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I found an article "Special report: cold fusion is neither", which discusses a theory behind what's really happening in the e-cat, in case anybody's interested. In a nutshell, the theory is that a sufficiently intense electric field can cause a reverse beta decay (electron merging with proton to form neutron), with the resulting neutron having sufficiently low momentum to be readily absorbed by a nickel nucleus, forming an unstable isotope which decays into copper.

I'm still trying to digest the physics discussed in it, with side-trips into surface plasmon and the Born–Oppenheimer approximation

No doubt there are slower reactions that can produce surplus heat we can use for our own purposes.

The Pons and Fleischman reaction is in that category ~ but they may not have had an original discovery at all.

I recall at the time they'd used platinum as their "core", and they were breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen simply disappeared.

Platinum has a special property ~ it can dissolve more hydrogen than it can actually contain ~ assuming the hydrogen atoms remain intact.

No one had an answer for it then, nor now, but it's been proposed that we simply use platinum as a hydrogen fuel tank ~ pump it full of gazillions of atoms, bleed off the spare electrons to somewhere else, then drive around with our hydrogen powered cars safe from sudden surprising explosions!

Alternatives have included various nickel compounds.

This ain't NEW science ~ this stuff was drifting around as tested proposals back in the 1920s ~ folks even then were getting tired of being immolated by their motor vehicles in fender benders (those are the days when the gas tanks were in front ABOVE the engines).

The problem has always been the cost of platinum ~ recently there have been proposals for organic substitutes that would replace the platinum catalytic converters. Makes me wonder just how much hydrogen those organic substitutes can stash!

And, more importantly, can those organic substitutes for platinum serve in place of nickel ~ thereby pricing the Italian product right out of the market?

Besides 2-4 neutrons nickle still needs an additional proton to make copper. This thing must use one heck of a catalyst, possibly an unstable radioactive isotope to supply protons. If the Ni is giving up the proton for a ‘proton-electron binding process’ then where’s the cobalt or iron, etc. i.e. the Ni now missing a 1 or 2 protons?

Ref:

Ni = 28p, 28e and 30-32n
Cu = 29p, 29e and 34n

If this really works the day after it goes public the DOE and EPA will probably outlaw it, aka draft regulatory requirements for its use.