The purpose of this paper is to place side by side the experimental results of Piezonu- clear reactions, which have been recently unveiled, and those collected during the last twenty years of experiments on low energy nuclear reactions (LENR). We will briefy re- port the results of our campaign of piezonuclear reactions experiments where ultrasounds and cavitation were applied to solutions of stable elements. These outcomes will be shown to be compatible with the results and evidences obtained from low energy nuclear reac- tion experiments. Some theoretical concepts and ideas, on which our experiments are grounded, will be sketched and it will be shown that, in order to trigger our measured effects, it exists an energy threshold, that has to be overcome, and a maximum inter- val of time for this energy to be released to the nuclear system. Eventually, a research hypothesis will be put forward about the chance to raise the level of analogy from the mere comparison of results up to the phenomenological level. Here, among the various evidences collected in LENR experiments, we will search for hints about the overcome of the energy threshold and about the mechanism that releases the loaded energy in a suitable interval of time.
Well, it's nowhere near 'viable' yet in reality. Or at least its probably in the same category as like carbon nanotubes. Because the surfaces involved are nano-scale, I think that makes commercially generated quantities of power quasi-impossible as of yet. So far I haven't seen ANY LENR (low energy nuclear reactions, new PC term for CF) claims that show significant power output. But there are a huge number of references describing many many different types of LENRs achieved with all sorts of materials and energy inputs which is really strange.
That Andrea Rossi E-cat guy is making wild claims about his power output with his 'hidden catalyst' that he won't tell anyone about (but if he ever releases a model to the public it'll be reverse-engineered in 2sec) that converts Ni / H to energy, but to date nobody with a publicly available method has produced large enough amounts of energy to be worthwhile. Cool thing is though, there are so many possible routes to new nano-manufacturing thru all the other R&D projects that if someone makes a breakthru there, it'll apply to LENR too.
Oh but I should say I found public references to several Nickel / Hydrogen projects that have positive net power output. The problem seems to be in creating the surfaces where it occurs. Apparently it is batch-specific. (This is from several LENR forums / blogs I can't remember.) One batch of metal surfaces (powdered thin plates basically same approach as with any other nanostructure research) does not have the same qualities as the next batch. And they don't even understand which structures are important in the batches! So far all they seem to know is that certain batches produce power, other's don't.
And every batch produces a wildly different amount of power, at wildly different unpredictable intervals (i.e. not a steady power flow but pretty much completely random [inasmuch as we don't understand when it's going to happen not that it's actually random.])
And there are over 60 popular theories to account for the LENR's with no real preferred candidate as of yet.
