-----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell > Sources Close to The Investigation tell me that Ahern's hypothesis was rejected, mainly for the reasons I listed: the cathode could not have degassed rapidly enough to cause an explosion, and it could not have held enough gas even if it had been fully loaded.
Wait a minute - that is false if you believe in your own "4 anecdotal reports" of explosions, going back to the P&F 1985 reaction which vaporized a hole in concrete and melted the cathode, as evidence of the heat involved. I suspect that you believe them to all be nuclear runaway reactions - but the results are consistent with recalescence, instead of LENR. Can any liquefied metal hold hydrogen? No. If not, then one must prove that recalescence cannot liquefy metal - which happens as a matter of course in this energetic reaction. This presents the prima facie case. What we all must agree on is that it is irresponsible to have rejected a valid argument in a paper purporting to explain things to all concerned including the victim's family - yet never to have even mentioned the recalescence argument as having been offered or considered. ...especially since the rejection was based on data that is factually false to begin with (if the "slow degassing" rationale was part of it). No one in their right mind believes that a rapidly liquefied Pd alloy can hold much hydrogen, and that is essentially what recalescence can do (liquefy a metal rapidly). Not only that - it is pretty clear in a rational interpretation of that spike on the chart (Fig 5) that this is indeed what happened. Jones Bottom line: Recalescence in metals can provide more energy per molecule than H2 + O2 combustion. Were you aware of that? The phase change can instantly melt the metal that it occurs in- and it routinely does so. The best way to invalidate the suggestion would be to prove that the alloy being used was not subject to recalescence. This was never even attempted. If there was ~40,000 J. of anomalous heat to be accounted for, then most of that could have been coming from the initial recalescence reaction, which expelled the hydrogen in a shock wave - and only fraction of it derived from a secondary burn of the hydrogen with air. This does not prove that recalescence is the best explanation, but it should never have been rejected out of hand. Ahern believes that the SRI cathode, which was not small BTW, was the identical alloy to the 1985 Pd-Ag alloy of P&F runway reaction - but to my knowledge that is the weakest part of his argument, since it was never been proved to be the same identical alloy, AFAIK.
