Having studied a dozen or so of these papers but being far from an expert, here a couple of comments for those who are even more baffled than I am.
1) Holmlid’s thinking on the details has changed over time. There are inconsistencies. His critics will pick up on these but look past that to the most recent conclusions. 2) He has generally tried to associate with well-respected co-authors (Miley, etc) some of whom have a different slant. 3) The slide-show presentation cited below - probably because of where it was first presented, tends to focus on deuterium fusion, but in Olafsson’s talk, that focus is gone. Fusion was hardly mentioned at all compared to nucleon disintegration. 4) There are authoritative papers by Meulenberg and especially by Lawandy on the subject of DD theory (dense deuterium) which are similar but different - and could add (or subtract) something which is relevant to the big picture. 5) One detail which crops up is that the lifetime of DD is apparently only microseconds when free from the surface where it forms, yet it is greatly extended when retained on the catalyst. This short-life will hinder an ability to accumulate a sizeable population of DD fuel, such as for ICF targets… or for the glow-tube … unless the catalyst becomes incorporated into the target. Same for Glow-tube. 6) This could be the reason that a ferromagnetic catalyst works best. There is probably a strong magnetic bond which keeps the DD cluster attached, with extended lifetime when a magnetic field is present. 7) This situation is begging for high level replication (national Lab). The military implications are such that it would be a big surprise if some kind of (hidden) replication is not underway. From: Blaze Spinnaker In case you missed this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz7lTfqkED9WN1NPdWttMC1RdEU/view Courtesy of MFMP. "If confirmed, such process releases similar or higher energy than fission of Uranium 200MeV." "4. The Ultra-dense hydrogen Leif Holmlid 30+ papers 2008-2015" BTW – Uranium is of course considerably more massive than deuterium, so the comparison with fission is even more exaggerated. Deuteron disintegration which supplies about 2 GeV per atom will be over 1100 times more energy dense than nuclear fission, on a unit weight basis, and 400 time more energy dense than nuclear fusion of deuterium to helium. However, if a sizeable percentage of that disintegration energy disappears as neutrinos, then the usable energy is still a mystery. The bad news for LENR: If the muon pathway is favored, as seems to be the case from Holmlid’s studies, then most of the excess energy will disappear as neutrinos. The good news for LENR is that even if 90% disappears, the fraction which remains is far greater than fusion of deuterium to helium.
