incriminating than the claims of dishonesty Mallove makes against the MIT group from around 1989. And interestingly, since Krivit's expose', McKubre has stopped presenting the correlation data publicly.

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I have not said that 'deuterons join to form helium and heat. I have written that deuterium is being converted to helium.

This seems to be semantics to me. If deuterium is converted to helium, then deuterons are joining to form helium in my language. The intermediate steps are irrelevant.

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There is a crucial difference. ...

What I personally think is happening doesn't matter, but I do suspect that the reaction is along the lines of what Takahashi, a hot fusion physicist, is working on. An idea would be double-deuterium molecular fusion, occurring in sites that catalyze the formation of a Bose-Einstein or similar condensate.

I don't see a crucial difference. Whether the deuterons join 4 at a time or 2 at a time doesn't change the identities of the starting and finishing particles. And anyway, the need for 4 to fuse at a time and a BEC at high temperature only adds to the miracles required, making it less, not more plausible.

oystla wrote:

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CERN "discovered" excothermic absorption of hydrogen in Nickel, a well known phenomenon.

This is your interpretation of their data. But it is not consistent with the temperature measurement of the outside, which is independent of whether hydrogen is absorbed or not. That's why they conclude no (significant) source of excess energy, but rather local changes in the temperature gradients.

Absorption of hydrogen is exothermic, but given the surface area exposed, and assuming absorption of hydrogen to a fraction of millimeter depth corresponds to only a few kJ of energy, not enough to show up in those measurements. In any case, the reaction kinetics would never increase to some maximum and then remain constant on the scale of hours. It would peak and then decrease rapidly. There is no sign of decrease in the measurements.

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But Nickel can only absorb a certain amount, and after that, no more absorption excess heat. And the absorption period is only lasting for hrs, the period used in CERN.

Hours is more than enough to exclude the chemical heat from Ni-H as an explanation for the temperature increase.

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CERN did not achieve the same temperature respons as Focardi.

It's not identical, but the essential similarity interpreted as excess heat is present.

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In the 1998 paper Focardi did a better documentation of the setup, temperature respons, how to trigger LENR, etc.

And thereby showed how flawed the method of measuring isolated temperatures is. Inexplicably, they did not therefore improve the experiment by implementing calorimetry, but instead continued to use isolated temperature measurement, leaving the interpretation vulnerable to changes in temperature gradients.

It seems utterly pointless to rehash these old experiments like this. They are claiming excess heat, but they refuse to do calorimetry. It's enough to dismiss the results. The lack of subsequent progress -- which would be easy if they really produced tens of watts of excess power -- fully justifies such a dismissal.

oystla wrote:

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Example from my calculation of the Mcubre paper:...Based on weight density, This is half of plutonium 238 power density, and 3-4 times more than gasoline energy density.

Calculations of high energy or power density based on small amounts of alleged fuel suggest higher energy could be achieved with more "fuel", or else the term "density" has no meaning. But simple scaling experiments of the sort that made Lavoisier and Marie Curie famous seem absent in the field of cold fusion.

And an error in measurement of power can lead to any value of energy density at all, depending only on the patience of the observer.

Eric Walker wrote:

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To be clear, I'm not suggesting fusion. I'm suggesting induced alpha decay. I think you could get that from simply changing the Coulomb barrier.

Alpha decay refers to the emission of alpha particles from large radionuclides. We were discussing the decay of excited alpha particles. This involves gamma emission and no Coulomb barrier.

Abd wrote:

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There are weaknesses in the field, and he takes full advantage of them, but his goal is not truth,

Wrong. I am interested in nothing but the truth. But based on the preponderance of evidence, I am nearly certain that the phenomenon or phenomena identified as cold fusion are due to artifacts, delusion, incompetence, and in some cases deception. But my judgement is not relevant. In my arguments, I cite the judgements of respected and credentialed scientists, the vast majority of whom, evidence shows, shares my view of this.

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it is to win a debate, and, under that, to be right.

And yet the difference between skeptics and advocates is that skeptics are happy to describe the sort of evidence that would change our minds. But advocates are unable to do the same.

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His posts may include a dozen or more false claims,

I pointed out many of the specific inaccuracies in your posts, fully referenced. You have often accused me of lying, but have not identified any lies, so that I can defend or concede. I am scrupulously honest by nature, and am deeply hurt by such accusations.

Abd wrote:

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The position that Joshua can express so confidently, hiding behind anonymity, could not get published in a mainstream peer-reviewed journal.

And that's a good thing. Scientific journals are not about expressing skepticism about an essentially moribund field. What would be the point? The field has been largely ignored since the early 90s when most scientists were well aware of it, and judged it to be almost certainly without merit. For it to be considered again, will require some new evidence, not just the sort of repeated arguing about 20-year old results that you are so fond of. But in the last decade or more, the refereed literature about which you have such a high regard, has reported essentially no progress in the field.

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When I say that the preponderance of the evidence shows reality, I mean that researchers can walk into an agency and present evidence with a straight face that is not simply circumstantial, weak, close to noise, like Cude imagines, but that is statistically of high significance, that is direct, and that is already confirmed by multiple labs.

And yet, when they did that with the DOE, they were rejected. And the evidence was weak, erratic close to the noise, and irreproducible. That's why so little of it was published.

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So there is Plan B. Plan B is to go ahead and do that basic recommended research. Plan B, then, has two phases.

Phase I is to confirm, with increased precision, the heat/helium ratio. This is a classic test.

Agreed. The only thing odd about it is why it has taken so long. It's abundantly clear that the DOE was not buying the claims, and yet no one has tried to improve the results to at least the level that it gets published. That alone wouldn't be enough, but it is not a difficult hurdle.

But more than an improved ratio, a more definitive helium level would help, as both Miles and McKubre have said. And as the ERAB panel showed, one watt for one month would produce enough helium in the palladium to swamp detectors.

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Phase II work then studies the phenomenon that has been confirmed by prior work, or by Phase I research.

If phase 1 were to succeed, someone would be talking about it from a podium in Stockholm, and you'd be trampled by researchers and flooded with money. I would not start worrying about phase 2 until that happens. It would open a whole new perspective, but I am nearly certain it will never come to that.

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Cude focuses on the mystery of the reaction happening at all, whereas we know it happens, so that is all old misghegas.

I like how your goal is to prove LENR is real, which is an admission that the proof does not yet exist, and yet you are certain in spite of its absence. That's why LENR looks so much like a religion to skeptical scientists.

What happens if 10 years from now, the field is in the same state it is in now, which is the same state it was in when you jumped on board in 2009, and the same state it was in 2 decades ago? Will you be as confident as you are now?

I am happy to tell you that if solid evidence comes along in the form of unequivocal nuclear reaction products, or unequivocal energy density (from a self-sustained experiment) a hundred times higher than chemical, I will celebrate the new energy source along with the rest of the world. I already did that once, but it was a false alarm.

Abd wrote:

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An assessment of "preponderance of the evidence" is accompanied by an actual study of evidence, not by what is said to a newspaper reporter who calls up some random nuclear physicist for an opinion, when said nuclear physicist has certainly not looked at the evidence.

I was not referring to a random nuclear physicist called by a reporter. I was referring to the DOE panel, which did actually study the evidence, and to peer reviewers for journals and granting agencies, who do the same.

But really, the evidence you fall back on is Miles, which was challenged in the literature, and for which replication has failed to meet the modest standard of peer review.

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The evidence for cold fusion does not involve the tools of nuclear physics.

Calorimetry and mass spectrometry are both common tools of the physicist. And physicists are certainly sufficiently educated to understand them, having been exposed to them a good deal more than you have.

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Standard pseudoskeptical rant. If it's real, how come it's not in Home Depot yet? Well, perhaps because the effect is not understood,

That was not my rant. It was merely that the phenomenon should be obvious. Superconductivity, HTSC, and fire were all perfectly obvious decades or centuries before they were understood.

And nuclear reactions, with its high energy density and the ability to detect products at trace levels, should be more obvious than most phenomena. They were identifying nuclear reactions a century ago, when scarcely anything was known about the nucleus, let alone understood.

But cold fusion is not just non-obvious, there is no progress at all. The results are all over the map, showing no consistency with any sort of measurable parameters. Real effects invariably become more manifest with a search of parameter space and improvement in technique, even if no mechanism is identified. Artifacts become less so. The history of cold fusion fits the latter more closely.

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beyond what I've been saying here, and without knowing exactly how to create reliable reactions,

But that's what I refer to. No progress has been made in knowing exactly how to create reliable reactions. It is inconceivable that scientists would not learn this whether it was understood or not, just by searching parameter space. And for a nuclear reaction to go unidentified for 27 years, 50 years after Rutherford is similarly implausible. It fits artifacts far more plausibly.

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that also continue reliably, the design of what would produce what Cude demands (high heat, reliably)

No, one watt reliably would produce reaction products that could not be mistaken, and would result in a Nobel prize. But even that small demand eludes the field.

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requires major research,

You're making that up because there has been no success with the research so far. But if cold fusion is not real, then major research will not be enough.

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whereas even the modest research recommended by both DoE reviews wasn't funded,

The DOE did not recommend modest research. If it had done that, then it would have allocated funds for the purpose. The panel was formed to decide whether special funding should be allocated for the field. They were unanimously *negative* on this question.

Here's what the 2004 panel wrote: "The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for [lexicon]low energy nuclear reactions[/lexicon]."

It is the mandate of funding agencies to entertain proposals for research. That recommendation does not mean they recommended research -- only that if good proposals could be generated, funding agencies should consider them. It was a sop to the applicants.

If anything the first DOE panel was more sympathetic, writing: "The Panel is sympathetic toward modest support for carefully focused and cooperative experiments within the present funding system."

But still, "within the present system", means proposals should be submitted, not funding should be provided.

And anyway, isn't the lack of funding you complain about an indication that the mainstream considers the preponderance of evidence to suggest cold fusion is not real.

Abd wrote:

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Cude is, as usual, and as expected for his age and culture, rude.

Well, I've never called anyone a lying sack of s***, as you have.

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Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Ah, it's good to see the rules here have tempered your crudeness. At least I think that's a step up from a sack of s***. But no, it's not a lie. In fact , you implicitly concede the truth of it when you complain about the rejection cascade, and why the field receives too little funding etc.

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What is the "relevant experience and expertise?

How can you be so certain it's a lie, when you consider the terms of the claim subjective? Relevant experience and expertise in this context means anyone active in research with some post-graduate interest in and training relevant to energy and or nuclear reactions.

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And Joshua calls my credentials into question. What are his?

Yours are relevant because you are making unsupported assertions. Mine are not, because I cite easily verifiable observations, and simple logic, and when I appeal to expert judgement, it is not mine (or not only mine) but that of credentialed experts.

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Evidence that this is not just a vague claim?

This is supported in great detail in my posts. The simplest is of course the judgement of the expert panels enlisted by the DOE, but also the absence of the subject in high impact journals, and the complaints from the likes of Hagelstein and Boss about how difficult it is to publish in such journals, indicating that peer reviewers for such journals generally reject cold fusion papers.

We saw in 1989 what the world would be like if scientists only *thought* there might be something to cold fusion. For it to be ignored as it is now is only consistent with a judgment that the evidence indicates it is almost certainly not real.

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Heat/helium is reproducible.

No, it's not, which is why no quantitative replication of Miles has met the modest standard of peer review, and why the mostly unpublished results Storms cited as replications are in fact all over the map, with some showing anti-correlation, and some failing to observe definitive helium. I've covered this in some detail in previous posts, which presumably you haven't read yet, and maybe never will, and in even greater detail over on ECN.

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That is, in fact, the opinion of experts, as covered in peer-reviewed journals, which is how we know what "scientists think."

But helium replications are not published under peer review, except by secondary references in reviews of conference proceedings. And there haven't even been conference reports of heat-helium experiments in more than a decade.

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Would it be revolutionary for electric arcing between insulated metal grains, or surplus electrons on a grain, to alter the charge density significantly for a brief period of time? Only a small change in the Coulomb barrier is needed to alter the tunneling rates for the decay of alpha emitters.

Things like pyroelectric fusion have been observed, but yes, it would be revolutionary in the context of cold fusion experiments to produce that kind of effect, and simply changing the Coulomb barrier, as we know from muon catalyzed fusion has no effect on the nature of the nuclear reaction.

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If the decay rates were increased by something controlled in the experiment, it would not be surprising for them to die down shortly afterwards.

What do you mean by die down? Changing the decay rate (also a miracle, as you say) does not change the nature of the decay. It means the gamma emission rate would be slower, not less energetic.