on e-catnews there is a critic of report 41 that is too complex for me to oppose without risk. http://ecatnews.com/?p=2464&cpage=3#comment-45607
here is the critic: can you comment... Alain posted on October 29, 2012 at 6:30 pm: > > if you don’t see there is something broken in mainstream behavior… like in > Science rejection of report41 (just one example), > > You’re not making any arguments to persuade people that things are broken. > You’re just listing things you don’t think should have happened. I don’t > get it. People repeatedly point to the more than 1200 papers in cold fusion > that have been published under peer review, and they admit many of them are > poor quality. So it is possible to publish cold fusion results — even only > suggestive ones. And people list all the mainstream organizations that > “support” LENR. So how is that also consistent with suppression. Do you > think that all these organizations validate LENR, but not enough? > - > Given the many publications in cold fusion, the failure of report 41 to > get published is more plausibly blamed on its poor quality, and not on a > systematic suppression of the field. And a look at the paper makes that > even more plausible: There are many legitimate criticisms. The first few of > the criticisms below would be enough for any journal to reject it: > - > 1) They talked about correlating the helium to the heat, but missed by a > factor of 10 (based on the Q-value for the formation of helium from > deuterium), and then said that the measurement of a single temperature was > too crude to get a true measure of the heat. A referee would be justified > to send it back asking for better calorimetry if they’re gonna say > something about the heat. > - > 2) The speculation about DD -> He-4 plus heat was very poorly justified. > The idea that an excited He-4 can give its energy (24 MeV) to d-electrons > is unprecedented (and fusion in Pd has been observed), and in any case, the > electrons should be detectable, since many reactions at least will happen > near the surface. I think a reviewer might have suggested not to speculate > on a possible reaction at all, or collaborate with a theorist and calculate > reaction rates. > - > 3) If the calorimetry was not wrong by a factor of 4, then there is too > much helium. If some of the helium has a mundane origin, why not all of it? > - > 4) It’s been 10 years, and they said things like the calorimetry needed to > be checked. Did they? > - > 5) It was 2002, but there is no reference to the work in the 2004 > submission to the DOE panel. It seems that even the cold fusion advocates > who made a critical presentation to the DOE in 2004 did not think report 41 > was credible. > - > 6) Carlo Rubbia was acknowledged. Has he made any public statements about > cold fusion? I looked some time ago, and found none. He has spent the last > decade working on renewable and sustainable energy in several official > capacities. He has personally advocated (even invented) the “energy > amplifier”, a sub-critical reactor using thorium fuel. It would seem his > confidence in cold fusion might not be so strong, if he’s working on a > fission reactor, in spite of the fact that he should be quite familiar with > this experiment. > > like in risk analysis around LENR, > > It’s not skeptics that are claiming explosions caused by LENR, or copious > neutrons produced by temperature shocked titanium deuteride (Petras). > > and like your self-confidence that all is faked… > > My argument is mainly the lack of credible evidence. Most is probably not > faked, but the claims from companies looking for investment should be > treated suspiciously. > > I’ve seen the same software on 9/11 conspiracy sites, … > > Don’t know what your point is here, but if you’re supporting 9/11 > conspiracy theories too, then your attitude makes sense, and I abandon all > hope to influence your thinking. I hold the view that it couldn’t have been > a conspiracy with Bush involved, because it worked. If you’re arguing > against such theories, then it makes no sense that you argue for them in > the case of cold fusion. They are equally implausible. >
