This is from Ed Storms in response to the previous post.
It is essential to analyze the results in terms of how we know Nature has to behave. By doing this, we can gain increased understanding of what is actually happening in the Rossi apparatus, information that Rossi has not provided. First, we must accept that the excess power is real and ask what characteristics of the energy-producing reaction would produce the observed behavior. If the energy-producing reaction were exothermic with a positive temperature coefficient, the device could not be controlled and the temperature would continue to rise until the device was destroyed. This would be like mixing H2 and O2 gas and then trying to slow the reaction by removing heat at the correct rate to produce a constant rate and temperature as the reaction proceeded. This kind of control is simply not possible. Therefore, the energy-producing reaction must be self-controlling, i.e have a negative feedback mechanism. How is this possible? The energy producing reaction for the Rossi and all CF applications has two components. The nuclear reaction requires a structure to be produced in which the nuclear reaction is initiated and allows the energy to be dissipated. I call this structure the nuclear-active-environment (NAE). Formation of this structure has been observed to be spontaneous, therefore it is exothermic and the rate of formation increases with temperature. If this were the only process, CF and the Rossi device would heat until the apparatus was destroyed, a fact that most theories ignore. Fortunately, as temperature is increased, the concentration of the reactant, hydrogen in Rossi's case and deuterium in the other branch of the effect, is reduced. We all know from basic chemistry that when the concentration of a reactant is reduced, the rate of reaction using that reactant must go down. Consequently, competition between the rate being increased by temperature and decreased by loss of hydrogen or deuterium, results in a temperature at which the energy-producing reaction has a maximum rate. In Rossi's case, this temperature is above but near 101° C. If the temperature attempts to go above this value, the rate of energy production automatically drops and the temperature is prevented from rising higher. This is how all systems containing a negative feed-back mechanism must behave. Suppose we want to remove energy from such a system. Removing energy causes the temperature to drop, which reduces the rate of energy generation. If we want to maximize the rate of energy generation, we must hold the temperature constant at the critical value. This can be done by changing the applied energy and matching it with the energy loss caused by cooling. If this process is done carefully, a source of constant power at constant temperature can be achieved. So far, this is all basic engineering 101. The behavior of the Rossi device demonstrates that he has achieved this stable condition, which is only possible if the two conditions described above are operating in his apparatus. These two conditions will operate in ALL CF cells producing energy. We see how the two conditions interact on a small scale in the flashes of light observed by Szpak et al. when Pd is electrodeposited - energy is produced, temperature rises, D is lost, temperature drops with the cycle repeating as D is taken up by the active region. Rossi has caused the effect on a large scale while under control. Consequently, the Rossi effect is consistent with how all CF devices are expected to behave and provides an insight into how they must be designed. Because the critical temperature might exist only over a small temperature range, failure to cause CF might be partially related to not having entered this critical temperature range. If the temperature is too low, the formation rate of the NAE is too small to produce detectable heat and if the temperature is too high, the concentration of D is too low to allow a rate that produces detectable heat. In other words, some cells might have the ability to produce power if the right temperature were used. Rossi has shown that this insight is important and that his reaction, even though it uses H2 and Ni rather than D2 and Pd, has all the characteristics of what we have identified as cold fusion. I suspect the heat does not result from transmutation but from formation H-H-e fusion to give deuterium. The small amount of transmutation that results gives stable isotopes just like such transmutation found in CF cells. Consequently, we need to examine his results using what we know about the deuterium system. The bottom line is that Rossi is initiating cold fusion and the reactions have all the characteristics observed when deuterium is used. Nature has only one song but with different words. Ed From: Jones Beene The Rossi collective seem to be convinced, or at least promoting the hypothesis that the fusion of a proton with nickel, resulting in copper, is the main heat source in this device. There are other options. One possibility is related to dense hydrogen or pycno. This could include Mileys inverse Rydberg hydrogen or the less dense variety. Here is an important Miley paper where he sees clusters of about 100 atoms in a defect (Casimir cavity ??) <http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/244/3/032036/pdf/1742-6596_244_3_032036 .pdf> http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/244/3/032036/pdf/1742-6596_244_3_032036. pdf Inverse Rydberg states of hydrogen atoms are far denser than 100 atoms, of course, and relatively "long-lived". Here is the citation (fee) - if it is confirmed by other experimenters, then it could be one of the most important papers in LENR: "Ultrahigh-density deuterium of Rydberg matter clusters for inertial confinement fusion targets" L. Holmlid, H. Hora, G. Miley and X. Yang, Laser and Particle Beams 27 (2009) 529-532. Holmlid, Miley and associates, claim that the density seen in their testing works out to the equivalent of ~10^29 atoms/cm^3, which more than enough for the solar variety of protonproton tunneling reaction (or chain reaction) which is one of the prime fusion reactions by which stars convert hydrogen to energy. The protonproton chain reaction dominates in stars the size of our Sun or smaller, which are in this range of density. In 1939, Hans Bethe proposed that one of the protons in this reaction will beta+ decay into a neutron via the weak interaction during the fusion, making deuterium as an initial product in the chain that leads to helium - and he won the Nobel Prize, in part for this insight. It adds new meaning to one of the early idioms for cold fusion sun in a bottle. In reading Ed Storms recent musings, he seems to favor a rare version of this H+H reaction for Rossi - one that does not involve extreme density known as the P-e-P reaction, which also results in deuterium, as the ash. However, if we add the Holmlid/Miley finding into the mix extremely dense IRH (inverse Rydberg hydrogen) or even the 100 atom cluster, then we can possibly stay with better known solar reaction, involving beta+ decay. The falsifiability of this hypothesis can be related to the appearance of deuterium and perhaps the gamma signature of the positron, as it either annihilates or goes to positronium with the UV signature (6.8 eV). This kind of fusion is consistent with all we know if the copper is explained as migration or occasional fusion. Furthermore, the catalyst of Rossi could changing gaseous hydrogen via spillover, into dense deuterium, or even IRH. The catalyst is the breakthrough, and my take on it is that it is a spillover catalyst and possibly it is the same NaH which is used by Mills. That would be powerful incentive Jones
