Dear Vorticians, In assessing the likelihood that Rossi's astounding success (claimed success) with Ni-H heat is factual, his insistence that a single isotope is responsible (to wit: nickel-62) is actually helpful to his cause. If true, it would answer many questions about the lack of replication by others and the notable differences between Ni-H and Pd-D reactions.
And this isotope explanation is elegant in surprising ways, including the partial model or metaphor of uranium fission and the corresponding requirement of a critical-mass equivalent of some kind, but without real neutrons. The Ni isotope could be the unknown factor which makes the impresario's staged productions of the past 2 years slightly more believable, especially to those former fans who have panned his recurrent Pagliacci role ... as a falsetto-techno-castrato. Ya gotta laugh at Rossi's bravado, if it is a scam. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks Rossi is clever enough for a more serious role - is he a genius inventor or a vain pretender - an opera-buffa-diva? In an informal poll - how many give Rossi's Ni-62 claim more than a passing chance of being the real breakthrough? I may give it better than a passing chance, even if it is only 51%. That could change quickly if there were more dots to connect. Here is one more dot - at the 10th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen Loaded Metals, last year in Siena, Italy - a professor or two with connections to Kurchatov and the Russian paper cited earlier were there. Could mean nothing - Russians like to get out of Moscow in April, as Spring comes late. However, they have been notably silent on what they are doing during those long winters, if it involves LENR. A few other factoids. The preferred gaseous nickel compound for use in a centrifuge cascade appears to be nickel tetrafluorophosphine, Ni(PF3)4, called tetrakis. The Russians can enrich to 80%. The cost can only be guesstimated, but would be favorable based on the sunk cost of having lots of unused time on a billion-buck centrifuge array - which quite a few Countries, like the USA do have available... IOW Ni-62 could be factor of 1000 less than what you pay at a chem. supply house. It could be about a tenth the cost per gram of 235U enrichment. Nickel tetrafluorophosphine is known as "tetrakis" nickel since in geometry and polyhedron notation, tetrakis is used to describe a certain solid shape, which this molecule presents. Palladium also has a tetrakis form. Has a certain Dune reminiscence, no ? OTOH, we can't put much faith in coincidence or Conference attendance. "Spice" is a bit less alluring when you realize that it is basically sandworm guano.
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