Bob,
Winterberg’s understanding differs from Holmlid’s and Holmlid’s older papers have been modified considerably in the newer ones. Many details are in a state of flux. The snowflakes could be far smaller. The overarching argument is that Mills, Holmlid, Winterberg, Miley, Hora and all the others who have explored the theme of condensed hydrogen clusters, could be partly right and partly wrong. I do not have a problem with a mashup of all of them. From: Bob Higgins Ø My understanding was that the hexagonal iron oxide catalyst was responsible for making the planar hexagonal Rydberg "snowflakes". These "snowflakes" form a dusty plasma in his system and spontaneously align to form stacks of "snowflakes" having the 2.3 pm separation [Winterberg]. I don't think the iron oxide is responsible for anything but forming the pre-cursor hexagonal Rydberg "snowflakes" that then forms the dusty plasma. From: Bob Higgins Ø I am not convinced at all that Holmlid's strings of "UDD" exist. The existence of the low density hexagonal Rydberg "snowflakes" of hydrogen is a fairly well established fact. I cannot see how any of this is a path to large scale fusion even if it exists. As I understand Holmlid’s argument - iron oxide is the matrix which makes it all happen. Iron oxide is naturally structured as nanoporous, with holes of one nanometer diameter which are located in the center of hexagons of iron-oxide, and which align as deep narrow wells. Presumably, the strings of UDD would be positioned inside these deep holes like drilling strings, providing an extended lifetime but requiring that the matrix must also be included as part of the fuel. Although it would appear at first glance that this structure is mostly iron oxide, the spacing of the stacked layers in the strings is so close (2.3 pm), that there would be many more actual atoms of UDD compared to the matrix. Until there is independent replication, I agree with Bob that this is not convincing on its own. Yet, it should be relatively easy to show some previous anomaly in hydrogen loaded iron-oxide due to the industrial importance. In fact, using hydrogen to reduce hematite was once considered as a way to make pure steel from iron ore with no coal. Sooner or later I will get around to digging up old papers looking for reported thermal anomalies.
