Direct link: http://lenrexplained.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PROGRESS-REPORT-6.pdf
This is a *must read* report. Since it is me, I guess there is no rule against repeating what I wrote at CMNS. Maybe people here can help me sort out the apparent contradictions about loading and expansion. This is great stuff! I have learned more about the hands-on aspects of Pd-D cold fusion than I learned from maybe a hundred other papers. (And no kidding, I have actually read ~100 other papers, at least as copy editor.) I have both learned and confirmed various things. The need for high loading, and the need for Pd material that does not expand too much with "excess volume" are related subjects, and they are complicated. What Ed says about them seems contradictory. He seems to be saying that high loading is not necessary, yet elsewhere he implies it is necessary. I get it, but it takes some sorting out. Here are some of the statements, with my comments in square brackets: p. 1. LENR is not initiated by simply achieving a high D/Pd ratio as some explanations predict. . . . [It is loading plus something else. Once the heat begins, loading can decrease.] p. 5. . . . the amount of excess volume created during loading predicts the eventual ability to make excess energy, as described first by Storms(2-4). [Too much excess volume prevents the reaction.] p. 6. As long as the temperature is not reduced, this [heat after death] excess power continues even as the sample slowly loses D. [As I said, once you get a reaction, loading is no longer essential.] p. 6. Although the [heat after death] excess power shows unsteady production, it remained essentially constant in spite of the change in average composition while the temperature slightly decreased. When the internal heater was turned off, excess power rapidly dropped to zero at a rate consistent with the time constant of the calorimeter . . . p. 7. A sample that is being self-heated by power from the LENR process would continue to make energy after the electrolytic current is turned off because once LENR starts, it does not need to be fed by D supplied by the electrolytic process. The D that is already in the lattice supplies D to produce LENR even at low compositions. p. 9. . . . a small amount of excess volume is proposed to produce small cracks without the ability to release D2 but with the ability to initiate LENR. Consequently, a small excess volume produced by Pd, such as is the case with the sample studied here, is important and relevant to being able to achieve a high D/Pd and generate excess energy. [If I understand correctly this means loading is needed to trigger the reaction, along with some preparations that Ed will describe in the next paper, but that once the reaction gets underway loading is less important. When the material is so good it produces measurable heat after death, loading is no longer a factor because it decreases back down to PdD0.67 (p. 6) yet heat after death continues.] On another subject, I am not surprised the radiation was an artifact of temperature. - Jed
