No clear theory for ECat, this says

I've been browsing the suggested reading at the end of this article , which is titled "The Fusion Revolution".  In the third article that I came to, which is titled "Cold fusion may provide one megawatt in Athens", I came across this and I quote:

The problem was that the observers were not allowed to examine the reactor. Yet Giuseppe Levi considers combustion as a hidden energy source to be unlikely. One possible explanation is a kind of cold fusion between nickel and hydrogen, though the inventor Rossi and his advisor Professor Sergio Focardi until now have said that they lack a clear theory, at least officially.

And,

“The truth is a little different. I have very specific ideas about the theoretical aspects. But they are so closely related to an industrial secret that I prefer to keep them secret,” Rossi explained.

There was a theory offered here that is quite different than my armchair physics.  I downloaded the pdf and read it.  It was written in the nineties and it doesn't directly address the ecat.  Instead, it focuses in on a way to achieve fusion that seems to be directed toward hydrogen fusion, which is a different case than what we have here.  It is impossible to say if this process is useful in this context.

Update:

I've moved on to the next article, which is titled Swedish physicists on the E-cat: “It’s a nuclear reaction”
What caught my attention was an apparent before and after comparison between the stuff going in and the stuff coming out as follows:

At a first meeting with Rossi at the end of February they were given access to a sample of the pure nickel powder, intended for use in the energy catalyzer, and another sample of nickel powder which, according to Rossi, had been used in the reactor for 2.5 months.

Their analyses showed that the pure powder consists of essentially pure nickel, while the used powder contains several other substances, mainly 10 percent copper and 11 percent iron.

The iron part is curious.  This would mean some other kind of decay, than I wrote about yesterday.

Update:
From E-cat inventor in live chat with the readers---  Here is a transcript of a chat in which Rossi said the following:

We have to calculate also the recoil energy, integrated with the kinetic energy we produce. We want to correlate the thermal effect with the gamma specter we will define. We also are continuing to analyze the atomic and isotopical transmutation, to correlate it to the gamma and to the thermal effect. I want to know if Cu 59, 60, 61, 62 decay by electron capture, instead of beta plus emission; if so a very interesting consideration can be derived.

I must have been on the right track.

I've been doing some more work on the calculator.  Can't find any reason for the iron being in the residue left behind, noted above.  But I did find some reactions that suggest cobalt- but after that, nothing.  Something came pretty close, so it may be doing an endothermic decay, if that's possible.

One more thing, and I'll leave this post:  Rossi did say that his invention breaks some rules of physics.  That's not a direct quote, though.  Anyway, there is an air of mystery around the device.  To know for sure, we'll have to see a fool proof demonstration.  That is supposed to happen in October.