No worries, sometimes we just like to believe there is something out there, then reality hits.
There IS something out there. I just made a calculating error -- and corrected it.
The demonstration that you can get the energy equivalent of 45 gallons of gasoline out of less than 0.04 oz of cheap stuff (nickel, lithium, and hydrogen) is truly remarkable -- at least as remarkable as the initial fission experiments by Enrico Fermi. The evidence of nuclear conversion of nickel and lithium into different isotopes without radiation upsets the tenets of modern physics, but is consistent with a quantity of energy that cannot otherwise be explained.