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Rossi's cold fusion device, also known as "E-Cat", has been successfully tested to a mystery group who bought it for at least 2 million$. Speculation is that the customer was DARPA. Also, an AP reporter was present so we can also expect an report from AP on this test within the next few days.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/29/rossi-success
http://pesn.com/2011/10/28/9501940_1_MW_E-Cat_Test_Successful/
http://peswiki.com/index.php/News:October_28,_2011_Test_of_the_One_Megawatt_E-Cat

For a new, clean and cheap energy future!

As far as I have been able to figure out these kind of devices do not work on the principle of fusion or any transmutation of elements but a different phenomena.

Whenever they really work idk but something about it reminds me of the steorn folks.
Anybody remember them? Yeah they the ones with the full page ad in the NYT, iirc the hype spike on google trends is still unprecedented.  ;)

The science is more H2 reaction ion stuff rather than "cold fusion", but I've been watching this story for a while and waiting patiently to see if it is a big scam or something worthwhile - time will tell.

sign me up!

it's one of those "too good to be true" things IMO

Precisely.

People, use your critical thinking faculties.

All we have is Rossi's own claim that his customer is satisfied enough to buy the device. During the demonstration, they didn't even disconnect the external power cable, which is supposedly only needed while the device is being started up. If the device really worked, they would have been happy to disconnect the external power supply.

[edit: it seems they didn't even turn the diesel generator off during this so-called test!]

I have to admit I'm still skeptical but it is pretty impressive that actual physicists are still giving him the benefit of the doubt. It seems more and more that there is reason to believe that Pons and Fleischmann were on to something. It is just still not clear exactly what.

The way they are going about things does make it seem fishy, but after the fast fall of their predecessors I can understand their sensitivity to early over exposure.

And as for the generator staying on... as we saw in Japan, with nuclear reactions sometimes bad things happen when the power goes off! If they really were generating 470 Kwh of heat in that little shipping container something needed to circulate the water and vent that heat outside. The system itself was not generating electricity. It was only generating heat.

Here's the Bologna video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9I_CJti-RU

470 KWh for $2 million, I guess I will burn coal :)

No, the design was 1000kW for $2M.  Coal is about $1000/kW plus fuel costs (depending on currency).  Hydro power works out closer to $4000/kW and wind $1500/kW - these are for industrial/large scale installations.

Don't confuse capacity and output. 

Having read the early reports, it's still in the highly skeptical range of devices.  First time one gets into the hands of "public" for real testing will prove or burst the bubble.

Just curious. Where did you get those figures?

I agree with your skepticism, but if there is anything to his reaction, he already claims to have reproduced it 1000 times. (three hundred little cases in that shipping container. Each with three reactors.) repeatability would be the real breakthrough.

And this is precisely why I don't believe him.

Rossi made a big deal about how he has scaled this thing up from a few kilowatts to a megawatt. This is a typical magician's misdirection. If this thing worked as advertised, the kilowatt device would be earth-shattering. Simply aggregating some of these into the megawatt device would not be such a big deal.

An honest "black-box demo" of the small unit would be straightforward to provide and would silence all the skeptics. If Rossi is not prepared to isolate the power inputs from the experiment, I can't take him seriously.

A simple pipe can vent 470kW of steam without difficulty, and a simple pipe can deliver cold water. With a 1MW electrical generator running, I can easily produce 470kW of steam with simple resistive elements.

Now I'm not saying he is not a scammer. Normally I would say that without a doubt he is. But I keep stumbling on more and more instances of people claiming to produce excess heat using similar experiments.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-4952167.html

There was a documentary linked about the inventor. I clearly pointed out that he has done unsuccessful, almost scam like, things in the past. But there are also interviews with others purported to be swiss (swede?) experts in the field. They seem convinced something is happening.

I saw your comments on venting heat. You very well could be right. I was thinking of it as a metal box containing 4,700 hundred watt lightbulbs. That makes one hell of an Easy Bake Oven!

The following pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.
http://xkcd.com/955/

Generation cost number come from my day job - but they are around in various published reports.  You local energy regulator probably has them in some form on their web site.

The big thing to note is Rossi hopes to have small scale units available for $100 per kW, or just 5% of conventional generation capacity.

Thanks!


I know! It would be pretty game changing. I really want someone to talk me out of getting my hopes up. I'm usually pretty pessimistic about such things.

The odd (talking out my ass) pattern I keep reading is physicists speculating about nano-scale atomic geometries having something to do with these reactions. (Lattices and so forth.) I can't say I really understand any of it at a deep level. But there has already been lots of nano-engineering research lately. (Graphene, nano-tubules, atomic-scale motors) Geometrically, it all seems pretty basic so far. But if someone can come up with a theory of how atomic geometries of nickel facilitate nuclear reactions (or paladium etc.), that ability to push atoms into regular patterns could really start to get useful fast.

I don't see how any sort of "catalyst" can fuse two or more protons together. Until proven otherwise, I will keep believing that the only thing inside those hot foil wrapped tubes are just hot baked potatoes. That way my hopes won't be shattered too much if it turns out not to be potatoes (even if I do really love baked potatoes).

What is for research may take a very long time before it can translate into part of our daily lives.

To me, it looks like the whole machine could fit on a coffee table. You didn't, by chance, loan it to anyone, did you Rassah? That sure the hell would explain how the heat was generated.

So someone claims to have discovered cold fusion, and their first thought isn't to fly to Norway to flaunt it to the Noble Prize committee?

Did you know that it took about 4 years for the press and scientists to recognize the successful flights of the Wright Brothers:

"... The only photos of the flights of 1904–1905 were taken by the brothers. (A few photos were damaged in the Great Dayton Flood of 1913, but most survived intact.) In 1904 Ohio beekeeping businessman Amos Root, a technology enthusiast, saw a few flights including the first circle. Articles he wrote for his beekeeping magazine were the only published eyewitness reports of the Huffman Prairie flights, except for the unimpressive early hop local newsmen saw. Root offered a report to Scientific American magazine, but the editor turned it down. As a result, the news was not widely known outside of Ohio, and was often met with skepticism. The Paris edition of the Herald Tribune headlined a 1906 article on the Wrights "FLYERS OR LIARS?"

In years to come Dayton newspapers would proudly celebrate the hometown Wright brothers as national heroes, but the local reporters somehow missed one of the most important stories in history as it was happening a few miles from their doorstep. James M. Cox, publisher at that time of the Dayton Daily News (later governor of Ohio and Democratic presidential nominee in 1920), expressed the attitude of newspapermen—and the public—in those days when he admitted years later, "Frankly, none of us believed it."[62]
The Dayton Daily News reported the October 5 flight on page 9, with agriculture and business news.[N 2]

A few newspapers published articles about the long flights, but no reporters or photographers had been there. The lack of splashy eyewitness press coverage was a major reason for disbelief in Washington, D.C. and Europe and in journals like Scientific American, whose editors doubted the "alleged experiments" and asked how U.S. newspapers, "alert as they are, allowed these sensational performances to escape their notice." ..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

Seems like the mainstream media is again missing one of the big stories.
It's the same "Catch-22" argument: "If it were real, we would know about it."

"... a group of unknown, unverifiable people carried out tests which cannot be checked." (Wired). Forgive me for remaining sceptical.

Moreover, laws of thermodynamic has not been disproved so far. Rossi claims that he can mass produce these space heaters at 100$ per kW. Let's just all of us buy a dozen... global warming here we come... free energy! yea right...

Now if any of t his is true than at today's electricity prices these 100$/kW babeis would pay itself off in 42 days. It is way better then even bitcoin mining rigs in its heydays.

Unknown customer, according to Rossi, is happy that that box produces all that energy and do not pay attention to that fat cable from power grid to our kettle it does not contribute any power. Yea, right... the "customer" sez it's fine.

Even at current 1000$/kW Rossi could have juts engaged in building power plants and selling electricity to the grid. It is juts so easy to build a viable biz model once you have free energy. Why is it Rossy instead of selling energy engages into all those scammy demos instead? Something is fishy here...

Occam's Razor would suggest that this is a scam as this would be the simplest explanation of all the facts.

In his latest press release, Rossi explained how his device works.

It's actually not cold fusion. It turns out that the device consumes as much electrical power as the heat it releases, but as a side-effect the device generates enough bitcoins to pay for the power consumed, so Rossi has been ignoring the electricity input in his energy calculations.

Ingenious, I should call a press conference and show them how I produce enough heat for free to heat my house. All at one time cost of a bunch of 5970s. Electricity is free after that since it is being paid for by bitcoins.

Here is an idea of a device which would compete with Rossi's cold fusion. 6990 based space heater. It is only 1000£ per 1kW, you connect it to the grid and to the net. There will be a service that takes your bitcoins and sells it for fiat which are being paid direct to you electricity company. Free heat, here we go.

I'm not skeptical at all, i believe it's possible it works and can be a revolutionary technology but i refuse to use another "device" that creates it's energy based on some material element, few grams of nickel is used by this cold fusion device. Nickel is cheap but in case this technology is adopted could be the next "fossil fuel" if you ask me with all the bad things that will bring.

We already have inventions that create lots more and don't have to use nothing in the process, they are being kept secret by gov all over the world, and seeing a device like this being publicized should rise some alerts for ppl. We are prohibited even experimenting with free energy devices and scientists all over the world, funded by big business, spend most of their time bashing and denying it's existence with their flawed laws and shit.
The first and second laws of thermodynamics are valid and will be forever but are mistakenly interpreted or applied, you have to look at the "big" picture when measuring energy put into and output of a device. The vacuum is full of "static" energy that enters freely in every device we make. The basic principle in every OU device, mechanic, electric or chem, is a very efficient oscillator (pendulum) or swing that you have to "push" at it's resonant frequency to have it build huge amounts of energy that you can have for free. We see free energy devices all day long in the parks but don't stop to think how they really work :P

Sorry for the long post but i had to say all this.

Now that you've got that off your chest, you could ponder why the "inventors" of these impossible devices always refuse to give a simple unambiguous demonstration that they work.

Because "We are prohibited even experimenting with free energy devices..."  Duh.

Well, in this case the nickel is consumed, but in return you get a more valuable metal; copper. If this is not viable as a power generator, then it might still be profitable to have more copper than we have now.
You may be right that this is not a long term solution. But if it works well, it might be a medium term solution, and will teach us about cold fusion catalysis, so we can maybe go to full hydrogen-hydrogen fusing in the future. At least it's better than mining coal/oil, and exploding fission reactors.

About thermodynamics:
This is not a "free energy device" or a "perpetuum mobile". The fusion of a hydrogen atom with a nickel one does actually produce energy, and this is not energy "from nothing". As such, there is no thermodynamics being violated.

This has been going on for longer though. An interesting article from April, that says a small version was shown to work by (amongst others) the chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society:
http://pesn.com/2011/04/07/9501805_Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Validated_by_Swedish_Skeptics_Society/
Note: The article seems a bit biased towards believing.
Some quotes from it:

That reminded me of this scene from Primer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJUG1jKB1YM&t=6m25s).

That's true because almost every time in the past that somebody has successfully developed such a device they are either threatened, bought off, arrested or killed.

thanks for the tip cruikshank  :D , didn't know a series like that existed

@Mageant we all know it happens, proof is all around internet :( , the day some anon person releases 9 page doc to build an ingenious yet simple and small device, that harnesses energy from the empty space we're surrounded, we will have a real breakthrough. We could even use bitcoin to stay anon if we ever wanted to sell ready built devices to other peers and make some profit

Please do elaborate on these.

Has been done already link (http://www.rense.com/general72/oinvent.htm). A search (http://www.google.es/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=es&source=hp&q=killed+energy+devices+inventors&pbx=1&oq=killed+energy+devices+inventors&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=6411l16890l0l16999l31l25l0l3l3l0l440l4949l0.13.10.0.1l27l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=2c2e2a1c0adb9de9&biw=1280&bih=883) on google give lots of results too

You'd think by now these inventors would have learned their lesson, and knew to either release their design publicly or only sell it to China, Korea, Iran, or any other country that would love to compete with US or Europe.

This is awesome in its silliness! The site even has its own disclaimer!
http://www.rense.com/disclaimer.htm

New biz model. You start working on new "electrolysis process", stage a fake demo or two and wait for 1 billion offer to stop working on this. Awesome.

Lolectrolysis!  ;D Only slightly more confusing than how magnets work, and just as ridiculous. But, BUBBLES! And Hydrogen! Obviously every time you make hydrogen, you create energy, right? Anyone?

yeah, more than one tried to pull that out but "they" have experts too and know how to recognize a genuine invention. Compared with the 2 million offered for the invention we're talking in this thread i would tend to believe it's more of a scam that meyer's hho, who btw was only putting in practice Andrija Puharich (http://www.google.es/#hl=es&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=10&gs_id=1v&xhr=t&q=andrija+puharich&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=andrija+pu&aq=0&aqi=g1&aql=f&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=2c2e2a1c0adb9de9&biw=1280&bih=883) real findings and succeeded.

Personal interest make this kind of technology fail to reach the masses every time, it's a feature if you ask me put in our economic system by the creators, and stall the evolution of our race. Hope bitcoin solves this issue by having the ppl who really put time and energy into this kind of research get the funds they need from all of us.

We could talk days on this issue and agree on every aspect or keep up the good work on bitcoin adoption and wait for inventors to come aboard :D

Those who don't yet recognize this "invention" as a scam may find this article interesting:
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/10/30/noble-aspirations-are-not-enough/

With Meyer's you don't have to believe anything. There is a perfectly good wiki page. He also filed a patent so you can just build what he made and see if it works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Meyer's_water_fuel_cell
http://www.google.com/patents/about/4389981_Hydrogen_gas_injector_system_for.html?id=ihY9AAAAEBAJ

That is the best think about patents. Nobody can buy them up and hide them. If it is patented, it is public.

lol

heh maybe you misunderstood my words, we're on the same side here, i only meant to say that meyer invention is publicly known as a scam and strongly believe he made it work through water resonance like he states in his patents.

eh take it easy on concepts, you're mixing the source of the energy that a kid has cumulated as potential with the impulse given to the swing at resonance (first 25% of it's travel). Imagine i put an electromagnet, instead of a kid, at one side of the swing, how much sugar we would have to put into it to make it work...  :D

.

It IS free energy on Halloween. We're just not taking enough advantage of it.

Sorry to disappoint you but there are thousands of patents that have been suppressed due to "National Security".
There is a law that allows this and it has been used a lot: Title 35, United States Code (1952), sections 181-188.

I mentioned it once and will now do so again. The key word here is "Bologna".

I read those sections. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/35/usc_sec_35_00000181----000-.html

The head of a major government agency has to re-classify a patent every year. The government still has to pay compensation. And the penalty is up to $10,000 and two years in prison. That hardly appears to be a sufficient technique for squashing billion dollar energy technologies.

It is very effective. The government can extend it after each year, and furthermore it also stays in effect during a war or a national emergency (we currently have both, we are still officially in a "national emergency" due to 9/11).

anyone who have any data on how this free energy stuff will affect mining?

So you are saying this is so effective that nobody has ever risked the $10,000 fine and 2 years in jail to go for the billions of dollars that magic energy would bring? I mean, even the book rights on the government conspiracy story would be worth millions. But it would only be worth that if magic energy actually worked. The "government is squashing my technology against my will" story only holds if your billion dollar technology doesn't really work.

It is like claiming you have a technique for creating undetectable forgeries of US currency. But you can't explain the technology because the government might fine you $10,000. That is circularly silly. If you have the technology, how could the government tell if you paid the fine in forged money.

Even this Italian guy is claiming he wants to patent and publish his technology. He claims he is only keeping it secret because he is being declined a patent. In the US you can get a patent even if your idea doesn't work. I say give him a patent and let's see what all the fuss is about.

As I said, there's also the issue of assuming every one of these free energy things is invented in US, or in a country that supresses them. Competing governments like China, North Korea, or Iran would LOVE to get their hands on this tech just to show up the western countries. Why aren't these inventors selling to them?

that will not be a real problem because "free energy" miners would have to amortize their investment and coins would have minimum value imposed by them, the real problem would be, and maybe critics will find intrinsic value of bitcoin too, when we manage to create matter from energy with methods within reach for everyone.
I don't want to go too sci-fy here but recent discoveries made me believe we may have star-trek "replicators" more close than we thought... link (http://bullarchive.web.cern.ch/bullarchive/0007/art1/Text_E.html)

Imagine a world, 50 years from now, in which everyone has it's personal "replicator" just the size of a microwave oven where he can push some buttons and replicate any material thing you can think of like food, raw metals, tools, you name it. In that case what would you use as store of value ?  Could bitcoin be our latinum (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Latinum) ?

The obviou answer is: maybe it's a load of bullshit?

It's all bullshit except the one I believe is real! :)

"... Invention Secrecy Still Going Strong
October 21st, 2010 by Steven Aftergood

There were 5,135 inventions that were under secrecy orders at the end of Fiscal Year 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office told Secrecy News last week.  It’s a 1% rise over the year before, and the highest total in more than a decade.

Under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, patent applications on new inventions can be subject to secrecy orders restricting their publication if government agencies believe that disclosure would be “detrimental to the national security.” ..."

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/10/invention_secrecy_2010.html

The key word is still "Bologna".

The site says most were military as would be expected. Some *could be* solar cell efficiency related which is related to military satellites not ground based power.

But your own source list only 11 "John Doe" Secrecy Orders (imposed on private inventors)
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/stats.html

What is the chance that one of these is mystical free energy? Vs say the chance that they are rednecks making things that go boom?

more than 50% chance i'd say. GPS system was designed for military use at first so a "solar cell efficiency related which is related to military satellites" is not a reason to withhold the technology...

Just some friendly advice. Don't go to Vegas!

I'm missing something PG.  What's wrong with Bologna?  I've driven past it once, on the way to Milan on the only time I have been in Europe, and one of my colleagues did a semester for her international commercial masters in law there - she liked the food.

As in: "The idea of cold fusion is bolonga" or "Oh, bologna! There is no way you could do a push up in space."

The word is only used disparagingly in some parts of the world, so you may not know it. In other places, people might say instead "What a load of Baloney". The meaning is the same.

Thank you for the updated cultural reference.  "baloney" I understand - as for the others "pastrami is the most sensual of the spiced meats"  http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheBlood.html

haha yeah, this guy seems to have reinvented the IC engine making it more efficient though

The entire E-Cat device is a hoax.

Here is a good block, debunking their claims: http://blog.newenergytimes.com/

This Krivit guy is an interesting character. Not really sure what to make of him. But that is neither here nor there. This is the part I found interesting from the above blog.


He goes on to link some other news and/or posts, that seem interesting.

http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/09/28/nasa-advances-evaluation-of-piantelli’s-lenr-research/
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/Report2-372-EnergyCatalyzerScientificCommunicationAndEthicsIssues.shtml
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/Piantelli/PiantelliGroupPapers.shtml


Now I really don't want to get into the question of whether or not Rossi stole Piantelli's work. The question I have is much more basic.

Is there something there worth stealing?

Extended article (http://peswiki.com/index.php/Article:Free_Electric_Energy_in_Theory_and_Practice) on "free energy". It's all around us :D

These self-proclaimed skeptics are equally annoying as their fringe engineering counterparts.  ::)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

When this thread popped up I did a bit of reading on the subject.  My gut reaction was(is) that it's likely a scam, however even the small chance that it could be real is very interesting.

Now that it's about a month later I did some more searching and it looks like things are progressing:

http://energycatalyzer3.com/

What do you guys think about the new developments?  Is that site a scam?  Are others seeing potential in spinning off the same scam? Looks like the meet up in MIT might be real but didn't dig around very much at all.

I'm following this (and have been for a year or two) because it would invoke a big paradigm shift in electricity generation and transmission (part of my day job).  What is interesting is that there is a large body of scientific work out there that appears to produce excess heat, but the mechanics (physics/chemistry) of it are not understood, so it does not get credit.  There are some parameters that need to be brought together precisely, and that's hard to do.  The other invention sometimes quoted is the incandescent light bulb - I understand Edison took 9000 experiments to get something unexpected to work, and that it was very much left-field and almost bankrupted him in the process.

So, back to watching Rossi and the Greek outfit compete, along with NASA boffins, DoE and others.

Time to use my necro-threading powers... :D
Due to Rossi and Leonardo suing Industrial Heat, for breach of contract, we can now access very important information.
The customer was Industrial Heat, who paid 1.5 million $ for the experimental 1MW plant and later another 10 million, after
validation tests, and for the actual License of the IP related to the E-cat. The rest of 89 million $ should have been paid by
IH after the 350 days of performance and endurance evaluation of the 1MW plant. This 350 days test concluded with the
impressive result of a COP > 50, according to Rossi, the report should be published soon. But IH refused to pay the 89 million $.

http://www.e-catworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Leonardosuit01-main.pdf
http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Rossi_et_al_v_Darden_et_al__flsdce-16-21199__0001.2.pdf
http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/lenr-energy-blackswan-revolution-is-a-fact-ecat-at-cop-50-for-350-days/