It happens all the time that people do not realize what the actual driver is in an experiment. (The cuprous oxide vs the hair mat.)

For example look at: http://www.physorg.com/news171643486.html

I don't know anything about physorg.com, it sounds like they should know science - except they don't. The electricity does not come from the tree, it comes from the metal probes.

Cold fusion has the same problem. One person reported how a certain batch of palladium worked great and made energy, but now the palladium is used up, and new batches don't work.

His mistake is that the palladium and the cold fusion had nothing to do with it. Palladium is sometimes refined from nuclear waste, and that batch was slightly contaminated.

Doing science is hard, especially correcting for all the variables. Very few people learn how to do it properly.