Over at this web page: http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/looking-for-one-reproducible-lenr-experiment
The author asks a perennial question: "I know that these experiments are hard to execute and take a long time to run, but if LENR is so clearly real, it seems like at least one experiment should be well documented and repeatable by now. Does anyone know of such an experiment?" Here is my response: This paper describes how to consistently reproduce cold fusion: “How to Produce the Pons-Fleischmann Effect.” http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEhowtoprodu.pdf These procedures have been done by about two hundred major laboratories, with varying degrees of success, depending on the starting materials. To do the procedures described in this paper, you need PhD level skills in chemistry and you need a well equipped laboratory. It usually takes about a year. That is with ordinary, off the shelf equipment. You could do it much faster with automated equipment, but that would cost millions of dollars. The author asked: "Jed, thanks for this. I see the experiment is clearly defined on pages 8 and 9. The paper was written in 1996. Do you know of any place the number of successful vs. unsuccessful times this specific experiment has been done?" My response: Storms himself did this when he was writing the paper. He began with 98 cathodes. It took him about a year to test them following the methods in this paper. At the end of that time he found 4 that passed all tests. These 4 worked repeatedly at high s/n ratios. So, looking at those 4 the success rate was 100%. Looking at the entire batch of cathodes the rate was 4%. Take your pick. It depends on how you look at it. Miles tested 94 cathodes and found 28 worked. That’s a 29% success rate. However, when he used cathodes recommended by Fleischmann and Johnson Matthey, 4 out of 4 worked, producing about 10 times more heat than any other type. So that’s 100%. Again, take your pick. The McKubre figures in this report show a similar pattern: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHcoldfusionb.pdf If you get a good source of material such as Johnson Matthey or the ENEA, and you are good at electrochemistry, and you test the cathodes beforehand by the methods recommended by Storms, Cravens, Fleischmann and others, and you measure control parameters so you can tell how close you are and what to do next, then it will work nearly 100% of the time. If you do not do these things it may work 30% of the time, or 3%, or never. There is no telling. It is like shooting in the dark. Or, as Storms puts it, it is like picking up pieces of gravel, testing them, and hoping to find a semiconductor. Let me add that practically the only person who made a serious effort to replicate Flieschmann exactly, following all advice and protocols, was the late Georges Lonchampt. He was an engineer. He was the chief designer of the French fission power reactors and a commissioner on the French Atomic Energy commission. Such people are technically skilled and they are used to following instructions, unlike academic scientists. He reported that it worked every time, exactly as Fleischmann said it would. The head of BARC and later chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy commission also replicated successfully, again because he was the kind of person who is used to following instructions. He and his colleagues also successfully replicated the U.S. thermonuclear bomb. That is an extremely hazardous undertaking, so he knew a thing or two about following instructions. If you want something replicated properly you should turn to people like this. The last people on earth you should turn to are academic physicists, especially plasma fusion scientists. In 1989 and 1990 they found more ways to do this experiment wrong than you can imagine, including mixing up the anode and the cathode. - Jed
