After all of these decades, the perception of LENR in the general physics community is still rather 'unflattering,' shall we say. It is not even clear what the most convincing experiment (aka - the hero effort) is/was in the field - since none has yet led to a commercial product.
Many new observers of the LENR scene are unaware of the details of the Thermacore, Inc. runaway reaction in 1996. I ran across an old post on that work recently and decided to re-post it since there is some similarity to current work - to wit the Clean Planet effort in Japan. Unfortunately, the end result was not (publicly) replicated, but in fact became the final effort (and exit). (BTW - Thermacore was a recognized leader in all aspects of industrial thermochemistry, having inventedthe heat pipe. Had they kept at it (1996)... who knows? Sadly, the reason that they dropped LENR 25 years ago was far from 'no gain' - instead, it was the risk of deadly explosion. The incident echoes other thermal runaways, including P&F, Mizuno, Mark Snoswell in Australia and Brian Ahern. However, Thermacore's was more energetic than prior incidents and could have led to high profile fatalities. This was to have been a powered experiment, but they never had time to apply input power. It was was a follow-on to a Phase one grant from USAF (document in LENR-CANR library) and was simply intended to be an analysis the absorption reaction of a large amount of nickel powder with hydrogen at modest pressure. Instead, it was likely to have been the most energetic single event in the history of LENR. Years later, Brian Ahern was in contact with Nelson Gernert, the chief researcher in the new Thermacore, Inc (having gone through two changes of ownership) ... and who was also in charge of the runaway. Brian is absolutely convinced that this happened as described. Details: Gernert added 2.5 pounds of nickel powder (200 mesh of Ni-200) into a 3 liter stainless steel Dewar. The Dewar weighed 300 pounds. It was a strong pressure vessel with a hemispherical volume. It would have been an approximation of a small industrial boiler had things not gone berserk that day. Thermacore evacuated the nickel under vacuum for several days before adding H2 gas at 2 atmospheres. The most amazing thing happened next. The powder immediately and spontaneously heated up before external power could even be added. The Dewar glowed orange (800C) and the engineers ran for cover. No external heat had been used and radiation monitors were not running. The nickel had sintered into a glob alloyed into the vessel and could not be removed. The (then) owner of Thermacore, Yale Eastman was frightened that an explosion was imminent and that someone could be killed. He forbade any further work on LENR. The incident was not published. Superficial thermal analysis - 3 liters of H2 gas at 2 atmosphere will have a heat of combustion of 74 kilojoules if combined with oxygen (but there was no oxygen in the Dewar). Heating a 300 lb Stainless vessel to 800C would require 21 megajoules. That is ostensibly ~289 times the possible chemical energy but can it be controlled? Maybe Clean Planet has learned how to control this phenomenon and can produce a small boiler. Mitsubishi is a major investor, it is said. Tesla beware. https://www.cleanplanet.co.jp/en/company/
