Posts by kirkshanahan

part II.

Sh.: "But to be called a “good” scientist, you have to do what Feynman has been quoted on, namely, you have to bend over backwards to prove you are wrong. "
O: “Not sure what Feynman quote this refers to,”

Go here https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman and search for the quote starting “There is one feature I notice”

O:“this is excactly what F&P did from the start in1983 until they ran out of money in the mid nineties.”

No they assumed since they knew *electrolytic* recombination at the electrodes was small, nothing else happened. They weren’t diligent enough, and that extends to the whole group of people claiming F&P cells give excess heat. Especially after my 2002 publication.

O: “Feynman did say something Else also: and this is for all talkers that love to critisize, but don't bother to get their hands dirty and do some real Laboratory research themselves: “All the time you're saying to yourself, 'I could do that, but I won't,' — which is just another way of saying that you can't.” ― Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character”

Actually (a) I can’t because my management won’t pay to build a safe apparatus, but (b) I don’t have to. As an observer supplying critical review, all I am required to do is point out the problem. It’s up to the CFers to do the work to prove my comments are irrelevant. It would be embarrassing if that happened without them having to do some lab work, which is exactly what they have tried to do so far, and have claimed success at (incorrectly).

Sh.:"It appears to be potentially present in _every_ calorimetric F&P cell study. "
O: “No, As proven the opposite is rather the answer:”

Yes, they haven’t proved a thing…

O:"Like Miles of China Lake, [snip]”

I assert here that I have looked at *ALL* of Miles work, and it fits the CCS perfectly. Now go prove I’m wrong.

Sh.:"But instead, they invent strawmen arguments to avoid doing that."
O: “No, there's no strawmen in the paper. Only strong evidence proving their case.”

You don’t seem to be able to comprehend what you read. Once more…I said systematic, they said I said random. That is wrong. So, fraud or incompetence, which do you like?

Sh.:"Sixth, they claim that looking at two different calorimeter type will ‘prove’ the CCS is irrelevant."
O:”Correct, as explained above.”

No, incorrect, y= mx + b

Sh.:"....the nonsense continues for the rest of the paper...."
O: "He employs the calibration constant shift hypothesis (CCSH), unquantified, with the logic that if this can happen in one experiment or calorimeter type, then it must be presumed to happen in all.”

Yes, as long as the ELECTROLYSIS CELL DESIGN isn’t changed….doesn’t matter what type of calorimeter you use to measure it, the heat loss paths are always concentrated in the top of the cell. I once recommended they turn their cells upside down, so all the feed throughs would enter through the electrolyte. I suppose they all thought I was nuts. Doing that would require a small amount of redesign to move the recombination catalyst or gas vent line.

O: “To dispel this notion, the excess heat results obtained using two completely different types of calorimeters will be discussed.....”

See above (y = mx +b)

O: "Point being: It would be nearly impossible to obtain these conclusions (excess power effect up to 30%,”

Power in via constant current source = current times voltage (I * V), thermoneutral voltage defines how much recomb. you can get: Pr = I * Vth. 30% excess power just means that you have ~1/3 of the Pin = Pex, but there is the complication that the calibration of poor calorimeters magnifies the signal, so that can actually cause a 30% signal for, I don’t know, maybe a 20% recombination power.

O: “excess power of 1 to 5 W/cm3 Pd volume, “

meaningless, that’s just the Pex divided by the sample volume. It’s actually very clear the FPHE is a surface effect, since Pt doesn’t hydride (i.e. no bulk H to speak of), so the use of “W/cm3” is scientifically misleading.

O:“long electrolysis times from 6 to 14 days before the onset of the excess power for Pd rod cathodes, “

That is the observation alright. Why wouldn’t my putative chemical mechanism include that? It *probably* (note I said *probably*) is the time required to deposit an adequate amount of contaminant from solution to form the special active state. CFers say the same thing except they stick “nuclear” in there.

O:“threshold current density of 100 mA/cm2 or higher to achieve excess heat, “

I don’t know, so you’ve given me I. What’s V? What’s the cal eqn.? Did the 100 mA/cm2 time period coincide with when the active state had formed? Typical lack of detail that makes it impossible to interpret…

O:“only 30% of the experiments produced excess power,”

don’t know *specifically* why. Do they know why those 30% did? I think not. So this comment is just hot air. They have the same failing.

O:“dependence on source of the palladium)”

What is the rest of the story? What times, what contaminants, what loadings (since loading Pd produces dislocations which punch out to the surface forming high energy steps and corners, a process that will be impacted by many experimental and compositional variables). More hot air.

O:“if the excess power was due to Shanahan’s random CCSH.”

I never proposed, invented, created, etc., a “random Shanahan CCSH”.

O: “Furthermore, SRI obtained very similar conclusions using a totally different type of calorimeter over this same time period.”

Y = mx + b

Sh.:"Bottom line, I presented enough ‘evidence’ to warrant a legitimate consideration of the whole “CCSH” scenario."
O: “And the scientists considered it and proved your hypothesis wrong ( or highly unlikely at best)” Nope.O: ”More importantly "The SRI calorimeter was based upon mass flow in which the thermal efficiency reflects the fraction of the total heat removed by convective flow....""A Mass Flow Calorimeter designed with high thermal efficiency, Φ, can operate as a first principles device with no calorimeter specific calibrations. Nevertheless, the calorimeter was periodically calibrated using an internal resistor." “

No calibration constants” means they are saying that for a calibrated Pin, Pout is *exactly* equal to it. This is just assuming m and b = 1 and 0. In fact no calorimeter is perfect, they all have some sort of penetration of the boundary that provides heat loss pathways. The only question is how much error this produces in Pout. The reanalysis of Storms data shows that even with a 98% efficient calorimeter you still can get what appear to be massive signals that are actually artifacts due to a CCS. 98% is getting to be about as good as you can get....

Sh.:" Again, they aren’t bothering to understand. "
O: “Shanahan, I believe the ten scientists understood your hypothesis very well. They just found it too light. Get over it.”

Oystia what is it about (random != systematic) that you don’t understand. I proposed a systematic effect. They claimed it was a random one. At the least, this shows they are incompetent. The alternative is to think they are fraudulent (i.e. doing it deliberately).
[snip]

O: “Again you misunderstand, it's very very unlikely that different types of calorimetry would have a common failures. And some commons could just not happen as shown above.”

That is the terrible fact about SYSTEMATIC effects…they are pervasive and unrecognized until pointed out (and I guess accepted clearly).

O: “Why not just say clearly what you think: "they are a lying, incompetent and dissillusioned dreamers living a fantasy, a bunch of wannabe scientists."

I don’t actually have to say it for astute readers, it is obvious they are EITHER incompetent or fraudulent or they are so highly biased towards nuclear they can’t emotionally accept a mundane explanation, and react accordingly.

O: “BUT AGAIN: "Since the CCSH has no reason for bias in sign it may equally increase or decrease the measured output and thus excess power.”

wrong, see above O: “In no case that we are aware of have significant “negative excess” power been observed in calorimetry experiments except in transient departures from the steady state. Unless a reason is given for asymmetry in the hypothesized mechanism (or any mechanism given and quantified at all), then the CCSH logically fails. "

reason given, the NON-RANDOM, SYSTEMATIC CCS is the likely culprit, but that awaits a consensus from CF researchers who actually go back and honestly look for it in their data.

O: “For more details, ref. lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MarwanJanewlookat.pdf”
The very paper he has been quoting from…handled above.

O: “Also Edmund Storms published and answer to Shanahans rather strange critisism:lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEcommentonp.pdf”

Interesting story. When Storms first put out his data in January 2000, both I and Scott Little of EarthTech Int’l reported that he had a strong negative feedback in his data. To his credit, Storms redid his grounding setup and reran the experiments, posting the data in February 2000. I stayed in contact with him for a couple of years. First I told him about the CCS issue, he ignored it. Then he announced he would publish the findings. I told him I would then have to issue a paper on the reanalysis. He published and so did I (after two years of arguing with reviewers and editors). We continued the discussion. I think we exchanged long emails probably at least 50 times. He never could come up with reasons why my ideas were wrong that held up to scrutiny. Eventually we broke it off. (Some of this discussion made it into sci.physics.fusion posts.) Then 4 years after I publish he finally comments. For fun you might ask around as to why he did. What he publishes though is all the points he made in our email discussion. So, I published mine, and the two papers were printed ‘back-to-back’ as they say. *But*, Storms was writing a book at the time (“The Science of [lexicon]Low Energy Nuclear Reactions[/lexicon]”), published in 2007. In it he comments on my 2002 paper, and references the paper you note above and claims that that paper answered all my objections! What he *failed* to do was mention *my* rebuttal, published as the next paper after his. What do you think…do you think he really missed my rebuttal? (Hint: Journal editors swap papers between authors in this kind of situation.)

Oystia wrote a lot of stuff. Here’s a few comments (I’m trying to be as short as I can with this folks, but this is a long one…): (Using O: to mark his comments)

O: Let's first inform that these 10 'authors' are not any average citizens, but recognised and competent scientists where most have been involved in CF research since early days:"

I listed the names in my earlier post. It’s good you recognize them. It brings out the level of self-deception that is going on.

Sh.:"First, they make a big deal of adding an “H” to my acronym."
O: The ' H' here means "Hypothesis". [snip]

No, the critique of Storms work occurs on 3 levels. First is the simple algebraic reanalysis of the data (i.e. back-calculation) that showed minor shifts in the cal constants could zero out the signals. In and of itself, that’s really all that was needed. It simply implies a small instability in the calibration (the CCS). Researchers who want to claim excess heat need to prove that it doesn’t come from a CCS. Again, nothing hypothetical about that. Mathematically it works.

The object then is to explain how such shifts occur in a reasonable fashion. This is done at two levels (second and third of the 3). The second level is to recognize the difference in heat capture efficiency in the two zones of the cell/calorimeter. Again algebra will suffice to prove that moving heat from one zone to the other can cause a calibration constant change (left up to reader), if they are of different heat capture efficiencies. Thirdly, there needs to be a chemical mechanism to get the change in heat distribution. This mechanism is assuredly less certain than the prior two issues, especially if you insist on knowing all details, but in general, producing recombination heat in the electrolyte will do it. My proposal gives a little more detail than that, but not much. This is what the CFers have universally attacked, wrongly I might add, but even if I am wrong, the CCS is still a problem, we just don’t know why

Sh.:"CCS is a specific type of error, namely a calibration constant shift. It’s not a hypothesis, it is a specific potential error."
O: “You misunderstand. CCS is a specific type of error yes, but related the the CF experiments, it would be considered a hypothesis "

See above.

O: “that could explain excess heat. And the scientists evaluate and explains why it should be considered not possible (of course nothing is impossible, like the earth being flat and we are all holograms in a 2D world).”

No, they *try* to do that and fail. The 10 authors don’t understand what I wrote to the extent that they completely misrepresent it. See below for comments about Storms independent attempt to rebut.

O: ”Point being: "He reasons by syllogism from particular examples (often misunderstood) to general conclusions that clearly cannot apply in all of the examples of anomalous heat production observed in a wide variety of experimental configurations involving different kinds of calorimeters, e.g. isoperibolic, Seebeck, and mass flow"

Sigh… OK, Storms uses mass flow. Cal equation is: P out = k * Cp * flow rate * temp diff + constant. I showed the CCS is definitely possible there. I used linear regression analysis, which generalized the equation to y = m * x + b ( x = flow * temp diff).

Isoperibolic cal eqn.: Pout = k * temp diff (maybe “+ constant” in some cases). Looks like y = mx + b to me.

Seebeck eqn.: Pout = K * summed voltage (usually no additive constant). Looks like y = mx + b to me with b=0.

So, what is the difference in these systems that causes the other types not to have the CCS problem???

(Note: The CCS is a generic problem with any calibrated analytical technique. If the system is unstable and shifts steady state, each different steady state needs different calibration constants.)

Sh.:"Second, they say that there is “no experimental evidence that it occurs”. That is just misleading. "
O: “Really? REALLY? Shanahan does not specify mechanisms by which a calorimeter thermal calibration can change in such a way that, just during the periods of putative excess thermal power production, the calibration constant is different from its initial and final calibrated value. “

Yes, I don’t spell out every possible scenario. It’s relatively simple though, and ends up sounding a lot like what CFers talk about, except the word ‘nuclear’ is excised. Without special precautions, the normal result obtained is no FPHE (Fleischmann-Pons-Hawkins Effect) in an electrolysis cell. However, with time and the right conditions, an active surface state forms (of unknown nature at this point) that seems to either cause the retention of H2 bubbles for longer on the electrode surface or allow the more facile joining of H2 and O2 bubbles, or both, whereupon the clean, dry surface under the bubble catalyzes the standard H2 + O2 reaction, which can be explosive in the right conditions, but in any case is a very fast reaction. Apparently high surface area and/or high energy surfaces (steps and edges) facilitate this increased adhesion. Alternatively, contaminate deposition might cause the same thing, or maybe it’s all of the above. The algebra of the two zone model will clearly show that the movement of heat formation to the electrode vicinity (higher heat detection efficiency zone) will produce a larger than correct heat signal, thus all experiments are expected to yield positive-going excess heat signals of varying amounts from the FPHE, since calibrations are routinely performed with no active FPHE or by using Joule heaters, which singly can not simulate the FPHE.
[had to clip here]

Jed R wrote a bunch of stuff:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (to unsophisticated observers).

Quote from padam73

I would be interested to know your opinion on what could be this real effect. Chemical? Electrochemical? Thanks.

Easiest thing to do is download the original manuscript of the paper that was eventually published in 2002 in slightly different form, at http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ShanahanKapossiblec.pdf. The content is unchanged from the published version in Thermo. Acta.

Briefly: The paper refers to F&P electrolysis cells only, but the concepts will apply to other types of experiments in some cases. What I find it that all the CFers (except F&P) use a simple calibration technique where the signal from the calorimeter is converted to the output power via a calibration equation appropriate for the type of calorimeter. Usually they are linear equations, sometimes quadratic. The larger percentage of the time. calibration is done with a Joule heater (a resistor immersed in the electrolyte that has controlled currents run through it, producing known amounts of heat). You'll never detect the error I found with that heater. You have to use electrolysis current to calibrate, then you can see the effect.
But electrolytic calibration is universally done when no CF effect is active. In either case, the calibration equation determined that way is applied to the data from experimental runs globally, i.e. one equation for all.

What I discovered by back-calculation is that if you vary the constants a little (+/- 2.5% or so) you can wipe out the signals. So then I came up with a *reasonable* mechanism to do that which involves recombination occurring on the electrode surface(s) under the electrolyte. (Szpack, et al, have taken pictures of this happening and published them. They called the bright spots in an IR camera image 'mini-nuclear explosions though. I think they are just H2 + O2 explosions.) I proposed a chemical/physical mechanism to do that, and that is what has been constantly attacked by the CFers. But it really explains a lot, and doesn't require unbelivably large shifts to get it., 1-3% is not unusual at all in chemistry experiments. In any case, the math has never been questioned, so if I'm wrong on what causes the shift, then so be it. The point is that tiny shifts in the calibration constants eliminate the signals.

The shift causes apparent excess heat signals because the calorimeter is not a homogeneous lump, it has structure and that structure has an impact. In all cases, the electrolysis cells have penetrations through the _top_ of the cell for electric current and thermocouples. These feedthroughs are heat loss pathways. I postulate that a larger fraction of the heat produced in the gas space is lost than from the heat produced in the electrolyte. So when recombination moves from the gas space (in a closed cell) to the electrode surface, more of it gets counted, and thus you get an excess heat signal. Open cells are similar in that the electrolysis heat produced in them is like that of a resistor and (normally) only appears in the electrolyte.

So to evaluate if your CF signal is real in an F&P-type cell, you need to show it exceeds this type of error. To do that you have to report power in as a function of time, and the calibration equation and all relevant variables, also as a function of time. There are *reasonable* limits on how big the error can be, but they are design dependent, so you have to have specific info on your specific cell. No CFer has ever done that. Storms came the closest by posting his run data to the Internet, which is where I snagged it. But looking at others' work, I can't rule out the CCS problem. In theory they could if they reviewed their data....but they never do.

Oh yes...the F&P case. They originally used a computer model because they used an open cell, and the electrolyte level continuously changes in that cell, so the resistance changes, meaning the power changes at constant current. People seemed to get confused by this, but all they were doing is standard, run-of-the-mill dynamic chemical process modeling, which is one of the things I do sometimes. The 'complicated' equation they used is just the differential equation for energy balance, and it uses variable parameters which they fit in calibration runs. The biggest problem they have is they attribute apparent excess heat signals to CF instead of to an inadequate model. I go over the inadequacies in that review report I wrote that I referenced in an earlier post. Mark Gibbs at one time posted the report on Google groups so you might be able to find it. But the main problem remains the same - their model doesn't allow for the effect of heat distribution shifts. They use a lumped parameter approach to the calorimeter/cell when the need to use a two zone model at a minimum (finite element approach would probably be more accurate, but a lot harder to implement).

Hope this helps...

For those won’t don’t know, oystia has clipped part of the famous J. Env. Mon. paper by the 10 authors that summarizes their ‘proof’ that my ‘normal chemistry’ explanation of excess heat is wrong. Most of the problems I alluded to are present in this subsection, so let’s take a quick look.

First, they make a big deal of adding an “H” to my acronym. Here’s what I said to define that acronym in my 4th paper, which is what the 10 authors are responding to:

“In 2002, this author published a reanalysis(2) of laboratory data claimed to have shown unequivocal excess heat(3) (or more correctly, power), wherein a previously unrecognized systematic error was demonstrated to have the capacity to explain the observations without invoking a nuclear reaction. This error was termed the ‘calibration constant shift’ (CCS).”

So, to be explicit, the CCS is a specific type of error, namely a calibration constant shift. It’s not a hypothesis, it is a specific potential error. The idea that it is present in the F&P cell is the hypothesis, which was tested in the 2002 paper by reanalyzing real data assuming no excess heat instead of assuming things that produce an excess heat signal.

Second, they say that there is “no experimental evidence that it occurs”. That is just misleading. The experimental evidence is in the data, but the data produces different conclusions depending upon which set of assumptions you use to analyze it. Assume you are absolutely correct by assuming a simple lumped linear calibration and you get ‘excess heat’. Assume you have a more complex situation and you get no excess heat but a systematic shift that points to real chemistry/physics. So what do you do then? You go back to the lab with a redesigned experimental setup designed to determine which set of assumptions is correct. You DON’T sit around and use strawmen arguments to avoid doing the work.

Third, the 10 authors then talk about the level of detail I did or did not present. Bottom line, I presented enough ‘evidence’ to warrant a legitimate consideration of the whole “CCSH” scenario. Everything they say I did not present is ‘left to the reader’ to figure out, and it isn’t hard to do so. And there are responses to each of their concerns that would be obvious if they were giving the alternative I present a fair shake.

Fourth, they say I apply the “CCSH” unquantified. That makes no sense, the whole 2002 paper was about a quantitative reanalysis of real F&P cell data recorded by E. Storms. Again, they aren’t bothering to understand.

Fifth, they then say: “with the logic that if this can happen in one experiment or calorimeter type, then it must be presumed to happen in all”. Replace the ‘must’ with ‘should’ and the sentence would be correct. As should be obvious, I can’t force anyone to do anything. But to be called a “good” scientist, you have to do what Feynman has been quoted on, namely, you have to bend over backwards to prove you are wrong. Only by doing that can you convince others your ‘anomalous’ results are legitimate. Up until I published my “CCSH” thesis in 2002, no one realized this problem might exist. It appears to be potentially present in _every_ calorimetric F&P cell study. In principle if the CF researchers were good scientists, they would have all the data in files and notebooks and it would be a trivial effort to check if a CCS could have produced their excess heat signals. If they found, no, it wasn’t possible or no, the signal is too large for that, then progress would have been made. But instead, they invent strawmen arguments to avoid doing that. (Note that they would have to document these negative conclusions with the real data, not just claim the CCS wasn't there.)

Sixth, they claim that looking at two different calorimeter type will ‘prove’ the CCS is irrelevant. But again they fail to understand. _*All*_ calorimeters are calibrated in use. The idea is that there is a physical/chemical process that turns on and forces the use of a different calibration curve to maintain accuracy. If one doesn’t change the equation, accuracy is lost, and artificial signals result. It doesn’t matter what type of calorimeter you are using, if the physical process occurs (which is a shift in the heat distribution within the closed cell for example) then you need new calibration constants.

So that is just the first paragraph…the nonsense continues for the rest of the paper, but I doubt people here want a continued blow-by-blow. I will just point out that in 2002 I wrote:

“This paper delineates a fundamental systemic error possible with regression analysis calibration methodology…”

In 2005 I wrote: “Uncontrolled steady-state shifts produce a non-random noise component in the studies.”

In 2006, I actually *plotted* the systematic data in a Figure, and in 2010 I wrote:

“wherein a previously unrecognized systematic error was demonstrated” and “The CCS is a systematic error” (all quotes from my papers)

Yet the 10 authors talk about “Shanahan’s random CCSH”. How can one believe anything that these cold fusioneers claim when they can’t even get what they are criticizing right?

To finish up, the “10” say: “It would be nearly impossible to obtain these conclusions if the excess power was due to Shanahan’s random CCSH.” If I had proposed a _random_ problem, they would probably be right. But I proposed a _systematic_ (i.e. non-random) problem, and all of their evidence that they just cited to prove their random hypothesis wrong fits my systematic CCS proposal perfectly. Thanks for making my point for me “10”!

Oystia wrote a lot of wrong stuff that needs correcting…. I will preface his/her comments with “O:”

O:” I notice Kirk Shanahan has listed his CF critique papers in a post on this thread (A software programmer for Westinghouse Savannah River Company).”

No…but in my 32 year professional career I have done quite a bit of coding, both in the arena of dynamic chemical process modeling (think SPEEDUP and Aspen Custom Modeler) and statistical process/quality control (I automated a control charting process for analytical laboratories)…so I expect that’s why someone decided I *must* be a programmer…ROFL. (Hint: Try using Google Scholar.)

WSRC was a consortium that formed to manage what is now known as the Savannah River Site (SRS) in 1989 after DuPont left. That consortium has been replaced two or three times over. I currently am managed by a consortium called “Savannah River Nuclear Solutions”, which can easily change each time DOE rebids the management contract. The SRS is one of two sites that used to make plutonium, enriched uranium, and tritium for the US nuclear weapons program. I actually work in the Savannah River National Laboratory in a group that supports the tritium process. I am a PhD physical chemist, currently the senior chemist that deals with metal hydride materials (like Pd). I’ve been doing that since 1995, which is when I also started looking into CF. I also had 3 years experience at Sandia National Laboratory in the groups that dealt with explosives, so I know a little about that too, which is relevant to the CR-39 issue.

O:”And in his critisism, - Shanahan chooses to ignore the preponderance of reliable scientific evidence for nuclear effects in LENR that has accumulated since 1989.”

You might want to try to prove that instead of just shooting off what others in the field have told you. If fact I seriously doubt anyone on this blog has read more than I have. And I folded all of that into my analyses and critiques…

O:”- Shanahan applies highly selective criteria to cherry-pick certain experimental data with potential deficiencies which are vulnerable to attack. He uses these as distractions to cast doubt on the entire large body of credible LENR data that lies outside the very limited subset on which he focuses his narrow lens.”

No, I fold _*all*_ of the available data into my analyses. Of course it’s difficult to write comments to every single cold fusion paper ever written, so I settled for responding to some select ones, that’s true. Particularly ones that (a) had actual real world data available (likes Storms’ ICCF9 (or was it ICCF8 ) paper, (b) papers that claim to present an overview of the field (like Marwan and Krivit’s), or (c) denigrate my work in the literature (like the Szpak, Fleischmann, et al 2004 paper or the Storms 2006 one.

O: “Anyhow, scientists in LENR community has answerred his critique, proven his mistakes and his misunderstandings. This paper was issued in 2010. “

Really? You think so? Did you actually read my papers and their response? I think the answer to that is “No” or you would realize what a fiasco Hagelstein, McKubre, Storms, et al made.

O:”Part of conclusion:"Indeed, peer-reviewed published papers and conference presentations have long disproved Shanahan’s chemical/mechanical suppositions regarding LENR observations. Furthermore, contrary to Shanahan’s assertions, the observed effects are often several orders of magnitude larger than the measurement errors. For example, in a variety of2experiments, the solid-state nuclear track detector background was less than1track/mm whereas the signal exceeded 10,000 tracks/mm2!”

Oh, so many errors, all in one place….

No one has disproved my thesis on why apparent excess heat signals are artifacts of the data analysis process. Cite one you think does and I’ll either point you to where I addressed that before or do a quick analysis of it now. CFers do however refuse to understand my simple thesis and thus continue to this day to repeat the mistake that can be tracked all the way back to F&P. (This is explicitly for F&P electrolysis cells folks, but the ideas brought out in the study can lead to directed questions in the other types of CF experiments that also go unanswered.)

CFers also routinely claim their measurement error is equivalent to the baseline noise level of their calorimeters (c. 40 mW). This is just one component of the measurement error and it is probably the least important one. The real error is delineated by the Calibration Constant Shift (CCS) idea, and is normally equivalent to the size of the supposed excess heat signal.

Of course CR-39 tracks are not milliwatts, so we’ve switched gears here, another typical CFer tactic. The plates that show those levels of tracks were placed in the electrolyte during runs. Plates placed outside the cell show much lower counts. When you look at those plates, you also have to start looking into the way the experiments are run and the literature comments (from CFers) about how easy it is to get lots of tracks from nothing…well, not nothing, but not charged particles like Szpak, et al claim.

At the 10k+ counts level, there is a side effect of the chemical mechanism I proposed in 2002 that can produce all of those tracks without nuclear particles being there at all…you ought to read and understand my papers.

O:"Excess heat production in Szpak and Mosier-Boss’ electrolytic Pd/D co-deposition system was first measured by Miles and then replicated by Letts.”

As I said in my earlier post, there is a real effect at work in F&P cells, but it is not nuclear. But it *does* produce artefactual excess heat signals. So anyone doing F&P-type experiments has a good chance to see this real phenomenon. The problem they have is they keep trying to control this putative nuclear reaction that isn’t there instead of the chemical/physical conditions that would theoretically give the effect. So many times, their control does nothing, but sometimes it appears to do something by coincidence.

O:“Kitimura and Ahern have both replicated excess heat from Arata and Zhang’s gas-loaded Pd/ZrO2 nanostructures."

Again, there is real chemistry going on here. I actually wrote a comment on Kitimura’s work showing why it was unlikely that he got what he claimed, and instead got ‘standard’ hydride chemistry, and submitted it to Phys. Letters (PL). It went through the review process, and I got the comments back plus the Kitimura response. However, the reviewer recommended not publishing it because it wasn’t a fit subject for PL and I didn’t have any real data anyway. *But* the subject had already been opened by the first publication *and* while I didn’t need new data to comment on a paper, I actually *did* show a Pd-H isotherm from nanoparticulate Pd on alumina that illustrated spillover.

But, I said OK, and redid the comment, deleting the data, and resubmitted. I never got an official response from PL, just some words from the editor that he didn’t want to continue the debate in his journal. I protested that too, to no avail. (SRNL-SRI-2009-00616, Comments on “Anomalous effects in charging of Pd Powders with high density hydrogen isotopes”, Kirk L. Shanahan, October, 2009 – check OSTI)

After that and the experience with the 2010 publication, I gave up on trying to publish in the scientific literature. Just takes too much time for too little return.

Oh yes…the fiasco. If you had read my 4 journal publications, you would have noted that I clearly label the artifact-causing effect I have mentioned as “non-random” and “systematic”. Yet the 10 authors of the 2010 paper you reference go to great lengths to disprove the “random” Shanahan CCS(H). Look it up on Wikipedia, that’s known as a ‘strawman’ argumentative tactic, and is a known fallacious logic technique. You can’t prove a point with a fallacious technique, but they certainly try to pass it off as if they did (which is also part of the ‘strawman’ approach). Now, these authors are: J. Marwan, M. C. H. McKubre F. L. Tanzella P. L. Hagelstein, M. H. Miles, M. R. Swartz, Edmund Storms, Y. Iwamura, P. A. Mosier-Boss, and L. P. G. Forsley. And they had to resort to wrong logic to attempt to rebut my comments! Sad state of affairs isn’t it.

Once I saw this, I asked the editor of J. Env. Monitoring if I could write a reply, but he said no. I then asked him if not, wasn’t he going to make these authors correct their clear mistake, but he again said no. So I was again left with no recourse but to get the word out myself. Meanwhile, they all have crowed extensively about how they have ‘answered’ all my criticisms. I think not…

So no, oystia, no one has ever adequately addressed my comments. That’s primarily because my comments are right and the CFers can't imagine anything but a nuclear reaction.

(So Eric, do you think I am the same guy?)

"Thomas Clarke wrote: "F&P's open cell results were subject to the artifacts that you well know, which is why replication led to most of the claimed excess disappearing . . .""

Actually Thomas I don't think hardly anyone ever retracted claims except for a couple of cases. I recall researchers at Georgia Tech did so. Can't recall the others....

Jed Replied:
"That is incorrect. There are no examples of that in the peer-reviewed published literature as far as I know. Which papers do you have in mind? What artifacts? An open cell would only cause a problem if recombination were not measured or accounted for. It was measured carefully, and in any case, the excess heat greatly exceeded limits of recombination in many tests."

"A Systematic Error in Mass Flow Calorimetry Demonstrated", K.L. Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta 387 (2002) 95 - shows an error in Edmund Storms Pt CF work

Comments on "Thermal behavior of polarized Pd/D electrodes prepared by co-deposition", Kirk L. Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta, 428(1-2), (2005), 207 - shows the claims by Szpack and Fleishmann are unsupportable

Reply to "Comments on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explainanomalous heat generated by cold fusion", E. Storms, Thermochim. Acta,2006", Kirk L. Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta, 441 (2006) 210 - shows the flaws in the arguments by Storms used to ignore prior comments

Comments on “A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction research”, Kirk L. Shanahan, J. of Environ. Monitoring, 12, (2010), 1756-1764 - shows several errors on the part of cold fusioneers

non-peer reviewed - SRNL-STI-2012-00678, "A Realistic Examination of Cold Fusion Claims 24 Years Later
A whitepaper on conventional explanations for‘cold fusion’", Kirk L. Shanahan, Oct. 22, 2012

and lets not forget the papers by W. Brian Clarke (peer reviewed) showing SRI messed up their He analyses....

In reply to Jed R.:

No, F&P drew down the ire of the scientific world because they claimed to have found a way to "infinite energy", but no one could reproduce it except by random chance. When the attempted replicators tried to get more info to do a better job at their replication, they were stonewalled with 'proprietary information' claims. People got hacked off at them over that and many over-reacted, true, but you're not supposed to publish unless you're certain what you report is easily replicated by those 'skilled in the art', especially 'publication by the press'.

For the record, I believ they found a real effect, it just has nothing to do with nuclear reactions.

What is being described in the IE article is simple gas loading of Ti. The temperature spike is caused by the heat of formation of titanium hydride being released as the hydrogen is absorbed. This is standard, everyday hydride chemistry. For ex., see J. E. Klein, Fusion Sci. & Tech. 41 (2002) 764, where a Ti-containing vessel is loaded and unloaded multiple times. In that series of experiments a temperature rise of 600+ degrees was observed in one part of the vessel, while lesser rises were noted elsewhere. The temperature you measure depends on where you place your thermocouple, and 600+ degree changes are typical for the most active spots. No excess energy needed.