What to make of Andrea Rossi's apparent cold fusion success

[n2doc]

By David Hambling
06 November 11


The apparent success of Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion demonstration on 28 October is starting to send ripples into the mainstream press. So what new clues do we have to settle whether it's the breakthrough of the century or the scam of the decade?

In the demonstration, overseen by engineers and technicians from Rossi's mysterious US customer, the device appeared to produce over 470 kilowatts of heat for several hours. The customer was evidently satisfied and paid for the device, though other scientists and journalists attending were not given close access to the test equipment.

Following his first sale, Rossi now says he has orders for thirteen more megawatt-class E-Cat power plants. He's offering them to anyone at $2,000 (£1,250) a kilowatt, which works out at $2 million (£1.25 million) per unit, and says he has customers in the US and Europe. Rossi says a domestic version rated at a few kilowatts is at least a year away. He is also working on adapting the E-Cat so its heat output can converted to electricity, but this will require higher working temperatures and will take two years or more.

This is not quite what you'd expect from a fraudster.

more


http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-11/06/cold-fusion-heating-up

[Xipe Totec]

1. scientists and journalists attending were not given close access to the test equipment...

Gee, I wonder why...

[pnwmom]

8. Right. That makes me very suspicious. n/t

[Posteritatis]

17. My guess is because Rossi and company are liars and frauds. (nt)

[Occulus]

20. Big time fraud alert.

I'll take this OP with an entire mine of salt.

[Logical]

2. I call BS on this. Any wild claim like this always turns out to be false.

[TheMadMonk]

10. I'd like to cause BS too. However, if this bloke is a con-artist,...

...a damned good one.

He's not selling shares in a nebulous future product that just needs "a few kinks ironed out" to bring it to market. He's openly (so no embarrassed customers wanting to cover up their gullibility) selling an already developed physical product to customers with the nouse to know whether or not that product works and the clout to whack back if it fails to live up to the brochures.

[laconicsax]

13. People will pay for anything.

See: Oxygen bars, "healing" crystals, homeopathy, etc.

[TheMadMonk]

14. True. However, unlike those things, this product offers concrete...

...and entirely testable results.

This is not the death of Tinkerbell and a need for more belief.

I won't say this device is definitively the real thing. Just that it's intriguing, and the evidence to date is more pro than con.

[laconicsax]

23. All signs point to it being a scam.

No one's being allowed to examine the device, see the plans, etc. That's typically the hallmark of a scam. Hell, it might have a small motor or engine inside generating the heat for all we know.

[TheMadMonk]

26. Not all signs. IIRC the first demonstration of this device, was of a bare...

...benchtop assembly and whilst close ("hand me that screwdriver") examination was not permitted, a total energy output well in excess of that possible even if the entire volume of the device contained nothing but caesium and flourine was demonstrated. IIRC loading/fueling was demonstrated, and all observers agreed that no chemical reaction could account for the observed energy output.

It may barely be possible that the device houses a passive nuclear generator of some sort (RTG?), but the scam would not last past the first sale, and there would be very few places safe enough to hide once found out.

Not saying yea, simply not quite able to say nay to it yet either. And quietly hopeful I won't ever have to.

And while the secrecy does have the hallmarks of a scam there is also the possibity that they do in fact have something, but no idea of exactly what it is they have, in fact that is their claim IIRC. Without a solid explanation based in the physical sciences, the device is unpatentable no matter how well it works. The only way to protect the IP is with individually binding secrecy agreements.

[laconicsax]

27. It's the refusal to allow examination.

No one knows anything about the inner workings. Batteries connected to heating coils could be concealed for all we know.

[TheMadMonk]

28. No known chemical reaction physically containable within the device can explain...

...the apparently observed energy output.

A novel and highly efficient radioisotope based generator might be a possible path to fraud, but if so, why not simply market it as such and be done. If a decent power to weight ratio were achievable from such devices, the marketing possibilities available would be plenty profitable without misrepresentation.

If the builders can't explain, only point and say "It does what it does." they'd be fools to allow examination without very strong contractual protections, else someone else does manage to explain and patent the device out from under.

[laconicsax]

31. And we know there aren't batteries with a heating coil because?

Last I checked, the heat given off by an electrical current run through wire isn't a chemical reaction.

[TheMadMonk]

32. Because batteries are powered by chemical reactions.

Sorry mate, but you just demonstrated a level of ignorance of the physical sciences which leaves you slightly unqualified to comment.

You leave them alone and I won't become a blues critic.

[laconicsax]

33. Pardon me for doubting this miraclous cold-fusion device.

Clearly no one has any reason to doubt that it's legitimate and the fact that I wasn't thinking about the reactions that drive batteries just proves that.

You're a real piece of work.

On Edit: The reported energy given off wasn't independently confirmed. Rossi just said, "hey look! I got my secret device to run for 5.5 hours and produce 470 kW!" No one was allowed to confirm that this was even a real event.

So let's recap:
-Secret device working on secret principles
-Extraordinary claims left unconfirmed
-An unknown buyer.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

But no, I'm sure that everything about this is honest.

[TheMadMonk]

35. Not saying it's wrong to doubt. Saying that you are doubting falaciously.

With insufficient knowledge of basic science, let alone the science that would be involved here.

You may well be correct, but the level of bafflement shown at the small scale demonstration a while back makes it possible that Rossi has something concrete today.

Funilly enough, it could well be a lot simpler for this to be genuine, than to maintain a scam as ellaborate as this would have to be.

[laconicsax]

36. You're elevating a brain fart to the level of general stupidity.

That says more about your argument than mine.

BTW: As far as maintaining a scam, it's pretty damned easy to lie, and Rossi hasn't let anyone check up on his claims.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. There are significant questions about the apparently observed energy output

Commenting on an earlier demonstration:

Rossi based his assertions of excess heat on the nearly complete vaporization of room-temperature water (26.5 °C <79.7 °F>) into dry steam (100.1 °C <212.2 °F>). Rossi assumed that all of the water that enters the device leaves the device as dry steam. If this were true, the device would produce lots of energy since a large amount of energy is required to vaporize water into dry steam. (In his 2010 paper, Rossi originally claimed to produce 213 times more energy going out of the device than the energy coming in. Since then he has lowered his estimates several times, and now claims a maximum energy gain of 6 times.)

However, if the steam contains any liquid water droplets - even tiny ones - it would significantly reduce the amount of heat being produced. During his visit, Krivit found that Rossi did not check for complete vaporization. The hose through which the output steam flows was inserted into a sink drain, and there was no way to know if liquid water is going down the drain. According to Krivit, Rossi did not use any valid devices that were capable of measuring the steam quality.

Further, three scientists calculated that, based on the diameter of the hose, the steam should have an exit velocity of 67, 76, or 137 mph. When Krivit visited Rossi, he took a video of the steam exiting the hose, which he said appears to be flowing at around 10 mph - the expected velocity due to the amount of electrical input energy.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-controversial-energy-generating-lacking-credibility-video.html

[mopinko]

38. aka co-conspiritors?

like any good ponzi scheme.

[MADem]

3. I think I'd want someone with serious clout to verify and replicate.

But, tangentially, have you ever had a massive brainfart?

I looked at the subject line and asked myself "Why in hell would a blind tenor be involved in cold fusion?"

Can't imagine how or why I mixed up Rossi with Boccelli!! They both end in "i" maybe?

[BadgerKid]

4. My concern is that the media

would twist this into a "see? scientists don't know what they are doing" example rather than what seems more likely to me to be a "huckster fools the gullible" article.

[TheWraith]

5. Actually, it's exactly what one would expect from a fraudster.

Try to sucker in a couple buyers without having to produce more equipment for testing, then run with the money.

If I'm wrong I'll eat my words, but everything about this still smacks of a con job.

[tridim]

6. Is this the same experiment from a few years ago..

Where deuterium is pumped into a metal lattice with waves?

[safeinOhio]

7. The beauty of science

New facts and evidence can change the old paradigm.

If it works, great. If not, next.

[Riftaxe]

9. No way can it compete

with all the perpetual motion machines out there :)

[TheMadMonk]

11. Except if it works. /nt

[laconicsax]

12. That's a big if.

[DetlefK]

15. This is a repost from 2 weeks ago.

Mysterious customer who might or might not be real, a demonstration that proves nothing, and no access for journalists or other scientists to inspect the machine.

These guys are fishing for free PR for their scam and by posting this topic over and over again you are doing just that.

[n2doc]

16. Look at the date of the article

And I'm not worried about a DU'er buying a 2 million dollar thing without doing due dilligence. Get over yourself, Lone Ranger.

[DetlefK]

19. I misspoke. I meant the "experiment" to be old news.

This is at least the third article to bring up Andrea Rossi's Cold Fusion experiment on DU.

His machine gets mentioned over and over again, "what if"-discussions bloom, I vaguely remember a "Big Oil would like to see him go down"-post... I just wonder about the fuzz and vain hopes this topic creates, considering the lack of any hint whether any of this is more than a scam.

And now, please excuse me, I'm scheduled for a ride into the sunset on a compostable 1 HP-vehicle that runs on grass.

[bananas]

18. "AP apparently initially tried to deny Svensson was there, though photographs suggest otherwise."

More curious is the lack of a story from Associated Press. AP science reporter Peter Svensson flew from New York to attend the demonstration, and live coverage of the event was curtailed to give AP the exclusive. But Svensson has so far not written a word about it. Some online commentators suggested that he had been silenced by "Chinese-style information censorship." When challenged, AP apparently initially tried to deny Svensson was there, though photographs suggest otherwise.

???

[Demstud]

21. Needs independent verification

Until then, I'd remain skeptical.

[struggle4progress]

22. until the alleged "verification" is openly demonstrated, this should be regarded as huff-n-puff

[Orsino]

24. I beg your pardon, but this is EXACTLY what we'd expect from a fraudster.

Selling shares in an unproven, nigh-unseen invention? That's how they all operate, damn it.

[sofa king]

39. This is my problem, too.

It has all the marks of a scam, but I have to give the guy credit for being able to demonstrate something that even half-works.

Of course, that's exactly how Moller kept the press hypnotized for thirty years: roll out a prototype that appears to work, but which is deficient in some ways that prevent its immediate implementation. Demonstrations never equal the expectations generated by their own hype, as this one does.

So I suppose, considering the guy is running the operation as if he were a scammer, the next step is to see if he can deliver the ordered systems, and if those systems actually work as advertised.

The tiny grain of "I want to believe," however, reminds me that the skeptical resistance to a new innovation can be very strong. Human flight, for example, was dismissed as impossible for most of its history; the goalposts were always moved to rule out the Montgolfiers, Lillienthahl, Langley, and even after the Wrights, with a small circle of flight-deniers persisting even up to the First World War.

Even if it's not cold fusion--and I highly doubt it is--the process may yet have a nifty utility as an alternative energy source for esoteric applications, like Fischer-Tropsch, which may one day prove highly valuable. But I'd put my money on an unmetered tap into the power grid!

So while I still doubt it, I also hope I am wrong.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. How can we say this "mysterious customer" isn't an accomplice ?

A test confirmed only by an unidentifiable witness is not only unconvincing, but suspicious. None of the info re sales, orders, etc. is attributed to anyone but Rossi so far.

[caraher]

29. I did a little reading last night and am leaning toward fraud

It's telling that Steven Krivit, who never met a "cold fusion" scheme he didn't like, http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/10/30/noble-aspirations-are-not-enough/">is rather vociferous in his denunciation of Rossi.

...“What end game is there for Rossi in the ‘hoax’ hypothesis other than jail or court, penniless and disgraced?”

Note that prison, bankruptcy and disgrace have never been deterrents for Rossi. See his prior fraud convictions and imprisonment.

Krivit also links to this http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/257667">detailed critique of the demonstrations.

[AngkorWot]

30. Do you know how a confidence game works?

A con man sets up, say, a three card monte game on a table in public. One of the people in the crowd comes up and plays a game. The guy wins, and gets a lot of money from the dealer, then goes about his business.

Then the mark sees that, thinks he can do it, and wages a bunch of money.

The mark loses.

The dealer cheated.

The first guy was in on the scam the whole time. This "customer?" He's part of the scam.

[krispos42]

37. If it really worked, he'd be dead of a brain hemmorhage by now.

About, say, 9mm in diameter. Or an oh-so-tragic accident involving a cement truck.

There is TRILLIONS of dollars of money at stake here, and the psychopaths that run the oil and gas companies will kill for a tiny fraction of what's on the line.