I agree with Ed Storms that the many experiments in LENR show that this strange process is basically produced among other things by imperfections in the lattice structure of transition metals: cracks as Ed terms these imperfections.
Ed Storms is postulating that a new form of hydrogen is central to the LENR process. I suspect that this is correct. The way this newly recognized type of hydrogen is produced is through the application of high pressure. Hydrogen has a complex state diagram that shows how hydrogen can evolve from a dielectric gas into a metal through the application of high temperature and/or pressure. More broadly, I suspect that there is a yet undiscovered mode of chemistry that exists at high pressure which produces LENR active chemical compounds. The pressure exerted by the chemical bonds surrounding the voids in the lattice structure of transition metals could become high enough to produce high pressure formed chemical compounds that demonstrate the LENR effect. Other quantum mechanical based mechanisms add to this probability that high pressure LENR compounds will form. One such added pressure amplification cause is a pressure shock as suggested is required by Piantelli. In a completely independent line of evidence, one indication that high pressure chemistry is active as a source of heat is the evidence of the completion of a number of NASA planetary mission probes that has shown unexplained heat sources in the cores of celestial bodies of sufficient mass to produce high pressure chemistry at the centers of these objects. These include the Moon, Mercury, Pluto, Ceres, and various other less massive bodies in both the Kuiper belt and asteroid belts. Such chemistry might even be at work within the Sun as indicated by the new solar probes fielded by NASA. In addition, evidence derived from the high pressure conditions produced by collapsing cavitation bubbles indicate that other high pressure chemical compounds besides hydrogen might also produce LENR effects. These compounds include but not limited to water, liquid metals, and molten salts. There is also a theory that high pressure chemistry might be the basis of the effects expected by dark matter. Holmlid, Mills, and Shoulders have speculated that the chemical compounds produced by high pressure/EMF are dark matter. The characteristics of these compounds indicated that they absorb EMF energy in a dark mode and gain mass/energy through the absorption of catalyzed nuclear binding energy to form WIMPS (in particle physics and astrophysics, weakly interacting massive particles are among the last hypothetical particle physics candidates for dark matter) These particles convert catalyzed energy derive from nuclear binding energy into thermal energy through quantum mechanical means. These particles in their natural state have not yet been detected as dark matter because they are only produced by the high pressure conditions inside large celestial objects and exist in a metastable condition. Because these particles are metastable, these exotic neutral particles (ENP) will decay in time if their stores of energy are not replenished in an ongoing process.
