My response to a personal communication regarding an erroneous analysis posted on a blog site  http://rabett.blogspot.com follows:

        The heat of formation of nickel hydride is negative and small (-2.1 kcal mole/H2).  It is referenced in my paper R. L. Mills, G. Zhao, K. Akhar, R. Chang, J. He, Y. Lu, W. Good, G. Chu, "Commercializable Power Source from Forming New States of Hydrogen", in press (Reference 78 at Eq. (45)).

[78. B. Baranowski, S. M. Filipek, "45 years of nickel hydride‹history and perspectives", Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 404-406, (2005), pp. 2-6.]


http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC112108WebS.pdf


Thus, nickel hydride decomposition is endothermic, not exothermic.  Furthermore, Rabett's main mistake is that he has incorrectly calculated the heat of formation of nickel hydride using gaseous diatomic bond energies.  Specifically, the cited Ni-H and Ni-Ni bond energies regard formation of gaseous covalent diatomic molecules from the corresponding gaseous atoms.  These energies do not include the energy to vaporize Ni metal to atomic nickel which is +429.7 kJ/mole Ni (CRC) or +4.45 eV/Ni atom.

D. R. Lide, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 86th Edition, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, (2005-6), p. 5-16.

(The preamble of the Bond Dissociation Energies section of the CRC that Rabett cites for the gaseous diatomic bond energies used gives the pages for the enthalpy of formation of atoms in the gas phase.)

Also, nickel hydride is H dissolved in a Ni metal lattice.  It does not comprise covalent Ni-H bonds.  Nor, does nickel metal comprise gaseous Ni-Ni covalent bonds. 

  Experimentally, the heat released from commercial R-Ni (Davison) was only detectable by TPD in larger samples as shown by I. Nicolau, R. B. Andersen, "Hydrogen in a commercial Raney nickel," J. Catalysis, Vol. 68, (1981), 339-348.  The small heat observed by Nicolau with larger samples was attributable to the oxidation reaction of Al by Bayerite that was present at 1.3 wt% corresponding to 2.5 X10^-4 moles H2O/g R-Ni.  In the Rowan studies, this reaction accounted for 1% of the 1 MJ of heat observed based on redundant Bayerite measurements.  Similar results were obtained by BLP:

http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC112108WebS.pdf

Rabett Erroneous Blog Post:
Grabbing one of the discarded Christmas card envelops that the gentle readers were so kind as to send and turning it to the back, the chemical reaction would be
2 Ni-H(s) --> Ni-Ni(s) + H2(g)
Scaling the 100 to 150 ml/g H2 for Raney nickel up to the 1500 g Rowan/BLP reactor we get (100-150 ml/g)*(1500g) = 150 - 225 liters of H2 or .
(150-225 liter)/(22.4 l/mole) = 6.7 - 10 moles (a serious amount of Hydrogen)
To do this right we would have to know the heat of formation of a mole of H atoms on the Raney nickel and a whole lot of details, Raney nickel is a very nano material, where structure is everything. However, for the back of our envelope we can use bond strengths from the table in the Chem Rubber Bible (aka Chemical Rubber Company Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 9-64 (2008)).
Ni-Ni: 204 kJ/mol
Ni-H: 240 kJ/mol
H-H: 436 kJ/mol
So we break two Ni-H bonds, that costs us 480 kJ/mol and we make one Ni-Ni bond getting back 204 kJ/mol and one H-H bond, getting back 436 kJ/mol
Net heat of reaction is estimated by adding the energies for the bonds broken and subtracting the energies for the bonds formed. (A negative number means the reaction will be exothermic or give off energy in the form of heat)
Net heat of reaction per mole of H2 generated= 2*240 kJ/mol - 436 kJ/mol - 204 kJ/mol = -160 kJ/mol (an exothermic reaction)
Net heat evolved from 1.5 kg of Raney nickel = (6.7-10.0 mol) x -160 kJ/mol = - 1072 kJ to -1600 kJ = -1.1 to -1.6 MJ!!