1 MW Cold Fusion Plant Supposedly To Come Online

First time accepted submitter Jherico writes "Andrea Rossi (covered here a few times before) is scheduled to bring his 1MW plant online Oct. 28th. This will likely either be the point where 'unexpected technical difficulties' unmask this for the scam it is, or the presence of an actual 1MW plant with no chemical fuel source will silence a lot of skeptics. What would you do if it were real?"

Comments

Sadly its not real

[hAckz0r]

I work at a physics lab, and I can assure you that the cold fusion effect is very real, but nobody can explain yet why it works, ...sometimes. It is difficult to reproduce and with varying degrees of energy production. The biggest problem is that nobody will touch the technology with a ten foot pole as far as funding just because the original researchers did such a poor job of their documentation, and others were completely unable to produce anything. Trying to find out why it works, sometimes, is tantamount to committing career suicide. You will loose your funding, even on your other research projects, and most likely your job as well. You are better off researching this technology in your basement if you want a good respectable career.
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That being said, this one is obviously a scam. Why do I say so? Dig back through the previous stories and you will see a picture of a shipping container full of little black plastic buckets in racks, which is supposed to be a 1MW reactor. Excuse me? You but 1MW of thermal energy in a confined space like that and it will heat up so much that all the liquid would evaporate and the steam would kill anyone attempting to maintain it. The reaction produces heat energy, and plastic buckets aren't going to last very long. These CF reactions have been known to scorch the tables that the apparatus were sitting on. A plastic container is just plain stupid and this photo only demonstrates a man with a limited intelligence at work. Also, where is the generator? The reaction does not create electricity, it produces thermal heat. You need a generator my friend, and preferably a brain containing half a conscience would not hurt either..

Re:Sadly its not real

[Baldrson]

hAckz0r writes:

The biggest problem is that nobody will touch the technology with a ten foot pole as far as funding just because the original researchers did such a poor job of their documentation, and others were completely unable to produce anything.

A commonly held myth among apologists for the scientific establishment.

The reality is that CalTech, MIT and Harwell all attempted to replicate P&F's results nearly a year prior to P&F's experimental protocol being published, and P&F were restricted, by University of Utah legal counsel, from making any disclosures beyond their "preliminary notes" issued along with the press conference.

It is generally recognized, even by the pseudo-skeptic "authorities" such as the DoE's chair of its cold fusion panel, Huizenga, that for all practical purposes, the prestigious institutions' failure to produce "nuclear products" (even though P&F IN THE ORIGINAL PRESS CONFERENCE said that neutrons were a factor of a billion too small to be explained by conventional nuclear fusion) closed out the entire affair WITHIN FIVE WEEKS of the press conference.

The claim that these ridiculous "experiments" (using speculative protocols), conducted to ridiculous expectations (totally ignoring evidence of excess heat), somehow "falsified" P&F's experiments is triply corrupt:

1. You can't claim to attempt to replicate an experiment for which you don't even know the protocol.
2. You can't "falsify" in the P-pperian sense, an experiment with another experiment. P-pperian falsification applies only to theories being falsified by experiment.
3. Looking for a phenomenon that is a factor of a billion smaller than another, clearly measurable (not to mention practically valuable) phenomenon -- HEAT -- while ignoring that other phenomenon, smacks of precisely the kind of "pathological science" that the pseudo-skeptics accused P&F of promoting.

There is simply no excuse for the scientific establishment's handling of this affair.

Re:Oblig xkcd

[CaptSlaq]

I suspect this is feeding a troll, but I also suspect more than this one actually shares this view.

Believe it or not, the motorheads that actually look into this stuff WANT electric cars. Having full torque from rev one all the way up to the maximum potential of the engine would be a panacea. Neck snapping acceleration could be the NORM, not the exception. The simplification that the electric drivetrain would bring would also be wonderful. Assuming the packaging of the power plant is small enough, or can be flexibly packaged, you put the thing anywhere you want and put electric motors at the diff or on the wheels. You don't have to worry about where to store a cubic meter of engine/transmission in one place. The properly designed electric car brings HUGE design advantages. You can make truly beautiful and/or functional things with much less concern about "how can I shoehorn enough engine in here?".

The current problem with the electric car is energy storage. Batteries suck compared to petrol/diesel. Gas/go doesn't happen with batteries. Range is problematic, and even if you did get 300 miles out of a single charge, it's still 2-4 hours (in an ideal world, even) to do it again. Weight is problematic.

And finally, The US doesn't have the corner on petrol powered vehicles. Last time I looked, most of the most desirable cars came from Germany (Mercedes, BMW, Bugatti, Audi), England (Aston Martin, Rolls Royce), and Italy (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini). I don't recall ANY of them making electric cars either. As a matter of fact, the only "mass production" electric cars that I'm aware of have come from US companies: GM (EV1) and Tesla (Roadster). I could be wrong on the latter, tho.

But, yaknow... if all you want to prove is how witty you can (not) be by taking shots at people who love cars and happen to be from a certain country, that's fine too.

Re:It's a scam

[craznar]

I have a computational linguistics invention ...and have had for around 15 years now.

I'm NOT ALLOWED to publish as I don't hold qualifications, nor do I have the wealth to patent it.

Believe me - getting ideas to the public is way more complicated than you may imagine if you don't have money.