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A Cold Look at Cold Fusion Claims: Why E-Cat Looks Like a Hoax
In the past few days, several readers have submitted word of a paper published on Arxiv allegedly confirming the efficacy of Andrea Rossi's "E-Cat," a device Rossi says transmutes nickel into copper, producing cheap energy in the process. (Mentioned before on Slashdot.) Ethan Siegel of ScienceBlogs takes a skeptical look at the buzz surrounding this paper, and asks some seemingly obvious questions, pointing out various ways in which the cold-fusion / cheap-energy claims could be either confirmed or debunked. First time accepted submitter CdXiminez writes with a capsule of Siegel's points: "What would it take to convince a reasonable observer that you've got a controlled nuclear reaction going on here? Things not shown in the earlier report: Show that nuclear transmutation has in fact taken place; Start the device operating by whatever means you want, then disconnect all external power to it, and allow it to run; Place a gamma-ray detector around the device; Accurately monitor the power drawn from all sources to the device at all times, while also monitoring the energy output from the device at all times."
There's far more than one sucker born every minute.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Why would I want to turn my nickels into pennies? They just got rid of them here in Canada!
Don't conflate a charlatan with the science. NASA is still looking at this.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What I feel sorry for is any researcher who wants to do some genuine research into cold fusion. To me it would cause rate up there with inventions such as fire/math/smelting ore/cooking food/clothing.
If cold fusion were invented tomorrow everything changes, world politics, anything involving oil or energy production, the environment, space travel, food production, basically everything. So while it attracts cranks by the boatload I would be happy to see huge amounts of funding going to CF. Yet I suspect that if you are a legitimate researcher and you mention cold fusion that there is stunned silence in the room. You might as well bookend it with paranormal research.
EOM
If they want to know if the E-Cat works, why don't they just measure it with an E-meter?
Ezekiel 23:20
It's on the INTERNET for God's sake - people, it wouldn't be 100% true if it wasn't on the internet!
It sounds like the poor sap just "invented" thermal hysteresis - the fact that things take some time to cool off, and therefore it's possible to keep them hot after shutting down the power. In the article, it says that 360 Watts were applied continuously with interspersed periods of 930 W, if I understood it correctly.
My E-meter measured it! Measured evidence, isn't that what every scientician respects?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
What would it take to convince a reasonable observer that you've got a controlled nuclear reaction going on here?
Simple scientific methodology; reproducibility. Pick another, unassociated lab, and have them do it.
This is an interesting read. Informed opinions tend to be more useful. http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3913
I don't care if it's a "controlled nuclear reaction" or not. We can figure the science out later. What I care about is does it work?
The paper shows that it almost certainly does, unless Rossi is performing skullduggery (such as beaming energy to the device via microwaves, for instance).
From the paper:
"Even from the standpoint of a “blind” evaluation of volumetric energy density, if we consider the whole volume of the reactor core and the most conservative figures on energy production, we still get a value ... that is one order of magnitude higher than any conventional source"
To answer specific points:
Show that nuclear transmutation has in fact taken place
Yes, that would be nice, but the residue contains some Secret Sauce so it ain't gonna happen.
Start the device operating by whatever means you want, then disconnect all external power to it, and allow it to run
The device creates heat; it does not yet create electricity, but it needs electricity for the device to operate. So, yes, in theory a nice idea (still doesn't get around beaming microwaves into it, though).
Place a gamma-ray detector around the device
On the assumption that this LENR which we know basically nothing about must give of gamma rays? Poor assumption.
Accurately monitor the power drawn from all sources to the device at all times, while also monitoring the energy output from the device at all times
This is exactly what they did.
This either works or it doesn't, it exist or it doesn't and can be proven or not. Why is it so hard to just get the facts? It is supposed to be a process and actual equipment. Seems like there is a lot of bull fertilizer going around from every party involved. Proof shouldn't be so hard to get. This has been going on since 2011.
Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence. Show me some extra-ordinary evidence or stfu.
What I feel sorry for is any researcher who wants to do some genuine research into cold fusion.
The trick is that you don't put your conclusion before your hypothesis. "Cold fusion" is the conclusion, or the result, of the whole process that would result in your utopian revolutions (again, something that is post conclusion or desired symptoms of the result of this sort of research). When your research begins by you working backwards, that's when the red flags should go up because there is no logical way to work backwards. Sometimes a sci-fi author will imagine something but it takes a very talented scientist/research/inventor/engineer/whatever to go from hypothesis to that end construct -- even then there's often a slight catch or permutation of nonfiction idea.
... which is great (any more transparency is always welcomed). But it's also curious, wouldn't you say? We've been hearing about this for years now and no one can tell me what, exactly, is going on in this solution filled chamber. The critics are rightly asking questions about why the next steps aren't being taken (like getting real world measurements on its power draw versus its power emission). And are suspicious not of the data that is provided by this paper but of the data that aren't provided and would be obviously interesting.
What this paper appears to do is formalize observations
The fear is that Rossi stumbled upon a neat trick that is just not sustainable but he realizes that if he controls the parameters on the experiments, he can make it look like this thing works. Then he rakes in billions and walks away from any involvement in it. It is suspicious because it's being conducted at a university that should be making obvious logical steps forward. Yet we continually only see "demonstrations" like his "public displays" and "observations" like this paper.
My charges are still borderline character assassination/ad hominem and this could very well work. But I've had enough talk of what is "perceived to happen" and I'm afraid that someone has a really neat trick that they've already thoroughly investigated and figured out why it works. And maybe it even fooled them in the beginning. But truly there is no good way to monetize this trick. So they give everyone else only enough information to make them think that it works. Then they capitalize on this public interest and walk away from it just before the reveal.
If not, I apologize but I also wouldn't be buying into this idea until we start with a hypothesis and tests are reproduced around the world and the true reason behind this anomaly is well understood and indeed a good energy answer. It's totally possible he doesn't know yet and his greed is the reason we only get tastes of this device. If that's true, however, we still don't know if it's a good answer to our energy addiction.
I only hope there are enough details in this paper for other researchers around the world to better reproduce and analyze these results. I'm sorry if this is just a matter of an ill-equipped laboratory at Bologna University but with all the interest this has generated, I would be surprised if that was reason.
In conclusion, start with a hypothesis, openly publish your methods and results. Wait for others to reproduce. Your rigor and its results will be your vindication if you fear being attacked for doing research. Just don't start your research by saying, "I'm going to make cold fusion and cheap energy is just ten years away." That's when you're openly attacked for good reason -- that's not science, those are words that you spout to get money.
My work here is dung.
It may seem wasteful, but it is in the best interest of scientific literacy in general to debunk this sort of thing. If cold fusion is real (highly unlikely) it will stand up to all the scrutiny that science can throw at it. If it is not, then scientists will debunk it rather quickly and we can move on to the next snake oil crackpot idea.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
There's one law of physics that comes into play more than anything else here. It is: if a company has an amazing claim but makes excuses about verifying it with 3rd parties, it's lying.
goes out of his way to make it look like it's a hoax.
My D-Wave tells me the E-Cat will work.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Spin up the fraudsters and their supporters...
Cold Fusion is *not* likely. Subatomic physics really makes this impossible, at least in an energy positive way.
The same with all the schemes that violate thermodynamic laws and claim "free energy" or other frauds. It all sounds nice, and we wish it was true, but the laws of physics pretty much tell us it's not possible..
Yes, we did go to the moon, 9/11 wasn't an inside job and aliens never existed, even in Area 51 (Sorry Roswell NM..)
Queue up the loud crowd that posts their useless drivel to the internet in 3.... 2.... 1....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The first person to encourage independent confirmation of a published cold-fusion device becomes the person who has made the greatest contribution to the betterment of the human condition in all of history.
People who think they can make more money by preventing a section of humanity from using a cold-fusion device are too small minded and petty to stand any chance of having inventing one.
I love articles like this one, where the author sits down and clearly shows how science is supposed to work and what to look for if the topic isn't really science.
But the problem is that the big lab's claims about fusion are just as bogus. The science isn't, that's all real, but the reactors don't work, and likely never will.
So when the press fawns over one bogus project that's bogus from end to end, why aren't we as upset when the fawn over another that's only half bogus?
I mean, they're still reporting that NIF is some sort of power source. It's not, and likely can't be developed into one:
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/fusion-the-power-of-wishful-thinking/
The guy is calling himself Andrea Rossi. And he says he gets free energy by transmuting nickel into copper. Everyone knows free energy comes from Atmospheric engine. And the inventor's name should be John Galt. In about a decade all the Atlases who are holding up the Earth are going to shrug and move to gold currency in Galt's Gulch. All because all these Atlases and genii could not build themselves a stupid railway track to some stupid copper mine after the railroad company refused to build one. Makes one wonder were they really the Atlases holding up the world? Or some stupid self important sanctimonious a holes.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Remember the herbal petrol guy?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I have one bone to pick with Siegel's critique. I agree that the paper is very iffy because there's too many 'secrets'. I hadn't seen the trick with making a circuit look dead when it was still hot before. That is a big dealbreaker if no one is allowed to disassemble the electronics.
But the criticism is too focused on DIRECT proton->Ni fusion. Rossi's claim is that it is a neutron->Ni reaction, which is NOT the same thing.
So... this annoys me. I got my nuclear physics textbook out to look at the Ni reaction chain.
First, abundances of Ni in nature are (source: Introductory Nuclear Physics by Krane):
Ni-58: 68%
Ni-60: 26%
Ni-61: 1%
Ni-62: 4%
Ni-64: 1%
These isotopes of Nickel have pretty good cross-sections for absorbing "thermal" (read: slow) neutrons. (Source: http://www.ncnr.nist.gov/resources/n-lengths/list.html)
If any of these absorb a neutron, they go up one atomic number. So, from Krane again, they become (in order):
Ni-58->Ni-59: unstable, half-life of 75,000 years, decays by electron capture -> Co-59 (stable)
Ni-60->Ni-61: stable isotope, probably emits a photon to get to ground state after neutron capture
Ni-61->Ni-62: stable isotope, probably emits a photon to get to ground state after neutron capture
Ni-62->Ni-63: unstable, half-life of 100 years, decays by electron emission (negative beta) -> Cu-63 (stable)
Ni-64->Ni-65: unstable, half-life of 2.52 hours, decays by electron emission (negative beta) -> Cu-65 (stable)
Since the 'secret sauce' and 'catalysts' are not revealed (ignoring for the moment how fishy that seems) we don't know exactly what ratio the various Nickel isotopes are in the powder. But for Ni-62 and Ni-64, there would be no gamma ray, and the emitted electron (negative beta particle) would not escape the metal cylinders. For the most abundant Nickel isotopes (Ni-58 and Ni-60) the reactions lead to more neutron-rich isotopes of Nickel, which can last long enough to subsequently absorb more neutrons and end up as copper. There's a valid question here of whether the photon emitted in the Ni-60 and Ni-61 neutron absorption cases is at gamma-ray levels. Sometimes these are fairly weak (X-ray) and wouldn't penetrate a steel cylinder or cause any harm.
I'm too lazy to work out the energy levels to compute the photon energies for those two, but the actual reaction chain from Ni to Cu without gamma rays is entirely feasible. IF you have a source of slow thermal neutrons. The problem is that Rossi is acting REALLY fishy about his "secret ingredients" and until it's commercially validated or the formula for the powder is known, until the electronics can be taken apart and analyzed, it's still unproven. That's the real problem here, not the nuclear physics of what he's claiming to do.
The physics question that I do wonder about, is the claim that a loose proton in a Nickel crystal mesh will just annihilate with an electron that's wandering around in the Nickel powder, making a slow neutron. I haven't heard of that being easy to do, but that is the crux of the claim that Rossi is making, that he can catalyze that exact step either with his input waveform or the elements in the powder.
He doesn't have to do any of this other showmanship to prove that one important step scientifically. That's what's so fishy to me, not the rest of the reaction chain.
And what exactly are the commercial possibilities of ovine aviation?
At some point in the very near future, we will see an even more convincing demo using flow calorimetry-- essentially heating water-- with an even more isolated electrical input (for instance, a UPS outputting a perfectly clean sine wave AC.) And then what? Eventually the skeptics are going to have to come around and admit that they were wrong. I'm looking forward to that day.
Several of the points he makes were actually old arguments that were specifically addressed in the report. He appears to have missed that they measured power directly before the device, and that they did in fact have several types of radiation detection equipment.
Phys.org has a less skeptical article: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-rossi-e-cat-energy-density-higher.html
Didn't someone find the shipping container Rossi built his million dollar MW cold fusion plant supposedly delivered to the undisclosed super secret millitary customer actually collecting dust in the back of his brothers tire shop?
And years prior didn't Rossi get in trouble and nearly go to jail for a waste to oil scam that didn't work and ended with his lab burning to the ground?
Now we have lockheed claiming to bring a cheap shipping container sized hot fusion reactor online within the next decade. It is very sad to see such little real money going into commercially viable fusion energy research compared with enormous sums spent on defense dept end-runs around NPT obligations (e.g. NIF)
assume for a minute you could head down to your local supermarket and pick up a portable flying pig ....
BAH!
All the real investment these days is in on-demand bacon home delivery by quadcopter drone. And quite rightly, too.
The future is looking quite utopian to those with true vision.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
i can haz cold fusion?
It is easier to fool someone, than convince them they've been fooled...
I mean, they're still reporting that NIF is some sort of power source. It's not, and likely can't be developed into one.
Right. It's part of the "stockpile stewardship" program, or the Livermore Senior Activity Center for Retired Physicists. Nobody in the US has built a nuclear weapon in decades, and everybody who knew how is dying off. DoD/DoE is trying to hang onto the expertise and recruit some new people to at least maintain the ones already built. So they have to have something for them to do.
I wonder why. It looks like a hoax. It smells like a hoax and even tastes like a hoax. I personally think it is. But what about the scientific world? Why don't they publish and spread their official answer?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
From Wikipedia:
"The fusion of two nuclei with lower masses than iron (which, along with nickel, has the largest binding energy per nucleon) generally releases energy, while the fusion of nuclei heavier than iron absorbs energy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
...if it appears to be working, it isn't cold fusion.
How do you discredit something that works but threatens the energy industry?
Which isotope of nickel and hydrogen are they using and which isotope of copper are they getting out? For the hydrogen, are they using Protium? Deuterium? Is the nickel powder the neutron-poor Ni-48? What's the half-life on the copper? The fact that they're calling it "hydrogen-loaded nickel powder" and skipping on these details disturbs me.
Who cares what kind of reaction it is, just put the "device" in a contained environment and precisely monitor any required energy input and monitor the overall output and see if you have net energy creation. If there is, if it runs for a long time without replacing the "fuel", and it produces a significant amount of energy, mass produce the thing. If it doesn't, set the thing on fire and out Andrea Rossi as a fraud.
Total solar energy hitting earth per year is about 274 million gigawatt-years. Now, assuming a mere 1GW per person and you have 7 billion gigawatt hours (and 100% electric conversion efficiency), so year, the earth is going to heat up by quite a bit. Given that radiation is a 4th power function and assuming 300C for avg temperature. 300 * x**4 = (7.274/.274) and x is just almost 2.27 so the new avg temp would be about 2.27 * 300C = 680C -- I think this would be a problem, Even Al Gore was not expecting that kind of temperature rise.
Cold Fusion does exist: Muon-catalyzed fusion
But until the researcher shows me the low energy source of muons or get's better than 1% bonding, they know were they can shove their BS.
no one or nothing puts energy into the sun to make fusion possible
The energy that drives the sun's fusion is the gravitational potential energy of its spread-out mass being converted into kinetic energy as it collapses in on itself. It's little different than if there were a huge endorheic lake high atop a mountain somewhere, then we let the water escape downhill to power a hydroelectic generator that we used to ignite a fusion reaction.
In both cases, the hydroelectric fusion reactor and the sun, there was potential energy sitting somewhere in the form of mass separated from other mass, then that potential was collapsed and the energy used to convert some mass into even more energy, which could then be fed back into the system.
In the sun's case, a lot of the energy output naturally goes to lifting the mass back up the gravitational potential, from which point it continues falling and driving the reaction more. Our hypothetical hydroelectric fusion reactor could likewise store its energy output by pumping water back up into the lake, where it could be fed back into the fusion reactor again.
In both cases, the output is higher than the input, so some energy output can go to something other than just continuing the reaction, such as shining light down on Earth and powering all light here (in the case of the sun), or keeping the lights on in our homes at night (in the case of our fusion reactor).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
For the more ignorant people here: Here is CEO of National instruments, James Truchard in his keynote of 2012 confirming Cold fusion and Rossi (which he doesn't specify by name) http://bit.ly/Mfi7Zn at 14:00 It's so great to read all the comments of people who have no clue where they are talking about.
If I go to the bank I can already convert 1 nickle into 5 copper.
Just ignore all news about this, do not argue about it, just wait.
Because IF this should work it will change the world and you won't be able to not notice it. Oil, gas and coal will become nearly worthless, geopolitics will totally change, everything will change.
If it not works, things will continue as they do.
So just don't bother. If this isn't a fake there will be no need to follow the news or to convince anyone.
That's all.
Correction, 7 billion GW-Years (1 gw x 7 billion people).
Instead of all this babbling and opining on the manâ(TM)s write-up, apply the Scientific Method and REPEAT the experiment per the writing. And until youâ(TM)ve done that, shut up about it.
Leave the debate to the fields of politics and journalism where they belong. Science is about LOOKING! If you look and you find it to be false, THEN share your results. Until then, you've lowered yourself to the level of a TV Talking Head. That's a very low place for a Scientist to sink to.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
But with unlimited energy we could just build enormous refrigerators to cool things back down! Problem solved!
Most of the people claiming that this is a scam have not even read the paper that was published. --- -- Nobody that was present for the tests is claiming that this is a scam. --- -- Six reputable and knowledgeable scientists spent many days testing this device and all of them say this is not a scam. Six knowledgeable scientists that know quite well what happened to Fleischman & Pons were brave enough and felt strongly enough about the tests that they were willing to sign on the bottom line and risk their reputation and livelihood. --- -- The best evidence I have is from the people that were there, saw what was going on, made the measurements, and published their work. Think of this as a court of law. Who is the judge going to trust? Does the just believe the people that were present at the time and took notes and pictures? Or does the judge believe somebody that wasn’t there at the time but says “It isn’t possible”? --- -- In my lifetime, I have heard “it isn’t possible” time after time, only to be shown later that it really was. As a youngster, the inverse square law proved that a “ray gun” wasn’t possible. Then came coherent light and suddenly it was. --- -- Nobody is claiming that they have a “perpetual motion” machine or that it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. What they are claiming is that there is a nuclear process that we don’t yet understand. If somebody tries to tell you that we understand all possible nuclear processes, run, don’t walk to the nearest exit.
You did NOT read the report. Electrical measurements were performed by a PCE-830 Power and Harmonics Analyzer by PCE Instruments with a nominal Accuracy of 1%. This instrument continuously monitors on an LCD display the values of instantaneous electrical power (active, reactive, and apparent)
because it runs on sadness
You just need a box, some poison, and an E-Cat.... then maybe. :)
Popular Science had an interesting article about this last October.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-10/andrea-rossis-black-box?single-page-view=true
More interesting to me than the Rossi, Hoax or Not?, angle was that there were some other experiments mentioned in the early part of the article that were said to produce anomalous results.
that's easy: build a concrete bunker in the middle of the desert. install air-conditioner. ... consider me convinced!
connect air-con to .
if the the bunker stays cold for a year
For such SFBs Theory rules over Experiment.
Clue: If the Enlightenment has anything at all to offer, it is that Experiment rules over Theory.
The question isn't whether nuclear products are present.
The question is whether heat beyond that explicable by chemical means is present. If so, we can go ahead and posit a hoax or we can posit that we Just Don't Know what the physical mechanism is for producing the heat but Whatever It Is It Sure Is Interesting. In the latter position, we call this the beginning of scientific research.
For a clue exactly how clueless Mr. SFB is, one can look at Figure 3 of the paper and, using physics 101 application of the Stefan Boltzmann law, calculate the power output during the thermal excursion to be 10kW for 1kW input.
With that kind of power gain, the niceties Mr. SFB posits as essential measurements just don't matter to the importance. Its either a hoax or its a revolution that should receive more resources and attention than middle east politics and American Idol combined.
Seastead this.
They need a Magician on the team analyzing this not just scientists. Scientists are not trained in detecting FRAUD. All of the very strange requirements for the test. Such as requiring it to be done in their lab. Proprietary wave forms. Limited operating time, Secret formulas seem very suspicious to me. Those are exactly the kinds of things you need in order to perpetrate a fraud.
http://futureinnovation.larc.nasa.gov/view/articles/futurism/bushnell/low-energy-nuclear-reactions.html :
Therefore, the LENR situation and outlook is the following:
Something real is happening.
The weak interaction theories suggest what the physics might be.
There are efforts ongoing to explore the validity of the theories.
There are continuing Edisonian efforts to produce "devices" mainly for heat or in some cases transmutations.
There are efforts to "certify" such devices.
NASA LaRC has begun LENR design studies guided by the Weak Interaction Theory
There are estimates using just the performance of some of the devices under study that 1% of the nickel mined on the planet each year could produce the world's energy requirements at the order of 25% the cost of coal.
No promises, but some seriously "strange" things are going on, which we may be closer to understanding and if we can optimize/engineer such, the world changes. Worldwide, it is worth far more resources than are currently being devoted to this research arena. There is a need to core down and determine "truth" and if useful, the need to engineer and apply.
Nice "quote" there, very appropriate.
You might want to tell NASA's chief research scientist about your insights.
Since the physical evidence at this point overwhelmingly favors LENR being real, and the Widom-Larsen theory presents a plausible explanation for it, it's amusing that the basement dwelling hordes consider it a hoax...
More BS from people who should know better... Show me that it runs in a complete vaccuum - no contact with any outside element, let the scientific community supply the reactants and I'll bet any amount of money that it doesn't work. More snake oil....
People set up their cold energy producers in a fashion similar to this and get measurable current and then think they've found cold fusion. Other people cant reproduce the results because until recently it's been seriously misunderstood what's happening to create this measurable energy.
The Blade Itself
Ah, no. Modern US pennies will not pick up with a magnet.
Modern pennies(post 1982) are 97.5% Zinc with the remaining 2.5% being electrolytically plated copper.
The only pennies you could pick up with a magnet were made during World War II, due to copper shortages. They were zink coated steel.
Yes, you're correct in the common sense of the discussion, but you can have fun with Lenz's law.
Take a strong permanent magnet and a coin made of rather conductive metal (I like to use 90% silver quarters). Place the coin on a wooden table with the magnet on top. Rapidly lift the magnet and you will see that the induced magnetic field in the conductive coin will cause it to lift as well.
Even with powerful rare earth magnets and highly conductive silver the effect is minor. However, you should see it lift off the table if you perform the experiment correctly. My guess is that a pre-1982 penny would work too, though it might be more difficult to execute the technique.
"Everything that guy just said is bullshit"!
Here's an excerpt from a letter published over a year ago:
Up until recently, I thought there was a small chance that Mr Rossi could have actually found the “Holy Grail” and invented a unit that was going to change the world as we know it today. That is why I sent him my genuine offer for US$1 Million for a repeat of the demonstration that has given his device the most credibility, i.e. the demonstration on 29 March 2011 with the Swedish scientists, Kullander and Essen.
I said to my friends at the time, “if Mr Rossi is genuine, he will jump at this chance of proving that his equipment works, however I think it’s most likely that he will answer by saying, ‘this is just a joke, I don’t want to be involved in circus activities’”. I predicted this because this is what has happened with other scamsters who have tried to get money from me when I have come up with a very fair offer to check that their claim actually works.
I predict that Mr Rossi will delay and delay in producing machines or in getting a proper scientific test done, while behind the scenes more and more people will be investing.
In many years to come we will hear from Mr Rossi that he is still trying to have the unit finalised, but “big business” has somehow managed to hijack his efforts. This, or other similar excuses, will be used by him to ‘explain’ why his device doesn’t appear on the market.
In the meantime, it’s likely that people around the world – not just wealthy businesspeople who should know better, but many innocent mums-and-dads – will have lost millions of dollars. This is what I am going to try and prevent.
I recall reading somewhere that you got energy by fusion on atoms lighter than iron, and by fission on atoms heavier than iron. Nickel to copper fusion contradicts that rule. Did I misremember? Or is it more complicated than that?
... whatever the thing really is, comes across as one of the oddest, math challenged inventors imaginable.
It is however clearly apparent that we are here, and that being here, aware of our being in, and a part of the universe, that this universe must be continual. Oh it may come and go every now and then, and there may even be periods, or eons of unfathomably long episodes of proper nothingness, but being here now proves, that a universe, of some everlasting nature, is inevitable. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change forms, and 'nothing' is but one part of that form. So whenever you are in some meditative state, of quite contemplation, please revel in the fact that there is no breaking of the infinite change which is being. For to not be, is simply not possible.
Mills likes people to do actual calorimetry: https://www.google.com/search?q=calorimetry+site%3Ablacklightpower.com
There are two fraction over here: Thos who madly wave flags and throw their hats in hte air, claiming that this has been proven against all doubt, and those who are so patho-sceptic that they sound like the established science of the medieval ages who were sure that the earth is flat and the center of the universe.
So what DO we actually have?
- There is a steel cylinder filled with a "secret sauce" inside the reactor. Rossi considers this a trade secret, and that is his very right.
- There is a box that turns mains power into some modulated power which heats and controls the reactor, also a trade secret.
Acting within the limits that an inventor - whatever he claims - has a right to have trade secrets, how could one test and verify or falsify the claim beyond doubt?
What would need to be done to set up a test for this device that either convinces the pro-faction that it is a fraud or the patho-sceptics that it really works?
It boils down to:
- find a team and location acceptable by both parties, preventing cheating with infrared lasers or whatever is claimed. Faraday cage, maybe?
- measure the input power, maybe even limit the power that can be drawn by using a generator or similar, idiotproof means.
- measure the output power, maybe with different methods, maybe with several different infrared imaging and measuring systems in parallel.
- claculating whatever chemical or electrical power could be stored in the trade-secret parts of the setup and take this into account.
- whatever elese can be done to prevent and/or expose potential manipulation.
More Ideas?
Just claiming that "those people survived attending the test -> no fast neutrons -> no fusion -> must be fraud" is a bit short-sighted.
If the sceptics faction is so convinced that this is a fraud, why not offer support for such a neutral test? If there is no surplus energy, you've proven your point. Bang! Nailed another one! If there is surplus energy, well, then try to establish a therory that matches observation.
I am really not sure about Rossi. If this is all a big fraud set up by him, what would he gain? Surely, once exposed as one, the investors would fleece him. So he would only profit from this for a very limited time (as the investors surely want to see results really soon). If it is real, he is cautious to en extend bordering paranoia, while he still wants to brag with his achievments, but so would be most of us in this situation.
While the report might not convince everybody that this is real, it should be convincing enough to warrant further examination, either to prove it beyond doubt, or to expose it as fraud. Just being a big-mouthed sceptic claiming that it does not fit their world view, so it cannot be will not help. Thats just a bit more pathetic than the shouting "Horray! Instant salvation!" from the other side. Over 100 years ago, scientists calculated that the sun, if made from burning coal, would have buned out long ago. Anything else did not fit their world view. We now know better. Always remember that!
If this device actually worked as Rossi asserts, he would STFU, sell power and be filthy rich.
That guy is as shady as it gets. http://psiram.com/en/index.php/Focardi-Rossi_Energy-Catalyzer
We have several competing theories as to what is producing the excess heat. Not all involve fusion.
Rossi = LENR
blacklightpower.com = Hydrio
nanospireinc.com = cavitation
So we do know that the heat is real. That has been shown in the experiments at Rowan U and others on the BLP version
http://www.blacklightpower.com/technology/validation-reports/
So maybe they are all wrong or maybe one of them is right or partially right.
"If the process appears to violate the laws of thermodynamics..."
Seem to recall that the laser was initially dismissed because it fell into this category?
Even if cold fusion works, it may not be useable for energy production. For hot fusion as in the core of our sun, the 15 million kelvin temperature is only enough to generate 0.2mW per kg of hydrogen - not enough to light up an LED flashlight. Of course it should produce that power for several billion years.