I read the whole page at this link you provided:
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/01/15/rossi-discovery-what-to-say/
and there isn't anything like universal condemnation being expressed by the scientists and researchers (as well as laymen) who have commented there.
If anything, I'd say the group mood is one of cautious skepticism, with a dose of bright optimism thrown in. I believe there's only one really negative comment on the whole page.
I urge you to read the whole thing. Most of the people commenting there, are very up on the science involved, and thoroughly familiar with the history of this, and similar developments.
I don't personally have enough information yet to know whether I'm looking at a real breakthrough or not. I remain open to seeing where this all leads.
Understand, you are seeing an interview of Europeans, what American’s interpretation as encouragement and hopeful optimism is actually just a polite slam.
Europeans just can’t seem to bring themselves to slam people directly and don’t see a need to respond to someone writing an article mentioning their name and might have left the impression with the reader that they endorse it.
There is a number of problems with Rossi’s answers.
1- That hydrogen works and not deuterium is a red-flag. Any LENR mechanism involves tunnelling through the internuclear barrier and hydrogen has a greater de Broglie wavelength than deuterium: the shorter the de Bloglie wavelength, the greater the tunnelling.
2- Ni-62 is the most stable nucleon. Any first step involving this nucleon will be very endothermic (secondary reactions from the first set of products may be exothermic) and heating the reactor to 500 degrees Celcius is not going to do it.
3- Ni-64 has a half-life of less than 72 hrs, thus it needs to be created by absorption of 2 neutrons by Ni-62, a very unlikely reaction without the presence of a fairly strong neutron emitter in the reactor. Heating to 500 degrees Celcius is not going to do it. The most abundant Ni isotope is Ni-58 and that will imply an absorption of 6 neutrons to produce Ni-64 (Ni-62, being the most stable nucleon, is not in the picture) making it very, very unlikely.
4- Now comes the central issue: the source of neutrons. First, whatever the neutron source, most of the neutrons will not interact with the Ni nucleons and will reach the exterior and become detectable outside the reactor. And Mr Rossi’s FAQ makes no mention of neutron or of any kind of external detection of any kind of particle or radiation. To say that hydrogen gas alone works and not deuterium brings about another flag: only by absorption of a neutrino can a positron and an electron can combine to produce a neutron.
At least with deuterium, at very close proximity to the Nickel nucleon, the orientation of the deuterium nucleon can be such to have the neutron closest to the nickle nucleon and have the neutron transfer to the Nickel from the deuterium: result is 1 neutron added to Nickel and production of a hydrogen atom. Neutrinos interact very, very weakly to matter. If there was any neutron source, it will have to be from some radioactive isotope in the Ni alloy. Heating up to 500 degree Celcius will not do the trick for neutrino absorption.
5- Some para-scientific issues. The quest of transmutation of matter through chemical means has been the dream of alchemists for centuries, if not millennia. This delusion is still strong today. The presence of a paper in a peer-reviewed journal is not a gold standard, not even a lead standard of proof. The same goes with patents. The gold standard is reproducibility in an independent lab. In blog: newenergytimes.com/2011/01/15/rossi-discovery-what-to-say, all I read is some minor nitpicking between teams who are into the cold fusion kick. But the biggest flag is Rossi stating he has a factory running for 2 years on this technology and he will not identify the factory. Show us the factory and leave us alone while we inspect it.
6- More para-scientific issues. Scam artists flock to the same scam. We had Mark Goldes and Mr Randell Mills pushing the Ni-H scheme, explaining it with the hydrino theory (which is garbage).
But Goldes and Mills apparently were successful to lasso in some suckers, er, investors. At least Mills was honest enough to state that Raney-Ni was used; there is always some Al and oxygen in the Ni. Why shouldn’t others get on the Ni-H scheme? This time, instead of hydrinos, some vague LENR is invoked.
The suckers, er, investors are not that innocent and want regular and periodic progress reports. And if supposedly progress takes form of platitudinal and vague news reports, then so be it.
7- Nickel and hydrogen (in all conditions and proportions) have been used in industry in the hydrogenation of many organics. Energy balance of reactors are measured very carefully. If there were - in any small part of the reactor - processes imputed by Rossi, Goldes, and Mills, the reactor will reach criticality pretty soon. So far, no such incidents have been reported.