Journalist Mats Lewan requires little introduction for most people familiar with the Andrea Rossi story, but just in case here is a quick summary for the uninitiated:
Mats holds a masters degree in physics, and is recognized as a world-renowned science & technology reporter. He writes for the Swedish newspaper NyTeknik, where he has been covering both cold fusion generally, and Andrea Rossi’s Energy-Catalyzer technology specifically, since 2011. He has recently published a book titled An Impossible Invention in which he recounts his first-hand experiences with Andrea Rossi and LENR over the past three years. More information can be found at http://animpossibleinvention.com/. Mats’ more conventional articles can be found at http://www.nyteknik.se/.
Mats is a model of integrity, and his book has been receiving rave reviews. It is available in both paperback and E-book format through his website. If anyone rather download our dialogue in audio format Download MP3 Here . Also, visit my site Q-Niverse for more of my content if interested. Thanks for taking an interest.
I’ve become so habituated and turned off by the noise we’re subjected to from the mainstream media that I’ve almost forgotten that there are some real journalists out there. This is refreshing.
PS
And it’s not just physics. For example, mainstream archeology seems to be just as stodgy (see ~1:00:00).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvNEVvHgOOY
PS
To habituate to something:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habituation
PPS
“In 1772 the residents of Luce in France reported that rock had fallen from the sky, causing considerable damage. During the resulting investigation by the Academie Francaise, the respected chemist Antoine Lavoisier pronounced with absolute certainty that the stone could not have fallen from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky. The strength of Lavoisier’s conviction was such that it helped put back the scientific study of meteorites for over a quarter of a century.”
-From the editors of Reader’s Digest Quest for the Unknown Series volume “Bizarre Phenomena”
It is a shame Mats is so uninformed on the current objections to cold fusion. I heard a lot of rehashing of the old saws of the field, all of which have essentially been addressed, but nothing on the more recent objections that I raised, beginning in 2002.
Kirk Shanahan
Dr. Shanahan,
It is not that we are unaware or “uninformed” of your objections, it is that we have found them completely lacking. Dr. Storms has already deconstructed your arguments rather convincingly in a peer-reviewed journal some years go now, and no serious experimentalists in the field have viewed your criticisms as legitimate. So while I appreciate you taking the time to chime in, you shouldn’t pretend you have found some ultimate truth that the cold fusion community either refuses to recognize or is hiding from. That’s flat-out fallacious.
All the best to you.
https://coldfusionnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/StormsEcommentonp.pdf
John,
It is always amusing to see the denial active in the cold fusion community. The Storms article you refer to was addressed immediately by me in a back-to-back reply. Ed’s criticisms were unjustified, meaning that they could be shown to be invalid, which is what I did in the reply. I in fact did find an overlooked problem in cold fusion calorimetry that conveniently explained the data that Ed had published at ICCF8. The fact that cold fusion community continues to ignore the simple conventional explanation put forward for excess heat is a tour de force of denial. It went so far that the authors Hagelstein, McKubre, Miles, Storms, etc. of the 2010 Reply to another comment I published has to resort to blatant misrepresentation of my position to be able to ‘disprove’ it. Of course misrepresenting what you’re trying to disprove does NOT disprove it. So, today in 2014, the criticism the cold fusion community became aware of in 2000 is still unanawered. That usually means it was a good, i.e. accurate, criticism. The kind of thinking that counts vacuous hand-waving as a successful technique leads to the many other errors that crop up in the analysis of other types of ‘CF-proving’ experimental results.
So no John, you are NOT informed of what my objections are. If you were you would understand how relevant they are and how silly the 10 authors of the 2010 reply to my comment ended up looking.
Kirk Shanahan
there is another wider article.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/71632
answering another article…
I also remind something from Charles Beaudette book,
http://iccf9.global.tsinghua.edu.cn/lenr%20home%20page/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf#page=35
it is that F&P did measure the recombination and it was below 1%,
as observed with other similar non LENR experiments.
anyway Mr Shanahan should be proud to be the 5th written critic against Cold Fusion calorimetry of F&P.
The 4 previous were proven wrong more easily.
Thanks to Morrison pathetic incompetence, and Wilson competence who proved Lewis and Hansen desperate claims wrong, then confirmed F&P while concluding the opposite despite his own calculation. (I know it is not clear, so read Beaudette).
You find in Beaudette, and in the article up there many arguments showing that all the artifacts claimed by the mainstream critics are covered by various cross-checking and counter-measure taken by experienced cold fusion experimenters (who are not chicken of the month).
Mr Shanahan, beside Wilson who is simply a LENR supporter who refuse it, is I agree the most competent critic.
the hypothesis is visibly refuted according to good old calorimetry far from cold fusion controversy, but not absurd…
readers should know there is no other critics…
however the consensus is that cold fusion calorimetry is refuted?
they moreover don’t talk of Mr Shanahan who could not publish his article in a peer-reviewed magazine, not because of the intrinsic quality of his paper (I suspect it was never read), but because no scientific journal want to publish on cold fusion, even to debunk it.
too bad.
I don’t imagine however that CCS can explain the meltdown of Fleischmann, Biberian or Mizuno, and even the meltdown of E-cat destructive test, where a device could melt ceramics while only energy source could be resistor coil, liquids or vapors before the ceramic is melt.
Like Huizenga I think the best hypothesis is a great international conspiracy. I don’t say it is a good one, but trying to find an explanation to reject Cold Fusion in classic hard science is hopeless.
The advantage of conspiracy is that once you believe, there is no problem.
Trying to stay scientific while rejecting cold fusion totally is a hard job.
I wish good struggle (bon courage) to Mr Shanahan.
Like Wilson work it may introduce some corrections and increase confidence in existing results.
Long answer Alain. Too bad you’ve missed the point. The paper you first reference (http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/71632) is the very paper I was discussing that shows how deep in denial the cold fusion community is. Let’s take a look at some quotes from that paper (whose 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” – called ‘the 10 authors’ hereafter).
The 10 authors wrote: “Shanahan invokes what he calls a Calibration Constant Shift (CCS). This CCS is nothing more than a hypothesis and should be stated as such (CCSH).”
It’s always amusing to see people try to redefine what you define in order to put it down. The addition of ‘hypothesis’ to my CCS term is superfluous, except to distinguish my proposal from those of the 10 authors of the paper you reference. So in the following, “CCS” refers to my proposal, “CCSH” refers to the 10 authors’ proposal.
The 10 authors write: “It would be nearly impossible to obtain these conclusions if the excess power was due to Shanahan’s random CCSH.” And “..if the excess power was due to random calibration constants shifts.”
But here is the main point – ‘Shanahan’ did NOT propose a random process. (I ought to know, since I’m ‘Shanahan’.)
In fact the title of my first publication on this in 2002 was: “A systematic error in mass flow calorimetry demonstrated”. And, I refer to the CCS in my 4th publication, which is the one the 10 authors were replying to, where I wrote: “The CCS is a systematic error…”. In my 2nd publication, I state: “Uncontrolled steady-state shifts produce a non-random noise component…” In my 3rd publication I provide a plot of the data illustrating the systematic nature of the shifts. In other words in all prior publications, I referred to the CCS as a non-random, systematic effect. It is tough to understand how 10 ‘qualified’ scientists can be so badly mistaken on such a fundamental point. (The difference between random and systematic error is basic to doing good science, not understanding that is a major problem.)
The 10 authors also write: “He employs the calibration constant shift hypothesis(CCSH), unquantified,” and “Thus the CCSH can account for an excess power of at most (and actually much less than) 1% of the output power in the example given. Reported excess power numbers are typically >10% of the input electrical power. The CCSH can thus be shown quantitatively to fail in all cases of excess power reported in mass flow calorimeters.”
In response I would simply note that my 1st paper was a QUANTATIVE reanalysis of the Storms data claiming to show cold fusion excess heat from a Pt (yes Pt, not Pd) cathode, so the quoted statement above is clearly false.
Also the second quoted statement is easily shown to be false as well. The maximum cold fusion signal reported by Storms was 780 mW. In fact there were 5 excess heat signal peaks at or near that mark within the 10 runs I analyzed. The input power levels corresponding to those peaks ranged from ~18W up to ~27W, so the 0.78W excess heat signal represents 2.9% of the 27W highest input (and 4.3% of the lowest). So while the “CCSH can account for an excess power of at most (and actually much less than) 1% of the output power”, the CCS accommodates 2-4% of the input power (which equals the output power when no ‘LENR’ is active). And I wrote in my 4th publication (referring to the CCS): “And there is no reason to believe this one case developed with a top-line calorimeter (98%+ heat
capture efficiency) limits that factor in any way.”
Clearly I am being quantitative and I am in direct disagreement with the 10 author’s claims, so again we see falsification on their part.
They also say: “Since the CCSH has no reason for bias in sign it may equally increase or decrease the measured output and thus excess power.” I can’t speak to what the CCSH does, but the CCS is expected to produce only positive values because (a) it is systematic and (b) the signal strength depends in part on the fact that recombination is occurring in an experimental configuration that will over-count the heat due to the geometry of the heat flow pathways. The absence of negatively signed CCS’s is a consequence of the physics and chemistry. So in fact the 10 authors again fail to understand the very basics of the CCS condition. (Also note that if by some chance some CF researchers calibrated when a large recombination heat location shift was in play, they might actually end up with a ‘negative’ CCS for cases where the recombination had returned to a more normal configuration, but most calibrations I have seen are done when no recombination is occurring.)
The 10 authors go on through their paper to apply this false CCSH concept to supposedly discredit my assertions, i.e. “Where does the ‘‘fact’’ that ‘‘there is no excess heat’’ come from? It comes from the strained logic that the CCSH ‘‘explains all excess heat results”. As discussed above, CCSH has no validity.” I agree, the CCSH has no validity, but of course, that’s not what I was proposing, so clearly my proposal remains unaddressed.
Since it remains unaddressed, the CFers never put enough information in their talks and papers to assess whether the CCS problem is present or not. But I am reasonably confident that if said information was provided, we would find all of it could be explained by a CCS. That doesn’t prove it was, it just establishes that the experimental results have two equally valid interpretations, one which leads to claims of excess heat and one that does not. It is erroneous to choose one of the explanations and trumpet is as “The Truth” just based on personal preference. The correct thing to do is to redesign the experiments to address the issue.
You wrote: “You find in Beaudette, and in the article up there many arguments showing that all the artifacts claimed by the mainstream critics are covered by various cross-checking and counter-measure taken by experienced cold fusion experimenters (who are not chicken of the month).” – No, that’s incorrect Alain. No one has actually addressed the CCS problem at all. Nor do the CFers claims around transmutations seem defensible to skilled workers in the area. And usually their “cross-checking and counter-measure taken” is inadequate to resolve the issues.
You wrote: “I don’t imagine however that CCS can explain the meltdown of Fleischmann, Biberian or Mizuno, and even the meltdown of E-cat destructive test, where a device could melt ceramics while only energy source could be resistor coil, liquids or vapors before the ceramic is melt.” – You’re right, it won’t, but hydrogen-oxygen explosions can do so in F&P cells. Bad temperature control could easily explain the Rossi-type device problems, and given the newly released report on the Defkalion device, that is a likely suspect. But to be honest I have not studied the Rossi devices enough to be confident of anything. I studied the F&P devices extensively.
You wrote: “Trying to stay scientific while rejecting cold fusion totally is a hard job.” – Not at all Alain, not at all.
Kirk Shanahan
P.S. It ain’t nuclear…
You say that reports of heat was few %,
while it is said that F&P claimed from 15 to 50% of anomalous heat compared to input.
maybe you selected small result, like what Wilson did.
What is shocking in that affir, mirroring what you say is the lack of honesty of most critic, lack of competence.
Normally i should ask expertes, but today the only experts are LENR scientists, and others are either incompetent, dismissing any contact, shy…
nobody out od LENR scientists accept to even comment your papers based on classic calorimetry.
Too bad you cannot reproduce your hypothesis without palladium.
moreover many arguments agains your hypotheis, are convincing. like that it does not apply to some results, that recombination is measured…
If some people can easily believe that few thousand scientists are deluded against the consensus, i can easily believe 7 scientists are deluded with the consensus, and others are parrot of the consensus.
“You say that reports of heat was few %, while it is said that F&P claimed from 15 to 50% of anomalous heat compared to input. maybe you selected small result, like what Wilson did.”
No, _you_ said recombination was at most 1%. I cited references (indirectly) to 10-20%, and reminded you that closed cells have 100% recombination. In the Storms data that I reanalyzed and published, his 780mW peak was in the 2-4% of input power range, and I claim it was all due to recombination. And as I also stated, no other CF researcher has ever published enough information to be able to tell if their reported excess heat signals are outside of the range that could be created by a CCS.
“What is shocking in that affir, mirroring what you say is the lack of honesty of most critic, lack of competence.”
Not following your comment here. Are you claiming I am incompetent? (I wouldn’t know about other critics, nor do you either.)
“Normally i should ask expertes, but today the only experts are LENR scientists, and others are either incompetent, dismissing any contact, shy…”
You’ve just described LENR scientists’ responses to me, otherwise known as ‘sticking their heads in the sand”! The only one I have ever had any extensive contact with is Ed Storms during and after the time I published my first paper. He eventually did withdraw from conversation though, citing how ‘unteachable’ I was (another example of projection).
“nobody out od LENR scientists accept to even comment your papers based on classic calorimetry.”
Exactly my point! Especially important when you realize they have only ever argued about my proposed chemical mechanism, and not about the analysis that showed Ed’s signals could be explained by a trivial calibration shift, which extends to others work by analogy. In other words, it is undisputed that trivial shifts in cal constants can produce artificial excess heat signals. It seems reasonable therefore to expect CF researchers to document their calibration procedures and report on them in each paper…of course, that hasn’t happened yet.
“Too bad you cannot reproduce your hypothesis without palladium.”
Why would I need to do that? I put out a criticism whose most important conclusion is unchallenged. It’s up to CF researchers to prove me wrong… (P.S. I’ve got palladium, I work with it routinely, I just don’t want to blow myself up with mixed hydrogen and oxygen…)
“moreover many arguments agains your hypotheis, are convincing. like that it does not apply to some results, that recombination is measured…”
I haven’t heard any…most of the time my critics don’t even understand what I say (or even what the difference between systematic and random is…).
“If some people can easily believe that few thousand scientists are deluded against the consensus, i can easily believe 7 scientists are deluded with the consensus, and others are parrot of the consensus.”
But I have detailed my ‘delusion’ to the nth degree, as is expected for a critic, and no one has successfully located an error in any of it that might cause it to be rejected! The only attempts to do so have been misguided, and in some cases, laughable. That is different than just voicing an opinion. My writings are backed by extensive analysis.
Having your beliefs challenged hurts I know, but I am a firm believer in having beliefs that track reality, especially in science.
Kirk Shanahan
about the recombination, it is true that closed cell by definition recombine all, but F&P cell recombination was measured below 1%.
only in the tortured mind of Lewis was it more.
I cannot comment on tiny details, but Edmund storms like McKubre have answered with many details.
it seems you disagree on the basic values themselves, in a way that remind me Morrisson.
note many observation that disagree with CCS, like the fact that dead cell never express anomalous heat once killed, that CCS modify surface , create craters on the surface, cause transmutation, create helium and tritium above any possible enrichment (if true it would be used by engineers).
Thre should be a debate with Ed Storms who reviewed most of the domain.
“about the recombination, it is true that closed cell by definition recombine all, but F&P cell recombination was measured below 1%. only in the tortured mind of Lewis was it more.”
As I stated, F&P did not measure individual cell efficiencies, they combined several cells into one measurement, and they only reported one global number representing all cells run. This is inadequate to determine if recombination began and ended in the so-called ‘bursts’ where apparent excess energy was detected. Given the Storms results, the rational position to take is that that is exactly what happened.
—–
“I cannot comment on tiny details, but Edmund storms like McKubre have answered with many details.”
Which I have examined in great detail and found lacking critical information. And they have not really ‘answered’. They in fact conclude (unjustifiably) that my criticisms have been dealt with and continue to act as if I had never made them. Which by the way, is a sign of a pathological scientist (on either the believing or disbelieving side).
—–
“it seems you disagree on the basic values themselves, in a way that remind me Morrisson.”
Ummm…not trying to be offensive, but – so what? I definitely disagree that there is any compelling evidence of excess heat, for the reasons stated in my papers and in this discussion.
—–
“note many observation that disagree with CCS, “
No, not really. It’s hard to disagree with something you refuse to acknowledge as being relevant. The CFers avoid any consideration of the CCS in their reports of excess heat that have been published since my first paper came out in 2002. (Of course, prior papers will not refer to it at all.)
—–
“like the fact that dead cell never express anomalous heat once killed,”
How does that disagree? I agree with Storms that a ‘Special Active State’ has to form, and that it is a surface state, and that it is extremely fragile. Once destroyed it would be difficult to impossible to get back, depending on how it was destroyed. One of the intriguing aspects of Storms’ Pt work is that he can destroy the activity and then recover it, as showed in the Figure in my 3rd publication.
—–
“ that CCS modify surface ,”
You have this backwards…the CCS results from surface modification, not causes it.
—–
“create craters on the surface, cause transmutation, create helium and tritium above any possible enrichment (if true it would be used by engineers).”
No, these effects are not calorimetry, which is all the CCS addresses. Each of these sets of observations has some fundamental flaw in it (such as: Not enough replication, obvious chemical mechanism that has not been excluded, uncertain analytical accuracy and precision) that results in each set not being compelling. And you can’t combine flawed data sets together and expect to remove the flaws unless you have carefully designed the later sets to do just that.
—–
“Thre should be a debate with Ed Storms who reviewed most of the domain.”
You’re right, and there is. There are papers and books in the scientific literature discussing this. Firstly, the papers came to a draw, no clear winner. Secondly, it is unlikely to get more examination since in 2007 Storms published his book you refer to, and in this he refers to his papers in this debate as being the final word on the subject, but fails to even mention mine. So the reader is left wondering what it was that I said, but has no reference to be able to go see (if they even recognize that objections were raised). You can’t have a debate when one party completely ignores the other.
Kirk Shanahan
Hi John, perhaps you and Mats should go on the Joe Rogan Experience. This would bring the E-Cat to the attention of his young audience.
If you are able to get Joe Rogan to pay attention to a nobody like me, and bring Mats’ work to his attention as well, then I would be delighted. Last I checked he wasn’t beating down my door for an opportunity to chat. 🙂
Has cold fusion ever even come up on his show? Sorry I don’t listen to it regularly, just a random clip here and there that happens to have gone viral.
He had Roseanne Barr as a guest on his show. If Ruby has a way of contacting Roseanne, maybe Roseanne would be willing to forward a copy of Mats’ book to Joe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t2UELpLVkA
Is Ruby really friends with Roseanne Barr? IDK why I find that funny, I just do. 🙂
Yeah, I must be delirious to think that Roseanne Barr would actually follow up on what Ruby brought to her attention. I assumed that she got back to Ruby.
Another thought.
He had Professor Peter Duesberg as a guest on his show. Perhaps you could introduce yourself to Prof. Duesberg and maybe he would be willing to forward a copy of Mats’ book to Joe. http://mcb.berkeley.edu/index.php?option=com_mcbdirectory&task=detail&Itemid=115&id=22
By the way, here’s Prof. Duesberg’s book: “Inventing the AIDS Virus”.
http://books.google.com/books?id=pRWVZJKO0NsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=peter+duesberg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iKx4U46PCInMsQTsi4C4DA&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=peter%20duesberg&f=false
An additional note Alain…
Your referenced Beaudette’s book “I also remind something from Charles Beaudette book,
http://iccf9.global.tsinghua.edu.cn/lenr%20home%20page/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf#page=35
it is that F&P did measure the recombination and it was below 1%, as observed with other similar non LENR experiments.”
The page you reference is where the section “The Meltdown” starts, but the quote on 1% recombination actually occurs on page 50 while discussing results published by F&P in 1990 in their (in)famous paper on calorimetry. They in fact state it as >99% current efficiencies. Apparently Beaudette reversed this for readability. However, the F&P paper indicates these efficiencies were determined from combinations of cells, not single ones, and no mention is made in the section discussing the bursts that Beaudette discusses about if, when, or how these recombination measurements were made during or near the bursts. So, it is easy to conclude whatever the detailed experimental setup was, it masked the recombination extent or that it may actually not have even been made. Further, Miles reported many cases of 10-20% recombination in his work, and then you have closed cells where you get 100% recombination but can still see a CCS effect. Also, as I noted in my recent whitepaper, droplet entrainment in exiting gas streams confounds these measurements anyway.
In other words, the recombination issue was never dealt with correctly in prior CF publications.
Kirk Shanahan
Well-reasoned critiques of Dr. Shanahan’s overall appraisal by Abd Lomax @ Wikiversity:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Cold_fusion/Skeptical_arguments/Shanahan
Well-reasoned??? Not so much. Abd is usually way off base as to what he is saying. You realize that the bulk of the article you point to was written by me, with Abd interjecting comments into it. He’s almost always messed up.
An example or two…
Abd wrote: “and the evidence regarding helium is conclusive that it is the primary nuclear ash. Shanahan does not, here, seriously address this”, but right above that my comment was: “No CF researcher has presented adequate documentation that environmental He has been successfully excluded from their apparatus, thus the use of He results to conclude active nuclear reactions is unsupported at this time. (This documentation would include full disclosure of analytical methods and results, including from calibrations and background measurements, and replicated results with those methods (preferably at other laboratories).)” Can one get more serious than saying required information has not been supplied???
Abd wrote: “Shanahan posits this as due to D/O recombination. Problems with this: There is no evidence of this reaction, as an explosion, taking place.” – except the bright dots in the ir video the SPAWAR group record and attributed to nuclear explosions…i.e., if Shanahan sees chemistry in white spots on a picture, he must be wrong…but claiming ‘nuclear’ makes it alright…c’mon, get real…
Abd wrote: “To create a ten-micron hole, melting the palladium surface, the bubble must be on the order of ten microns in size itself.” – but I never attribute the 10-micron holes to explosions. I have a completely different explanation for those that is consistent with know chemistry.
and finally, in typical cold fusioneer fashion, Abd wrote: “To summarize, Shanahan has neglected the reality of these experiments, in order to create a Rube Goldberg hypothesis, and he’s done this in many areas,” – ah!, the coup de grace! Shanahan makes up stuff! – No, I put together known phenomena to explain a set of observations instead of postulating (making up) previously unknown nuclear reactions (the Rube Goldberg stuff) doing all sorts of magical stuff in these experiments. An interesting example of projection (Psychological projection is the act or technique of defending oneself against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in oneself, while attributing them to others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection).
So, you really want to depend on Abd to explain why my propositions are ‘bad’? Fine, go ahead. But don’t be surprised when people laugh.
Kirk Shanahan
New post by Abd Lomax on New Vortex about the unimpeachable logic and ethic of the stalwart Dr. Shanahan:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newvortex/conversations/messages/664
John,
Still trying to promote Abd as a CF expert I see… OK, so let’s take a look…
Lomax wrote: “What is Shanahan’s point? What are the “current objections to cold fusion”?
and “In fact, the extreme objections to cold fusion are *dead* in the literature. “
No, the objections are not dead. My point in the original comment about the interview was to point out that Mats had been bamboozled like many other folks into thinking Rossi has something, in part because ‘LENR’ is a ‘well-known’ phenomenon. It isn’t. Mats should know that.
The current objections are:
1) There are no confirmed excess heat events because no one checked for the possibility of a CCS.
2) He results are suspect because no one reports the analytical protocols in anything but vague terms. All He results are in the ‘trace level’ regime, and as such, the default position to take when anomalous results are obtained is that there is an unexpected error. The most likely, but not only, one being air-inleakage.
3) No heat and no He means no heat-He correlation
4) Heavy metal transmutation results arise due to contamination concentration
5) Reported isotopic shifts in heavy metals are most likely misinterpretations of the SIMS data from which the conclusions are drawn. Adequate SIMS data presentation has not occurred.
6) Pits in CR39 plates located in the electrolyte result from H2+O2 bubbles exploding or burning at or near the CR39
7) Tritium results are also all trace level and most likely arise from interferents
8) Radiation detected is most likely due to experimental error (I personally do not have the expertise to comment on this except in a few select cases. For example, dental x-ray film evidence of ‘emissions’ is most likely a combination of hypering of the film followed by exposure to heat from H2 that evolves from the samples and then burns in the air.)
There are probably more I could list given more time, but these covers the major blocks of evidences presented as proof that cold fusion exists.
“There has not been a negative review of cold fusion published under peer review in a very long time. Shanahan has an exaggerated view of his own Letter to the Journal of Environmental
Monitoring, where he rehashed, for the most part, old objections. “
Note the self-contradiction – no reviews in a very long time – Shanahan’s JEM paper… In fact my JEM paper was a ‘review’ of all the flaws in the story that Marwan and Krivit glossed over in their originating article. ‘Old’ objections? Since the attempted rebuttal by the 10 authors focused primarily on the ‘CCSH’, I would say, “No, not old, new.”
“However, he did bring up a new one, that was so face-palm ridiculous
that the scientists he was complaining about, in their response,
didn’t even address it.”
No idea what he is referring to here…
“Reviewing the critical heat/helium data, the only *direct* evidence
(I claim) that not only is cold fusion heat real, but the origin is
also nuclear, and probably some kind of fusion, he decided to
digitise a chart in Storms that plotted some results from Miles et al.”
No heat, no helium, no heat-helium correlation – very simple principle that Abd seems to be unable to grasp. Put another way: “fake X data, fake Y data, fake correlation”
“Studying the correlation between the X data and Y data on that chart,
he found very low correlation. He appears to have thought that this
meant that heat and helium were not correlated. …“
Kudos to Mr. Lomax, he has found an error I made. But does it change the conclusions. No, not at all. In fact, the analysis of the data should have gone like this:
For clarity, the flyer data point at 4.9e11 He atoms/J will be ignored). For reference, Storms notes in the text that 23.82 MeV implies a He atom/J value of 2.6e11. As Lomax noted, dividing by power theoretically should reduce the data to a common value. It does not. The average of the full set of results (Miles + Bush and Lagowski – flyer) is 1.76e11 with a 2-sigma band of -0.43 to +3.95e11. This band does include the 2.6e11 value, but it also includes 0. What that means is that the data offers no support to the idea that the experiments are producing results that point to the magic 23.82 MeV. It could as easily be pointing to 50% of that, 50% over that (in the 3 sigma band), or zero. Excluding the 3 B&L data points doesn’t change this conclusion.
The data table (Table 7 in Storms) gives a background level of 0.51e14 He atoms/500cc (the volume of the sample flasks). When you plot the atoms/J vs. the atoms/500cc, you can estimate that background from the listed number as 0.7e11 atoms/J, which is actually the reported values for two points on the original graph. Now we must guess at whether the 0.7e11 is a ‘background’ or a ‘detection limit’. If it is a detection limit, the background can be anything between 0 and 0.7e11, and we don’t know how to correct the reported atoms/J numbers to account for spurious He. If it is the true background level, it is an actual measure of the He atoms present and must be subtracted from the experimental values. In that case, all the numbers on the plot lower, which puts the highest number of the flyer-less data at 1.8e11, which is ~70% of the desired 2.6e11. (That number without correction was 2.5e11, the 4 highest values are: 4.9, 2.5, 2.4, 1.9).
In other words, except for one flyer, the data presented in this chart is inconclusive because it has too much scatter. “Too much scatter” implies poor reproducibility.
In the original paper that Lomax is criticizing I point out another proposed heat-He correlation, shown in Figure 49 of Storms book and used in the 2004 DOE review presentation, and I indicate that it is flawed as well.
“I wrote to Shanahan pointing out the error. He wrote back something
like, “You will do anything to continue believing in cold fusion.””
My recollection is that I wrote something like: “It never ceases to amaze me the lengths people will go to to sustain their belief in cold fusion.” That is just another way to tell Abd that he is in denial, like the whole cold fusion community.
“He is describing himself, only inverted. He has been criticising cold
fusion since the mid-1990s on the internet, and eventually wrote some
papers that were published. We will get to that here.”
Pot-kettle… The problem is though, my criticisms are based on precise mathematical calculations. That makes them ‘substantiated’ criticisms, which is not what my critics present.
“{snip}, but does not give adequate information to assess what he is claiming, and he is not objective.”
Unsubstantiated accusations by a person trying to discredit another without having to offer any proof.
As an example, how would one tell what a CCS might do to your results if your were using a linearly calibrated calorimeter? Easy. The calibration constant should be increased and decreased (recall though that negative CCSs are not expected, this is just for completeness) by 1, 5, and 10%, and the resultant excess power computed from those modified equations for flow and temperature conditions where the maximal excess heat signal was found. If the group of calculated excess powers encompasses your result, you have a problem.
“Note the irony: the only standing recently published cold fusion
skeptic is complaining that cold fusion scientists are not listening
to him, and are wrongfully rejecting what he writes. And perhaps they are. So?”
Yes, isn’t it? The cold fusioneers are guilty of doing the ‘wrong thing’ as much as those terrible ‘pathological skeptics’ (that’s the ‘So’).
“However, they are writing as a community, with a level of consensus,
based on communicated understanding and experimental evidence, many
evidences pointing to the reality of a phenomenon that is very likely
nuclear in nature.”
The nasty feature of a systematic error is that they often go undetected for long periods of time, especially in difficult experiments. This occurs because the involved scientists tend to try to replicate each other, and they successfully replicate the error as well.
“Shanahan is an isolated nut,”
This is known as an ad hominem attack, and is a faulty logical technique employed by those who don’t have real, valid arguments.
“who believes he understands the heat anomaly called “cold fusion,” when nobody does.”
Ummm…Abd…that’s normally the way it works…one guy figures something out, broadcasts it to those concerned…they then go test it and prove it true or not…thereby increasing the total available scientific knowledge. In the CF case though, this process has been diverted to: …one guy…they then seek to discredit it with spurious arguments and then ignore it…thereby freezing the state of knowledge…
“It might be worth reviewing what came up in that conversation:
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Cold_fusion/Skeptical_arguments/Shanahan “
No, it isn’t, as I showed by a few examples in my last post on this topic…
“Shanahan was invited to participate there. If his arguments are
presented unfairly, I would certainly want to correct it. “
No, you wouldn’t, because it would drive you to reject the nuclear explanation.
“This was all written in 2010, based on a draft section he presented to
Wikipedia for consideration, which didn’t have a snowball’s chance in
hell of being used.”
The purpose was to balance the article by including those current objections as well as the ones brought up in 1989-90. The Wikipedia cold fusion article is woefully inadequate, but I simply didn’t have the time to fight off all the cold fusion advocates (like Abd) who didn’t want a balanced article. I gave it a good shot though.
Kirk Shanahan
More fun & games courtesy of Abd Lomax @ New Vortex: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newvortex/conversations/messages/667
Dr. Shanahan, would it be much trouble to shift the discussion over to NV? Because while I do find it all very interesting, if we’re going to be honest, your objections have very little to do with the content of the interview. So while the focus of the comments has already gone well off the rails, I’m going to try to wrangle it in a bit here and request that you keep any prolonged responses confined to New Vortex or Wikiversity at this point. Fair enough? Thanks.
Actually John, I am done here, and I won’t be going to NV because I dealt with Abd for an extended period on Wikipedia, and he is a typical cold fusion ‘true believer’, meaning that any objections to the claimed reality of ‘LENR’ are automatically wrong. I’ve made my points as well…there is a whole raft of objections to ‘cold fusion’ interpretations of experimental evidences that the CFers either ignore or treat with little concern, yet they make a concise and complete picture of how you get what they get conventionally…no nuclear required. And referring to the interview, if Mats knew that I can’t help but believe his tone and content would have been radically different.
Later,
Kirk Shanahan
Alright Kirk. I wish you well. Take care.
This was fascinating. I had written, on NV, about Shanahan’s comments here, “He appears to have thought that this meant that heat and helium were not correlated. …“
And Shanahan repeated his error in a number of comments here. But then, eventually, he must have looked at my work more carefully:
“Kudos to Mr. Lomax, he has found an error I made. But does it change the conclusions. No, not at all.”
He then went into an analysis of the data, ad hoc, obviously looking at this for the first time. What “conclusions.” This is his *new* argument: Looking at the scatter in the data:
“What that means is that the data offers no support to the idea that the experiments are producing results that point to the magic 23.82 MeV. ”
However, that was not the claim I and others made about Miles. I have not examined Shanahan’s detailed numerical argument yet, but the claim wasn’t that the data points to 23.8 MeV, it was that heat and helium are *correlated.* Shanahan is making a straw man argument. Rather, the data shows, very roughly, double the 23.8 figure, characteristic of deuterium fusion to helium. It is called, in the reviews of this, “commensurate” with 24 MeV, on the likelihood that not all the helium is captured. Miles was measuring helium in outgas. This, by the way, is a confirmation that cold fusion is a surface effect, one among a number of these.
What happened here is that Shanahan’s arguments were seriously challenged, and he has no time for that. He was most strongly invited to Wikiversity, not NV. The goal there would be that his arguments would be clearly presented. Yes, they would also be examined, questions would be asked, etc., but, very definitely, he would be able to *completely express his views* on the topic.
Instead, consistently, Shanahan has made the whole thing personal. If he can’t convince *me*, it’s useless. Above, we see the pseudoskeptical mind at work. He made a major blunder. I pointed it out to him some years ago. That mail was just about the blunder. He responded with a personal comment about me and my alleged unreasonable belief in cold fusion. What I believed was *irrelevant.* And when he finally gets that, yes, he made an error in his published Letter, a *crucial one*, he then simply makes up another argument, with an explanation that is missing a series of crucial steps, and then bails.
He will then call this discussion, if he refers to it later, as a “draw.”
And, folks, Shanahan is the only scientist still arguing, in print or attempted print, against cold fusion. He’s the best they have.
Back to the point of all this, the interview. I don’t agree with all that Lewan has written, but at least he is actually investigating and reporting what he finds. To become an expert on cold fusion can take years, there is a huge pile of misleading information to wade through, and one can be misled in both directions.
The heat/helium evidence is crucial because it is the *only* experimental evidence that clearly establishes that the heat is real and that the reaction is nuclear in nature. There is lots of other interesting evidence, but it can be quite misleading. Heat/helium *directly addresses the argument that there must be some error in calorimetry.* Without it, the debate hinges on circumstantial evidence.
Any serious skeptic must, to truly be a skeptic, address the heat/helium evidence, without the vague and error-filled dismissals that Shanahan asserted. At ICCF-18, I walked up to Jones and shook his hand, congratulating him on being the only peer-review published author to attempt to criticize Miles. Skepticism is *crucial* to science. It only becomes pseudoskepticism when a skeptic believes his own opinions. In my opinion, Jones failed, *because he ignored the correlation.*
“This was fascinating. I had written, on NV, about Shanahan’s comments here, “He appears to have thought that this meant that heat and helium were not correlated. …“ “And Shanahan repeated his error in a number of comments here. But then, eventually, he must have looked at my work more carefully:”
No Abd, as usual you have missed the point. Everything I wrote about heat-He correlation being bogus still stands. I choose the wrong Figure to refer to, my mistake. But that Figure also shows how unsupported the idea of a heat-He correlation is in a new and unique way. If such a correlation existed, it would have shown up as a flat-line relationship in the data, with a reasonably small standard deviation. Instead you see data that covers the entire range from zero to nearly twice the ‘expected value’. In most scientist’s books, that means the hypothesis is unsupported (the hypothesis that dividing the values by the power will produce a flat line – meaning you have identified and eliminated the most important factor by dividing).
“He then went into an analysis of the data, ad hoc, obviously looking at this for the first time.”
Your assumption, any proof of that?
“ What “conclusions.” This is his *new* argument: “
No, not new, same old same old. The data presented is just another way to show no strong heat-He correlation, contrary to what you would like to see.
{snip} – (for the youngsters, “snip” indicates some material has been deleted to save space)
“However, that was not the claim I and others made about Miles. “
But it IS the claim I make about the Miles data and conclusions…
“I have not examined Shanahan’s detailed numerical argument yet, “ – of course…
“but the claim wasn’t that the data points to 23.8 MeV, it was that heat and helium are *correlated.* Shanahan is making a straw man argument. “
No, I am not. When you divide the supposed He produced by the supposed excess heat, you are trying to remove the large majority of the supposed correlation, and convert the data to a form that should produce a flat line with zero slope. It didn’t. So, unless the correlation is some weird function, Miles just proved his thesis was wrong. (And if you wanted to support a ‘weird correlation function’, the normal way to do that is to plot the residuals of the fit showing they are now random and very small.)
“Rather, the data shows, very roughly, double the 23.8 figure, characteristic of deuterium fusion to helium. It is called, in the reviews of this, “commensurate” with 24 MeV, on the likelihood that not all the helium is captured. Miles was measuring helium in outgas. This, by the way, is a confirmation that cold fusion is a surface effect, one among a number of these.”
Actually as I said the data shows almost anything you want it to because it is so bad (which in fact means it shows nothing). The average includes 0 within the 2 standard deviation bars. That means you can’t really tell if the signal is even real, the data being so poor.
“What happened here is that Shanahan’s arguments were seriously challenged, and he has no time for that.” – No, your ‘challenge’ is not serious, it is spurious.
“He was most strongly invited to Wikiversity, not NV. The goal there would be that his arguments would be clearly presented. Yes, they would also be examined, questions would be asked, etc., but, very definitely, he would be able to *completely express his views* on the topic.”
So what? I would have had to deal with your walls of text. No thanks.
“Instead, consistently, Shanahan has made the whole thing personal. If he can’t convince *me*, it’s useless.”
You are quite self-centered Abd. Perhaps you should read my 4 papers on the subject that were written before you even became involved in criticizing my posts. It’s NOT all about you.
“Above, we see the pseudoskeptical mind at work. He made a major blunder. I pointed it out to him some years ago. That mail was just about the blunder. He responded with a personal comment about me and my alleged unreasonable belief in cold fusion. What I believed was *irrelevant.* And when he finally gets that, yes, he made an error in his published Letter, a *crucial one*, he then simply makes up another argument, with an explanation that is missing a series of crucial steps, and then bails.”
a) My error was trivial, not crucial or a major blunder – it didn’t change the conclusions one bit and actually allowed me to show how the data was inconclusive in a whole new way.
b) You have *attempted* to point out a lot of things, but you have never succeeded in presenting cogent enough arguments to do so.
c) I suppose ‘makes up’ could be used to describe what I did, in the right context, which is not given above. The right context is that, when faced with an alternative way to present heat-He data, I did develop an analysis of that approach, which in this case was derogatory to the case being presented. One could call that ‘making it up’ I suppose, since I didn’t copy it from anywhere…
d) It is so easy to ‘label’ someone with a derogatory label and then ignore them, rather than understand their points and seriously address them.
“He will then call this discussion, if he refers to it later, as a “draw.””
The draw I referred to was the pair of publications in 2006 between myself and Ed Storms.
“And, folks, Shanahan is the only scientist still arguing, in print or attempted print, against cold fusion. He’s the best they have.”
That’s because the mainstream considers all of this junk science and doesn’t want to be bothered by it. They have better things to do in their opinion. I at least acknowledge that F&P did find a ‘new’ effect, but like Fleischmann’s discovery of SERS, they got the explanation all wrong. It doesn’t require nuclear reactions to explain the whole field of results.
{snip}
“The heat/helium evidence is crucial because it is the *only* experimental evidence that clearly establishes that the heat is real and that the reaction is nuclear in nature. There is lots of other interesting evidence, but it can be quite misleading. Heat/helium *directly addresses the argument that there must be some error in calorimetry.* Without it, the debate hinges on circumstantial evidence.”
Still can’t grasp the concept that correlations derived from seriously flawed data are useless, can you Abd.
“Any serious skeptic must, to truly be a skeptic, address the heat/helium evidence,”
Which I have done, ad nauseum…
“without the vague and error-filled dismissals that Shanahan asserted. “
Such as? What errors (in analysis, given we have corrected the one regarding the choice of Figure to refer to)?
{snip}
“Skepticism is *crucial* to science.” – unless it leads you to the ‘wrong’ conclusion, right Abd?
“It only becomes pseudoskepticism when a skeptic believes his own opinions.” – and ditto for pseudo-optimism, aka ‘true belief’.
I am easy to convince Abd. Just present an argument that stands up to critical review…
Kirk Shanahan
Kirk, really, I asked politely that you shift the discussion off this particular message board. You said, “I am done here”, yet you’re still posting walls of text for some strange reason. I’ll say it again: Take it over to NV or Wikiversity if you have a point to make. Otherwise, because you clearly can’t control yourself, I’m going to start deleting your posts if it continues like this. I hope we are clear. No need for you to respond to this post. Just act like an adult, move on, and stop with the diatribes.
So much not relevant,
.
The past is past… True. All is healed… Perhaps. The future is yet to be revealed… Absolutely.
.
Kirk,
.
I have an 8th grade education… Then took early childhood development classes at a local Community College and became a daycare worker, then an infant daycare manager and… Put all my care into the task.
.
After awhile I volunteered at Hospice, as a dear and young peer of mine (his fiancé, family, and I) had been assisted through his death by a hospice organization. Afterwards I attended a local CC and got a two-year degree to become an activity director at convalescent hospitals in S.F. Meanwhile volunteering at local hospice organizations. Absolutely began loving… Bringing sense into such a troubling environ.
.
Less than three years ago I began looking into what is popularly known as cold fusion.
.
In this short period of time, with my scant education, (as compared to yours) I have more knowledge of the art of LENR science and the advanced engineering of this nuclear reactive environment than you do.
.
I would suggest that you read and keep up. (I read 100 to 200 abstracts a month from related arts of science) These branches of LENR, comprise advanced studies into the low energy nuclear reaction environment and LENR advanced engineering.
.
What are these multiple-disciplinarian arts of science?
.
Plasmonics, Nano-Physics, Semi-Conductors, Peizo/Thermo-Electric Conversion, Low Energy Laser Excitation Physics (thin films, advanced materials, dopants, etc), Quantum Engineering.
.
Kirk Shanahan,
.
Would you care to respond to me directly, or indirectly?
.
gbgoble@gmail.com
.
415-724-6702
{snip}
You have an interesting background Greg.
“Less than three years ago I began looking into what is popularly known as cold fusion.”
I started 19 years ago.
“In this short period of time, with my scant education, (as compared to yours) I have more knowledge of the art of LENR science and the advanced engineering of this nuclear reactive environment than you do.”
On what basis do you make that statement?
“I would suggest that you read and keep up. (I read 100 to 200 abstracts a month from related arts of science) These branches of LENR, comprise advanced studies into the low energy nuclear reaction environment and LENR advanced engineering.”
My cold fusion files are quite extensive, and I read the papers, not just the abstract. You should realize that the abstract rarely gives the whole story. Reading them is fine to determine if you are interested in the contents of the paper, but you have to read the paper after that.
“What are these multiple-disciplinarian arts of science? Plasmonics, …”
Nice list of buzzwords, but you forgot “chemistry, physics, computer modelling, and data analysis”, all of which I am quite to somewhat skilled at.
“Would you care to respond to me directly, or indirectly?”
To what should I respond?
Kirk Shanahan
If a nuclear reaction takes place in the e-Cat device of A. Rossi signs of a nuclear process have to be taken place, e.g. emission of neutrons, beta-particles, gamma-rays, and/or alpha particles. Would it not be simpler to assume that in absence of such signs a well known chemical reaction occurs. For example an oxido-reduction reaction wherein hydrogen is used up. If e.g. potassium carbonate is used as an additive first carbon dioxide may be split off on heating and the residual potassium oxide may be reduced with hydrogen in an exothermic reaction, so producing heat. (see the article :”Cold Fusion Catalyst” on the former e-Cat Site.
You take the point of view of a physicist.
The problem is that from the point of view of a chemist this hypothesis is absurd.
The energy produced is few order of magnitude above anything chemical, about the density of commercial fission.
Charles beaudette explain well how the problem of cold fusion is that it is a chemistry experiment, using chemistry techniques, and chemistry measurement (calorimetry), without much to do with nuclear physics practice.
http://iccf9.global.tsinghua.edu.cn/lenr%20home%20page/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf#page=35
It is true that nuclear reaction with noticeable transmutation (tritium, helium are proven and replicated above any possible error (despite the myth), and recently praseodymium too was replicated).
it is also true that there are some sign of nuclear reaction, but many order of magnitude less than what can be observed in other nuclear reactions.
now the question is whether you say thermodynamic, calorimetry, mass spectrometry, and chemistry are wrong, or if quantum physics in condensed matter have to be investigated once again for new emerging behavior, after what was done for semiconductors, low temperature superconductor, high-temperature semiconductor, graphene, nanotech …
the question is to choose who have to update his books.
The physicist have chosen that the chemist were incompetent, and the chemist have decided to avoid trouble with APS because they have more budget.
Beaudette explain that this way:
“Unfortunately, physicists did not generally claim expertise in calorimetry, the measurement of calories of heat energy. Nor did they countenance clever chemists declaring hypotheses about nuclear physics. Their outspoken commentary largely ignored the heat measurements along with the offer of an hypothesis about unknown nuclear processes. They did not acquaint themselves with the laboratory procedures that produced anomalous heat data. These attitudes held firm throughout the first decade, causing a sustained controversy.
The upshot of this conflict was that the scientific community failed to give anomalous heat the evaluation that was its due. Scientists of orthodox views, in the first six years of this episode, produced only four critical reviews of the two chemists’ calorimetry work. The first report came in 1989 (N. S. Lewis). It dismissed the Utah claim for anomalous power on grounds of faulty laboratory technique. A second review was produced in 1991 (W. N. Hansen) that strongly supported the claim. It was based on an independent analysis of cell data that was provided by the two chemists. An extensive review completed in 1992 (R. H. Wilson) was highly critical though not conclusive. But it did recognize the existence of anomalous power, which carried the implication that the Lewis dismissal was mistaken. A fourth review was produced in 1994 (D. R. O. Morrison) which was itself unsatisfactory. It was rebutted strongly to the point of dismissal and correctly in my view. No defense was offered against the rebuttal. During those first six years, the community of orthodox scientists produced no report of a flaw in the heat measurements that was subsequently sustained by other reports.
The community of scientists at large never saw or knew about this minimalist critique of the claim. It was buried in the avalanche of skepticism that issued forth in the first three months. This skepticism was buttressed by the failure of the two chemists’ nuclear measurements, the lack of a theoretical understanding of how their claim could work, a mistaken concern with the number of failed experiments, a wholly unrealistic expectation of the time and resource the evaluation would need, and the substantial ad hominem attacks on them. However, their original claim of measurement of the anomalous power remained unscathed during all of this furor. A decade later, it was not generally realized that this claim remained essentially unevaluated by the scientific community. Confusion necessarily arose when the skeptics refused without argument to recognize the heat measurement and its corresponding hypothesis of a nuclear source. As a consequence, the story of the excess heat phenomenon has never been told.”
the claim of oxydoreduction an anything alike have been analysed and led to nothing but buzz… popular buzz, but refuted buzz.
for an embryo of theory, and conservative approach (I support more the approach than any theory), I advise to read the artucle of Edmund Storms
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEexplaining.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfpdvwaQSnA
He is not tender for the “new physics” that many propose as an easy answer to a hard problem… no better than challenging the experiments, is challenging the known physics.
He is the author of few synthetic article
http://fusiontorch.com/uploads/StormsJudgingValidityOfFleischmannPonsEffect2009.pdf
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEastudentsg.pdf
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEstatusofcoa.pdf
Joannes, we know that LENR generally speaking is not chemical for a few reasons. 1) No detectable products of any known chemical reaction have been detected in these systems, 2) The excess heat generated is magnitudes beyond a chemical reaction, 3) There have been nuclear products detected (helium, tritium, neutrons, various transmutation products), though not in the amounts or ratios usually associated with normal “hot fusion”, which means we have a new & novel nuclear reaction on our hands, or so it appears. The only nuclear product that *appears* to be commensurate with the heat is helium in PdD, meaning that the tritium, neutrons, beta/alpha-particle emissions, etc. seem to be associated with second/third path reactions that coincide with the main reaction pathway, but are not necessarily associated with the mechanism that generates the heat. It may turn out not to be nuclear, but unless Mills’ hydrino model is correct (which has a lot of problems associated with it), it’s definitely not chemical.
Regarding Rossi’s device exclusively, the verdict is certainly still out as to what’s going on exactly because no measurements of products have ever been made public. But if the excess heat levels are accurate, or at least close to accurate, then unless we can conceive of some yet unacknowledged energy source that produces levels orders of magnitude above chemical levels, or believe that for some reason mother nature chooses to accomplish cold fusion in more than one fashion, it is likely nuclear in nature.
Yes, for example, Piantelli’s claims of seeing energetic partials emanating from his activated nickel rods when he places them into a cloud chamber proves a nuclear reaction is taking place.
I do’nt like to enter the discussion about excess heat, but show me a commercial “cold fusion” device that works at favour of a customer, he needs no theory but a warm house in winter.