See: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/06/brian-ahern-getting-8-watts-in-low.html
This article includes some quotes which I assume are from Ahern made during his MIT presentation. I wish people would attribute quotes more carefully. Some quotes: "A rough calibration suggests that the 30 grams of hydrated nanopowder is putting out 5 watts of excess power." Rather too rough, in my opinion. I wish he would use a Seebeck calorimeter or something like that. "Yesterday Peter Gluck suggested that the relationship between loading and excess power may be a myth. This seemed to be true for electrolysis with Pd and heavy water where loading levels exceeding 0.9 D/M were a prerequisite for observing excess power." I think Peter overstates this. Loading is correlated with excess power in bulk palladium-deuterium systems, especially with electrolysis. However that does not mean it correlates with gas loaded powder systems, or with hydrogen. In other words, the loading is necessary with bulk material, but that may be for some secondary reason. The high loading triggers unknown condition X, and condition X in turn triggers the heat. With gas loaded powder, condition X occurs by itself. My guess is that with bulk material, without high loading, the deuterons are not "presented" to the surface from underneath, and for some reason that is necessary. - Jed
