Axil, Welcome aboard! To go even one step further consider that this ability to bend light may actually be more not than just simulating the bending of space time, that it actually is bending space time! Jan Naudt's paper that the hydrino is relativistic is a big clue that Casimir effect is the environment that make it so. Consider a relativistic interpretation where those longer wavelengths are NOT displaced but rather are squeezed into the existing gap by bending space time to make room for themselves. Instead of the typical relativistic scenario like the Twin Paradox where the vacuum energy density is INCREASED due to velocity or a deep gravitational well we have here instead a situation where energy density is DECREASED through a quantum alignment of the Ni geometry. IOW a gravity warp instead of a well. Reports of anomalous half lives of radioactive gases in bulk powders would support this contention and it suggests catalytic action might be based on rapid change in these suppression values that act like an environmental shaker table to jerk matter passing through these chaotic regions into accelerated reactions - the time dilation doesn't have to be great because it is the rapid change / oscillation in the dilation factor proportional to change in geometry that "shakes" these reactants into rapid motion. Just like the Paradox twin these time "dilations" would be invisible to the local reactants and be perceived instead as acceleration forces.
Fran The explanation is that when the distance between the plates is small enough, it can exclude any waves that are too big to fit in the gap. Since there is nothing between the plates to oppose the effect of these waves, they generate a force that pushes the plates together.
