There are a number of LENR observers who are skeptical of the past findings that with Pd-D electrolysis, helium has been detected which is commensurate with excess heat.
Notably, this stance has been taken and staunchly defended by Steve Krivit - and has a certain amount of (wait-and-see) support from those who otherwise believe in excess heat. The rationale of this argument is that in subwatt electrolysis, the helium produced is necessarily well below background levels and must enriched before it can be detected in any device – and even after enrichment, it can be confused with molecular deuterium (less of a problem). It is the enrichment step which is the problem. This is not the place to continue that argument, which has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum, but it is the place to suggest something more important - a way in which excess heat – as a general rule - can be observed without nuclear fusion of any kind. That way is Holmlid’s finding of nucleon disintegration following laser irradiation of dense deuterium clusters. Ironically, it provides far more net energy than does nuclear fusion. The most cogent argument for nucleon disintegration is that in the standard model, every nucleon contains matter and antimatter in close proximity. No one needs to be convinced that matter and antimatter can be made to annihilate. An external stimulus, especially an intense coherent stimulus of photons, forming plasmon polaritons (SPP), need only find a coupling window where any of the matter/antimatter component of the nucleus is annihilated. This disruption will trigger a further instability resulting in complete disintegration. The evidence is somewhat compelling. Replication is demanded. _____________________________________________ Deuteron disintegration which supplies about 1 GeV per nucleon is about 167 times more energy dense than nuclear fusion of deuterium to helium. Assumption: 1 GeV per nucleon vs 24 MeV per 4 nucleons (in the He-4 nucleus). However, a sizeable percentage of that disintegration energy will disappear as neutrinos, and thus 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 indeed disappear as neutrinos. The good news for LENR is that even if 90% of the energy disappears, the fraction which remains is about 16.7 times more energetic than fusion of deuterium to helium. And if 99% disappears as neutrinos – the reaction is still more energetic than what is expected in palladium D+D fusion to helium, and yet could be easily confused with that reaction… EXCEPT there would be little helium detected (the occasional alpha particle).
