where the journalist Steve Krivit says to the nuclear chemist Mitch Andre Garcia:

Hi, Mitch,
There is a theory (published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal) by Widom and Larsen, that claims to be able to explain most of the “cold fusion” phenomena without requiring one to invoke magic spells. Take a look at http://www.newenergytimes.com/wltheory.
Let me know what you think.
Best regards,
Steve Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times

And Mitch answered the following:
sbkrivit: The general gist I get from the above link is that some unbeknown phenomena is creating thermal neutrons, and it is those thermal neutrons that are leading to observed heat increases.

I doubt this is happening, but I can knock out the claim that this is from electron capture on deuterium(2H) or that this is from, protons(1H).

I made a nice little calculator for these types of things. Link: http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?page=scripts#Nuclear%20Reactions%20Calculator

Reactions:

Electron Capture on Hydrogen
1H + 1e- —> 1n
Q = -0.78153017800003 MeV
Electron Capture on Deuterium
2H + 1e- —> 1n + 1n
Q = -3.0059569539999 MeV

A negative Q-value means that this will not happen spontaneously. This makes sense, since neutrons are heavier (contain more mass) than protons. The question then is, where will this additional mass come from? From the references cited in your post, I see no explanation accounting for the excess mass of the neutron. In the end, the mass-energy or the products need to equal the mass-energy of the reactants; No one can escape the conservation of mass-energy.

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An answer to Mitch’s theoretical question is presented in that same link
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