It is humorous that you use that kind of hypothetical as a form of derision because I have asked virtually the same hypothetical of skeptopaths and they refuse to answer it because they know that IF LENR works, it will drastically change the world.
Skeptopaths also know that if ambient air was made of cheese, it would be difficult-to-impossible to start your car without at least retuning your carburetor. Spockopaths finds this logical.
If Gully Foyle could teleport, that would drastically change the world, too. If Hari Seldon could really predict the future using psycho-history, that also would radically change the world. If Albus Dumbledore could really do magic, that would radically change the world.
Quantum Mechanics is unbelievable ... but it changed the world. The Special Theory of Relativity is unbelievable ... but it changed the world.
But no one is skeptical of LENR/CANR/CF because of its world changing potential, nor because of its unbelievability. They're skeptical because, like Hari Seldon, Gully Foyle, and Albus Dumbledore, and unlike Quantum Physics, it's fiction.