I don't understand and why so many people are suprised that to gain energy yo need to feed a little (less).
It is classic for usual energy that you give energy first to settle the good condition of energy production. It is the case for wood in a barbecue... you need first to pyrolyze it, then heat it until it can burn... it is only if you give good thermal insulation (in a barbecue) that after initial lighting, it can self sustain. and sometime, like with "flash in the pan" it can kill the container because of positive feedback. In a barbecue, like in a nuclear fission reactor, there are negative feedback that allow control. Celani reactor is as if you were making calorimetry in a piece of wood under a bunzen gaz burner... about electricity, it is simply an energy very easy to control, over time and space... moreover from Celani, Defkalion and Brillouin you can notice that electric excitation is more efficient than thermal... it is sure that it would be nice to have a looped reactor with turbine feeding the input, but it seems that on one side you have researchers and engineers who have not yet efficient enough reactors. and on another side you have people having working reactors, and not wanting to convince anybody else their partners, before it is publicly sold. For me the only one that can do that experiment is Celani and his replicators, assuming he continue to be "open" when he owns the greatest invention since wood fire and domesticated horse. As with all industrial of the beginning of CF (Toyota, Mitsubishi...) LENR is cursed by it's great potential value, that push successful results to be hidden... Making skeptics convinced that nothing work (which leads to similar results- provided you eliminate the numerous not so blatant experimental results). vicious circle.

