Or, some exothermic change of state of the powdered nickel or other things that are added to the powdered nickel. If nuclear level things are going on, a chemical analysis before and after the reactor has reacted should show the presence of elements afterwards that were not there before (and which didn’t come from the water charge either).
Agreed. That (new elements present) would be absolute proof of a LENR. As I said, we’ll soon have independent verification either way. And if it is LENR, the world just changed...