Independent Researchers Test Rossi's Alleged Cold Fusion Device For 32 Days

WheezyJoe (1168567) writes The E-Cat (or "Energy Catalyzer") is an alleged cold fusion device that produces heat from a low-energy nuclear reaction where nickel and hydrogen fuse into copper. Previous reports have tended to suggest the technology is a hoax, and the inventor Andrea Rossi's reluctance to share details of the device haven't helped the situation. ExtremeTech now reports that "six (reputable) researchers from Italy and Sweden" have "observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, "far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume."... "The researchers, analyzing the fuel before and after the 32-day burn, note that there is an isotope shift from a "natural" mix of Nickel-58/Nickel-60 to almost entirely Nickel-62 — a reaction that, the researchers say, cannot occur without nuclear reactions (i.e. fusion)." The paper (PDF) linked in the article concludes that the E-cat is "a device giving heat energy compatible with nuclear transformations, but it operates at low energy and gives neither nuclear radioactive waste nor emits radiation. From basic general knowledge in nuclear physics this should not be possible. Nevertheless we have to relate to the fact that the experimental results from our test show heat production beyond chemical burning, and that the E-Cat fuel undergoes nuclear transformations. It is certainly most unsatisfying that these results so far have no convincing theoretical explanation, but the experimental results cannot be dismissed or ignored just because of lack of theoretical understanding. Moreover, the E-Cat results are too conspicuous not to be followed up in detail. In addition, if proven sustainable in further tests the E-Cat invention has a large potential to become an important energy source." The observers understandably hedge a bit, though: The researchers are very careful about not actually saying that cold fusion/LENR is the source of the E-Cat’s energy, instead merely saying that an “unknown reaction” is at work. In serious scientific circles, LENR is still a bit of a joke/taboo topic. The paper is actually somewhat comical in this regard: The researchers really try to work out how the E-Cat produces so much darn energy — and they conclude that fusion is the only answer — but then they reel it all back in by adding: “The reaction speculation above should only be considered as an example of reasoning and not a serious conjecture.”

Comments

Hoax

[ls671]

Of course, everything is a hoax and scientifically impossible until the day it is proven to actually work.

Re:Hoax

[Teresita]

Everyone that says they have a box that makes energy from nothing, I say, phase match your box to the line current from the local utility, roll your meter backwards, and cash the ensuing checks. Then talk to me.

Re:Hoax

[ShanghaiBill]

Of course, everything is a hoax and scientifically impossible until the day it is proven to actually work.

But to "prove" it works, you don't just have researchers look at it. They are trained to find experimental flaws, not deliberate deception. You should have professional magicians look at it. These are people who know how to find the "trick".

Re:Hoax

[Charliemopps]

Everyone that says they have a box that makes energy from nothing, I say, phase match your box to the line current from the local utility, roll your meter backwards, and cash the ensuing checks. Then talk to me.

But that's the thing. That sort of stunt would be chump change compared to inventing cold fusion. If the inventor really has figured something out, and I'll grant you that's unlikely, it would behoove him to keep a tight lid on it until he has pretty much the entire eastern seaboards worth of lawyers under his belt. History is littered with scientists and inventors that have ended up living in a gutter after discovering some of the most life altering technologies. If he really does have something, he'll be the target of every shifty technology company on the planet, who will steal it, and will patent it on their own.

Re:Hoax

[ErikTheRed]

You should have professional magicians look at it. These are people who know how to find the "trick".

You nailed it. I was just reading about James Randi's debunking of the alleged psychic Uri Gellar, who had managed to fool a bunch of scientists back in the 1970s. Randi claimed that scientists are some of the easiest people to fool because, as you said, they operate under a lot of preconceived notions and once you figure out how to work around those it's a piece of cake. As Randi put it, to catch a magician (who are essentially people who fool people for a living) you send a magician.

Re:Hoax

[Teresita]

That's the difference between an inventor and a scientist, between an Edison and a Maxwell. Somehow Einstein didn't end up in a gutter even after someone else made the first commercial reactor.

Re:Hoax

[swillden]

Of course, everything is a hoax and scientifically impossible until the day it is proven to actually work.

Nonsense.

Most real inventions go the other direction... first the theory, then the gradual working-out of the engineering processes required to make it work, a a little, then more hard work to refine it into something really useful and usable.

Most claimed inventions without theoretical justification also go a different way... they're thought a hoax and then are proven to be a hoax. The reason they're thought to be a hoax is exactly because nearly all of them are.

It is looking more possible that the E-Cat may not be a hoax. Further study may gradually exclude all other explanations, and eventually we may start to see conjectured mechanisms, one of which may emerge as the best explanation. Perhaps along the way we'll learn some new physics.

Or, we may find that the E-Cat is a hoax. That will be the less surprising (but sadder) outcome. Time, and further study, will tell. But if it does turn out to be real, your snark will still be completely wrong. Most everything that is real is known to be real before it works, and most everything that is a hoax actually is a hoax.

Re:Hoax

[physicsphairy]

Converting natural nickel to nickel 62 is a bit outside the magician's domain. If the scientists only examine the fuel at the begining and end maybe there is opportunity for some slight of hand (although not any I think a magician would be more likely to catch given there were 32 days to make the switch). If they are making consistent measurements, however, it could be very tricky to fake data which shows consistent rates of consumption for nickel-58 and nickel-60 given the starting abundance.

Re:Hoax

[timholman]

Everyone that says they have a box that makes energy from nothing, I say, phase match your box to the line current from the local utility, roll your meter backwards, and cash the ensuing checks. Then talk to me.

This, a thousand times over. Having a "free energy" machine, if it existed, would be like owning a machine that printed money.

Rossi claims he has constructed 1 MW reactors. Assuming this was true, and assuming Rossi could sell that power for just $0.10 USD per kW-hr, then he has a machine that effectively generates income at the rate of $100 / hour. Use half of that income for operating costs and personal expenses, and Rossi makes a net profit of $36,000 a month if the machine runs 24/7.

In a year Rossi has $432,000. Long before then, he would be able to build a second generator, doubling his income. Assuming one generator could "double" itself every six months, in five years he has a profit of $18.4M USD each month. In less than a decade, he is the wealthiest man on the planet.

So why isn't Rossi doing that, instead of trying to get investors to write checks? Because he can't, of course. Like all frauds and pseudoscientists, he is utterly incapable of actually doing anything useful with his so-called "invention".

Re:Hoax

[Jane Q. Public]

Of course, everything is a hoax and scientifically impossible until the day it is proven to actually work.

Which of course is exactly what a lot of people told me here on Slashdot when I wrote that we really don't have any evidence it's a hoax, so let's just wait and see.

Frankly I had no idea whether it worked or not. But I was willing to wait for real evidence before screaming "Hoax!" to the heavens, the way a lot of people here did.

Of course, it did help that I had researched it a bit and knew that the U.S. Navy had been investigating similar processes for many years.

Re:Hoax

[icebike]

Explain that part about explaining inputs and outputs being "meaningless".

The size of the element alone precludes it having stored 1.5 megawatt-hours by chemical or other known means.
Further, they did analysis on the metal isotopes (maybe you missed that part). Start reading the PDF on page 27.

Since the machine needs to be charged with fuel for each run and the fuel changes isotopic composition by the end of the run, your objections as to "perpetual machines" are moot and misplaced.

Nobody made any such claims.

Their measurements indicate more power is output than was input.
These experts haven't figured it out. They are not exactly idiots. Google them.

Re:Hoax

[Jane Q. Public]

But that's the thing. That sort of stunt would be chump change compared to inventing cold fusion. If the inventor really has figured something out, and I'll grant you that's unlikely, it would behoove him to keep a tight lid on it until he has pretty much the entire eastern seaboards worth of lawyers under his belt.

That's the classic paradox, and it has plagued REAL inventions and inventors since the dawn of time.

The Wright brothers were so afraid that the secrets of their invention would get out before they could profit from it, that they only gave staged, pre-arranged demonstrations to limited audiences. So much so that Scientific American claimed they were fraudsters, and credited manned flight to somebody else, for something like 8 years after the Wright brothers' first announcement.

It wasn't until a later demonstration (in France, IIRC) which was widely witnessed and written about that SciAm retracted their recognition of the other guy and admitted that they were wrong about the Wrights (no pun intended).

Re:Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we need a team composed of David Copperfield, Bunnie Huang, Chris Hadnagy, and Mike Kennedy. Sounds good to me. I'd pay money to watch that.

Re:Hoax

[Beck_Neard]

> This, a thousand times over. Having a "free energy" machine, if it existed, would be like owning a machine that printed money.

Given a choice between making $400k a year (minus operating and maintenance expenses, which we have no idea of) and potentially making billions off an invention, which would you choose?

I'm not saying that this crazy e-cat device works. Based on what we know from physics, it's far more likely that it's a hoax (until they can produce evidence otherwise). I'm just saying that there is no reason to think he's a hoax just based on his business strategy. James Watt sold steam engines, not power.

Re:Hoax

[radtea]

If they are making consistent measurements, however, it could be very tricky to fake data which shows consistent rates of consumption for nickel-58 and nickel-60 given the starting abundance.

They were not making continuous measurements. They were not allowed to look inside the device. Rossi was present during the "fueling" of the device.

So: ideal conditions for fraud. I wonder why that is?

If it was me doing it, I'd pre-load the device with isotopically enriched nickle when I constructed it. This would be mixed with and come out with the added "fuel". There are various ways of ensuring the mass balance is right (making sure some of the added "fuel" stays in the device) so the device would weigh the same before and after, but the extracted "fuel" would have an excess of 62Ni.

Re:Hoax

[radtea]

Their measurements indicate more power is output than was input.

These measurements indicate the researchers have created an almost cartoonishly bad "open calorimeter" that they do not calibrate at anywhere near the operating temperature despite their estimate of heat balance being acutely dependent on making multiple temperature-dependent corrections accurately.

If a fourth year engineering student handed this experimental setup in as a design project, and included the low-temperature "calibration" as part of the design, I would fail them.

Re:Hoax

[peragrin]

Right and how do you keep it secret? once you start passing them out(even if you are just selling the power) someone will cut it up and duplicate it. Look at the number of cheap iPhone knockoffs that appeared a year after the iPhone came out. He doesn't have apple's lawyers to defend him.

Re:Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

The device has to be plugged in to run the "fans" and "pumps". Since nobody was allowed to look inside or analyse the wire, it's pretty obvious there was a hidden wire inside that was providing the juice. They didn't even check it with a Kill O Watt, just some shitty little tool run over the line that is easily fooled into thinking the device was receiving less power than it really was.

Andrea Rossi is notorious for his scams. He once founded a company that was going to convert industrial waste into oil, yet in all of the years that company was a around, they didn't produce anything. Instead, he got busted for dumping 70,000 tonnes of toxic waste and tax fraud, for which he spent 4 years in prison. Following that, he founded another company that was supposed to generate 1000 watts each. Out of 27 devices, 19 didn't do anything and the rest couldn't even manage to put out 1 watt.

The E-Cat is just his latest scam.

Re:Hoax

[gweihir]

You see, Rossi would love to do that, but he needs a bit of seed money first! Surely you can understand that. (Hehehehe, yes indeed. Classical method.)

Re:Hoax

[Jane Q. Public]

You should have professional magicians look at it. These are people who know how to find the "trick".

You nailed it.

Not really. Rossi's case is 100% different from professional sleight-of-hand.

The devices are fairly small, so it's easy to isolate them from any conceivable unknown energy input. Electricity input can easily be monitored. Output can easily be monitored. If you have done a careful job of isolation, and the output over time is more than the same amount of mass could produce chemically (i.e., even a super-powered chemical battery), then you have a nuclear reaction. It's that simple.

It isn't as though Rossi had one bolted to a table and wouldn't let anyone under the table to look.

Re:Hoax

[gweihir]

Here is also a nice analysis by some real scientists: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pap...

Re:Hoax

[GarethIwanFairclough]

Of course, everything is a hoax and scientifically impossible until the day it is proven to actually work.

Is it just me, or is the idea that "everything is a hoax and scientifically impossible until the day it is proven to actually work" the very idea of science?

Re:Hoax

[ShanghaiBill]

Einstein stole Olinto de Pretto's E=MC2 and parlayed himself a nice job for life.

Olinto's work was conjecture. Einstein had a coherent theory that made specific falsifiable predictions. Is there any evidence that Einstein even knew about Olinto's work?

Re:Hoax

[alexgieg]

Yes, and Special Relativity is a minor antecedent to Einsten's real contribution, General Relativity. SR was a nice sum up of what was known until then, but not fundamentally novel, which is why he didn't earn his Nobel for it. Now, GR on the other hand was the kind of stuff that only happens once a millennium.

The usual way for something like GR to be developed would be by scientists noticing slight problems in measurements, then doing more experiments, then trying to generalize from those perceived mismatches, then testing again and again and again etc. It'd have taken several decades. Einstein took a different approach. He went on to think very hard on the fundamentals of Physics for about 10 years, then noticed that things couldn't work any other way and so formulated GR entirely. And it was so well done that it's been confirmed since the very first experiment that went to test its specific, outrageous claims (and there are a lot of those). He nailed it all correctly the very first try.

This is why he's recognized. E=mc2 is minor. GR is the true genius part.

Re:Hoax

[arth1]

The size of the element alone precludes it having stored 1.5 megawatt-hours by chemical or other known means.

Why do you presume it was stored, and not provided through one of the various tubes connected to the device?

Further, they did analysis on the metal isotopes (maybe you missed that part). Start reading the PDF on page 27.

Why do you presume that the materials tested afterwards was the same as what was inserted?

This shouts "fraud" with capital F, R, A, U and D.
And that's before considering that Mr. Rossi has a history of fraud, and has spent several years in prison over previous frauds.

The device's main mode of operation is to extract money from gullible venture capitalists. The scientists are just useful tools here, not adept at spotting fraud, but used to work with people who may be wrong, not outright deceitful.

Re:Hoax

[ShanghaiBill]

Relying on trade secrets is very dangerous. If someone else can independently figure out how it works, and build their own device, then he is left standing naked with no patent protection. He will have nothing. Trade secrets only work for things that are so difficult and complicated that there is little chance of someone else duplicating the invention.

Re:Hoax

[Cyberax]

Monitoring output is surprisingly complicated. They've used heat cameras to watch the temperature of the 'reactor' and from that they calculated the supposed heat output.

Except that it's not so straightforward to do. Emissivity of materials can affect measurements by quite a bit - just look at a thorium lantern mantles or newer rare-earth mantles, they are very bright at fairly low temperatures. I don't see that anybody checked the "reactor" coating materials for rare earth dopants.

Then there's a question of the control experiment - Rossi had set it up himself, to avoid overheating the coils (?). Lots of potential for mischief right there.

Re:Hoax

[swillden]

All of your examples support my argument. It's not necessary that the theory be fully detailed, but the structure of the processes are generally understood.

In the example of the dynamo and the motor, much of the behavior of electric currents was already understood, and quantified, as was the fact that a current moving through a wire produces a magnetic field and vice versa. From that point it was an engineering effort (a brilliant one, including the observation that the effects could be usefully scaled up) to construct the useful devices. Faraday knew before he built them how he expected them to work, and why.

The steam engine definitely supports my argument. It was designed as a way to harness the power of expanding steam which was already very well understood, even if the Ideal Gas Law and other supporting theories related to thermodynamics, expansion coefficients, etc. were not. Regardless of all that wasn't known, the designers of steam engines (in their various stages) could explain quite clearly how and why they worked, all the way back to Hero's aeopile.

Rossi's inability to offer an explanation of the E-Cat makes me highly, highly skeptical that it works. Oh, he says words which he calls an explanation, but they fly in the face of already-understood theory, and he offers no explanations about why already-understood theory is wrong.

Re:Hoax

[flyneye]

third and fourth most important, right after the bottle opener and beer.

Re:Hoax

[alexgieg]

Of course not. First, Physics Nobel prizes are given for experimentally tested stuff, not for pure theory, particularly when said theory can (in principle) be subjected to testing at some point. Second, Nobel prizes are never given posthumously. The methods for testing GR were only developed near Einstein's death, and GR was only fully experimentally confirmed after he had already died. Hence, by a+b, no Nobel prize for him. Had he lived a few more years and he'd have won it.

Re:Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

*Puts on tinfoil hat*

This may sound paranoid but if anyone actually did make such a device that works, his best bet would be to sound like a crackpot at first till he generates enough publicity that when it comes to light, there is enough to see it that it can't be hidden.

Think of it this way, he would upset a LOT of powerful players both inside and outside of the government (even the government doesn't want citizens to make power cheaply for themselves as it is one avenue of lost control in a big area). If someone to come out legitimately with a working prototype being demonstrated openly, before hardly anyone knew about him he would probably be bought out and the invention mothballed or found dead from an apparent accident or suicide.

As for this guy, no clue, most likely he is a scam artist or majorly flawed in his experiment but if his thing does work, then a decent amount of science would have to be revised and he would have a huge uphill battle for his invention to be allowed to see the light off day and hopefully it does't end up getting screwed over by incumbents like the electric car was for over a decade thanks to GM and Cheveron buying out the battery technology and banning it from use in cars.

Re:Hoax

[narcc]

are you saying that Randi fails because other cranks continue to peddle their crap to credulous public?

No. Read it again. I'm saying that Randi fails because every one of his high-profile "debunking" efforts have been failures. You'll find not a single success among them.

Then again, it's possible that he doesn't actually care if his "efforts" are fruitful. He could just be putting on a show for his followers. He is a performer, after all.

Isn't that exactly what Randi claims happened in the "Carlos Hoax"?

No, it's not. Randi's goal with the "Carlos Hoax" was to show how credulous the media can be toward frauds like "Carlos". The media, as it happens, were universally skeptical of "Carlos" -- a fact that Randi ignores because it runs counter to the story he's trying to sell to his witless fans. Put simply, Randi flat-out lied about the media's response to "Carlos" to further his career. (I'm not surprised that he lied, considering the risks he took. Identity theft, passport fraud, the list goes on. Would you want all of that to be for nothing?)

So, yes, I think I'll stick to the opinions of actual scientists. I'll continue to give known liars and criminals the credulity they deserve.

Re:Hoax

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

No, his case is not 100% different. There are ways to fool everyone, including physicists and other professional scientists. Heck, the physicists at CERN fooled themselves for quite a while when their experiments demonstrated that they had succeeded in sending information at greater than the speed of light.

If the inventor actually made a real patent with a full technical explanation, physicists would be in their prime and could actually pick apart the flaws in the design and figure out that it does not work and that the results cannot be reproduced.

However, experimental physicists operate under the presumption that everyone they work with is honest and doing science. That's how they are trained. In fact scientists might be the most open and honest professions. That's also why physicists and other scientists are easy to fool IF you exploit the fact that their skepticism is going to be largely directed toward your science and engineering, not your honesty.

You set up the device, break into the lab at night, charge it up, and there's a good chance they'll never notice. A magician or a cop might be more likely to figure it out because they've been trained to think skeptically about the honesty of others and have experience dealing with fraud and criminality.

Re:Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't know what you're talking about. He did win the Nobel prize.

Re:Hoax

[Solozerk]

I don't see that anybody checked the "reactor" coating materials for rare earth dopants.

Read the report (specifically page 8 and annex 2) - they actually analyzed the device's coating material. It was made of Al2O3 (and this was taken into account in the calorimetry), with no obvious other compounds.

While there are possible calorimetry issues here, it's hard to see an obvious one that would explain such a large measurement error; alumina IR transparency has been considered, as well as IR calibration issues (especially given the imperfect dummy test); both do not appear to be valid critics (see my comment here for details).

Given the extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence is obviously required here; and this report definitely isn't that. Its experimental protocol and the results obtained are however more than enough to warrant further investigation; which may be hard given that this isn't like a "classical" experiment, that can be easily replicated - you basically need Rossi/Industrial Heat (the company that acquired Rossi's device and tech) to provide you with his black box and stay the hell away from the test (this is the first time he actually did that; and even here he couldn't help himself being present for the initial "fuel" insertion and the ash extraction at the end of the experiment - which render the isotopic changes inevitably suspicious).

Re:Hoax

[PopeRatzo]

Just sell the power

In which jurisdiction can you "just sell power"? I dare you, try generate and sell electricity and see how long it takes before you're locked in a cell or buried under it.

I used to live in a little Missouri town that generated its own municipal electricity, economically and without any fuss, since the end of WWII. The energy companies spent the equivalent of 25 years worth of the revenue they would receive from taking over that franchise to get town officers elected who would eventually shut down the facility and contract with them. Eventually, when enough of these captive town officials had been elected, there was a controversial vote to stop self-generating. There was good evidence that the mayor and several town council members had been directly paid by energy PACs. Within 8 months, electricity costs in this town doubled. This was 7 years ago, and it's gone up and up since then. The new electric company uses the same generating facility that the town used to use. Every single town official who had voted to stop self-generating was eventually thrown out of office, but now there are contractual arrangements which prevent them from self-generating again for half a century.

Energy is one of those things that you are not allowed to produce. Look at the money the Kochs are spending to try to get localities to put taxes and surcharges on the sun, in order to kill solar energy initiatives by individuals. I'm convinced that energy is a major method of controlling people lives. It's economic control, and it's political control, and it's environmental control and it's control over how you live. And by the way,

http://www.nationaljournal.com...

and

http://www.nbcnews.com/busines...

Re:Hoax

[sjames]

As I understand it, it produces heat. Allegedly it produces more heat than can be accounted for by the electrical input. A heat source is a great start, but it takes a lot more than that to generate electricity and feed it to the grid.

Re:Hoax

[Solozerk]

Oh, he says words which he calls an explanation, but they fly in the face of already-understood theory, and he offers no explanations about why already-understood theory is wrong.

Agreed on this - it should be noted, though, that Rossi is not the only one that claims excess energy and transmutation using these kinds of mechanisms; look up for example the MIT NANOR devide (a small scale device that put out excess energy for more than one month straight), or the Mitsubishi transmutation claims in similar devices (later replicated by Toshiba). There are also other companies claiming similar things (Brillouin for one).

If this thing works (and that's obviously a big if), then I'd suspect Rossi discovered this mostly by accident, and that he has no precise idea himself of how it actually produces energy. IIRC, the few initial theories proposed are based on the idea of nano-scale lattices with trapped hydrogen inside; combined with some sort of excitation (EM usually, although not the only one that apparently produced some results) allowing somehow for the Coulomb barrier to be overcome at those scales and for a limited-scale, radiation-less (how ?) fusion to occur.

This is of course all pretty impossible given our current understanding of physics so if it does work somehow, it's wonderful news, even if it cannot be harnessed for energy; because it might lead to new, exciting physics.

Re:Hoax

[Cyberax]

We can't really trust the report, given that there are so many variables in play here. Like an unknown heat camera, questionable setup (why no watt-meter to measure the accurate power use??) and interference from the inventor. If I was planning to hoax everybody then I'd bribe one of the investigators to look the other way while I 'calibrate' a biased camera.

So no, I don't think that this merits further investigation unless Rossi provides the clear instructions to prepare the 'fuel' to a third party.

Re:Hoax

[Cyberax]

I kinda doubt that Einstein knew about Olinto. But relativistic transformations are called Lorentzian for a reason, and Heaviside discovered the relativistic length compression. However, both of them thought that their results were artifacts of calculations and can be made to disappear with a careful selection of a reference frame and/or aether properties.

Then why do we Einstein made the mental leap that nobody before him was able to do - he actually said that the relativistic effects are _real_ and that if you consider them all together then they form a consistent theory. A weird theory where clocks run at different speeds and length and mass are not constant, which is why lots of physicists dismissed it at first.

Re:Hoax

[philip.paradis]

You're incorrect again, but your quotation provides provides a wonderful demonstration of why context is important. Let's review the original comment in full (emphasis via bold text and consequent implication in brackets are are mine):

Of course not. First, Physics Nobel prizes are given for experimentally tested stuff, not for pure theory, particularly when said theory can (in principle) be subjected to testing at some point. Second, Nobel prizes are never given posthumously. The methods for testing GR were only developed near Einstein's death, and GR was only fully experimentally confirmed after he had already died. Hence, by a+b, no Nobel prize [for GR] for him. Had he lived a few more years and he'd have won it.

Clearly, the comment discusses the potential for Einstein to have received a Nobel Prize in physics for GR. It does not make any claims regarding receipt of a Nobel Prize for other work. Finally, the comment was in reply to a preceding blurb, which reads as follows:

He didn't win his Nobel for General Relativity either.

You may put down the shovel any time you like. By the way, are you by any chance employed by a mainstream media outlet? I ask because such organizations have a long-standing history of distortion via exclusion of context.

Re:Hoax

[gl4ss]

it did affect it somewhat. not by too much, but at least a lot of people knew that Uri was just full of shit.

and nowadays Uri has gone to saying that he is not psychic or posses supernatural powers - though it took a long time after the expose to end up at that.

and I don't get whats so unscientific about randis skepticism, somehow his critics always believe in some sort of another magic, be it tesla-magic, spirit-magic or whatever(and consequently one conspiracy or another) - and always like "oh but his real psychic/inventor I know doesn't need the money"(but somehow they always need money from normal schlobs/investors).

Re:Hoax

[ihtoit]

that movie was a fucking lie, it wasn't a centipede, it was a dodecapede.

Re:Hoax

[philip.paradis]

You and I have a lengthy history of ideological differences, some of which have been rather stark at times, at least to the extent that our comments on this site have accurately represented our views. However, I believe the situation you've described (if accurate, as I admit I haven't done any independent verification on it) represents a fine example of a case where our respective desired outcomes are closely aligned.

Caution: extreme run-on sentences ahead, as I believe it is critical to be very specific when discussing matters like imprisonment, and logical continuity matters greatly here.

(1) If this sequence of events is true, and (2) if it were proven that the actions of the elected officials were made in bad faith via intentional exclusion of factual data which should have been reasonably interpreted as favoring continued municipal energy production, with (3) accompanying direct and improper financial influence over the officials in question, and (4) optimally in terms of rating the eventual severity of the consequences, (a) strong evidence of the presence or lack of external conditions which would in retrospect be reasonably viewed as more likely root causes of the cited rapid energy cost increases, (5) I would be delighted to see the mayor and town council members serve lengthy prison terms. Their prison time would hopefully be followed up with personal financial sanctions, of greater or lesser severity depending upon the nature of (a) above, if only to serve as a clear warning to others. Unfortunately, I suspect any funds recovered via such penalties would fail to even begin to approach the total economic damage done to the community.

Regardless of our varied views on appropriate roles of government, and with clear acceptance that I am suggesting judicial and executive intervention on behalf of the people to determine whether egregious abuses of public office and trust have occurred in this case, how do you suggest we might encourage the people who appear to have been wronged to force such an investigation and prosecution if consequently warranted?

I support the "TLDR" here is: if this is true, it seems the community as a whole either doesn't care or doesn't have the capacity to understand that it has been wronged. How can we fix this? Looking forward to your reply.

Re:Hoax

[arth1]

The devices are fairly small, so it's easy to isolate them from any conceivable unknown energy input. Electricity input can easily be monitored. Output can easily be monitored. If you have done a careful job of isolation, and the output over time is more than the same amount of mass could produce chemically (i.e., even a super-powered chemical battery), then you have a nuclear reaction. It's that simple.

No, input cannot easily be monitored, unless someone trusted to be impartial can provide and set up the lines.
You can have two different power lines going to the device, with each of them in addition to the two normal wires also has a third. The hidden wire is [+] in one wire and [-] on the other. The meters you clamp on to each of the cables will show a low current, not detecting the real power source.
And Rossi needs multiple low-power cables, and won't let others provide the equipment.

It isn't as though Rossi had one bolted to a table and wouldn't let anyone under the table to look.

Well, yes, that's exactly what it's like. The chain of custody is compromised, in that he does not allow the test to be set up in a 3rd party controlled environment, and doesn't allow them to replace any of the outside equipment that isn't part of the "trade secret" core.

If this was legit, Andrea Rossi could seal a unit, and send it to independent testing along with instructions for how to test it. It would be reproducible, and he would still keep his trade secrets. But he has refused this.

Re:Hoax

[Jane Q. Public]

If he can show a working prototype, and show that it works, he can get a patent. That seems to be what he's aiming at here.

Howard Johnson couldn't get a patent for his "magnetic motor" at first, either, because the patent office claimed it was impossible. He had to actually build and demonstrate working demos before he got his patents.

It isn't like Rossi is claiming "perpetual motion" here. Or violating any other known laws of physics.

Re:Hoax

[delt0r]

Engineers around you design entire power stations in under 24 hours? Don't be an ass.

Ironically for small scale its probably more like a week. Smaller scale stuff has been around for a while. The electrical side would be directly off the shelf, one of them container generators for example. The turbine side not so much. But there are sterling type generators available off the self (sort of) where you just add heat. He claims to have 1MW power or more. That the better part of half a million a year power. And he could scale it if it worked.

But it doesn't work.

Re:Hoax

[Dantoo]

Rubbish. Most of my generation are well aware of Maxwell Smart.

Re: Hoax

[Applehu Akbar]

Ich bin nicht ein Geschichtnazi, aber...

Einstein, a pacifist, did not recommend starting the Manhattan Project. His letter warned Roosevelt that Germany was pursuing development that could result in a bomb. Starting Manhattan was roosevelt's idea.

That's okay....

[GarethIwanFairclough]

I'll wait for the next paper...

Re:That's okay....

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I'm not bald and old is relative but "Good News, everyone!"

Not so much, maybe.

[luna69]

Please see: http://www.science20.com/a_qua...

Not quite as clean a confirmation as one would like: " It would be like if I asked you to believe that by putting a dollar bill in a special laundry machine and spinning it for half an hour with some special detergent the dollar turns into a $1000 note. You are allowed to watch the machine as it does its work, but it is me who opens it and extracts the bill when it has finished its magic conversion. I doubt you would buy it."

If it sounds too good to be true...

Re:Not so much, maybe.

[ColdWetDog]

Jeebus:

- They measure 'power output' with a thermal camera in free air - not even the faintest attempt at making a calorimeter.
- Rossi was present at a critical junction in the test 'loading the reactor' (whooo).

The former sounds very, very fishy. You can't measure quantitative thermal output of anything with a thermal camera suspended in a room. A much better method would be to use some sort of calorimeter - something that was enclosed and could measure all of the heat put out by the system.

Re:Not so much, maybe.

[radtea]

You can't measure quantitative thermal output of anything with a thermal camera suspended in a room

The whole thing is terrible. If you designed a system to produce incorrect energy balance results it would be hard to improve on this set-up.

Resting the device under test on metal rails?

Your input power is some weird three-phase thing with additional pulses? Why not DC, since the primary purpose of the input appears to be heating the thing up?

Your "unfueled" test runs at half the input power of your fueled test, and your "calorimetry" depends on some theoretical estimation of temperature-dependent convection losses?

Then there's the temperature-dependent emissivity.

And there's the running for 32 days when you claim to be producing kilo-watts of "excess power"! If that was the case, the world's simplest bomb calorimeter would demonstrate the effect in seconds. So why didn't they build one?

The list goes on.

If a student at a science fair did a project like this as an attempt to create an "open" calorimeter set-up for some legitimate experimental reason I'd give them great credit. If they claimed they used the system and it demonstrated that energy was not conserved... not so much.

Re:Not so much, maybe.

[careysub]

No, it would be more like you put the dollar into a billfold, then took out 10... put one back in, got another 10 out... and then did this for weeks. At some point you have to think to yourself "Ok, either this really is a magic billfold, or he is very good packing dollars into wallets.

I am sure there are any number of magicians who could set up this trick. This is just the "magicians hat" (which can produce anything, indefinitely) but with a different piece of apparel.

Re:if these confirmers are reputable, who are they

[bhlowe]

Read the report. The names are at the top.
Giuseppe Levi - Bologna University, Bologna, Italy
Evelyn Foschi - Bologna, Italy
Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegnér - Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Hanno Essén - Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Unfortunately, Levi is a long time acquaintance of Rossi, so his independence is hard to justify.

Having read the report - there are problems.

[queazocotal]

The most glaring of which is there was no proper measurement of heat output - just computed from IR output.

Re:Having read the report - there are problems.

[radtea]

They measured the system with a known electrical input and no fuel, calibrated the measurement process showing they were measuring accurately to within a percent or so and then measured again with the fuel in place.

They did nothing of the kind, and if you read the paper you'd know it.

Their "calibration run" was at half-power (which given Stephan-Boltzmann and all is likely about 1/5th temperature) and their "calorimetry" depends on a number of complex temperature-sensitive estimates, so their "calibration" is meaningless.

They excuse themselves from doing a proper full-temperature calibration because they worried the iconel heater wires might melt in the absence of "fuel" which is a bogus and contrived claim.

Any suffiently advanced tech...

[trims]

is indistinguishable from a Rigged Demo. Or in this case, Rossi is counting on the inverse.

We've long been down this road. Rossi refuses to let anyone see how the thing works. He refuses to allow input monitoring (i.e. the Ecat is always plugged into an external power source, and he refuses to allow an ampmeter to be run on it).

He's also never shown the interior of the Ecat, so there's no verification of the fuel being any different between start and finish of the run. In fact, the concentration of Copper isotopes after the run is suspiciously identical to naturally occurring copper.

He's also never explained why there are no gamma radiation dangers, despite the physics which say that if the reaction he claims is going on, anyone within 10 meters for more than a few minutes should die of radiation poisoning.

Really, folks, this nothing more than a charlatan peddling his wares to folks. Any "scientist" who values his reputation shouldn't come with 100 miles of this guy. And shame on Slashdot for even publishing this claim. What, we're next going to entertain claims of people who say they can transform Lead to Gold with only this special black-box machine?

Oh, and ExtremeTech is about as reliable for this kind of reporting as The Daily Mail.

-Erik

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[Charliemopps]

They did run an amp meter on it. Also, they know the power supply he was using and it's standard. They were able to measure all inputs and outputs. It put out more than it took in, by a lot. More than could be accounted for given its mass.

I'm not saying this is real... but when they really do figure out how he tricked them it's going to be really clever I bet.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[ztexas]

Have you read the report? Power input was monitored. At this stage, either this is the most elaborate scientific/engineering hoax in history, or he's stumbled upon something novel. It happens. Unfortunately, the exact inner workings (fuel composition, ...) are being protected as a trade secret.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[radtea]

I'm not saying this is real... but when they really do figure out how he tricked them it's going to be really clever I bet.

The data on isotopic abundances were a result of tampering with the "fuel" at some point in the process, which is pretty simple to do. The fact that the "inventor" was present during "fueling" is a huge red flag.

For the rest: the work is of extremely low quality. The excess heat production is huge, and any simple closed calorimeter would have shown it in a matter of minutes. They instead built this bizarre "open calorimeter" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and didn't even calibrate it at the operating temperature! This is particularly important when you consider the functional form of the Stephan-Boltzmann law: radiated power goes as T^4, so at half power they were "calibrating" at a temperature far below the one they operated at. And yet their energy-balance calculations require a whole raft of temperature-dependent corrections.

The experimental design is so bad--and I am saying this as an experimental and computational physicist--that I can't help wondering if it was deliberately designed to gull the gullible.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[icebike]

He refuses to allow input monitoring (i.e. the Ecat is always plugged into an external power source, and he refuses to allow an ampmeter to be run on it).

Did you read even a few pages of the PDF?
Cuz I feel like you didn't.

The PDF documents exactly the devices used to monitor input power

PCE-830 power anlayser
3 phases, measures power and analyses harmonics, with memory, interface and sofware

The PCE-830 power and harmonics analyser is used for measuring one to three phases of electrical quantities for alternating current (AC). This power and harmonics analyser also measures such parameters as voltage, current, frequency, harmonics and power as well as indicting, according to standard EN50160, harmonic values, interharmonics and asymmetrics. Interferences, such as interruptions, leaks, overloads or transience (from 16s), are detected with their corresponding values. The backlit LCD, with high resolution, can show up to 35 parameters simultaneously. It can have up to 3 clips attached at the same time. In the data logger mode, it can save up to 17,470 readings (3 phases / 4 conductors) and in a simpler set-up (1 fase / 2 conductores) it can save up to 52,400 readings, split into 85 groups. All this makes the PCE-830 power analyser the ideal instrument for taking measurements over long periods of time. Measurement values obtained can be sent to a computer and be processed with the analysis siftware which comes included. The device comes with everything needed to measure and analyse from the moment the device arrives. Although the power analyser comes calibrated from the manufacturer, an optional laboratory calibration and certificate that meets ISO standards can be ordered seperately with the device or when a recalibration is required.

.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[gweihir]

Before, he used an AC-only amp-meter and added DC heating current. As to "standard power supply", it is really easy to rip out all that is in there and replace it, I have done it. He might even have repeated the earlier trick with a manipulated wall-socket, that gives AC _and_ DC. As everybody expects it giving only AC, the DC would be imperceptible unless specifically looked for. And with a little controller over Bluetooth, ZigBee or the like, he could even switch the DC part on and off to hide it better. Or he could put 380V on that socket on demand. Also not hard to do.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[careysub]

Have you read the report? Power input was monitored. At this stage, either this is the most elaborate scientific/engineering hoax in history....

You sure about that? Seriously this is a very close copy of the Keely motor hoax.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[bhlowe]

No, read the report (before spouting off.) The measuring equipment was not supplied by the inventor. The test was partly funded by the Swedish energy research consortium, Elforsk. The inventor may have had an opportunity to swap out the fuel--but it was running continously at 1100- then 14000C, so it would have difficult to do without causing a blip in the temperature data. The reactor was also a welded closed system and was cut open at the end of the 32 days with all team members present, including Rossi. Yes, maybe he pulled a sleight of hand trick at that moment.. but that doesn't make much sense if it was already agreed that the reaction was beyond chemical.... and could not have happened, even if its entire weight was made out of gasoline, Lithium ion batteries, or TNT.

Re:Any suffiently advanced tech...

[Solozerk]

But the "inventor" hooked up the meter, no?

No. The entire experiment was setup by the researchers themselves; the lab has no connection to Rossi, and none of the equipment came or was set-up by him. His only implication was to be here for the initial "fuel" insertion and the ash retrieval at the end, while being monitored (though that's more than enough to be suspicious of the alleged transmutation and suspect some sort of swap - still, it doesn't explain the excess energy).

Getting to the bottom of it

[fyngyrz]

No. Lobbyists and the lawyers that drive the lobbying process. Congresscritters seem to be almost uniformly clueless.

I would love this to be true.

[Chocolate Teapot]

Two reasons really. First because the thought of a group of sceptical experts scratching their heads in disbelief is too delicious to resist, but mainly because it would mean that the undesirable element who spend so much time stealing copper wire to sell on the black market would be stymied by the drop in the value of copper. I guess they would resort to stealing nickel.

He tried patenting it...

[trims]

He's tried patenting it in three different jurisdictions:

Italy, the EU, and the US.

The latter two rejected the claim outright, with choice phrases like "seems to violate the understanding of basic physical processes" and "fails to provided enough of a concrete implementation to judge for patentablity", and "application does not describe a workable device".

It got the Italian one, simply because he applied for a non-technical patent, and it was reviewed by someone who merely looked at the form, and didn't analyze the device. It's well-known in Italy that this form of patent is called "God's Gifts", because they're pretty much indistinguishable from miracles in terms of reproducability.

Relying on Trade Secrets for this kind of invention is the #1 indicator of fraud. A proper patent would make him rich beyond his imagination. A Trade Secret is only good for fleecing investors.

-Erik

Re:He tried patenting it...

[Jane Q. Public]

Relying on Trade Secrets for this kind of invention is the #1 indicator of fraud. A proper patent would make him rich beyond his imagination. A Trade Secret is only good for fleecing investors.

But you contradict yourself. If (as you said yourself) that he could not get a patent, then trade secret is his only real protection.

I agree that's not a good way to do it, but if that's all you've got, that's what you do.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[ShanghaiBill]

But you contradict yourself. If (as you said yourself) that he could not get a patent, then trade secret is his only real protection.

He didn't get the patent because he didn't actually describe how the device works. You can't patent a secret, and keep it a secret. The reason he didn't describe how it works is almost certainly because IT DOESN'T WORK. If it is a hoax, everything he is doing would make complete sense. If it is real, then nothing that he is doing makes sense. So someone who is behaving like a fraud, claims to be able to violate the known laws of physics. If anyone wants to bet that this is real, I'll give you 100 to 1 odds that it is not.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[geoskd]

The reason he didn't describe how it works is almost certainly because IT DOESN'T WORK.

Funny but FTFA:

The researchers observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, or âoefar more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume.â

That pretty much puts an end to the "doesnt work" crap. As they stated, if it is a hoax, the guy has developed a device that can store and regurgitate energy with a far greater energy density than gasoline. If all it is, is a battery, then by itself it would be worth almost as much as cold fusion, as it can store and produce 600+ horsepower for an hour (1.5MW hours). Thats enough to move a typical passenger vehicle 300+ miles on a power supply the size of a stick of dynamite. If the guy had created a device, of any kind, that can do this, then he has no reason to try to swindle investors in a cold fusion scam, he going to be Elon Musks new best friend for life.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[ShanghaiBill]

the guy has developed a device that can store and regurgitate energy with a far greater energy density than gasoline.

There are plenty of other explanations:
1. There is a hidden power cable
2. He recharges the battery while the researchers go to the toilet
3. He is feeding in power through inductive coupling.
4. Something else I didn't think of.

Look, I went to a magic show in Las Vegas, and I saw a guy make an ELEPHANT appear out of thin air on a raised platform. The audience was in a horse shoe layout, and was viewing the raised platform from 270 degrees. I have absolutely NO IDEA how he made that elephant appear. Yet there is no question in my mind that he didn't really materialize an elephant out of thin air. If someone can pull off that elephant illusion, then faking cold fusion well enough to fool a few researchers should be easy. I don't know exactly how the researchers were fooled, but there should be little doubt that they were.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[philip.paradis]

Perhaps you should focus on the researchers who appear to have, in large part at least, validated the energy production of the device. Are they lying? If you say they are, you must be able to provide proof of that.

Rossi's time in prison was due to uncleared allegations of tax fraud and toxic waste mishandling, which even if true would have little to do with this story. Crying "felon" looks a bit too close to a disingenuous smear tactic in this case.

As an aside, it's worth noting that many people who have been to prison are quite intelligent, and extended periods of confinement can provide plenty of time for thought (invention).

Re:He tried patenting it...

[Jane Q. Public]

So someone who is behaving like a fraud, claims to be able to violate the known laws of physics. If anyone wants to bet that this is real, I'll give you 100 to 1 odds that it is not.

That's what people said about 2 years ago when this device was first announced. It's later now, and things have changed.

I have read the paper. The methodology seems sound. If the researchers themselves check out for reputation, I would say this is astoundingly good news.

NOBODY here is claiming "to violate the known laws of physics". Nobody. There is nothing here that violates any known physical laws. It's just that nobody had quite managed to make it work yet. It has been known to be theoretically possible for a long time now.

The U.S. Navy has been researching ways to achieve LENR using nickel for many years now. Do you think the Navy is crazy? Do you think it's crazy that a university professor might have discovered a way to do it?

Re:He tried patenting it...

[wierd_w]

NONE of those explain the change in isotope species described in the article. Unless you mean he is somehow beaming concentrated neutrons through some unknown means into the device somehow, or that he is able to somehow completely replace the device with progressively more concentrated populations of heavier isotopes miraculously every time the researchers check.

Occam's razor sometimes shows that the seemingly improbable is actually the most likely explanation.

The actual definition of that particular by-rule, is that the explanation with the least complications (read, elaborate conjectures and weasel wording) is the most likely to be correct.

This device appears to produce power with an energy density many times greater than dynamite, and produces a change in isotope species of the test sample.

At this point, the test for fraud is to determine if the calculated energy released is congruent with the change in the mass energy potential of the sample before and after the experiment. Conservation of energy says that if this device used fusion, or any other nuclear power based reaction to achieve its outcome, then that energy came from mass.

They measured the energy released. Measure the difference in the mass of the sample after the 32day observation period, and compare it against the mass of the sample before the observation period. If the calculated mass value for the energy released + current mass == mass of sample before observation, we have a very difficult thing to account for, because it means the device is plausible.

If they dont match, it means the man is a fraud.

This is a testable point of data that would make fraud detection very easy, and would make people that are quick to point the fraud finger very uncomfortable if found to be true.

If the researchers did not collect this measurement, KNOWING that this device was 'supposed' to produce power via a nuclear energy process, then you have a very good grounds to seriously torpedo their published paper, and recommend additional experiment due to improper testing process. Especially since they have the equipment to measure statistical isotope species in the sample, and knew to test for it.

Granted, the difference in weight for a 140mwh value would be in the picograms or less. That just means that smaller samples with the same reaction process need to be studied so that tinier and more sensitive aparatus can measure any changes-- which would also make the "he switched the samples!" argument more convoluted in such latter experiments.

Of course, the NOT SCIENTIFIC AT ALL approach is to just say "There is no need to conduct that experiment, because it is clearly a fraud!"-- That's the not-science-at-all version of begging the question in a wrapper of appeal to authority fallacy, DRESSED as science.

Science is about observation, and recording data about observation, and making hypotheses that predict future observation. In science, REALITY IS KING. If the experiment has shown that energy was generated, and specific features were measured, but the experiment itself is in question-- the proper course of action is to repeat the experimental protocol in additional laboratories to eliminate the conjectured disqualifying uncontrolled variables cited.

In this case:

Were there any spurrious or anomalous EM readings near the device? (Any "beamed" energy delivered to the device would have to be of this type to interact reliably with electrical energy metering equipment.)

Was the sample ever tampered with? (Repeating the protocol simultaneously in multiple labs around the world to verify the results would exclude this, discounting some brilliantly absurd conspiracy.)

Were the researchers involved in any lucrative scam tactics with the inventor? (again, more independent testing would reveal this.)

So, in all cased, the prescribed course of action to verify definitively that this device is a fraud IS TO DO THE DAMN EXPERIMENT, REPEATEDLY.

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT KILLED THE ORIG

Re:He tried patenting it...

[Randle_Revar]

The independent reviewers may not be that independent. It is basically the same group that reviewed it back in 2013, and they produced a paper that was promptly ripped apart. I also seem to recall at least one of them is a friend of the inventor...

Re:He tried patenting it...

[philip.paradis]

Your repeated use of the same misdirection tactic is demonstrative of a lack of creativity, but I have faith that you must have only the best intentions at heart. Would you care to read the cited paper and provide your insights on the relative trustworthiness of the authors? For your convenience, and in the interest of minimizing your risk of misinterpreting the cover page of the paper, I have repeated the names of the authors here:

Giuseppe Levi
Bologna University, Bologna, Italy

Evelyn Foschi
Bologna, Italy

Bo Hoistad,
Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegner
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Hanno Essen
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

In deference to Slashdot's inability to properly handle Unicode, I have taken the added measure of producing an image of the names. Once again, this is for your convenience.

Please let us know when your evaluation of the these researchers' credentials has been completed. Your expert assistance is deeply appreciated.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[wierd_w]

Which is one of the uncontrolled variables I specifically cited--

Are the researchers involved in any scam tactics performed by the inventor?

And, again-- the solution is to perform the experiment in complete isolation, with faithful reconstruction of the test protocol, in a completely different test lab, with completely different scientists. AKA-- Verify by independent experiment.

(Which is NOT THE SAME AT ALL as "Dont do the experiment, and immediately cry fraud citing something they 'know'." Real scientists question EVERYTHING, ESPECIALLY what they 'know'. Why else do you think that giant particle accelerators are used to test well grounded theories on particle physics? Just to affirm what they already 'know'? Fuck no-- it's to be the first to show that what everyone knew to be true is really false, and find something new.)

Re:He tried patenting it...

[geogob]

That a sustained 2 kW, which is nothing. Not even 10 A on a normal power line... it could even be "smuggled in" through lines disguised as measurement lines. Heck, you could even get that power in through clever use of shields and grounds... it would most likely remain undetected without good forensic work.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[Sqr(twg)]

NONE of those explain the change in isotope species described in the article.

As I recall, an earlier version of the device also produced nickel, but in the naturally occuring isotope mix. The fact that it didn't proudce the correct isotope was the main objection that the Swedish researchers had then. Now it suddenly produces Ni62, so apparently, this guy has not only discovered one, but two different cold fusion reactions...

At this point, the test for fraud is to determine if the calculated energy released is congruent with the change in the mass energy potential of the sample before and after the experiment.

That change in mass is far too small to measure. The random part of the change in mass due to sublimation (atoms leaving the surface when the device is hot) is much larger than the change in mass-energy.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[wierd_w]

Also, if the power delivery curve is nice and smooth, indicating a progressive reaction is producing the signal.

Intermittent chargings, as the GP suggested, would produce a very spiky power delivery curve over the observation period.

In the case of a fusion based reaction producing heavier, and more unstable isotopes, this curve should resemble a bell curve, where initial fusion events are few, but their presence catalyzes additional fusion events, until the costs of further catalysis exceeds the energy liberated and the power curve falls off as useful fuel is depleted.

And again, there's the isotope population data that needs to be addressed. Neutrons are perniciously difficult to focus into a coherent beam, because they are 1) massed particles, and 2) have no charge. This means making a sufficiently powerful neutron source to accomplish the slow population shift from one isotope to another, heavier one over the month long observation window would require a very conspicuous neutron generator, which would probably have irradiated the researchers quite profoundly--- since it would have to be strong enough to literally cause the constituent atoms in the sample to have appreciable neutron capture. (The researchers themselves, being in close proximity to the sample being bombarded by the neutron source, would likewise also be subjected to this bombardment, due to the nature of focused neutron sources --- And again, external sources of such neutrons would be quite conspicuous. I somehow strongly suspect that the researchers would ask what the giant assed neutron collimator is doing in the lab, especially with the focal point of the collimator directly where the sample is.)

So, again-- that would be a pretty damned awesome thing. A focused neutron beam would have fantastic applications, especially one that is compact enough to be inconspicuous, yet powerful enough to cause substantive neutron capture in a large sample, --OR-- One that focuses neutrons into a tight and coherent enough beam to deliver the neutrons over a sufficient distance that the neutron source is not immediately apparent to the researchers.

No matter how you slice it, the data presented is showing something very enticing for further study.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[delt0r]

That's what people said about 2 years ago when this device was first announced. It's later now, and things have changed.

No it hasn't. These "reputable" scientist are the same scientist that were claiming it works 2 years ago. And they still didn't do anything to improve the experiment. They didn't do any calorimetry, this is not published and would not last an hour in peer review, and its almost exactly what they said last time. Which is "look its hot, its more energy than we put in".

They are soo sloppy in the experimental approach i would give this a fail at high school level. Errors are stated at .01, with no justification or calculation, its just made up! I didn't find details of the power supply, but i guess its a special one from the inventor, another black box if you will, and no mention of checking things like power factor, balance and perhaps a choke or two in case some higher frequency energy is pumped in.

I am going to call it. They are party to the fraud.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[hairykrishna]

I am a physicist. I strongly disagree with your view that the methodology is sound.

The measurement methodology for the 'power out' was not the way I would do it. It effectively comes down to measuring the temperature of the 'reactor', in air, and applying calculations. Temperature is measured via an IR camera. It is filled with many ways that they could mislead themselves. I have personally used such a camera to measure surface temperatures in a high power density accelerator target and it is far from a straightforward enterprise. Why not just load the whole thing into a bomb calorimeter? That's the immediately obvious way to measure what they want to measure.

They do not adequately describe their power input. They start out with 3 phase. There's some kind of power supply box in the chain before the resistors. Who supplied this box? More details on what's actually measured as 'input power' is required. Is a circuit diagram too much to ask for?

The isotope data would be compelling. However, it's clear from the paper that Rossi handled the fuel at loading, removal and possibly at points in between. Substitution would have been trivial.

No radiation was observed. LENR, cold fusion, whatever you want to call it where no radiation is emitted is completely incompatible with all known nuclear physics. The idea that it doesn't violate any known physical laws is nonsense.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[Sqr(twg)]

Here's how I think it was done:

Looking at Figure 4 in the report, we see that input power (current) was measured independently in two places. PCE 830 A meaures current going in to the control system, and PCE 830 B measures current going from the control system to the E-Cat. (Thease mesurements are in agreement, and both show less than 1 kW going in while other measurements show more than 2 kW of heat being generated.)

The placements both PCE 830 units are strange. PCE 830 A doesn't sit directly on the 380 V input from the lab, but instead sits between the control system and a "switch" (dentoted "SW"). Similarly, PCE 830 B doesn't sit directly on the three cables going into the E-Cat. Instead it sits between the control system and "connection boxes" (denoted "C").

Anybody who has used a current clamp knows that you must measure around a single conductor. If you measure around two conductors you get the sum, which can be zero even when a large amount of power is tranferred through the cable. So if any of the wires going from the control system to the "switch" contains two conductors instead of just one, then it is possible to feed current through without it regestering on PCE 830 A. Similarly, if any of the cables going from the control system to a "connection box" contains two conductors, it is possible to send power through without it registering on PCE 830 B. (The cables that come after the connection boxes would be much harder to fake, because they connect to high-temperature Inconel conductors at the end.)

So my guess is that the "control system" contains two separate units. One works exactly as advertised. The other is powered using an extra conductor in one of the cables to the "switch". Its ouput corrent is similarly hidden using extra conductors in the wires coning to the connection boxes.

This second unit is designed to only output power under specific circumstances. (Which is why Rossi himself was controling the experiment.) For example, I found it strange that the temperature of the "dummy" reactor was always much lower than the temperature of the "working" reactor. Maybe that is the trigger.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[tomhath]

NONE of those explain the change in isotope species described in the article

That is the easiest part of all to explain. Rossi himself put the fuel into the device, and Rossi himself removed the "ashes". Why did he need to be the only one who handled the material? That by itself invalidates the entire test.

Re:He tried patenting it...

[Rei]

Oh, hey, just looked it up. Seems that there's wide belief among the skeptics that it works based on a really simple trick: a rigged plug. Inside the plug he's got the ground wire swapped with a live wire. So inside the box he can at will make the power draw seem to disappear, because they're not measuring the ground wire. He's actually refused a million dollar prize from a skeptic who wanted to test his device in a way that would include measuring current from the ground wire. Funny, that. ;)

Also looks like in all of his previous incarnations there were no unusual isotopic concentrations measured in the ash. So funny that all of the sudden after facing that criticism his reactor changes how it works and starts outputting extremely enriched stuff in the "ash". Funny how that works. ;)

Can someone else build one?

[tomhath]

Reproducible results means someone else can build the device and get the same results. Unless that happens it's a hoax.

Re:Can someone else build one?

[Lehk228]

yes, anyone can build a fake cold fusion machine.

Re:The Real Criminals: The APS

[radtea]

and that the experimental protocol hadn't even been published yet. When it was published it stated that it took 2 months of electrolytic loading before the effect might occur.

There were preprints of both the P&F paper and Steve Jones' papers circulating the day after the press conference. They were sufficiently detailed to reproduce what P&F had done (the Jones paper was much sparser) and there was no clear statement of any "loading" requirement. There were a few cases reported where "loading" seemed to have occurred, but there was nothing like an unequivocal two month loading period.

Your comment implies that P&F ever described "the experimental protocol" but of course they never did any such thing. They described a whole range of things, and then claimed anyone who didn't get their results hadn't done it right.

Furthermore, as we dug into the work, it became more an more obvious that phenomenologically for the P&F result to be correct then both a) all of chemistry had to be wrong and b) all of nuclear physics had to be wrong. The work as reported was full of contradictions.

Koonin is on the right side of history with this "crime". P&F were wrong. They were wrong then. They remain wrong today. There have been no reproducible excess heat production experiments that have withstood ordinary academic scrutiny. The intriguing possibility of solid-state fusion has not been realized (more's the pity).

They didn't TEST anything...

[trims]

No, they didn't. (Measure all the inputs).

They looked at the instruments set up by Rossi. One of the biggest suspicions is that the Ampmeter is measuring only the current between hot and neutral leads on the input cable, and that the "earth" line is actually being used to supply power.

Once again: they merely observed a device set up by Rossi. They had to take his word that all the instruments were set up correctly, and that they did what he said they did. Even the new round of "testing" isn't actual testing. So there's no verification that it did anything that Rossi said it does.

It's like trusting David Copperfield that his escape box is merely an "ordinary box".

-Erik

Re:They didn't TEST anything...

[Solozerk]

They looked at the instruments set up by Rossi

Nope, that was true in the first test, not this one. None of the instruments came or were set up by Rossi. This test didn't occur in his lab, but in a neutral lab with controlled access. He was however present for the loading of the initial "fuel" and the extraction of the ash at the end of the test (which was stupid, and suspicious - especially given the witnessed isotopic changes in the ash).

Even assuming he did some swap on the ash itself, though, it does not explain the witnessed extra heat output (which even with extremely conservative estimates in the paper sets a CoP at ~3.6).
Now, their calorimetry is far from perfect - there were initial concerns about alumina (the device's main material) transparency to IR, for example; those have been put to rest given the fact that the IR camera used works above 7um wavelengths and at those ranges, transparency isn't an issue. Another concern (stressed by other people above) is the whole way the IR camera itself was calibrated and set-up - however, the IR cam was a new, never before used one, and they simply tested its calibration. Even if the measures are off due to the bad calorimetry, there is no obvious way it could translate into an error of that magnitude without some other obvious signs of it (like crazy differences between the hotter "segments" of the device and others, colder ones). And once again, they made all of their calculation using very conservative estimates and taking into account all margins of error.

As for the researchers themselves, they are far from disreputable (except maybe for Levi in this specific context); they are engaging their reputation by publishing this and one of them, Hanno Essen, is also the head of the Swedish Skeptics Society and has at least some experience in dealing with crackpots and suspicious "revolutionary" inventions.

This does warrant further research; beyond ad hominem attacks on Rossi, I haven't seen any strong critic of the experimental protocol that hasn't been quickly debunked (except for the transmutation thing; that could be explained by Rossi doing some sort of swap. It should be noted that he was watched at all time by several people though).

Lack of understanding, but so what.

[fahrbot-bot]

It is certainly most unsatisfying that these results so far have no convincing theoretical explanation, but the experimental results cannot be dismissed or ignored just because of lack of theoretical understanding.

Men don't really understand woman and women don't really understand men, but we still want to date each other and the results are not always unsatisfying. For fuck's sake, people didn't know how aspirin worked for (how long?) but still took it for pain and headaches simply because it worked (well).

Build one of these things for small-scale production. If it generates net energy, back-date a patent for this guy. I'd rather see some tax dollars going toward trying something that may fail, than paying Congress' to jerk-off for another year playing piss-ant politics.

There is no invention

[sjbe]

Given a choice between making $400k a year (minus operating and maintenance expenses, which we have no idea of) and potentially making billions off an invention, which would you choose?

There is no invention and thus there is no choice. This is no different however than the scam artists who sell courses on how to get rich selling houses or investing in the stock market rather than actually doing it themselves. They know there is no money in actually doing what they are selling but there is money in convincing gullible people to give them money.

I'm just saying that there is no reason to think he's a hoax just based on his business strategy.

Yes there is. I've worked in and with private equity. I've done fund raising for real companies. I know how real companies do this and you can be sure that this is NOT how honest people sell an invention. This is how a scam artist works. If this were real he would be able to march into any private equity firm on the planet and they would absolutely throw money at him after some due diligence.

Re:There is no invention

[Beck_Neard]

I've pitched investors on a variety of ideas. Investors would absolutely NOT throw money at someone claiming to have a cold fusion device. They would laugh in his face and show him the door (and rightfully so). Bringing in independent experts (under an NDA) is quite a logical first step before asking for money.

Granted, the way he's doing this is highly suspect. The 'independent experts' are not allowed to actually look at the device's internals; aren't allowed to set up all their own measuring equipment, and aren't allowed to load the fuel. That part of this story is quite suspicious and, as I said, it's probably a hoax. But speaking in general, you can't fault a guy for trying to build up evidence and documentation before cashing in.

Re:if these confirmers are reputable, who are they

[mrmagos]

Looks like a lot of Bologna.

I'll see myself out.

Fraud is easy

[sjbe]

Explain that part about explaining inputs and outputs being "meaningless".

Because if you cannot see the entire process there is ample room for fraud. I can hand you a black box that you plug into the wall of your house which will emit more power than you put in. Have I invented some magic box? No. It means that I have a battery in the box that I won't let you examine.

If you hand me something that seems to violate the known laws of physics you had better be able to explain what is going on and/or be very transparent about what you've found. Anything else just screams scam.

Since the machine needs to be charged with fuel for each run and the fuel changes isotopic composition by the end of the run, your objections as to "perpetual machines" are moot and misplaced.

If you believe that then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

These experts haven't figured it out. They are not exactly idiots. Google them.

Are you certain these "experts" are actually independent observers? You are being FAR to credulous.

Why?

[sycodon]

Why is it so fucking hard to get a team of reputable people, using a well designed experiment, test this thing? MIT? Cal Tech? Who the fuck are these "six (reputable) researchers from Italy and Sweden"?

All we have is secrecy and vagueness from one side and snark and arrogance from the other.

Re:Why?

[dargaud]

Why is it so fucking hard to get a team of reputable people, using a well designed experiment, test this thing?

Because we are busy. It takes 10 times more time to debunk bullshit than to spew it around.

Re:No contradiction at all

[Anonymous Coward]

A week before the Wright Brothers first flight, most respectable physicists were deeply skeptical about manned flight. Langley had just dumped his attempt in the Potomac. The Writght Brothers were also very secretive and frightened their invention would be stolen by others, which it eventually was. Until they flew, I doubt they could have gotten a patent. They weren't physicists and I doubt they could have produced a scientific paper to describe how their invention worked, but it did.

Bayesian Probability

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

Levels of skepticism should be commensurate with the prior probability of something being true. In this case, people should be extremely skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, to paraphrase Carl Sagan.

Of course, a proper scientific approach is not to dismiss something out of hand but nobody should be getting excited about such a claim until the claimant actually clearly demonstrates something to get excited over.

Re:No contradiction at all

[squiggleslash]

most respectable physicists were deeply skeptical about manned flight

I assume you mean "manned, powered, heavier than air flight" because manned flight was a thing back then and had been for hundreds of years.

But that said... citation required anyway. I doubt reputable scientists were deeply skeptical at the time, given that power plants were getting smaller and lighter and the principles were well known. Saying powered manned heavier-than-air flight was impossible at the time would be like saying today that you're skeptical it will ever be possible to drive from New York to Miami in an electric sports car on a single charge.

Re:No contradiction at all

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, according to this very article, it has passed a very high level of scrutiny. Bottom line is that patent officials are not physicists, and are no more qualified to determine whether the magic box represents cold fusion than you or I; they simply have instructions to deny patents of this type because the working knowledge is that anything along these lines is a scam.

Re:Hoax or good news?

[Oligonicella]

"find out what the next step is" We already know. He's said it himself. "Give me money."

Einstein's Nobel was for Photo-electric effect

[Roger W Moore]

This is why he's recognized. E=mc2 is minor. GR is the true genius part.

Einstein's Nobel prize was for the photo-electric effect and not for GR. Einstein could easily have received 4 Nobel prizes: for SR, GR, Photo-electric and his explanation of Brownian motion. This is why he is recognized as a genius, more so than those who actually have won multiple Nobels.

Re:Einstein's Nobel was for Photo-electric effect

[philip.paradis]

It seems the author of the comment you replied to indicated agreement with your position in a follow-up post nearly two hours before you posted comment #48127499. Additionally, I happened to note the difference between the photoelectric effect and GR nearly an hour before your post. I am becoming increasingly curious why there appears to be a higher than normal rate of errors and repetition in this particular comment thread. However, I freely admit that my stated perception of that error rate is clearly a speculative utterance in the absence of a much greater volume of sample data.

Re:Einstein's Nobel was for Photo-electric effect

[Jane Q. Public]

I am becoming increasingly curious why there appears to be a higher than normal rate of errors and repetition in this particular comment thread. However, I freely admit that my stated perception of that error rate is clearly a speculative utterance in the absence of a much greater volume of sample data.

The problem is Slashdot itself. Replies are shown in a linear fashion but they are made (of course) in chronological fashion.

So if GP didn't notice that his parent made a further comment down below, and replied to a reply to this one, the previous comments were missed. And it isn't particularly GP's fault. It's just the way Slashdot reads.

Now, that does also depend somewhat on your settings in Slashdot, but many people don't even know they exist, much less the (rather enormous) effect they can have on how comments are presented.

Which is why I leave the settings mostly alone. That way I see Slashdot the way most other people do.

Re:Einstein's Nobel was for Photo-electric effect

[Sun]

To the best of my knowledge, no one has won multiple Nobels in a single field.

Okay, after checking that statement, it is not true. Frederick Sanger has won two Nobel prizes in Chemistry. He won it alone, in 1958, "for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin", and again in 1980, with Walter Gilbert, "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids" (source).

It seems to me that the Nobel committee does not like to award the same prize twice. I think, had Frederick done the nucleic research on his own, he would not have won the second one. I think the committee only awarded him the second prize because not doing so would have denied Walter Gilbert the prize (and awarding only Walter a prize for joint work would be strange).

In that respect, Einstein got only one Nobel because he did his research alone.

Shachar

Re:No contradiction at all

[Anonymous Coward]

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.6364.pdf

Hoax? Or not?

[Immerman]

On the other hand at under half a kg even if the entire device was some sort of chemical fuel generating an excess megawatt-hour of energy would imply an energy density in excess of 7200MJ/kg. Compare that to the ~50MJ/kg of various petroleum distillates, or 140MJ/kg for hydrogen - the excess energy is far in excess of chemical sources. That leaves a few options to my mind:
1) The device actually works (which, yes, implies that our understanding of fusion is incomplete and sir hoax-a-lot actually has something real this time)
2) There's hidden low-neutron emission fissionable material in the device and it's actually a compact radiothermic generator producing ~1.3kWh in some manner that can be varied with electrical input. (which would likely be an incredibly valuable and physics-busting invention in it's own right)
3) It's doing something to hide the fact that it's actually drawing 3x as much power as is being measured
4) Actual heat emissions are 3x lower than the values calculated from the surface temperature.

Those are the only options that I see. I would have been much happier if they had done a proper calorimeter test with a high-speed oscilloscope monitoring the incoming power, but as skeptical as I am this is starting to look like it just might be the real thing.

Re:The Real Criminals: The APS

[Baldrson]

The earliest example (other than F&P's own work on calorimetry which was not, despite loud protestations about their admittedly flawed work on other nuclear products, ever "discredited" -- although it was erroneously criticized to high heaven) was Richard Oriani's replication "CALORIMETRIC MEASUREMENTS OF EXCESS POWER OUTPUT DURING THE CATHODIC CHARGING OF DEUTERIUM INTO PALLADIUM"" which was approved by Nature's own peer reviewers for publication in late 1989. Nature didn't publish it because -- and you'll have to forgive my invocation of Popper's notion of falsifiability here -- the American editor of Nature (the British editor considered it too hot to handle so he passed the buck to the US editor) the experimental results violated physical theory -- and yes, he actually told Oriani that. Theocracy rules.

Once Nature had violated the most basic principles of science in its editorial posture toward so-called "cold fusion" it could never again accept such a paper for review as it would risk, once again, approval from their own peer reviewers.

Re:No contradiction at all

[xQx]

Yeah, except that this "scam" works. A Nigerian 419 scam ceases to be a scam if you get paid by the Nigerian.

The patent office is denying the patent because it seems to violate the laws of physics.
The scientists who tested the thing agree that it seems to violate the laws of physics, but that it does, in fact, work.

To put it another way, here we have someone who has circumnavigated the earth and is trying to get intellectual property protection over the map that he's just made which features a round world.
But the various patent offices are denying this protection because they know the world is flat.

Forgive me for not accepting the US Patent Office as the definitive authority on the limits of nuclear physics when we suddenly have a team of scientists saying “These values place the [device provided by the man who keeps ranting and raving about cold fusion] beyond any other known conventional source of energy.”

It appears this charlatan with his impossible device may cause us to redefine what is possible.

Re:The Real Criminals: The APS

[Baldrson]

Good grief. Absence of assertion isn't assertion of absence. More importantly, if you aren't allowed to publish experiments that falsify theory -- in this case the theory that excess heat in nuclear quantities cannot be produced in the absence of so-called "nuclear manifestations" -- then what's the point of pretending to have a scientific method?

Ignore the paper, learn Rossi's history

[tgibson]

Set aside the de/merits of this study of Rossi's E-Cat device. Instead, focus on Rossi's behavior over the past four years.
From New Energy Times:

...Rossi responded to our and other scientific critiques, saying that he didn’t need scientific validation and that he would go directly into commercial production of a working 1 MW reactor...[Rossi] wrote on his blog, “We have arrived at a product that is ready for market...If somebody has a valid technology...he has to make a reactor that works and go and sell it, as we are doing."...A year later, on Feb. 17, 2012, he wrote on his blog, “In Autumn we will surely send the detailed offers to all the horde of pre-orderers. The deliveries will start hopefully within the next winter, surely within 18 months.”...There is no evidence that Rossi has produced and delivered a single working commercial reactor...Despite the fact that Rossi abandoned his attempt to obtain scientific credibility years ago in favor of delivering a commercially available reactor that has yet to materialize, he has gone back to seeking scientific validation. It’s been four years; there is still no truly independent scientific confirmation of Rossi’s claim [nor any fulfillment of preorders as promised 2-1/2 years ago.]

Since you are using occam's razor

[aepervius]

occam's razor is that just as with the first "independent" check this was actually not independent at all, was in Rossi lab with Rossi condition, and Rossi could have simply ordered some specific isotope and mixed it to make it looks like the ratio changed.
 
A true independent test is made in a lab own premise, with a machine they can watch and look for, and rossi not getting his finger on it at any point. THAT is an independent test. What we got is a second circus show. Oh sorry I meant "independent test". With big scary quotes.

Re: No contradiction at all

[steven.db.clark]

I would prefer it if James Randi were one of the observers.

Re:No contradiction at all

[jythie]

What I find ironic in the 'laughed at' comment is they often include Columbus, who deserved to be laughed at. Though I guess he makes a good hero for many.. he was anti-intellectual, stubborn, did not listen to well thought out arguments, yet still through sheer luck managed to become extremely wealthy. He is proof that you will be remembered as 'right' no matter how wrong you were, as long as you made boatloads of money afterwards.

Re:The Real Criminals: The APS

[alain_co]

There is many reference to misconduct. One it MIT tweaking of result that their editor (Mallove) have spotted. http://www.infinite-energy.com... http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw... One is Science not correcting errors in caltech paper http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/R... there is also the Oriani paper rejection for no serious reason (theory) there is also the rejection upfront of Report41 of Enea (Denino) showing He4/Heat corelation http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ra... (as 40+ other journals) There is a report by Pamela Mosier Boss, ex SU Navy Spawar, prolific author in Naturwissenshaften and Journal of Electroanalythical Chemistry who complained about emotional behavior in high impact journals http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCM... (page6+ in that proceeding). there are many more to list from the old ape of cold fusion... depending if you search academic misconduct, journal misconduct, insults, horse manure in the mailbox, nasty jokes ruining experiments, sabotaging grants by donators, demoting a researcher to the stock, ... some consider it is normal academic behavior, and it is in a way true, so maybe it is normal. Currently there are many report of similar problem, some by few Nobel like Sheckman or Sidney Brenner, who can afford to moan without being blacklisted. Maybe we cannot change that, not really say it is monstrous, but we should be aware that things works that nasty way, and not be too naive. Sorry for previous coward postings , forgot to logon...

Re:Careers damaged

[EmperorOfCanada]

I give this project a very high hoax factor but it is no longer 100% like it was the first day that I first read about it. The test I would like to see would include Penn And Teller as the debunkers as they would think way outside the box, not examining extreme physics, but looking for smoke and mirrors.

Oddly enough if Penn and Teller gave it a thumbs up while working with the appropriate physics and chemistry experts, I would say that this is probably true moreso than if any group of physicists gave it a thumbs up.

The simple reality is that this guy really needs to publish how to build your own and let the world have a crack. With this the hoax factor almost instantly goes to 100% or 0%. If it isn't a hoax I suspect that the guy is obsessed with not being ripped off. If I were him what would piss me off is if some somewhat famous physicist looked over my publication and then called the effect governing the process after himself, and the nomenclature stuck. Of course I would also be pissed off is somehow my patent was end-run somehow.

A whole other psychological thing that might be at play would be that the guy does have something but has no idea how it works; thus he might accidentally have figured out an interesting way of tapping into nearby high tension powerlines or something and will be proven to be a fool, even though he may have still developed something fairly interesting, just non-nuclear. Also if many other scientists do get their hands on it and figure out how it works he might just be called a tinkerer, idiot savant, etc as opposed to pretty much being classified along with the guy who invented fire.

I wouldn't bet on this being real, but much like the faster than light neutrinos I have my fingers crossed. Those would have been so cool!

Re:Units

[Electricity Likes Me]

2 kW is less current then a standard single phase socket puts out. It is ably carried by 1mm or smaller conductors. There was a 3-phase power supply involved in this experiment, connected to something which is functionally a bar heater.

Not quite. But a resistive heater, yes.

The values for total power out that they computer are only in the 2200 W range - still practically doable by our aformentioned single phase power socket.

So yes, tiny is the correct word.

How do you figure? 2200 W for 720 hours straight is twice the amount of electric power a U.S. household consumes in the same period of time. No, I don't call that tiny. Why? Because allegedly it came from ONE GRAM of fuel. As I mentioned above, you have to account for the size of the source, when measuring whether it's tiny or large. It's all relative.

The experiment was carried out in Europe. Europe uses 220-240VAC. And yes: that's tiny. In the sense that they produced no value which is substantially larger then could have been trivially supplied through surreptitious means by miswired connections. Its not some big accomplishment to get 2kW in and out of something using regular electrical gear from a hardware store. It's not hard to get 720 hours out of that gear.

So no amount of energy in excess of what very conventional wiring and equipment can supply was delivered.

Re:The Real Criminals: The APS

[Baldrson]

It could be demonstrated to be fusion by either producing enough heat that it couldn't possibly be a chemical reaction (which didn't happen), or observing neutrons (which were not being generated).

There are lots of peer reviewed papers reporting excess heat well in excess of chemical levels -- papers that have not been even so much as criticized by the true believers in current interpretation of physical theory. See http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/S...

Once we realize that, we realize that Oriani was claiming to violate a whole lot of physical theory with scanty evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Oriani apparently didn't provide that.

You can't have it both ways. You either can have scientific method where experiment is permitted to be published that falsifies currently fashionable interpretation of physical theory, or you can have theocracy. Its that simple. Oriani's experimental evidence was sufficient for Nature's own peer reviewers. It was not a peer-review rejection. It was an editor veto of Nature's own peer reviewers. This is scientific misconduct, pure and simple.

Nature could indeed publish a "cold fusion" paper if somebody definitely had cold fusion going and had good evidence for it.

Nature then proceeded to block additional empirical-only papers from Oriani on the grounds that he offered no theory to explain the results -- results that falsified currently fashionable interpretation of physical theory. Science starts with observation and theory ends with observation that fasifies theory. Nature is engaging in gross scientific misconduct and it is a pattern of behavior.