At 07:43 PM 8/18/2012, Eric Walker wrote:
I am not in a position to assert an opinion here, but the impression I get is that the evidence for transmutations to stable isotopes is solid; see Ed Storms's book for a good discussion. An important difficulty, however, is that the amounts detected cannot explain the levels of excess power observed. (For those wondering whether a shift to unstable isotopes is also possible under certain circumstances, I'm not sure, although I have only seen this reported in two instances by two related groups.)
This is commonly said, and it's important to understand the full context. Yes, with transmutations, other than to helium, the amounts detected, so far, cannot explain the levels of excess power seen. Helium does that. The transmutations are found at a much lower rate than would be necessary to explain the observed power, without the helium production.
Transmutations can sometimes be observed at very low rates of formation. Complicating this, the analytical methods used can detect extraordinarily small quantities of some isotopes, and ruling out contamination can be difficult. Nevertheless, it can be done. The steps necessary are not always taken.
One remarkable thing I've found. There is often little attempt to correlate transmutations with excess heat. If the transmutations are from a side reaction or secondary reaction, we'd expect correlation, at least a loose one. What we normally see are results from a *single experiment*, not results correlated across many experiments. That correlation would normally be done by showing the range of heat/isotope. Or helium/isotope.
As well, it's entirely possible that transmutations are related to the H/D ratio, at least in FPHE experiments.
