Many large cities have a group-oriented communication vehicle called "meetup.com" which brings together a range of participants to discuss specialized interests in arcane fields. For this kind of thing to work for LENR, it probably requires an geographical area with a population base of several million plus a high-tech orientation. And it looks like the open-source movement, popularized by MFMP, has been an impetus for bringing a lot of experimenters together.
Yesterday a formative group in the SF Bay area met and heard presentations by Jeff Morriss on his Parkhomov/Celani-type experiments and results; Robert Ellefson on his Experimental design in progress, and Gene Thiers on his experiences at SRI and measurement/ instrumentation for Cold Fusion experiments during the early days of LENR of Pd-D. To cut to the chase, since Bob is not yet collecting data - Jeff Morriss (Intel) has put together a very capable system but has not yet seen thermal gain. He is of the opinion that Parkhomov (assuming that he did see the reported gain) got lucky with surface chemistry - which unfortunately he (Parkhomov) has been unable to duplicate. Jeff intends to embark on an Edisonian approach, now that he is completely confident in his calorimeter. That would include altering surface chemistry of the nickel powders. Jeff Morriss is in a perfect position to make a breakthrough, since like Edison he has already tried many things which do not work and has complete confidence in his system. His approach is strong on computerized control and diagnostics, as would be expected from an Intel alum. A number of these potential options - moving forward - were talked about at the presentation. Gene Thiers strongly recommended adding a percentage of palladium and deuterium to ANY EXPERIMENT, simply because it is known to work. IOW - even if you are basically trying to find gain from Ni-H, using a Parkhomov influenced design, Gene's advice is to add a percentage of palladium and deuterium to the fuel mix, since. (this is one interpretation) having any positive gain at all could have a quantum probability enhancement to the bulk of the experiment. I think that is good advice. It would be very useful if someone would take the initiative to supply preloaded Pd powder for such a purpose. I know of 6 high quality experiments which are either underway or will be soon, in this area (including Brillouin). This gives hope that - despite the growing pessimism about Rossi replications, one of these efforts will see gain which is believable. If so, the success will probably be attributable more on the early work with Ni-H (i.e. Thermacore, Piantelli, Mills etc) than on any improvement to this line of work coming from Rossi. Of course, if adding Pd-D to what is otherwise a Ni-H "glow tube" ends up making the glow tube work, when otherwise it was not working - then we will have another valuable datum to add into knowledge base. The concept of "quantum probability enhancement" is something which has been proved to work in LENR. ... Rusi T. used increased the neutron yield in his cavitation experiments by "seeding" the liquid with a tiny secondary source of radiation. The results were then found to be orders of magnitude greater, when the contributing source was factored out. He got criticism for that - but the idea behind it is arguably sound, so to speak. See I.E. # 1, p. 46, "Cold Fusion in a 'Ying Cell' and Probability Enhancement by Boson Stimulation," by Nelson Ying and Charles W. Shults III. (Good grief . probably not that Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown.
