244 comments

1. Pingback: Here’s my hypothesis on the Rossi-IH affair | AN IMPOSSIBLE INVENTION

2. @ Thomas Clarke,
   – “Levi is indeed a key figure in this story.[…], he incorrectly reported the water speed for the test that he conducted alone.”

   Levi is undoubtedly a key figure, but it is neither the only nor the principal.

   The single most important event was the test of the January 14, 2011, because that’s what gave to the ecat a worldwide notoriety and especially the initial assets of scientific credibility used to date. So to understand what is happening today is essential to have in mind what happened five years ago. Levi didn’t conduct that test alone. He was responsible for the evaluation of the energy balance, but there were many others collegues of him, inside and outside the lab room. All were physicists, so they were perfectly capable to appreciate what does it means getting an output of 12 kW from 1 kW in input, and they knew that the output depends only by two factors: the water flow rate and the specific heat content of the outflow.

   In his calorimetric report, Levi didn’t report a “water speed”, but a water flow rate (equivalent to 17.6 kg/h) expressed in terms of two measures, a mass (146.4 g) and a time (30 s). We don’t know nothing about this two measures: who did take them, when, how? We don’t know either whether they have been taken at all. Who decided those two numbers?

   Let’s recap the water flow rate issue.

   The pump had a maximum output of 12 kg/h, and was operated at about 60% of its speed, so its maximum possible outflow was 7.6 kg/h. But the real outflow could have been much lower because that pump has a second control which can reduce the volume per stroke up to only 20% of maximum, so the flow rate could have been as low as 1.52 kg/h.

   Before the test, Levi declared that the flow rate was 12 kg/h. After the test, Rossi said in the presence of the UniBo professors, that the flow rate was 16-17 kg/h.

   Two days later, Rothwell was the first to publish the definitive value (1). It was 292 g/min, corresponding to the rounding up of 17.5 kg/h. Shortly after, Rothwell announced the imminent issuing of the Melich’s report (2), then called “Brief Technical Report” (3), which specified for the first time the two separate data, volume and time: “Flow Rate: 146 grams per 30 seconds = 4.9 g/s”.

   The Melich’s report ends with 2 phrases: “The INFN/U Bologna Technical Report should correct errors in the data used here and offer insight into the errors in the measurements themselves. This synopsis is based upon the data made public by the experimental team and Leonardo Corporation.” The first phrase seems an invitation to INFN/UoB to complete the work, and in fact in Levi’s report we read: “146.4g +/- 0.1 per 30 +/- 0.5 s”

   The second phrase, which reveals the source of the information, is quite puzzling. The UoB press release (4) published on the eve of the test said that the “test will be held by a researcher of the Physics Department of the University of Bologna”. So, the UoB was going to assume the responsibility to assess in front of the world the device performances. Leaving apart that when the Melich’s report was published, the only test data were made public by Rothwell, how is it possible that the company under evaluation could have deprived the University of the burden and the honor to announce to the world the final results of such historical test. Does it sound normal to you?

   But the most intriguing question is, whoever invented the numbers 146 g per 30 s?

   (1) “http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg41442.html”
   (2) “http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg41453.html”
   (3) “http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJbrieftechn.pdf”
   (4) “http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/RossiECat/20110211-Levi-PressRelease.shtml”

3. The arguments that LENR theories are all faulty is nonsense. If there weren’t good theories then MIT would not have had an entire 3-week course on LENR in the winter of 2014, led by MIT professor Peter Hagelstein. One cannot just conclude that the theories are no good just because it is very difficult to create experiments that can replicate the effect precisely in a consistent manner. We’re dealing with atoms here, not tennis balls; it is hard to precisely see and control what is going on at the atomic and sub-atomic level. But there is plenty of evidence of LENR if you choose to look for it and keep an open mind and don’t come at it from a perspective of “it’s impossible.” There is even a possibility that LENR might take place spontaneously in certain batteries and could be responsible for their mysterious spontaneous combustion; Dr. Lewis Larsen has a new presentation out on LENR and batteries on http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llc-battery-energy-density-product-safety-thermal-runaways-and-ultralow-energy-neutron-reactions-april-14-2016. Larsen is also the co-author of the Widom-Larsen theory regarding LENR, which is described on http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/WL/WLTheory.shtml. It is unfortunate that some people are trying to promote a false belief that this field is without merit just because it is not yet fully understood; it is also hard to fathom what the motivation of such people might be, other than to protect their own entrenched interests or to take some sort of bizarre pride in standing in the way of progress. There was a time in history when light-bulbs, telephones and airplanes were not yet fully understood and when it was difficult or impossible for researchers to replicate them because they didn’t know how yet. Eventually, the LENR field will mature and people will figure out how to generate energy from LENR in a more consistent, reliable, repeatable manner, as Rossi claims to have done (although even if he hasn’t done it, that doesn’t mean others won’t be able to).

4. Isn’t that another circular argument? The theories must be wrong, because LENR is a unicorn that only scientists looking for it can see? Surely that is another version of ‘only people who look at the sky see stars’.

   No – the argument against the theories is that they are not predictive. And especially not predictive of the LENR scientist data!

   The unicorn argument would work against experimental evidence except that non-LENR scientists do similar things and have never ever in all that science seen this effect, which is pretty surprising. It is not as though the LENR claims are very specific – all sorts of different systems claim to show them – but none with replicability.

   I’d happily give you LENR evidence that was precisely replicable by different LENR researchers – but then I think somone would have won a Nobel Prize.

   I say precisely because “some sort of excess heat/transmutation/He production/radiation sometimes” is not enough – all of those things can be seen due to different normal artifacts and the more sloppy you are the easier it is to fit a wider range.

   However a precisely replicable experiment could be better instrumented and all artifacts ruled out in time.

5. Alan – that would be inaccurate – the sort of over-generalisation that LENR supporters make! Perhaps I would if this was a matter of political slogans…

6. @ Thomas…”Thus fat none of the LENR theories pass muster. Most of them positively fail because they predict stuff that we know does not happen – e.g. LENR under conditions other than the experiments of LENR researchers.”

   Isn’t that another circular argument? The theories must be wrong, because LENR is a unicorn that only scientists looking for it can see? Surely that is another version of ‘only people who look at the sky see stars’.

   Why not save pixels and just keep[ saying ‘It’s all nonsense’?

7. On the theoretical side, you claim that there is “no coherent theory” and while there may not yet be an agreed-upon consensus theory that explains everything, there are multiple theories that may have merit, and time will tell which ones are correct. They are not necessarily all mutually exclusive, as there may be multiple mechanisms at work.

   So I’ll agree with you not to touch the experimental results argument, since there we will disagree.

   I’d like you to examine the consequences of your statement above about theory.

   It is awfully easy to posit a new physics theory. For example: the fine structure constant is determined by the number of gnomes living on the far side of the moon – as they slowly die, so it will decrease.

   This theory is pretty difficult to disprove. it is however also pretty difficult to prove, as long as slowly is taken to be slow enough that it cannot be measurable. And, even if a slow chnage in fine structure constant were observed – does that really say much for the hypothesised link with far-side-moon gnomes?

   Alternatively we could send spacecraft to the moon to find said gnomes, but of course they are good at hiding so that would not work.

   So how do we find new theory? Well, certainly not on its plausibility. QM is fundamentally counterintuitive and implausible, and yet one of the most highly successful theories ever.

   The only way to validate theory is to find its predictions (preferably new predictions, since it is easy to cherry-pick arguments and numbers to fit known data).

   Theories that are useful satisfy:
   (1) simplicity – few assumptions not otherwise validated
   (2) predictivity – those few assumptions predict outcomes specifically. You can actually measure specificity in terms of how likley is the outcome with or without the prediction. Thus precise predictions count a lot, something like the gnome prediction – fine structure constant will get smaller with time at unquantified rate – counts low. Finally complexity penlises a theory – in this case the gnomes as cause for the chnage in alpha are clearly too complex.

   From this we can see:
   (1) Your suggestion that multiple theories might be true because there are multiple mechanisms is disastrous. Even one mechanism – not otherwise predicted except by results uniquely observed by LENR scientists and no-one else – adds new complexity. Two is much worse.
   (2) The theories should be preferred according to how simple they are, and how closely do they predict new results. For example Kim had a BEC theory that was quite simple (because it borrowed most of its ideas from other physics) and had a definite not previously observed prediction – that LENR would have higher rate at very low temperatures. It had no experimental backing, unfortunately.

   Thus fat none of the LENR theories pass muster. Most of them positively fail because they predict stuff that we know does not happen – e.g. LENR under conditions other than the experiments of LENR researchers.

8. @ Thomas Clarke,
   – “One interesting sociological fact […] This is bizaarely circular confirmation bias, where even knocking out the main and initial pillar no longer Prevents the bias!”

   Exactly! Your points (1) … (4) describe very well what you have appropriately called a “circular bias”. I also agree with the fact that this matter, once clarified in its technical and scientific aspects, should be examined especially from a sociological pow. As it seems to see a global media campaign aimed at influencing public perceptions about the risk of an energetic shortage, misrepresenting the feasibility of some miraculous alternatives.

   It would seem that the tens of replications held so far, are more the result of a planned strategy, rather than the result of a spontaneous desire of emulation. Is worth to note that the call to make them as numerous as possible is contained in an prophetic-apocalyptic article appeared after a couple of days from the publication of the Lugano’s report (1). Hank Mills writes there: “I hope researchers around the world will use this information to duplicate the test results. Replications by multiple additional parties would accomplish many objectives. …”

   We should admit that this is a very smart strategy. As the same CF supporters admit, the alleged excess heat events are random and depend from a large set of variable, some of which are imponderables, thus they lack the fundamental scientific requirement to be reproducible at will. Replacing the “absolute reproducibility” with “random replications” constitutes an ingenious escamotage in order to collect a large number of apparently positive experiments. These sporadic replications, can in fact count on a double positively biased filtering. The first is that only researchers interested in LENR, and therefore more inclined to see the positive results, will be involved in these replications. The second is that they will tend to pick up the best cases. In this way, it is possible to collect a consistent number of sporadic, isolated, and uncertain replications, that all together increases the credibility of the original test. Even if this last is fake, as for each ecat tests examined.

   I find it interesting that the promotion of the replication method has been advocated also by JR in April 2011 to support the results from Levi (2): “The only way to be certain Levi et al. Are not to make mistake is to have many other people repeat the experiments, with many different instrument types. Or to sell reactors and have many customers confirm That they work. That Amounts to the same thing. This is why replication is so important in many fields of science. Note That the principle of independent replication is less important in chemistry, and nonexistent in engineering. … “

   The matter is very alarming and sad. As already said, I am afraid that unfortunately the ECAT affair does not concern at all a scam, but rather has to do with a final, desperate attempt of our industrialized society to deceive our self, spreading the illusion to be able to indefinitely prolong our life style so heavily dependent on energy.

   (1) http://pesn.com/2014/10/10/9602543_Apocalypse-Revealed–The-Four-Horsemen_of_Andrea-Rossis_E-Cat/
   (2) https://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg45587.html

9. You say “excess heat is highly unlikely on both experimental (no sign of it in physics away from LENR scientist claims) and theoretical (no coherent theory).” If we’re talking about excess heat from LENR, then of course we’re going to have to rely on LENR scientist claims, for now, until a commercial product becomes available, given that LENR is still basically at the experimental phase, more or less (although it could be getting closer to commercialization if Rossi’s claims are true or if any of Rossi’s competitors or any other LENR researchers are further along than they have revealed, which is quite possible). I have neither the time nor the interest to argue with you about specific researchers, particular tests, etc, but given that there are number of different LENR researchers in different places who claim to be making some progress in this area and generating excess energy, there is good reason for optimism. On the theoretical side, you claim that there is “no coherent theory” and while there may not yet be an agreed-upon consensus theory that explains everything, there are multiple theories that may have merit, and time will tell which ones are correct. They are not necessarily all mutually exclusive, as there may be multiple mechanisms at work. It is an exciting and promising field for those physicists who are working in it or choose to go into it. I only wish more physicists would get involved in it, which might potentially lead to faster progress in the field. Unfortunately, with all the naysayers, some might get dismayed and choose to pursue other things instead, but hopefully there will be enough brave, intrepid, pioneering researchers to move this technology forward despite the naysayers. Of course, those who are in the LENR field are basically threatening a lot of entrenched interests, since there a lot of people and companies that have an economic interest in maintaining the status quo, but change is inevitable in the long run, so those who try to discourage progress (or stand in its way) are doomed to eventual failure.

10. Thomas, from reading your comments, it appears that you are basically denying that excess heat can be produced by LENR

    That is a negative that can never be proven. rather i’m saying that nuclear-level excess heat is highly unlikely on both experimental (no sign of it in physics away from LENR scientist claims) and theoretical (no coherent theory) grounds. Further, tehre is no convincing evidence. If there were somone would get a Nobel.

    and trying to convince us that all the researchers who are finding excess heat are mistaken and all of the physicists coming up with theories regarding how the excess heat is produced are mistaken too.

    The researchers are all coming up with incompatible theories, therefore 99% of them must be mistaken. I do indeed reckon they are all mistaken because the theories (none that I have seen) make non-trivial quantitative predictions. Which basically means they are hand-waving. Most are also obviously mistaken as can be determined even by a non-expert with basic university-level QM, QED, and GR physics.

11. Martin.

    To address your points:

    The analogy with aeroplanes is unconvincing. When they did fly that was obvious to all and immediately accepted. Whereas with LENR those working on it claim to see effects that are not obvious to anyone else. If they were obvious (Rossi-claimed-level effect with independent test) they would immediately lead to worldwide interest as did F&P’s original claims. In fact that, I believe, is why in spite of Rosi’s obvious flakiness and technical incompetence, so many LENR supporters supported him.

    Holmlid’s experiments convince no-one except himself – he has a history of drawing extraordinary and not-self-compatible claims from heterogeneous experimental data. And he is no theorist. (Personally I enjoyed greatly his earliest claims for “flipped” deuterium and supporting theory (from a theorist). That was then broke by subsequent incompatible experiments. None of the experimental evidence is clear.

    More generally, you claim evidence contrary to 100 years of past experiment from a few amateurs and Song. Have you looked in detail at Song’s reports? I have not noticed a new critique from Hank Mills, but Song’s reports are totally unconvincing – both the original in which excess heat required the assumption that there was a “broken thermocuple and the second where even amateur MFMP-type calorimetrists reckoned there was no excess heat, based on their own cal runs.
    https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/2839-Zhang-Hangcheng-reports-replication-of-Songsheng-experiment-done-in-January-2016/

    As with Rossi, it is only detailed analysis of experimental reports that can determine whether an apparent anomaly is artifact, mistake, or new physics. Rossi does admittedly add another possibility normally low probability: “misreporting from tester”.

12. There are a number of replication attempts that have been successful in demonstrating excess energy from LENR by a variety of researchers around the world. For example, Hank Mills, on http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/04/15/interview-with-hank-mills-on-the-e-cat-and-replication/, says “The replication of the Rossi Effect by Songsheng Jiang stands out the most to me for a number of different reasons.” Professors Sveinn Olafsson of the University of Iceland and Leif Holmlid of the University of Gothenburg just presented some theories regarding the “excess heat and signatures of nuclear transmutation” that “have been confirmed in experiments” (see http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR16/Session/E9.9). Thomas, from reading your comments, it appears that you are basically denying that excess heat can be produced by LENR and trying to convince us that all the researchers who are finding excess heat are mistaken and all of the physicists coming up with theories regarding how the excess heat is produced are mistaken too. That’s OK. Prior to the invention of airplanes, plenty of people said flying was impossible, and I’m sure plenty of people didn’t believe that electricity or light bulbs or telephones would ever be possible either at one point. Thankfully, those who stand in the way of scientific progress and claim that everything is impossible, all the inventors are wasting their time, etc, are on the losing end of history. Doubters of LENR will most likely also end up on the losing end of history too, although solar power and battery technology may advance so rapidly anyway in the coming years that energy from LENR might not even be needed.

13. @Ascoli

    Thanks for that extra information. Levi is indeed a key figure in this story.

    The facts are then unmistakable, he incorrectly reported the water speed for the test that he conducted alone.

    Given that, he must be regarded as a specifically unreliable lead author for the Ferrara and Lugano reports that he authored.

    One interesting sociological fact caused by the lack of wide comprehension of a proper analysis of Rossi’s tests is this:

    (1) The Lugano report is still considered by many (specifically Sifferkol on this thread) to be proof of high-level excess power generation from LENR.

    (2) The Parkhomov questionable and unreproducible claims are therefore considered a replication that adds further validation.

    (3) The 1% of amateur replication attempts that show apparent excess temperature interpreted as excess heat without proper instrumentation or controls are therefore considered further validation. ( I won’t mention Song and his broken thermocouples…).

    (4) Given the now disproven claims for excess heat in the Lugano test, comentators now point to the set of other “replications” as therefore validating Rossi’s technology.

    This is bizaarely circular confirmation bias, where even knocking out the main and initial pillar no longer prevents the bias!

14. It was, clearly, a farce – they do not need special arrangements to trick data, they simply invented numbers that could substain the goal they wanted to show.
    At end, the show was intended to blink at prople ready to believe to the unbelievable, so an apparence was enough among ckaims some people wanted to believe.
    Same people dud not ask for a repetition by someone else – same people judged (and judge nowaday the same) works like Parkhomov tricky graphs genuine enough to substain cold fusion does exists and E Cat does eork as claimed – the proof? Parkhomov himself admitted he adjusted graphs, but only a little bit, so all the remaining data must be good as….Parkhomov said they are.

    A show, a deno, a spot. Of boiled water, of warm air. Originated by electricity.

15. @ Thomas Clarke,
    – “The pump spec has maximum pressure rating 1.5 bar. Mains water pressure can easily be higher than that in UK though I’m not sure about Italy. So you cannot absolutely rule out the pump not working but still you’d expect such a pump to break before it want 250% over stated rate.”

    No, Tom, the yellow peristaltic pump has never been connected to the mains water. There was no need for getting just a few liters per hour. The inflow water always came from a 10-20 liter reservoir placed on the floor, so that the pump was operating with a small depression.

    We can be absolutely sure that the pump could have delivered no more than 12 L/h. On May 2011, someone asked directly to the pump manufacturer if it was possible to achieve a flow rate of 18 kg/h even modifying the pump. The answer was peremptory (1): “There is no way to increase the output of a P18 pump.”

    The maximum capacity of the pump was well known to the people who performed the tests, starting from the public demo held on January 14, 2011. During his presentation of the test, someone in the audience asked Levi about the flow rate of the pump, and he answered (2): “What? Right now I think 12 L/h, but after I give you the exact number.”

    Immediately after the test, this number was given by Rossi, who, looking at Focardi’s face, said (3): “with no difficultous calculation we can say that the amount of water, if I remember correctly, it was around 16/17 kg/h of water.” Who had reported this value to Rossi?

    Levi gave his number one week later on his calorimetric report (5): “a water flux 146.4g +/- 0.1 per 30 +/- 0.5 s.”, which corresponds to 17.6 kg/h.

    I don’t see how it is possible to presume that the people involved in this test were not aware of the real maximum output of one of the most important instrument of the experimental set-up. For sure, Levi knew it very well, because he spent of lot of time in order calibrate the system. These are his words (5): “There was a pump putting in a constant flux and what I have done is – with the reactor completely off take measurements – we spent two weeks of the water that flowing through the system to be certain of our calibration.”

    In this last declaration, Levi used “we” and “our”. It would be interesting to know to whom else Levi was referring to. Based on his words (6), Rossi in that period was abroad, and went back to Italy only the day before the test, the January 13rd.

    (1) “http://www.energeticambiente(dot)it/sistemi-idrogeno-nikel/14728165-apparato-rossi-focardi-verita-o-bufala-54-print.html”
    (2) “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr0ysNSN9Ng” (at 9:46)
    (3) “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjdXpSUDRlw” (at 4:48)
    (4) “http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LeviGreportonhe.pdf”
    (5) “http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MacyMspecificso.pdf”
    (6) “http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=338&cpage=1#comment-16139”

    PS – Sorry, Mats. I understand, it’s not the best moment to discuss about technical details, but I owed this answer to Thomas.

16. A year venting out 1MW of heat into the environment? That’ll be ANOTHER environmental crime by Rossi…

17. @ Thomas Clarke,
    – “Anyway as far as evaluating evidence now I doubt the Levi tests now are directly relevant.”

    All the tests held on 2011, included the one on December 16, 2010, are important, especially the first 3 documented by Levi (UniBo).

    The Lewan’s book begins with this words (1): “I had tried for weeks to create a mental picture of the man, this strange Italian who seemed to have invented, or perhaps one should say discovered, an unparalleled source of energy with the potential to change the world. Literally the whole world. I had not met him, only heard his energetic voice on the phone a few times and seen a couple of short video clips from a presentation of his invention in Bologna on January 14, 2011—the presentation that led me to this remarkable story.”

    We have been told, that the Swedish professors went in this affair due to their trust in their collegues of Bologna and the astonishing results they reported.

    The test held in February, 2011, which Levi told in an interview and Lewan reported on NyTeknik (2), was the one which impressed mostly the Nobel prize Josephson when he publicly endorsed the ecat performances (3).

    Levi is the key figure of this story. Passerini revealed that the setup chosen for the test held on October 6, 2011, was imagined by him since February 2011 (3): “Mi sembra giusto sottolineare che trattasi esattamente del setting sperimentale che Giuseppe Levi, già a febbraio, mi spiegò di avere pensato per i test ufficiali sull’E-Cat programmati all’UniBO, setting in seguito convalidato assieme ai professori dell’Università di Uppsala.” (Please, use Google for translation.)

    As for the Ferrara and Lugano tests on the hot-cat, I didn’t care of their reports, the so called TPRs. I stopped analyzing them after having read the name of the first author. At that time, it was already clear to me how independent he was.

    (1) “https://animpossibleinvention.com/chapter_1/”
    (2) “http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3083834.ece”
    (3) “https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/cold-fusion-back-in-the-limelight-guest-speaker-dr-brian-josephson.484427/page-2#post-3212649”
    (4) “http://22passi.blogspot.it/2011/09/test-e-cat-col-nobel-brian-josephson-il.html”

18. Mats wrote:

    “Adam, that is correct, and this issue has been raised several times. It also made it difficult for me and others when measuring on the E-Cat, trying to correct possible errors in the next test, but then finding the conditions altered with a new or different device.”
    –
    –
    OK. So what prevented you from strongly asking that Rossi use the electrical heater and an unloaded reactor (no hydrogen) to do a calibration of the output power measurement system? After carefully inspecting the input power measurement system and placing *your* power cord and measurement method in serial connection with Rossi’s input cable?

19. @Thomas
    I’m not sure about the Bologna/electric issue. At the time I thought it was lack of understanding, since Rossi really seemed to have no knowledge on electricity. Today: Difficult to say.

20. Personally, I’m comfortable with Mats not deciding on the “deliberation” issue. Such psychological presumption is always a bit like playing God. But I’m not comfortable with a lack of decision on the slightly broader question:

    “Do you believe the Bologna mistake is just an isolated mistake and not part of a pattern of behaviour which ensures positive mistakes?”.

    Deluded inventors – of which there are many – are so convinced their inventions works that they will make obvious mistakes to get false positive results and refuse to admit any correction, getting angry when challenged.

    It is pretty difficult to distinguish between this and the case of a person who deliberately falsifies results, because the same things happen.

21. @Mats
    “If the demonstration was the one I remember it was not the same trick. The demo trick used a rectifier to obtain a lower measured voltage and I was not impressed since I revealed it immediately, or rather, I was stopped when I tried to do the measurement that would have revealed the trick. As for the Bologna mistake reported in the piece you link to, I immediately understood the problem when I arrived at the test site, as described in my book, and I also reported it. I tried intensely to explain it to Rossi, who refused to understand. Be fair please.”
    Yes, it is the same trick: using non-sine voltage and meters that assume sine shape. The rectified sine will give just under a factor 3 error. You can get an even bigger effect by making other shapes, but the idea is the same. Did you talk to Rossi or Levi about the trick?

    Of course if you perform the measurement correctly you get the correct result. The problem is that Rossi decides the method. In the Bologna mistake Rossi was obviously not alert. So you believe it was a mistake by Rossi and not a deliberate attempt to cheat?

    I am fair – I just want to find out the truth.

22. The test with the erroneous electric measurement was described as a fiasco in my book.

23. I tried intensely to explain it to Rossi, who refused to understand.

    I find it difficult to square this very reasonable and telling observation with the way in your book you tell the story with a positive slant. Perhaps you were unduly influenced by the Oct 6 2011 test having not fully processed the various technical argument about it at the time?

    Surely if Rossi does not understand this electrical measurement issue, and is resistant to learning it, his competence as an experimenter and inventor must be severely compromised?

    I’m just failing to see where is the positive evidence from any test or competence found in Rossi to encourage an “unclear” stance.

24. @Peter
    If the demonstration was the one I remember it was not the same trick. The demo trick used a rectifier to obtain a lower measured voltage and I was not impressed since I revealed it immediately, or rather, I was stopped when I tried to do the measurement that would have revealed the trick. As for the Bologna mistake reported in the piece you link to, I immediately understood the problem when I arrived at the test site, as described in my book, and I also reported it. I tried intensely to explain it to Rossi, who refused to understand. Be fair please.

25. @Thomas
    “Rossi was using (and believing even when informed otherwise by the indepenent testers) that average meter (as opposed to true RMS meter) measurement was safe when it actually provably showed a X2.5 or so underestimation of input power? That was the error mode suggested theoretically by many for quite a few of the tests.”

    This non-sine trick was demonstrated experimentally for Mats L by a Swedish expert in electric measurements in May 2011. Mats did not find it interesting enough to write about it. Sixteen months later Mats published this in NyTeknik (I cannot find the English version):

    http://www.nyteknik.se/energi/svensk-investering-i-e-cat-hejdad-efter-test-6403722

    It seems Rossi was so impressed by the trick that he used it himself! 🙂

26. @Thomas
    Let me say that from a whole perspective, it doesn’t look good, and if you read my book you will find that it’s not the first time I think this. However, I’m careful of expressing any verdict without having more evidence.
    That’s why I repeat that I would like to see the report, since I’m confident that it would show us either that the measurements were made in a way that’s not satisfactory, or that the COP was indeed high, which would of course be revolutionary if the measurements also were shown to be reliable.
    Until the disagreement between Rossi and IH became apparent I had the hope for a trustworthy third party evaluation, undertaken by a reputable institution, endorsed by all parties, which would be the first time we would get a truly reliable assessment of the validity of the E-Cat. Now we didn’t get that, but I still believe that the report would tell us enough.
    Clearly, a report providing doubts is not good enough. Only a clearly positive and reliable test result would do, or maybe should I say, a test result that also you would be satisfied with. This is also what I required for the conference I proposed.

27. @argon

    I can understand your frustration – it is difficult to keep argument focused on specific scenarios. You could start thread in LENR forum with clear instructions as to what was or was not to be assumed maybe – but you’d have to monitor it closely.

    For me the interesting part of this thread is Mats assessment of the whole corpus of tests, since now is a chance to re-examine that. The difference between me and some others is just that given a pattern of tests with errors, or tests showing COP=1, and refusal to allow tests without errors, I take that to be clearly negative. He takes it to be unclear.

    Even one sound test showing extraordinary behavior would be interesting – though It would need to be very sound to move me.

28. The bad news is what is at the brink of the entire world community LENRO.
    Personal relationships in terms of the desire of money, can turn the epithet “cheater” for all researchers LENRO.
    The difficulty to obtain investment deal will increase.
    A.Rossi very poorly dealt with by his PR crude invention.

29. Thomas Clarke I was not going to fill up this thread anymore, since it has already lost it chances to serve one purpose only: ‘Seeking of solving puzzle by comparing how well known tidbits could fit to different scenarios’. And actually that is perfectly fine, I’m just personally disappointed, since first this seemed to be only alternative where discussion was going with good speed to that direction.

    To be clear. My latest comment was not about you, but direction of discussion in general also here. Your smart facts seeking findings from old reports are in importance of its own. And might help judging more recent information also as you can see from Matts replies. So there is a certainly place for those also, and who am I to tell it cannot be this thread. So rest assured, I give value to your knowledge, maybe taking a breath every now and then gives room for new discussion to flourish, and it might drag you on to that interesting path also. You never know before you try.

    Real truth can come out after court has published more facts (report will be seen only then according to Rossi yesterday) or when we in positive case see real products on market. Or maybe MFMPs current glowstick 5.3 replication attempt will confirm first ‘signal’ test results with gamma rays late today or tomorrow actually.

    So meanwhile all these postings are just interesting speculations and truth seeking and also importantly making sure trollsters cannot change opinion of majority by misleadingly parsing tidbits together or by adding lots of ‘wrong’ fuss based purely on opinions.

    For example in my opinion it is pretty irrelevant (and maybe done for certain purpose) to over and over again try to claim Rossi to be fraudster because he had (lots of actually) flaws in early setups and tests. Same goes his big words about existing customers, sales and deliveries or building up manufacturing line long ago. In my opinion all these could have as well been merely to scare competition away by thinking they have already lost, while in reality Rossi had just unreliable aggressive Cat that was difficult to control – but had over-unity (at least he believed). And as we see already now, with these maneuvers, he have bought himself lots of more time to improve his invention, whatever the outcome will be or do we believe some Quark-X being real or something else. This is the reasoning why I would have liked this truth seek with todays information to continue in some forum. As said your findings are important, but doe not prove too much in this scenario. Just my opinion…

30. Mats, most probable, the result of the one year test will be not positive, not negative but inconclusive.

31. I was very disappointed when the most proper and well-planned test I knew of, the one in Uppsala before Rossi started with the HotCat, was interrupted because the E-Cat, according to Rossi, broke.

    Lugano is unusual only in that the testers made a genuine mistake. So Rossi got his apparent positive result and did not have to claim the device had broken – as he did for Uppsala and Sversk.

    Therefore we have a genuine COP=1 test. Rossi makes it awfully difficult to prove this otherwise – because any rigorous test can be aborted, or he can claim the device in question broke.

    @Mats. How is this pattern of testing unclear?

32. I think Adams last comment is the most important of all comment on this page. Since Rossi constantly changed the test method. We really can’t know if the e-cat works or not. There is valid questioning to every known test.

    If Rosisi really have something that works and wanted to show it. It would have been simple. Just perform the same test again after fixing the valid questionings. But for some reason that is not what Rossi have done. We can only speculate what the reason for this is.

33. @Mats

    I see. You are correct that that report examined closely might provide even more evidence that Rossi falsifies tests, and it might carry higher weight than the other tests. It is however an inherently less safe test than the others (because of Rossi’s intimate involvement) so it is difficult to imagine how it could provide positive for Rossi evidence whatever it says.

34. @nckhawk
    Again, I would really want that report to be released.
    As for the Symposium, obviously it cannot be arranged as presented, without the report. Yesterday I started to investigate the interest for a repurposed event, based on general activities in the LENR field, not referring to the E-Cat. In any case, I will take a decision within a day or two.

35. Thomas, I agree the situation is unclear, as it has been many times. During all this story I have always wanted to make a proper test, but I have never been able to arrange that.

    I think what ascoli and I find surprising is your use of the word unclear to describe a long sequence of clearly erroneous tests as unclear.

    I realise that like many you have found some tests convincing. My point is that examined carefully they all show loopholes, and 75% show strong circumstantial evidence that the loophole did indeed account for the data. the two most indepenent tests – the only two off Rossi’s property – from Sversk and Lugano – show COP = 1.

    Did you know by the way that the Sversk test shows definite evidence that Rossi was using (and believing even when informed otherwise by the indepenent testers) that average meter (as opposed to true RMS meter) measurement was safe when it actually provably showed a X2.5 or so underestimation of input power? That was the error mode suggested theoretically by many for quite a few of the tests.

    So what is there about this story that leads you in any direction other than that Rossi has nothing?

36. @Thomas
    you misunderstood me. I believe the ERV report, if released, might answer questions in any direction, depending on the contents and on how the the methods are described etc. As Rossi used to say, it could be positive, it could be negative. But I think it would help us getting closer to the truth.

37. Mats – It is starting to look like Rossi has no intention of releasing the ERV report any time soon. Per his JNOP statements of late, the report release is no longer necessary because he has moved on to E-Cat orders and stated that the marketplace will be the judge. One has to wonder how many more times is this pattern going to be repeated?

    Per your self-imposed April 15 deadline for the ERV, it looks like decision day has arrived. What are you going to do about your June Rossi-fest?

38. @Mats that is an interesting comment.

    Therefore I considered the supposedly independent test report from the 1MW test extremely important, and it’s very unfortunate that it hasn’t been released. As I have said before, I’m only aiming for the truth, and I believe that many answers might be found in the report.

    Do you mean the long-term test? In that case the ERV report will be written by Penon. Do you consider him capable of safely evaluating these tests given his previous performance? And if there is a discrepancy between what he says and what the IH observers say – what would you do?

    It is hard for me to understand why this specific test report should bear more weight than the other test reports. Particularly Ferrara (Swedes) and Lugano (Swedes) where the tests were independent. This test, as far as I can see, has Rossi night and day in close proximity with the equipment with no-one else present – I can’r imagine any of the observers having quite Rossi’s endurance!

    On the other hand. The customer as deduced from Rossi’s presentation to your visitors and the name is surely without doubt Johnson Matthey Products

    Click to access 72052%20Sponge%20Metal%20brochure.pdf

    Note the catalytic sponge. You could perhaps do some investigation there but remember there are so many ways that there could be real involvement from a real customer but the details of it are not what what is claimed by Rossi. I have found in general that his statements often have grains of truth within but strongly misdirect.

39. Adam, that is correct, and this issue has been raised several times. It also made it difficult for me and others when measuring on the E-Cat, trying to correct possible errors in the next test, but then finding the conditions altered with a new or different device.

40. Mats: From my viewpoint it is surprising that the original E-cat is not still around, and today showcased in a refined and robust test setup to show off the effect. Instead Rossi is all the time not only replacing the E-cat design itself, but also the measurement method.

    Such a setup would include multiple independent calculations of the COP to remove any question marks. And also multiple complementary measurements such as using both analog flow meters that are correctly measuring reverse flow and digital ones with higher resolution. The same thing applies for electrical power and temperatures.

    The situation with regularly replaced implementations and test methodologies is the thing that rises the biggest question marks for me regarding the reality of the effect discussed here.

41. @ascoli

    you maybe won’t like this, and it is bad PR, but checking stuff means doing it thoroughly.
    The pump spec has maximum pressure rating 1.5 bar. Mains water pressure can easily be higher than that in UK though I’m not sure about Italy. So you cannot absolutely rule out the pump not working but still you’d expect such a pump to break before it want 250% over stated rate.

    http://www.lmipumps.co.uk/products/p1-adjustable-stroke–speed/model-p18-manual-stroke-control-with-variable-stroke-frequency-12-lh-15-bar

42. Thomas, I agree the situation is unclear, as it has been many times. During all this story I have always wanted to make a proper test, but I have never been able to arrange that. I was very disappointed when the most proper and well-planned test I knew of, the one in Uppsala before Rossi started with the HotCat, was interrupted because the E-Cat, according to Rossi, broke. The instrumentation was well implemented and would have been able to reveal COP with accuracy, if there was any. Therefore I considered the supposedly independent test report from the 1MW test extremely important, and it’s very unfortunate that it hasn’t been released. As I have said before, I’m only aiming for the truth, and I believe that many answers might be found in the report.

43. “Wow so many Tepco trolls here so quickly after some proper analysis tried to put up here. ”

    You are right argon that this site is not so friendly and comments become lost. Since I know you like the sort of speculation that Martin did, you will also appreciate my detailed commentary on his comments which is in the same line though bringing out different points.

    But the pump issue is not completely irrelevant. Looking back at these previous tests can be helpful because a pattern of belief established with the view at that time that so many tests must provide credibility – which I know many people had – can be reexamined in the light of evidence that was present then but dismissed by most people as “unnecessary technical detail”.

    Mats himself said here that the Oct 6 2011 test was what still convinced him Rossi must have something. I wonder whether he still has that belief in the light of ascoli’s “hot cat” model nicely and quantitatively explaining the boiling and temperature traces during SSM.

    @argon. I realise my views are not flavour of the month for you and many others but for me the technical evaluation (ably done by others like ascoli – at least I’ve found his analyses have merit when I’ve looked at them myself) of the tests comes first. If the tests had merit I too would be speculating about ways in which IH could be dissembling now for some ulterior motive.

44. @ascoli

    Re 32% over max rate. You could check the maximum input pressure spec and compare that with plausible mains water pressure. If it is within I just can’t see that but if not it is possible the pump malfunctions. I agree it looks unusual because you’d expect a dosimetric pump to break rather than measure wrong and over-pressure situations (I’d guess is has a bivalve reciprocating chamber or something.)

    Anyway as far as evaluating evidence now I doubt the Levi tests now are directly relevant. However the evidence from those tests that Levi delivered false results is still relevant because together with other evidence it reduces the credibility of Rossi’s test regime. Levi was involved at Ferrara for example. Lugano does not matter because it gave null results unless you count the isotopic results as significant. In that case unless Levi can be ruled out of the chain of custody Levi’s past behaviour doing tests might still be relevant now.

    For me it makes no difference – Rossi was involved at Lugano enough for switching in various ways to be possible given the others were neither trained to check for sleight of hand nor expecting it.

    How many falsified tests do you need before you reckon what you have is not a miracle?

    Perhaps Mats could comment.

45. Wow so many Tepco trolls here so quickly after some proper analysis tried to put up here. Matts accept the offer. You secure wealthy life immediately and still maybe write juicy best seller after 5 years when LENR is not the topic anymore.
    Luckily there are other forums. Way too easy to fill up this one with irrelevant questions and arguments.

46. with the ar affair running to a rapid dead end

    It might be the “AR affair” will be less followed, but I am quite sure AR will never really stop and there will be supporters even after.
    No kind of evidence will be enough – even if he would came out to say it was all a joke, there could be people thinking he as been forced by Evil Powers, and they would hope for Power Rangers (or Winks) to rescue their hero.

    And should he be arrested while stating “it is working ans it is stable, but Evil Powers got me”, their belief would grow even stronger.

    No, this is a dream that will never end for someone.

47. ‘mr white in the bathroom with the wrench’—if you have any suggestions for projects, send me an email at mats@matslewan.se

48. mats, it’s a real study in the psychology of weak muddled thinking, all this endless commentary over what is basically an ‘electric water heater’, and the duped and bamboozled who got tangled up with the free energy drug pusher misrepresenting it.

    perhaps, with your engineering physics degree, you harbor a deep desire for a challenge and to contribute to physics and engineering in a more meaningful manner, something that will help your family long-term.

    with the ar affair running to a rapid dead end, and with interest in the not-working water heaters dropping rapidly, would you be interested in a project where you more fully use the physics skills you learned before going down this wobbly path?

49. It would be interesting to hear what the
    security guards had to say that where at
    the test sight.

50. @ Thomas Clarke, Mats Lewan,
    With reference of the pump issue, you should first have a global picture of the tests held in Bologna in the first year, under the supervision, or the scrutiny of the Department of Physics of UniBo. Here is a synopsis of all the tests held during that year: “http://i.imgur.com/rB93G1X.jpg” .

    The LT1, LT2 and LT3 tests (Levi Test X) that Lewan and I discussed in 2014, were the 3 tests documented personally by Levi. In this test the only one in which the yellow dosimetric pump was used was the LT2, the public demo held on January 14, 2011. The incongruity between the measured flow and the pump capacity is explained in these jpeg: “http://i.imgur.com/vu0bW93.jpg” (subsequent updating: “http://i.imgur.com/2GanyYO.jpg”).

    Lewan was not present at these first tests. He was present at the 2 tests held on April, and at the two fat-cat tests hold on September and October. In every one of his 4 reports he, contrary to Levi, diligently reported the characteristics of the instrumentation e always indicated that the pump had a “Max output 12.0 liters/h”. As he said, he also measured the flow of the pump on (nearly?) every occasion. But during the pump calibration before the September test he indicated a flow of 15.8 kg/h, that is 32% over the maximum, which seems to me incredibly high for a dosimetric pump.

51. Thomas, I had a look at those comments again, and it seems ages ago 😉 In any case, I admit that I should have had a closer look at those details that were brought up, and I realise, as I said before, that I was more focused on the measurements I had made myself, since it’s difficult to immediately respond on details in experiments others have undertaken.

52. “Rossi used a tap for a faster flow-rate”

    I think that was LT3 – which ascoli also had issues with.

    The test we consider, where you ignored the clear facts, was LT2.

    I may have got this wrong, but I’m trying to resolve the inconsistency:

    https://matslew.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/heres-my-book-on-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/#comment-2342

53. Sorry, I didn’t understand that you referred to a test where i was not present. That’s why I answered that I measured the flow anyway. And I probably didn’t understand that at that time either, if you tried to make me note it. I remember being overwhelmed with questions on my own tests, which was what I focused on.

54. @Mats

    ascoli: “Why did Mats ignore the reported flow rate being 2.5X higher than possible for the pump – it is an example of believers just ignoring facts they don’t like?”

    Mats: “I measured the flow rate, so I don’t think that matters”

    Me: “that test was maybe one Levi did?”

    Mats: “yes, that was Levi’d test – I ws not persent”

    So ascoli does indeed have a point, as far as I can see. These “little” technical inconsistencies are surer and more telling than anything people say…

55. Mary, difference is – this is now a court matter.

56. Rossi can’t even think of new ways to lie about his scam. Consider his claim to have more orders for his megawatt “plant”. In 2011, this is what he told David Hambling who interviewed Rossi for Wired.co.uk:
    –
    –
    “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.”

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

    … and now, Rossi tells Bernie on JONP (ROTFWL)::
    –
    –
    “Andrea Rossi
    April 14, 2016 at 1:44 PM
    Bernie Koppenhofer:
    You are too intelligent not to understand that a company cannot be happy of all the blogosphere hurricane around this issue. Our Customer spoke his satisfaction with facts, not words: he bought 3 units like the one he tested during this year with a company set up specifically for this purpose.
    Warm Regards,
    A.R.”

    http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/04/14/rossi-1mw-plant-customer-bought-three-more-plants/

    –
    –
    Similarly, the lie about making robotic factories originated as least as far back as the thermoelectric scam which Rossi perpetrated on DOD in the early 2000’s.

    The guy isn’t even original! He recycles the same rossifiction over and over. Does anyone still believe anything he says?

57. Mats, Levi’s test did not include a calibration. Levi refused to provide the raw data when politely asked to by Krivit. Levi refused to repeat the test with proper calibration when politely asked to discuss this issue by Dr. Josephson. Levi never even replied to the email, according to Dr. Josephson. Smell any fish yet?

58. Thomas, I’m not sure which Levi test you refer to. I was not present at any of them. The one in January 2011 was with the peristaltic pump. At the informal test in February 2011 he didn’t boil water and needed a much higher flow rate, and therefore used water directly from a tap, measuring the flow continuously.
    As far as I know/remember, however, Rossi used the same pump at all those tests that year.

59. In your April 2011 reports we can read: ”Peristaltic pump NSF Model # CEP183-362N3 Serial # 060550065 Max output 12.0 liters/h Max press 1.50 bar”. We all know that “max” means “no more than”. May be the actual capacity of that pump (remember, it is a dosimetric pump) is few % more (or even less) than the indicated one. However, the discrepancies, we are talking about, are of very higher percentages. Levi in his report declared an output flow of 17.6 L/h, nearly 50% more than the maximum. Considering that the pump was run at 40% of its max. speed (hear the sound at the beginning of the video 2/3 linked by Cimpy), the real output should have not been greater than 7.2 L/h. So, the flow declared in Levi’s report leads to an overestimation of the output power of a factor of about 2.5.

    Mats – as I understand it the 2.5X too high flow rate was quoted in Levi’s report. Maybe this was a test of Levi’s at which you were not present? That would explain the anomaly. You know me – I like to clear up anomalies and usually find ways of doing this that don’t require rewriting physics! If you measured that flow rate for the pump it would be weird!

60. @Guest
    The court will ask for evidence. Then we will know. Not before, I’m afraid.

61. Guest, the location of the production site is not known, only the customer’s mailing address.

62. @Mats

    Can any of the visitors remember the name of the Director of Engineering? Some of these pieces should not remain as mysterious as they seem to be. Why would only one person have to catch a glimpse through a door of production activity? The visitors wouldn’t receive an actual tour of the entire facility? One would think seeing the production activity would be a key part of the visit, not something clandestine or guessed at.

    Should be fairly straight forward to find someone who works at the company (or someone working at a business in the same strip mall) who can confirm there’s a real business there that seems to be manufacturing these metal sponges. So far there are 0 people other than Henry W Johnson that have any record of being associated with JM Products Inc per any professional social networking sites.

    In this day and age somebody should be able to confirm that pretty quickly. If I lived anywhere near Miami I’d just take a drive by and look at the business names associated with each of the suites in the center, or if I were a journalist (instead of a random interested observer) I would just start calling and asking folks in the center who moved in around June/July/August 2014? Was there any significant construction activity consistent with setting up a production line that happened in that same period? Is the business still in operation? Do trucks frequently enter/exit their loading dock consistent with commercial activity?

    Darden says no production, Rossi on JONP has repeatedly said there was production. Proving there was production should be simple so where is the evidence?

63. @ascoli

    The pump thing is interesting. There is some anomaly here. 3X nominal just is not possible from that type of pump even with strong forward pressure (which there might be). At least I don’t think it can be possible.

    So something is weird. In that situation I would not dismiss what Mats says about measuring flow-rate but flag up something inconsistent about the test and not be happy till it was understood. Or, maybe is mis-remembering this test? If it was a Levi test then how could Mats have measured it?

64. ping:

    Here are Johnson Matthey Metal Sponges

    Click to access 72052%20Sponge%20Metal%20brochure.pdf

    I wonder if the customer could be both Johnson Matthey and not Johnson Matthey?

    I thought it was interesting…

65. Ascoli65—I think I remember this discussion, but I also remember that every time I saw the pump in use I measured the actual flow. So what would the nominal maximum flow matter?

66. @ Thomas Clarke,
    – “But not everyone is the same, and some may listen. I also on principle believe that everyone deserves the chance to listen and consider. Whether they take it is up to them.”

    I too, at the end of 2011, tried to explain to a person “very interested to find the truth” how to interpret properly the results of the two fat-cat tests held on September 7 and October 6 ((1) if you are interested, you can find there some other jpeg in English), but, after a few weeks, I gave up. Anyway, I didn’t lose my time for nothing. I understood what does it mean “looking for the truth” for a CF/LENR supporter.

    I got a confirmation of this on April 2014, when Lewan published his book. I tried again to explain him why the tests held on January and February 2011 didn’t show any excess heat (2). In that occasion I gave up when, talking about the maximum flow capacity of the peristaltic pump, whose value was reported to be 12 L/h in as many as 4 different reports by Lewan himself, he answered to me (3): “maxiumum according to the label (in my report) which doesn’t necessarily mean maximum in reality.”. You know, in front of a sentence like this, you have “necessarily” to understand what is the underlying logic which permeates this affair.

    Anyway, I wish you to have a better luck than me.

    (1) “http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76282214#post76282214”
    (2) “http://matslew.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/heres-my-book-on-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/#comment-2064”
    (3) “http://matslew.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/heres-my-book-on-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/#comment-2342”

67. @deleo

    I think your comment is interesting, because I had not joined that stuff up. I don’t agree with your conclusions – but I’ve posted your comment with more comment on the LENR Forum “IH does not agree with ERV” thread.

68. @Deleo

    Re-look at the Woodford statement you posted and point out where he referred to Rossi? Be careful ascribing meaning that’s not there.

    The blogosphere assumes IH = Rossi, but you have from IH’s own statements that they are investing in others as well (which is reflected in the Woodford statement about numerous scientists). You also have IH reaffirming their interest in LENR in the same PR claiming to be unable to substantiate Rossi’s claims, so other investments could be panning out.

    Woodford did not invest in Leonardo Corp, they invested in IH which is broader than just Rossi, important for all of us to keep in mind.

    On the Vaughn-attributed comment vs the Darden interview I do agree that those don’t jive. Perhaps they had different opinions – Vaughn may have always been skeptical while Darden was optimistic, people’s views can shift and change over time and not all individuals within an organization will hold the same opinions.

69. Thank you Martin Tornberg of your efforts. Your analysis here has given best organized list of pieces and well thought information and how they could fit together. Enjoyable read. Well done!
    This with latest comment from Matts from visitor of site and additional confirmation from Alan Smith starts to look that we will have lots of interesting read on days to come, since ERV publication is waiting for court case (Rossi confirmed today). Today seems also that cryptodenialists are pouring in to fuss e-catworld discussions. Lots of new aliases there. Lets keep analaysing and Matts you have big task to keep journal for your next book documenting in which order story started to unfold!

70. It should be noted that IH has made contradictory statements about Rossi before. When Louis Brayboy from the North Carolina HHS met with JT Vaughn at the IH facility in Raleigh in December 2014 to see if there were radioactive materials there, Vaughn said more or less that “Rossi and the e-cat did not appear credible”.

    And then after that in his 2015 interview Darden publicly said:

    Q: So you’re optimistic?
    A: Yes, In fact, Rossi was awarded an important U.S. patent recently, which is part of what we licensed, covering the use of nickel, platinum or palladium powders, as well as other components, in his heat-producing device. This is one of very few LENR-related patents to date.

    Also Paul Farrow from Woodford Funds made the statement below.

    PAUL FARROW:
    August 18, 2015
    Hi John,
    Many thanks for your comment and we’d like to reassure you that we do follow a thorough due diligence process for all our investments, irrespective of their size or the fund they are invested in.
    With regard to Industrial Heat, we were, and have been, very aware of the scepticism about this technology. We have undertaken a rigorous due diligence process that has taken two and half years. The company is currently working with numerous scientists and is acquiring both the technology and teams required to maximise the potential of this, and other, new energy technologies.

    So while this may not be a huge deal I think the contradictory statements mean something. Either Vaughn lied to the NC State government official about Rossi not being credible or IH and Woodford were not truthful in their public statements about Rossi after that. The Vaughn comment to the State Inspector may seem like a white lie, but I don’t think so – we are talking about radioactive materials, something both state governments and the federal government care a lot about. If Vaughn said Rossi was credible that would likely have caused the Inspector to notify state officials in Florida to follow up at that location, and he would also likely let Federal officials know. But by saying Rossi is not credible there is a clear contradiction here. I see problems for IH with these statements.

71. But it makes no sense in any context. I can’t believe that Darden bought into Rossi’s fairytale about robotic production lines and a factory under construction. So was Darden really planning to build a new factory for Rossi from scratch?

    My view?

    Darden did not want or care about the long-term test. Rossi organised it. It was premature from Darden’s POV anyway since they had not managed to get even one e-cat to work for themselves.

    Darden was (realisitically) thinking about testing and characterising the technology, which would be immnsely valuable, not building factories.

72. Here are Johnson Matthey Metal Sponges

    Click to access 72052%20Sponge%20Metal%20brochure.pdf

    I wonder if the customer could be both Johnson Matthey and not Johnson Matthey 🙂

73. @Thomas

    But it makes no sense in any context. I can’t believe that Darden bought into Rossi’s fairytale about robotic production lines and a factory under construction. So was Darden really planning to build a new factory for Rossi from scratch? Why do that when so many large companies with established production lines and knowledge would be willing to pay license fees and could have working ecats on the market so much faster? For example, GE, GM or Tesla?

    The real issue was proving that the ecat works and for that, no more than a couple weeks of CORRECT testing by COMPETENT people would have been needed. And that has always been true throughout this implausible adventure.

    So Darden must have had something in mind. Maybe, like Defkalion, he thought about getting rid of or paying off Rossi, and if so, look how that worked for him and for Defkalion. Or maybe Darden was too busy and simply never thought the whole thing through. After all, it’s all done with OPM (Other People’s Money).

74. I still don’t understand Darden’s purpose in commissioning a one year test

    it was part of the license agreement. IH rumours say this is what Rossi wanted and was hawking to other possible investors too who did not like the “up-front” nature of the payment with no profit-sharing. It does not align interests. But is good for Rossi if his stuff is never commercial.

75. Ok, so people I have talked to, who visited the plant, got a presentation from someone supposedly being the ‘Director of Engineering’ at JM Products Inc, that supposedly produced metal sponges for catalytic applications. The Director of Engineering told them that they were very satisfied since the yield per amount of electric energy consumed was significantly larger than in the company’s other production sites, maybe 10x or 20x (figure uncertain). Someone got a glimpse though a door and saw what seemed to be production activity.

    It is interesting there is such an apparent clear discrepancy between Rossi and Darden here over non-technical issues. JM Products could be real, happy with reduced electricity, and Rossi have COP=1 since all that is needed is Rossi use additional electricity he does not bill them.

    However whether or not they are actually manufacturing stuff seems more difficult to spoof given IHs monitors who are there much of the time.

    Was the visit pre-arranged and major?

76. I still don’t understand Darden’s purpose in commissioning a one year test of an aggregation of ecat modules, all done by Rossi and his friends and attorney! It’s a farce! Is Darden really THAT inept? Are his advisers THAT incompetent?

    Obviously they either didn’t test one unit of ecat at all or they allowed an incompetent test. IH never said how they vetted Rossi and how they conducted due diligence on the ecat.

    The one year test was inappropriate considering how many questions there were a year ago about whether or not the ecat worked at all.

    Who did the 24 hour test, do we know? Are the results published?

    This fiasco is shaping up to have required not only Rossi’s brazen crookedness but also IH’s incredible ineptitude, even at obtaining credible and competent consultants!

    One scenario I can see which is consistent with how Rossi acted in the past is that IH may have suggested competent people and tests and Rossi got angry. Perhaps Darden wanted what he thought was a technology so badly, he gambled and allowed Rossi his way. Now, he has wised up. Maybe only slightly. I suspect he still thinks Miley and Brillouin will pay off. What a dunce if he does!

77. A real customer who was actually using approximately 1 MW of power would allow the approximate COP to be determined just by comparing the approximate total energy usage…

    …If this is the case, then it seems that it should not be difficult for a court to determine the approximate COP of the E-Cat, regardless of the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the ERV report.

    Surely Rossi and his attorney must realize this. That makes it rather unlikely that they would be trying to intentionally deceive the court and IH in their filings. Such deception should not work if there is a real customer, unless the customer refuses to testify, which would be odd and possibly illegal, but I’m not familiar with Florida law, so I don’t know whether or not the customer would be required to testify if called upon to do so; if someone else knows, perhaps they can comment about that.

    Like several other pieces of the puzzle, this piece also suggests that the E-Cat works

    This line of argument depends on a number of assumptions. If any one of them is wrong it does not hold.

    (1) Assume Rossi’s electrical input is not separate from the customer and therefore under Rossi’s control

    (2) Assume the customer’s electrical input is not under Rossi’s control

    (3) Assume a UK customer can be compelled to testify in a US civil action (I’ve no idea)

    (4) Assume Rossi is acting rationally

    (5) Assume Rossi is not betting on IH finding the “prove in Court Rossi’s own tests are bad” card too bad for PR and therefore settling out of Court

    (6) Assume the “purpose-built” factory has a heat demand that can reliably be determined independent of Rossi, and that this is as Rossi states”

    I guess some of these assumptions are reasonable, but I submit the chance of them all being correct is quite low.

78. Ok, so people I have talked to, who visited the plant, got a presentation from someone supposedly being the ‘Director of Engineering’ at JM Products Inc, that supposedly produced metal sponges for catalytic applications. The Director of Engineering told them that they were very satisfied since the yield per amount of electric energy consumed was significantly larger than in the company’s other production sites, maybe 10x or 20x (figure uncertain). Someone got a glimpse though a door and saw what seemed to be production activity. Only that T Darden told people I have talked to that the COP was about one and that there was no production in the customer’s factory. So truth seems to have many different faces here.

79. @Martin,

    I hope you and others will forgive this long post reprising your arguments and the relevant context.

    Overall, then, it would appear logical to conclude that the Ross-IH dispute is not about whether the E-Cat technology works but about other things involving the details of their contract, including whether Rossi was in breach of his contract and whether he gave IH enough info to reproduce his results.

    Agreed, although the performance of Rossi’s devices could come into it in various ways, not least if it is judged as a patent case, or if there are issues of “correctness” (required by the license from Rossi documents). I’m not clear what the precise legal arguments will be, and no expert on US contract law here.

    If IH and its CEO and lead financial backer, Tom Darden of Cherokee, had determined that the E-Cat wasn’t working properly (or at all), he did not express that in an October, 2015 interview in bizjournals.com

    Agreed. it was clear that IH were very enthusiastic about Rossi’s technology at that time. However consider this. Positioned as they were, with the license, would they express publicly any doubts that the whole thing was a flake? I think not. They must take Rossi’s tests at face value until they are proven wrong and the whole thing collapses. So their technical people could have had reservations. Remember, if Rossi is a flake IH have a disaster whatever they do, having accepted so much funding on hopes of Rossi riches.

    (Darden’s) team is “increasingly interested” in funding the work. He is “absolutely not” ready to release a timeline as to when data will be available, however.

    That is what you say when you don’t want to guarantee the technology is working, because you have not yourself got it to work, but you want to talk it up to get $89M funding if case it does.

    The increased interest is logical given the Rossi excellent test reports, and the (I expect) not then known erroneous Lugano test report. It in no way excludes a real and increasing possibility that Rossi is a complete flake and his stuff does not work when anyone else tests.

    There is also no sign of the E-Cat not working – or that Darden had soured on Rossi – in an interview that Darden did in September, 2014 in Fortune

    How could there be? if Rossi is not a flake, and his long-term test is real – they are onto a big winner. The test results justify this increased optimism. As CEO if there is a possibility your collaborator is rubbish, so destroying your plans, but it is unproven, do you announce it to the world? No. You behave as though all is good unless you have enough evidence. CEOs have to be optimistic.

    We have sponsored tests and more research for Rossi’s work. A group of Swedish scientists tested the technology, and they got good results. A number of other people say they are also getting positive results but these haven’t been confirmed. A Russian scientist, for example claims to have replicated Rossi’s work in Switzerland and got excess heat. That’s a good sign.

    All true, and talking up the positive evidence. But no sign that their own tests have validated this.

    These interviews, along with the Fulvio Fabiani’s November interview with Mats, all indicate that if IH started having doubts about the effectiveness of the E-Cat, this did not occur until the end of 2015, after Rossi had started mentioning on his blog that he had developed superior technology (the Quark-X).

    Fabiano’s position as Rossi’s right-hand man means that his views cannot be relied upon. Either he was incompetent during all those tests, or acquiesced in things that were bad practice. The Darden interviews as we have seen are exactly what you suspect if they hope Rossi will come good but have no proof of it themselves. Therefore I see no evidence for this conclusion.

    @Ascoli

    That’s naive. This is not the realm of the science, it’s the realm of propaganda. When you raise irrefutable critics, you will get no answer. Your interlocutors will go silent, or will try to change the topics under discussion, in accordance with the propagandistic best practice.

    I agree this happens. But not everyone is the same, and some may listen. I also on principle believe that everyone deserves the chance to listen and consider. Whether they take it is up to them.

    So here goes…

    @Martin
    There are a number of previously discussed facts in this case all of which support the “Rossi has nothing” position and are very difficult to reconcile with “Rossi’s stuff works”. Remember, a single independent LENR+ test with good integrity at COP > 2 (therefore absolutely indisputable given the higher powers) would give access to billions and the best technologists on the planet, from multiple interested parties.

    Rossi’s independent tests are all failures showing COP=1 (Svensk, Lugano)

    Rossi’s test in his own factory all have known possible error mechanisms: Ferrara (Penon), Ferrara (Swedes)

    Mats “most convincing test” has a error mechanism (not considered at the time) the “hot core” that explains all the observations.

    Rossi is known (Svensk) to under-measure input waveforms using the wrong equipment.

    The Penon test report has strong circumstantial evidence he did the same.

    Rossi’s many public demos all have error mechanisms worked out from videos or reports. In some cases Rossi was asked by supporters on several occasions to redo a test with the error mechanism closed, to prove his stuff worked. He refused.

    IH have said:

    Industrial Heat has worked for over three years to substantiate the results claimed by Mr. Rossi from the E-Cat technology – all without success.

    To spin that into –

    Rossi’s stuff works as in the original tests – but his new stuff works better”

    ignores the strong phraseology. IH will be in trouble if they lie in PRs. That would be a lie.

    To spin that into –

    Rossi’s stuff works, but nowhere near as good as the tests

    is still not what they are saying. Also, if it were the case Rossi’s tests are clearly wrong be a large factor then nothing can be trusted about his future untested claims. Such large errors show that he is either consistently lying, or a very poor experimenter.

80. Thanks Alan. A real customer who was actually using approximately 1 MW of power would allow the approximate COP to be determined just by comparing the approximate total energy usage (which the customer could disclose, at least if the customer is called upon to testify in a court case) with the energy taken from the electric grid (which could be obtained from the electric company). Of course, the customer may not know precisely how much energy it is using, but it would know approximately, and the customer’s prior energy bills could be potentially obtained, and expert witnesses could testify to how much power is typically used to do whatever the customer was doing.

    If this is the case, then it seems that it should not be difficult for a court to determine the approximate COP of the E-Cat, regardless of the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the ERV report. Surely Rossi and his attorney must realize this. That makes it rather unlikely that they would be trying to intentionally deceive the court and IH in their filings. Such deception should not work if there is a real customer, unless the customer refuses to testify, which would be odd and possibly illegal, but I’m not familiar with Florida law, so I don’t know whether or not the customer would be required to testify if called upon to do so; if someone else knows, perhaps they can comment about that.

    Like several other pieces of the puzzle, this piece also suggests that the E-Cat works, at least when Rossi is present to operate it, and that the Rossi-IH conflict is likely to be based on other things rather than being an indication that the E-Cat technology itself is not functional. I have discussed some of the other pieces of the puzzle in my other comments below.

81. I see lots and lots of words and speculation, all of which could have been avoided at any point during the testing by one good long run in which Rossi could not touch the equipment and a proper calibration was done with the huge electrical heater which Rossi *always* includes in the ecats.

    Jed, do you still think Rossi, and by inference Penon, made errors rather than tried to defraud IH?

    Mats, have you yet realized that you should have *insisted* on calibration in 2011, even if it had angered Rossi and cost you continuing access to his demos?

    And to those who think it is necessary to decide if Rossi is crooked or crazy, could it not be both?

    And to whoever said that the October 2011 demo was convincing:

    a) photos of the location of the output temp thermocouple showed it was near the heat exchanger hot side! (there was only one thermocouple, which is an error in itself)

    b) there were unseen portions of the device in which there was plenty of room to hide thermal mass

    c) we depend on the sound of boiling to decide whether or not a revolutionary invention works? Hewlett and Packard must be turning over in their graves at the concept! These days we have actual sensors and data recorders, and calibrations, apparently unless we are at a Rossi demo.

    Finally, I hope everyone realizes how easy it would have been to make ecats self sustaining without input power, if the COP is really 50 as was supposedly reported. I’ve heard the argument that ecats require electricity but that’s silly– they require heat and they supposedly make heat. By routing a trivial portion of the output back to the input via a control system, the ecat would be made indefinitely self sustaining and would have a COP of infinity — except for a bit of power for the control circuits, which could come from carefully monitored batteries.

82. “I can confirm that my contacts are totally reliable, close to the source, and are people I have known (quite by chance) for years”

    And that is all about LENR: reliable (for someone) people that someone says do swear Cold Fusion is real, and specifically that E Cat is producing energy for someone somewhere in the world.
    No matter how much incredible it might sound or how many times version of E Cat changes or how much often previous proves it should have worked have been found false – reliable people, friends well known since childhood, swear it is all true, thus it must be, even if old business partners say it is not.
    And those who do not agree to believe – or even dare to argue about independence or competence of those old friends must be troll, or paid by oil company, or denialers of clear evidences.
    Which evidences? The holy word of a Smith reporting of his friends which are closer to Rossi.
    Oh, yeah!

83. @ Martin Tornberg. You asked

    “Alan Smith has said in comments that he had personal contacts who verified for him that the customer was “real” and was utilizing the power that Rossi’s E-Cat was producing. Alan, if you read this, perhaps you can weigh in on that and let us know if that is correct and how reliable you believe those contacts are. If you can tell us whether you’ve had direct contact with the customer, that would be interesting.”

    I can confirm that my contacts are totally reliable, close to the source, and are people I have known (quite by chance) for years. They are very discreet, and for the sake of our frienship I never plague them with questions on a topic they all vowed not to discuss. I have never spoken to the customer myself, and sadly cannot answer any of the ‘who or what’ questions that are vital without resorting to the old ‘he’ said she said’ game.

    Sorry if that is less than you wanted, but it really is as far as I can go.

84. Overall, then, it would appear logical to conclude that the Ross-IH dispute is not about whether the E-Cat technology works but about other things involving the details of their contract, including whether Rossi was in breach of his contract and whether he gave IH enough info to reproduce his results.

    Further evidence of this can be found in certain interviews that Darden did in the 2nd half of 2015, 8 or 9 months into the 1-year test:

    If IH and its CEO and lead financial backer, Tom Darden of Cherokee, had determined that the E-Cat wasn’t working properly (or at all), he did not express that in an October, 2015 interview in bizjournals.com (see http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2015/10/industrial-heat-lab-space-cary-nc.html), which says:

    “Rossi’s technology, dubbed E-Cat, is a black box that, according to reports, uses cold fusion to generate large amounts of green energy cheaply. Darden sees it as an alternative to the coal plants pumping pollutants into the sky, and says his team is “increasingly interested” in funding the work. He is “absolutely not” ready to release a timeline as to when data will be available, however.”

    There is also no sign of the E-Cat not working – or that Darden had soured on Rossi – in an interview that Darden did in September, 2014 in Fortune (see http://fortune.com/2015/09/27/ceo-cherokee-investment-partners-low-energy-nuclear-reaction/), which states the following:

    Q: So you licensed the technology of Andrea Rossi, an Italian scientist and entrepreneur who’s been having some success with cold fusion.
    A: That’s right. Rossi’s was one of the first investments we made. We’ve been seeing the creation of isotopes and energy releases at relatively low temperatures—1,000 degrees centigrade, which could be a sign that fusion has occurred. We have sponsored tests and more research for Rossi’s work. A group of Swedish scientists tested the technology, and they got good results. A number of other people say they are also getting positive results but these haven’t been confirmed. A Russian scientist, for example claims to have replicated Rossi’s work in Switzerland and got excess heat. That’s a good sign.
    Q: So you’re optimistic?
    A: Yes, In fact, Rossi was awarded an important U.S. patent recently, which is part of what we licensed, covering the use of nickel, platinum or palladium powders, as well as other components, in his heat-producing device. This is one of very few LENR-related patents to date.

    These interviews, along with the Fulvio Fabiani’s November interview with Mats (on https://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/11/25/rossis-engineer-i-have-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt-believe/), all indicate that if IH started having doubts about the effectiveness of the E-Cat, this did not occur until the end of 2015, after Rossi had started mentioning on his blog that he had developed superior technology (the Quark-X).

85. IH has also filed its own patents on E-Cat devices claiming a COP of 10 or 11. It is extremely unlikely that IH would be filing such patents, and risking its own credibility (in general and with the patent office), if it had not actually produced an E-Cat and run it at a COP or 10 or 11.

    In light of all of this, it would be quite strange and surprising if IH suddenly determined that the E-Cat technology does not work, and in fact that is not what they said in their carefully worded press release, where they said that they were not able to “substantiate the results claimed by Mr. Rossi.” In other words, they might have been able to substantiate different results, including some positive results, but not the same results claimed by Mr. Rossi. IH also said “Leonardo Corporation and Mr. Rossi also have repeatedly breached their agreements,” something that would be irrelevant if the technology didn’t work, since the agreements would be worthless anyway in that case.

    If IH did suddenly determine that the technology didn’t work, then, as I also noted below, it would be interesting timing given that it seems to have happened right around the time that Rossi said he had developed a new technology (the Quark-X) that is superior to the E-Cat. As I mentioned, it seems unlikely that the IH discovery that the test wasn’t working (if that’s what happened) would have occurred until late in 2015, given Fulvio Fabiani’s interview with Mats that month.

86. One point.
    If I was IH, I would not care of the 1MW 1 year test, but about my own ability to replicate the technology of Rossi.
    First level is the ability to make it work at all, checking that he gave me all the know how to make a COP of 1.5 MYSELF.
    Second, if rossi says he have E-cat X and E-cat LT have thus no value, I will check that he gave me access (against my money) to the know how .

    If his 1MW is not reliable, who cares I can pay engineer, and even give him access (even free access, market is too big for us to compete) to the new technology.
    I can ask other LENr scientists to improve his process, and give them all access to each know how, against money or why not against cross access.

    if the 1MW 1year test is a failure, and I can make 1kW COP 6 myself, I can pay… as long as I know I will have access to Ecat-X… that Rossi will cooperate, even if I need to pay a license per device later.

    now if he is hiding the recipe of E-cat LT, so that it does not work in my lab, if he says nothing on E-cat X, I will look better at his F***g 1MW 1year test. If the I find the test is flawed as usual I will be furious and afraid to be sued by my investors.
    I will stop the paiment and politely ask him :
    – give me the recipe that work

    if he refuse… I know there is a big risk, that there is nothing. I cannot take that risk..

    that is the problem with upfront license.

    now my expectation is that IH will make his scientists partner work on alternative solutions, using better the 89Mn$, improving Brillouin technology with lenuco know-how with the help of other scientists…

    You cannot play alone, refuse to cooperate and to mix your IP with others…

87. This page is getting longer and more difficult to follow with so many comments now, but I would like to revisit something I had written and respond to replies by Jed and Thomas. I had pointed out that Woodford, an established investment manager, invested $50 million in IH in 2015, and visited the plant, where IH showed them that the test was working. Jed asked whether I have any evidence that they visited the plant, and pointed out that the customer’s address is “a typical small industrial building subdivided into several office/warehouse spaces with loading docks in back” that would not be suitable for activities requiring 1 MW of power.

    Alan Smith has said in comments that he had personal contacts who verified for him that the customer was “real” and was utilizing the power that Rossi’s E-Cat was producing. Alan, if you read this, perhaps you can weigh in on that and let us know if that is correct and how reliable you believe those contacts are. If you can tell us whether you’ve had direct contact with the customer, that would be interesting.

    Regarding the test location, I have not seen addresses listed for either of those. Can you tell me where (which document) reveals this address? Does it state that this was the test location? The customer’s mailing address or office address was not necessarily the test location. Even if it was, can you be sure that it would not be possible to utilize and dispose of 1MW of power there? My recollection from Rossi comments was that he was operating largely out of a large container, which may have been parked in the back where the loading docks are. Any excess heat could be dissipated to the surrounding air. Your dry cleaner example (ie, that it would take 100 dry cleaners to use 1 MW of power and 100 dry cleaners would not have fit in the building) does not seem very convincing since there are plenty of ways to use more power per cubic meter of space than dry cleaning.

    Regarding whether Woodford visited the test site in 2015, that is what Rossi has said, and it is also consistent with common sense and an understanding of how investments are made. Woodford is a professional investor with fiduciary responsibilities to their own investors; they aren’t going to make large, irresponsible investments in unknown private companies without researching them and doing site visits. During 2015, the 1-year test was known – anyone researching IH would have known about its connection with Rossi and the 1-year test. No professional investor would have invested $50 million without asking IH how the 1-year test was going and most likely visiting the test site. IH would not have lied and risk getting sued. It is therefore extremely likely that IH believed the 1-year test was going well at the time of Woodford’s investment.

88. Hmm. I am beginning to think that it is possible Rossi can weasel of this and even get to keep some money.

    It’s a strange planet.

    More entertainment to follow, I am sure.

89. @ Thomas Clarke,
    – “the lenr forum thread on the Oct 6 2011 test is open and you are welcome to correct/add if interested.”

    Thanks, Tom. I’ve seen your thorough review of the analyses made by Higgins, Rothwell, and Roberson. I didn’t found any major technical flaws in your considerations there, but I should confess that I don’t find it very useful. Let me explain. You analyzed the available technical data, applied the suitable scientific laws, derived your conclusions and exposed them. That’s all OK. The problem is that you expect to get a proper answer from your interlocutors. That’s naive. This is not the realm of the science, it’s the realm of propaganda. When you raise irrefutable critics, you will get no answer. Your interlocutors will go silent, or will try to change the topics under discussion, in accordance with the propagandistic best practice.

    LookMoo here below provided a good example of this: “Wobbling back and forth with technical details and try to find THE detail, a smoking gun, is not a very good method to find out what is happening. Instead you should see how the business is driving for IH. …” It is the usual invitation to forget the unconfortable past and to look at the next step, in this case to the litigation between Rossi and IH. Think well about it. From a propagandistic point of view, this litigation is a masterpiece. It divides the audience between two contenders, both of which sustain the reality of the LENR. It makes no sense to take part.

    You can find the same logic at the beginning of this post: “The starting point for this scenario is that either Rossi has achieved LENR reactions with high COP, without ever proving it, or he might have achieved modest efficiency, with COP between 1 and 3, as many others in the field.”. So, as you see, the choice is restricted to 2 hypotheses, both of them contemplating an over unity COP.

    So, I invite you to better understand the logic which underlies the discussion on the web about the ecat and LENR issues. You can save a lot of time.

    Anyway. I appreciate your endorsement of my point of view about the October 6 test, and I’m very honored about that. But, it takes a lot of time to me to write in English, so I prefer to limit the number of sites were to post. If you wish, you can resume my points at your will. It would be of great relief for me, … and for Shakespeare.

90. For anyone who believes that Rossi must be the fraudster and that Cherokee is ethically above reproach and professionaly sound, please read this to dispel that notion. It is a report from the State of New Jersey Office of the Inspector General and it details bad behavior and ineptitude by Cherokee and its shell corporations that is reminiscent to what see in this affair: http://nj.gov/comptroller/news/oig/pdf/Meadowlands%20Remediation%20and%20Redevelopment%20Project.pdf

91. @Mats
    correct, Mats!

92. Argon, as I have said before, the information I get is contradictory, and at the moment I don’t trust anyone more than the others. I would like to see data, and not just hear about it.

93. @Thomas Clarke no problem. I always give value to people who have skills. I understand there were other topics covered also with @sifferkoll.
    Lets move on @Mattslew can I ask you, how do you read Fabianis statements from you November interview on light we know today?
    https://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/11/25/rossis-engineer-i-have-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt-believe/

    You were discussing with him in first hand, does any new puzzle fit in place now when you recall how the interview went. As discussed below his statements does not fit to all scenarios.

94. thank you mats. your 2011.10.06 test observation paper is excellent as a way to communicate forcefuly to students how a well intended observer can easily be ‘led down the garden path’ and be bamboozled by a clever trick. and the trick(s) and omissions or oversights are subtle enough that my students will have to do some thinking.

    have you given some serious consiideration to perhaps updating the 2011.10.06 test observation paper with a follow-up report along the lines of ‘in the interest of honest journalism and through my reanalysis of errors and omissions in the original here is a full and honest reevaluation’ ?

    after all this, isn’t it funny, perhaps ironic, that ar and ih are basically now in a fight over ip and claims on cash that involve a technology that amounts to an ‘electric water heater’.

95. Apologies argon.

    My excuse is that Sifferkoll was directly challenging my integrity by calling me a paid APCO poster and saying that some technical stuff I did a while ago that was obviously NOT pseudo-science was pseudo-science and that by implication I was publicising deliberately dishonest scientific work.

    Perhaps I misunderstood him – and I am sorry for derailing the thread.

96. @Thomas Clarke I can believe you if you state that you have found errors on past calculations, and especially agree that there is no such thing as real ‘True RMS meter’ when we talk about spiky voltage and specially crafted harmonics.etc. Some meters can cover them better than others, but doubt Rossi have knowledge to design such device and setup.
    We can give all the credits to you that you were the one doing the proper re-calculations.Congratulations on that.

    But that is not the point. As I said earlier that you are ‘beaming the wrong tree’ and I kindly ask you to stop doing that. This mornig I was optimistic seeing lots of high quality comments here. And what was seen after few hours, Thomas posting endless list of verbal selfies ‘look I’m the one who spotted errors years ago’. yes we heard you already days ago, and I can give all the scientific credit without checking the calcs, but if you still continue this monology, you are nothing more to me but ‘Apco Troll’, and start to lose all glory of ‘spotting the errors’ at least in my eyes.

    Pls take a break and leave room for @Martin Tornberg et.al.to continue very interesting discussion trying to solve todays puzzle. At least I have my time much better spent by reading him.

97. “And, no they do not pay anyone unless they have to. But using the “technical analysis” as an argument could be them. They are known to use the pseudoscience arguments frequently ”

    I’ll call you on this. You are calling my thermography re-analysis pseudoscience. And saying that I’m publishing false technical material. That is not good for my reputation since I’m not hiding behind a pseudonym.

    Here is what I suggest. We each pay $1000 into an escrow account. We find a mutually agreed thermography expert to review the Lugano paper and my correction, and determine whether my correction is valid. If my correction is valid, in the sense that (1) they made the mistake and (2) my recalculation is substantially correct I get the money, otherwise you do. Modify the amount of money at stake if you wish. This offer is not final till you and I have agreed precise terms for this – I would not want there to be wrangling about the result. Also, before this happens, I’d need to rewrite my paper with an additional analytical section to repeat approximately what the paper does with numerical calculation. It is not fair to ask a thermography expert to validate python code!

98. “And finally, I do not see your paper as an “technical analysis” per se. since you are only analysing the report from an experiment that you did not attend. Maybe you could call it peer-review in an article form. Not the same thing to me anyway.”

    My paper reviews the calculations done bt the Lugano authors, using their data and their methodology. It detects an error in their calculation of the temperature from the Optris measurements. This is a clear theoretical error that anyone reading their paper carefully can validate.

    The Lugano authors kindly give a lot of data in their report, enough to recalculate what would happen if the error is corrected. That is what I do.

    In what way is that not a technical re-analysis?

    The mistake is very obvious and we could go through the details so that you too are convinced, as several others are I have done this with, that they just got it wrong. Bob Higgins gets half the way there (in print) – identifying the mistake but not the correct recalculation method.

    I don’t know how much you know about science but it is very normal for people not doing experiments to critique experimental reports and correct errors in them. Obviously – they cannot correct the data – but they can correct the calculations made from that data where there are clear mistakes, as here.

99. @ThomasClarke

    I believe Apco very well could have been involved for years as part an implementation strategy on the higher level (Koch brothers, AGW, brownfields etc). This is important. Trillions of dollars at stake. Question is did they reveal themselves by mistake or were we supposed to know their involvement? I say it could be a mistake by them/IH to not bcc:(thank you Mats for noting this very important detail) I mean Hillary hires them and keep her secret mails in the bathroom (sort of). So, my take is that they are not supposed to be visable, but work their stuff in the background.

    Or, its delibarate. But I don’t see the point. Their background is dubious. They are very low profiled but high level people. And the business number looks like a facade (low revenues per consultant) and extremely high level bankers and politicians in the network …

    And, no they do not pay anyone unless they have to. But using the “technical analysis” as an argument could be them. They are known to use the pseudoscience arguments frequently like when it comes to defending BigPharma against natural medicines (yes, there are natural stuff that do not help as well, but basically the problem is that natural medicines can not be patented so it is not profitable) etc. I might look into this business of theirs since health stuff interests me, and I’m certain that BigPharma are killing more people than they help at the bottom line. Not to mention BigFood, that are killing even more people with all their processed stuff.

    And finally, I do not see your paper as an “technical analysis” per se. since you are only analysing the report from an experiment that you did not attend. Maybe you could call it peer-review in an article form. Not the same thing to me anyway.

100. In my humble opinion. If Rossi could study LENR when imprisoned for energy related fraud with Petroldragon so succesfully and become a world leading innovator to come up with the Ecat he should get the Nobel Fraud prize..sorry Physics..or sell some film rights ..Scam stories depicting rich fools are popular

101. Also – opinion on these blogs is very far from public opinion. It is a very small selected group who look here. But maybe those are the people IH would want to have good PR with.

102. Alan Smith said: “Koch Industries btw has created plenty of brownfield land. Do we know anyone good at remediation?

     Sure we do:

     Feb 2016
     http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20160208/PC05/160209426/1497/bankrupt-owners-of-large-charleston-neck-site-plan-to-sell-land

     “Two closely affiliated companies that own the site of an idled urban redevelopment project in the Charleston Neck Area filed for bankruptcy Monday with the goal of selling most of the 182-acre property.

     Bogged down by the last economic downturn and lengthy litigation, Ashley I LLC and Ashley II LLC sought protection from creditors in Columbia. Their debts total more than $23 million, with much of that owed to one lender, according to the filings.”

     “Ashley I and Ashley II, which began acquiring property in 2002, are owned by Raleigh-based Cherokee Investment Partners. Cherokee did not respond to requests for comment Monday.”

     2012
     https://www.fbi.gov/newark/press-releases/2012/encap-president-indicted-in-connection-with-extortion-and-fraudulent-invoicing-schemes

     Encap won a contract in 2000 from the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission to cap and close four landfills in the Meadowlands and to sell the land for residential, commercial and recreational development, including golf courses. In December 2005, Encap received more than $300 million in publicly sponsored bond financing, including more than $200 million in loans from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust. Encap’s project in the Meadowlands was the subject of a report by the New Jersey Office of Inspector General in February 2008. Encap filed for bankruptcy protection later in 2008 and did not complete the project.

     2008

     Click to access Meadowlands%20Remediation%20and%20Redevelopment%20Project.pdf

     “In 2000, Cherokee managed two private equity funds, known as Cherokee Investment Partners Funds I and II (CIP I and CIP II). Cherokee subsequently created and undertook management of two additional private equity funds, Cherokee Investment Partners Funds III and IV (CIP III and CIP IV). The shareholders of the investment funds are primarily large pension funds. “

     “The majority owner of EnCap is Cherokee Investment Partners (Cherokee) through one of its four investment funds, CIP II. Cherokee has registered at least 27 business entities in New Jersey including Cherokee North Arlington, LLC, Cherokee Porete, LLC, and Cherokee Porete Urban Renewal, LLC. “

     “As discussed in Section III, after EnCap was awarded the project Cherokee Investment Partners II acquired a 65% ownership. “

     “EnCap’s main equity investor is Cherokee Investment Partners II (CIP II), which is managed by Cherokee Investment Partners (Cherokee) and has several affiliates and subsidiaries. Thomas Darden is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cherokee”

     “On April 25, 2002, Thomas Darden contributed $25,000 to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee; • On November 15, 2002, Darden contributed $3,000 to the New Jersey Republican State Committee; and • On April 23, 2004, Darden contributed $15, 000 to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee.

     2004
     http://articles.philly.com/2004-11-26/news/25380356_1_landfills-brownfields-remediate
     Andy Willner, executive director of the NY-NJ Baykeeper, an environmental watchdog group, is waiting to see how successful the remediations are.

     “The confluence between brownfield redevelopment and dredge disposal is certainly a niche Cherokee has taken advantage of,” Willner said. “Give credit where credit is due: They’ve found a niche market and exploited it.”

     “Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, is skeptical. “I think, quite frankly, they are much better at playing politics than anything else,” Tittel said. “If you look at the company and how they make their money, they don’t build anything, clean up anything. . . . They just flip the property. They’re like the middleman.”
     Cherokee-related firms and officers have contributed at least $267,600 to state legislative and political campaigns and at least $80,700 to federal candidates from New Jersey since 1999.”

103. Alan,

     It is certainly true that playing Rossi’s own game of influencing blog opinion is possible, and might be a sensible strategy for IH.

     The trouble is that ECW is the main focus of Rossi propaganda and it is so heavily moderated that new posters saying anything critical will not have much luck. A sort of anti-APCO screen. They live in a bubble of their own.

     Otherwise I can’t see paid rabble-rousing comment having much weight compared with proper technical analysis. But I tend to ignore the sheeplike comments that restate a position.

     I can see the point for IH to specifically use people like ‘guest’ to get their view out. They would not need and APCO paid poster that, just somone discreet and willing to listen and post. And they have channels like Jed, and even Mats, too. But I guess they don’t want formal or even semi-formal comment via a journalist given the legal action, hence no comment to Mats?

104. The most public and best documented example of APCO ‘Astroturfing’ in order to influence opinion date from 20 years back when they were caught ‘pants down’ organising a ‘pro public smoking’ campaign for Phillip Morris. Since then they have left their calling cards on behalf of the oil and gas lobbies, and are alleged (but not proven – to me at least) to have created anti-global warming groups in support of the Koch brothers business interests. Koch Industries btw has created plenty of brownfield land. Do we know anyone good at remediation?

105. “It now seems that IH/Apco is also leaking rumours about Penon and the GP test, like a some minor test they done separately without Rossi knowing it showing bad performance etc. And furious attacks on Penon. (and Rossi, but we’re used to that)”

     Sifferkoll – just for the record.

     My interest in this comes from 12 months ago (? – I forget) when I had fun deciphering the lugano report and detecting a subtle (to me) error in the thermography calculations. It took me a long time to work out quantitatively what was going on, and I enjoyed this so much that I wrote a long and formal (of publishable quality) report.

     Now. That was not APCO, clearly. My id then as now is real not anonymous. And I could hardly be in league with IH writing that report at a time IH were convinced the test was good. you can check with lenr canr that the report was published six months ago (again I forget precise time?) ago, and with Bob Higgins (with whom I corresponded because he has done similar work – I’m indebted to him) to show that I started this work 12 months ago or more. (PS – could you get APCO/IH to pay me? Maybe they should!). You might argue that APCO did a proper scientific LS, came up with me, and offered to pay me for posting now. If they had it would not have made my comments here different. And in fact I value independence and would not accept pay for anything I post here.

     My interest and passion now comes from indignation that Rossi’s tests should bamboozle so many scientists for so long, and extreme annoyance that the Lugano scientists do not reply – neither formally nor informally – to proper critique of their openly published and claimed independent Lugano test. The PR here is extraordinary – people like you, interested in the matter, seem unaware of the correction! And the drama here is quite extraordinary – as many others I find it gripping.

     My strong critique of Penon is because I did not previously pay much attention to the Penon report – I seem to have missed the detailed write-up and corrections. It makes damning reading and you don’t have to be technical to realise that. However it is also interesting technically. There is an electrical issue, measuring spiky waveforms with non-true-RMS meters that exactly explains the claimed excess. there is plenty of circumstantial evidence in the Penon report this happened. There is direct evidence from the Elforsk test that this happened – because the professional independent testers used true RMS meters to measure input and got COP = 1, Rossi claimed they were wrong using his own measurements to get much lower input power.

     Jed’s critique of Penon is equally strong. “I would not pay 89 cents for a report from him, let alone $89M”.

     Jed and I do not collude, have not exchanged private communication except ages ago to put the Lugano reanalysis on lenr canr. We have very different views about the likelihood of LENR and may have crossed swords over that.

     For all I know there are APCO paid posters supporting IH. Certainly there are (presumably deliberate) leaks of their position as in ‘guest’. it is what anyone would do – unprofessional to enter into a formal slanging match with Rossi – but without their position stated to let Rossi’s spun comments go without challenge would be silly.

     Can you give me examples of this paid poster propaganda?

106. Ascoli – I realise you have worked a lot on this in the past – the lenr forum thread on the Oct 6 2011 test is open and you are welcome to correct/add if interested. I’ll edit my summary if mistakes found.

107. @Jed et al.

     The way I see it, IH has not issued any other statement than that they could not substantiate the Rossi claims, and that his claims are without merit. It now seems that IH/Apco is also leaking rumours about Penon and the GP test, like a some minor test they done separately without Rossi knowing it showing bad performance etc. And furious attacks on Penon. (and Rossi, but we’re used to that)

     To me this looks exactly what I would expect Apco to do (as I have stated in my blog). This is core business to them. I believe some people are being seriously played without IH taking any responsibility (like Rossi is doing when filing a public complaint). Good thing is (unfortunately) Rossi is not going to release the report and by attacking it and Penon so viciously IH is actually indirectly acknowledging that the report shows COP~50. The report is obviously not that bad either since if it was it would strengthen IHs case to release it themselves. At this point they are playing the rumour game…

     The “certified idiot” arguments etc. shows this has landed on an emotional level and I unfortunately see a loss of stringency in all Jeds comments, in ways never seen during the four years I’ve been reading them. I feel sad about that.

     Penon CV show good credentials, working for world class certification agencies Bureau Veritas and Det Norske Veritas should be regarded way above having an american certification of sorts.

     I posted some more thoughts on this here: http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/the-rossi-darden-apcoworldwide-saga-why-is-it-good-to-not-release-the-cop50-erv-lenr-report/

108. thx Mats – that is very kind

109. I hope Mats has had time to reflect on a meta-analysis of the Oct 6 2011 test that he finds most convincing evidence that Rossi has had LENR.

     I admit to zero creativity myself in looking at this but, picking up ascoli’s work, reading the three technical reviews that Mats posted, the evidence is definitely negative. The key point is that arguments claimed as killer “has to be LENR” are all given by only one of the three testers, and all come from a lack of imagination – not considering the “hot core” model, or not considering “loosely coupled hot core” variants. I’ve given a detailed discussion of all the claimed positive points (Roberson and Rothwell) here:
     https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/3005-Mats-Lewan-s-Test-Report/?postID=17067#post17067

     The quantitative facts (amount of water added to primary ckt and emitted as wet steam) fit the likely figures for stored heat in a hot core but the calculations are scattered through this thread and not properly presented. If anyone doubts this I’ll do them properly in that thread.

     The TC delta temperature evidence initially convinced 2 or the 3 reviewers, and one at least of those initially relying on it (Roberson) ended up saying that it was completely unsafe.

     So I think Mats might change his evaluation of this.

110. Now corrected Thomas. If anyone need editing of comments, let me know. I can edit comments.

111. Martin’s point re consistency and fitting all the evidence:

     As Jed points out there is plentiful evidence that all is not right with Rossi. The arguments for things to be OK are basically speculation like “IH could not have been so stupid” or “IH are doing this because “. They all require speculation about other people’s actions and motives where we have little information.

     The arguments for Rossi to have non-working stuff are more concrete. None of them are definitive, or even persuasive on their own, but they make a consistent pattern of known facts and are at least as relevant as speculations about what IH might or might not have known when:
     Known errors in tests
     Known unprofessionalism of testers
     License that gives Rossi, unusually, all the money now rather than on sales.
     Unwillingness to correct known errors in tests
     Penon (the test ERV) is known incompetent on previous tests

     Add to these Jed’s points:
     Jed’s “where does the heat go” argument in the unused warehouse
     IH claim their tester has found different results from Penon
     IH’s people known to be better calorimeters than Rossi/Penon

     I should point out that the license issue does not imply fraud from Rossi. But it does maybe mean that he was less confident of long-term commercial success than might be expected if his stuff was working properly. There are shades here. Perhaps Rossi himself, while is absolutely believes is own tests, realised after the Elforsk independent test that when tested by others his stuff does not always work.

     Those who support Rossi here have a remarkable ability to dismiss all the contrary speculative evidence while finding the positive speculative evidence so strong they cannot imagine any way round them.

     It is perhaps the equivalent of the many people who, seeing Rossi’s convincing Oct 6 2011 test, were convinced – because it was so convincing – that it was absolute proof of LENR. People find patterns and having found one pattern it is difficult to take a step back and look for others.

     I think it very possible that IH suffered this (very natural) human cognitive problem.

112. Agreed -no editing and a tiny text box are a recipe for appearing more than usually foolish at times.

113. hate the no editing here. “quationable” LOL.

114. “Jed, thank you for your insights, but some things don’t make sense. You wrote that “What I do know is that the people at I.H. are much better at calorimetry than Rossi is. Sight unseen, I am confident that I.H. is right, and Rossi is wrong.” OK, but then why did it take IH so long to figure out that the 1-year test was not working? Why did they take people from Woodford there to visit the plant and show them that it was working? Woodford put in $50 million into an illiquid, private investment and would likely have asked IH questioned IH at length regarding the test and test procedures, and it seems unlikely that IH would have brought them there – or that they would have been able to answer Woodford’s questions in a satisfactory manner – if they hadn’t done testing on the device and were not knowledgeable about, and confident in, the test methodology and results.”

     My take on the IH about turn is this. Initially they had confidence from 6 independent tests – the reports were questionable but that is mostly a technical judgement and managers are not technical guys. I’m not sure, at that point, how many technical guys they had. As we’ve seen with Mats Oct 6 test people with considerable technical knowledge, like Jed, can believe a result absolutely indicates LENR through a lack of imagination and therefore not considering the “hot core” solution which quantitatively fits all.

     So IH’s tech guys started off believing the tests – Lugano, Ferrara (Swede), Ferrara (Penon) – were all OK and had high confidence. As time went on this changed.

     When they were confident in the tests they would have no reason to be not confident of Rossi’s ERV test until they looked at it. They would not, initilaly, have spent any tech guy time looking at the long-term test. they would be 100% focussed on the matter of replicating and testing their e-cat. That took much longer than expected (because it did not work). Possibly they initially tested it with Rossi’s setups – which did work – and it took time for them to work out that these in fact contained errors. Many possibilities here.

     “Also, why did Fulvio Fabiani agree to an interview with Mats in November (see https://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/11/25/rossis-engineer-i-have-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt-believe/) and talk about how great things were going, even though he was himself affiliated with IH? He says “Until now the test is in line with the result that we expected.” Rossi says in his court filings that Fabiani was being paid by IH, and Fabiani himself states in the interview that, with respect to his role, “I am bound by an agreement with Industrial Heat, and I’m available for Rossi to be his right arm. I cannot give any more details due to an NDA.” ”

     You raise the matter of to whom Fabiani’s loyalty was. I have no idea about Fabiani’s loyalty at this point or competence. If he has been with Rossi through all Rossi’s tests then he must be either not very competent, or so loyal to Rossi he would accept false tests, or easily convinced by Rossi’s arguments, etc. Take your pick. there are therefore obviously many possibilities for Fabiani’s feedback to IH not being accurate and reflecting the Rossi line. Why would that suddenly change? At the time, IH would treat Fabiani as the guy with inside knowledge of how to do stuff.

     “If IH was unhappy with how the test was going, then why would Fabiani be blissfully unaware of their concerns? Wouldn’t that reflect a rather bizarre lack of communication on the part of IH? ”

     See above. The evidence so far is for a “click” moment when IH realised finally that maybe nothing Rossi arranged could be trusted and got competent skeptical calorimetric expertise to bear on the problem. Things then would quickly unravel.

115. Dear Jed. How can you say the IH are, right, Rossi is wrong and Penon’s test worthless when you admit yourself that you have seen none of the current evidence -the report for example?

     Especially since you demand more solid evidence from Mr. Tornberg that IH took Woodford to see the $11.5 plant investment that had created. I suggest we should all keep a cool head until more tangible evidence emerges, otherwise this will begin to resemble the early stages of the GW debate.

116. ‘mrs green in the study with the candlestick’ – you’re free to use it in the way you want. It’s public.

117. mats, are there restrictions on using your 2011.10.06 report in an educational setting? i would like to refer it during my lectures on thermo. really, it is destined to be a famous case study.

118. Martin Tornberg asks: “OK, but then why did it take IH so long to figure out that the 1-year test was not working? Why did they take people from Woodford there to visit the plant and show them that it was working?”

     Where did you hear that it took them a long time? And where did you hear they brought people from Woodford there? I have not heard that, so I cannot comment. Show me your sources and perhaps I will be able to.

     People here have said it is unlikely Rossi made a mistake measuring output by a factor of 80. Yet it is beyond dispute that SOMEONE made a mistake of that magnitude. Either Rossi is wrong by 80, or the people at I.H. are. Why does anyone here assume it must have been I.H. who is wrong?

     I suggest you review Rossi’s history, such as the time he almost blew up the people from NASA. The outlet hose was plugged up, the temperature was rising, steam was coming out of the seams. Jim Dunn pulled off the outlet hose, held his hand in front of the outlet, and said, “Andrea, it isn’t working. Nothing is coming out.” Rossi insisted it was working. Then Jim asked, “what is your emergency relief valve pressure?” There was an awkward pause, and it became clear there was no emergency relief valve. Jim and the people from NASA “performed a quick evacuation” of the room Later when they opened the reactor, clouds of steam filled the room. Yet Rossi continued to assert that it had been working correctly.

     Rossi has made other drastic mistakes. I have dealt with the people at I.H., and they seem smarter and more careful. So I suppose they are right, and Rossi is wrong.

     You can also apply some common sense metrics to the claim, based on what is revealed in the press release and court filings. The address of the test facility is revealed. You can see a Google street view of the building. It is a typical small industrial building subdivided into several office/warehouse spaces with loading docks in back. The customer is listed; it is a chemical distribution warehouse.

     According to Rossi, the machine is producing roughly 1 MW of steam. Suppose the customer were running a dry cleaner. You know how big a typical dry cleaning store is, right? A typical dry cleaner store steam generator is ~10 kW. See:

     http://www.reimersinc.com/steam-boilers-garment

     Do you think they can fit 100 dry cleaning machines in a space like that? What would happen to the operators? They would be killed from the heat. Take any industrial use for 1 MW of process steam or process heat, and you will see that it cannot fit into warehouse/office spaces of this size.

     Also, what is a chemical distribution warehouse doing with enough steam to operate 100 dry cleaning stores?

     Conclusion: Perhaps there is excess anomalous heat, but it cannot be 1 MW. We can rule that out. Penon made a drastic mistake computing that much.

119. Basically what I am saying is that we need to think like detectives or like we’re piecing together a puzzle in which some of the pieces are definitely real and some pieces may be fake. All of the real pieces need to fit together. If a piece doesn’t fit with the pieces we already know to be real, then that either that piece is fake or we just haven’t figured out yet how to make it fit with the real pieces. Examples of pieces of the puzzle that we know to be real so far are 1) that Woodford invested $50 million in IH during 2015, as verified in their funds’ financials, and 2) that a senior engineer working on the 1-year test, who worked closely with Rossi and was under contract with IH, did an interview with Mats in November in which he claimed that the test was on track and producing good results.

120. @ Peter Ekstrom, you wrote:
     – “Rossi is bluffing and he’s got nothing with COP>1. What he does have is a clever scam to fool some people with more money than sense.”

     Yes, this is a big bluff, and COP has never been overunity, but let me say that IMO it’s not a Rossi’s scam, and nobody is going to defraud nobody else. I am not able to see any specific criminal intention in the ecat’s story. I would call it: “An Impossible Scam”.

     The possible perspective from which this saga could be seen, emerge from the interview to Fulvio Fabiani, published by Lewan (1). Here are some revealing quotes:

     – “He [Rossi] reminds you of the scientist from ‘Back to the Future’.”
     – “We have photographs of creatures that emit pure light”
     – “the reaction has almost behaviors as of living matter,”
     – “Did you see Blade Runner? The quote at the end, ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe’.”
     – “I have always been a lover of science fiction, and yet I was never able to believe that the famous star ships you see in the movies would become possible”

     It seems to me that the key for correctly interpreting the ecat affair is … Hollywood! I think that this perspective give a sense to many, probably most, apparent incongruities we saw every day, especially in the last legal dispute, which is hard to take as spontaneous and genuine.

     In such a case, we all are following since few years nothing but a movie, whose set is the web in the world. Rossi, the star of this movie, has been selected to interpret the role of the savior of the human kind, and he is probably destined, sooner or later, to became in the common imaginary the Nikola Tesla of 21st century.

     People needs such heroes, and will need it even more in the future, as soon as the tensions in the energy market will grow. Someone could have thought that it was a good way for controlling the social panic, in order to better manage the imminent energy crisis. I’m not sure it’s a good idea, as it risks to delay the unpopular and tough decisions that should be taken asap in order to mitigate the consequences of the incumbent energy shortages.

     My two lire.

     (1) “https://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/11/25/rossis-engineer-i-have-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt-believe/”

121. Jed, thank you for your insights, but some things don’t make sense. You wrote that “What I do know is that the people at I.H. are much better at calorimetry than Rossi is. Sight unseen, I am confident that I.H. is right, and Rossi is wrong.” OK, but then why did it take IH so long to figure out that the 1-year test was not working? Why did they take people from Woodford there to visit the plant and show them that it was working? Woodford put in $50 million into an illiquid, private investment and would likely have asked IH questioned IH at length regarding the test and test procedures, and it seems unlikely that IH would have brought them there – or that they would have been able to answer Woodford’s questions in a satisfactory manner – if they hadn’t done testing on the device and were not knowledgeable about, and confident in, the test methodology and results.

     Also, why did Fulvio Fabiani agree to an interview with Mats in November (see https://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/11/25/rossis-engineer-i-have-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt-believe/) and talk about how great things were going, even though he was himself affiliated with IH? He says “Until now the test is in line with the result that we expected.” Rossi says in his court filings that Fabiani was being paid by IH, and Fabiani himself states in the interview that, with respect to his role, “I am bound by an agreement with Industrial Heat, and I’m available for Rossi to be his right arm. I cannot give any more details due to an NDA.” If IH was unhappy with how the test was going, then why would Fabiani be blissfully unaware of their concerns? Wouldn’t that reflect a rather bizarre lack of communication on the part of IH? What would you attribute that lack of communication to? It’s not as if Fabiani was some random junior-level staffer; he is a central figure in the test, according to the way he described his role – or are you assuming that he is lying in that interview, for some reason? What reason could he possibly have for giving a public interview in which he is lying, when he could have easily just declined the interview?

     I do not mean to imply that I don’t believe you, it’s just that what you say has certain implications that do not make much sense, so if we are to assume that what you say is correct, then that means there were some other very strange things happening that seem very hard to explain. What is frustrating about this is that people such as yourself and Thomas are quick to take the side of IH and claim that Rossi is basically lying, but I have yet to see anyone lay out a credible explanation – a plausible narrative or scenario – for the chain of events that we have seen over the past year that is consistent with this thesis. Such an explanation / scenario / narrative should include answers to the questions I posted above.

     In short, for any theories regarding the current dispute between IH and Rossi to be credible, such theories ought to be consistent with the events that have taken place over the past year. Your contention / theory may in fact turn out to be the correct one, and if your contacts are providing you with reliable information (rather than just “spin” that is intended to discredit Rossi), then of course that lends credibility to what you are saying, but 1) we need to view your contention / theory in the context of everything else, it needs to fit with reality, and 2) I hope that you are taking into consideration the possibility that you might be getting fed deceptive, one-sided, or even outright incorrect information given that IH would have an incentive at this point to try to discredit Rossi, partly as a result of the lawsuit, and partly because they he might be a competitor to IH (or partner with a competitor to IH), so they would want to make it harder for him to raise capital or partner with other firms.

122. I think they they should both A.R and T.D
     in jail and in the same cell until they
     agree in a better contract.Testing,
     payments of money,working together
     in good faith etc.
     Thinking about who invented the
     Ecat and who financed it to get it this far.

123. There is some confusion here, which is partly my fault. I did not mean there were two official ERV reports. I meant only that I.H. made their own observations and came to their own conclusions, which they wrote up in their own internal report. They disagree with Penon’s ERV report. That’s what they say.

     Some people have asserted that they must pay because they agreed beforehand they would pay if the ERV is positive. That is not how business contracts work. If that were the case, Penon could issue a two sentence report and demand the money:

     “I hereby certify that this reactor produces anomalous heat with a COP exceeding 6. Please remit $89 million.”

     That is an absurd example, But my point is, in a dispute of this nature, judges use common sense. They would not compel a company to pay per a contractual agreement on the basis of a report, if expert witnesses say the report is wrong. If it comes to trial, the judge or jury will have to decide whether the Penon report has merit. That is, whether most experts agree it is correct, or whether they would agree with I.H. that it is wrong. I suppose it will be one expert witness versus another.

     We cannot judge, because we do not have access to the report. What I do know is that the people at I.H. are much better at calorimetry than Rossi is. Sight unseen, I am confident that I.H. is right, and Rossi is wrong.

     Some people here have asserted it is not possible or not likely anyone would make a mistake on this scale. I disagree. You can make stupid mistakes in calorimetry just as easily on the megawatt scale as you can on the small scale. Some of Rossi’s kilowatt scale tests were obviously wrong. Levi et al. screwed up on the kilowatt scale at Lugano. Everything Defkalion did on the kilowatt scale was a travesty, according to Gamberale.

     Actually, I think it is more likely you will screw up on the megawatt scale than you will from 1 to 100 W. Below 1 W it gets tricky. Above 100 W it gets dangerous and it starts to be difficult in some ways.

     Boilers sometimes explode because people make mistakes in megawatt-scale calorimetry. (That is not the only reason for accidents, but it is one.) The Three Mile Island accident was caused by a gigantic mistake in calorimetry that continued for many hours. The reactor retained much more heat and less cooling water than the instruments indicated. The instruments did not reveal there was a large valve stuck open. (Very large: the size of a person.) Both the instruments and the written plant management procedures were at fault. That same mistake was made in other plants of this design on 3 or 4 occasions previously. These incidents did not result in a catastrophic melt down because the other reactors were not at full power.

124. “But ask yourself this. How could IH ‘not care’ when they laid out $1!.5M to build the long test machine and to secure Rossi’s attention? ”

     Well it is all speculative but since you ask… If I were IH a year long test requiring attendance in a shipping crate would have no value and be a distraction from the serious business of testing and characterising and the optimising the design of e-cats. Until they had got at least one e-cat to work reliably they would be very uninterested in the long-term test. Remember their sources say the long-term test and $89m payment was Rossi’s idea, not theirs.

     They laid out 11.5M because they thought it would get them the ability to make working e-cats. But it did not, once they realised working is not the same as seeming to work under Rossi’s test protocols, they turned dark on Rossi.

125. @Martin
     I agree it is a coincidence. When Rossi started talking about another e-cat I thought this was a distraction to cover up the current one not working and justify more time before having a real product. The fact that his new one is wonderful in vague ways is just what had to be. And remember there is no requirement for Rossi to act rationally…

     I can believe that happened around the time Rossi realised that IH were not buying his e-cats? So I’m with your (4), if you replace not working well by not working at all.

     (4) requires Rossi to be weird. The others require Darden and Vaughn to be weird. Guess which I think more likely based on history?

126. “(1) According to the ‘guest’ sources IH did not care about the long-term test, maybe they did not pay any attention initially.”

     Well, he should know. But ask yourself this. How could IH ‘not care’ when they laid out $1!.5M to build the long test machine and to secure Rossi’s attention? I am sure that IH visited the test site pretty often during the run -and who knows who they brought to see it – Woodford we know about, but what about the Chinese with their pot of gold, and perhaps the Gulf Arabs too.

     And did none of these visitors (or IH) ever go see where the steam was being used, and talk to the guy who was paying IH $1000 per diem? Or did they just say – ‘no, you cant see inside the gold mine today, but it’s all perfect, just trust this little guy in the tin box’.

     ,

127. It is an interesting coincidence (or perhaps not a coincidence?) that IH acted as though they believed in the E-Cat and believed the test was working until right around the time that Rossi started mentioning on his blog that he had developed a new technology that he was calling the Quark-X that could produce electricity directly using LENR, thereby rendering the E-Cat potentially obsolete, or at least much less valuable than before. There are a few possibilities, with #1 and #2 being the most obvious, but #3 and #4 also being plausible scenarios that have not been discussed here previously (although #4 seems less plausible, but it is the only scenario consistent with the skeptic view that Rossi is lying).

     1) Coincidence – IH decided independently of the Quark-X development that it didn’t want to pay Rossi the $89 million because he was uncooperative, hard to work with, didn’t give them enough help for them to recreate high-COP E-Cats that worked consistently and reliably, and/or because they determined that they no longer needed him and could develop the technology on their own and with other partners who were more pleasant and easier to work with. To avoid paying him, they needed to discredit him and the test. The fact that this happened right after Rossi revealed his Quark-X discovery may have been just a coincidence (albeit a highly suspicious one).

     2) No coincidence – IH decided that if Rossi has a new, more advanced technology that he is not sharing with them that renders the E-Cat much less valuable, then they need to find a way to avoid paying him $89 million for the E-Cat. The Quark-X development may have been “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” so to speak, as IH may have also been frustrated with Rossi for the reasons sited in (1) above.

     3) No coincidence – After Rossi realized he was going to be able to produce electricity, not just heat, using LENR, he spoke to his lawyers about his agreement with IH and realized he had given away too many rights for too little money. He wanted to get out of the agreement. He started sabotaging his relationship with IH, treating them poorly, and not helping them with anything in the hopes that they would want to break the agreement. As Rossi hoped, IH failed to make its $89 million payment. In order to avoid getting accused of breaching the contract himself, he decided it would be a prudent move to sue them first. He realized that by suing them, if he lost, he could then argue that the contract was null and void at that point, whereas if he won, then he not only gets $89 million but he also gets positive publicity for himself and for the E-Cat. Either of these scenarios would be better than what he would get if he didn’t sue.

     4) No coincidence – IH discovered that Rossi’s test was actually not working nearly as well as had been previously believed, and that there were serious flaws in the energy measurements; Rossi then went into a panic and started making things up, concocting the whole Quark-X story, hoping to delay being discredited and disgraced, and hoping that during the time period of the delay, he might be able to make some real advances and discoveries that would allow him to vindicate himself. Under this scenario, though, it is unclear why Rossi would invent the Quark-X story, since by doing so, he effectively set an even higher bar for himself than before, and if he was struggling to meet the previous bar (a COP of at least 3-6 on the E-Cat itself, for heat generation), then why would he want to set an even higher bar for himself and declare publicly that he had achieved that bar even though he hadn’t?

128. @Martin

     Well IH are now saying (informally via Jed) that the long-term test definitely did not work.

     One more thing. The COP=50 boast – even from Penon – is probably wrong. Seems more likely transient COP > 50 during SSM, much lower otherwise. Just a guess…

     What I can’t guess is why the IH observers don’t believe Penon’s calculations. Too many options to speculate!

129. Thanks Thomas…..your point (4) is conceivable….regarding (1), (2) and (3), well, I would contend that during at least the first half of the test (and very likely at least until November, given the interview that I mentioned that Mats did at that time with an IH-affiliated engineer), IH believed the test was showing a meaningful amount of excess heat because it is a matter of public record that IH accepted in excess of $50 million of investment from an investment manager called Woodford (as disclosed in the financials of Woodford’s funds), and it is highly unlikely that this would have occurred if the test was not working reasonably well. According to Rossi, Woodford visited the plant to observe the test, which is very credible since one would expect them to do that prior to investing $50 million in a small unknown private company (which is very different from investing $50 million in General Electric or IBM). So we can be fairly certain that IH was using the test – using Rossi’s working plant – as part of its investment pitch to Woodford, and since IH and in particular Thomas Darden would not want to get sued for fraud by Woodford, we can also be fairly certain that they believed the test was working, although as you point out, it is possible that something might have changed that belief at some point. I still think the line of reasoning that I laid out below seems a lot more plausible, however, but we can agree to disagree on that.

130. “The chief engineer for the test, Rossi’s senior assistant, was also interviewed by Mats in November of 2015 and indicated there was a lot of excess heat being produced, and at the time, he was either employed by IH or working for them on a consultant basis”

     So that pushes in the direction of (4). But I feel all this speculation is unsafe.

131. @Martin

     I don’t think you can assume Penon is a well qualified (in the sense of abilty) person to evaluate this test. The bad deficiencies in they one public report from him we have align with the info from Jed.

     All that is needed for a X50 difference is some artifact, TC siting etc, which invalidates the data and is not considered by Penon.

     You have no evidence for your assumption that IH did not notice errors. And if they noticed errors, we cannot know when they did that.

     (1) According to the ‘guest’ sources IH did not care about the long-term test, maybe they did not pay any attention initially.
     (2) we know nothing about what their observer thinks except what Jed says, for what that is worth.
     (3) If the long-term test was bad, that does not invalidate investment, or hope, based on other tests.
     (4) to add uncertainty, maybe there was some issue in the long-term test not initially considered which when analysed showed the results were not safe. So the IH observer’s view of the test might change, and IH could become less optimistic.

     In support of (4) if they started to distrust the other tests it would perhaps only at that point make sense for them to look again at the long-term test conditions.

     The test data we have now is real and can be evaluated. All the speculation about who knew what when based on assumptions about what they would or would not do is IMHO unsafe. So all of (1) – (4) are speculative, and obviously not all true, but they show that your assumption (even more speculative) cannot safely be made.

132. Thanks Ascoli,

     3.3l/h means 12 litres or so for the 3.5 h SSM period which is nicely in the plausible range. Given it is a vent wet steam would I think be expected.

133. Thomas, re your comment that: “If he screwed up then the real COP could be anything including the probable 1. Jed’s point was that Penon was very far from a credible expert. You cannot say, well it is still not likely he made more than an OOM mistake…” [where “he” = Penon and “OOM” = order of magnitude]

     I suppose this might be theoretically possible, I just find it incredibly unlikely given the combination of events we’ve seen unfold. You are proposing a number of things. First, that an experienced physicist would determine that something is producing 50x extra energy – for 350 days – when in fact it’s not producing extra energy at all. Then other other observers fail to catch on for several months. IH had its own observers there. The test started in February of 2015 and at least as of last summer and I believe last fall, IH was bringing investors to the plant and raising money on the basis that the E-Cat was generating meaningful excess energy. IH would not do this unless they were pretty confident, since IH and Darden could be sued for fraud by the outside investors (Woodford and the Chinese investor), who both also failed to properly verify that any excess energy was really being produced, despite investing over $50 million (Woodford) and supposedly over $200 million (the Chinese – although I haven’t seen this verified).

     You are basically proposing that everyone was tricked into believing there was massive excess energy being produced for many months when in fact there was none. The chief engineer for the test, Rossi’s senior assistant, was also interviewed by Mats in November of 2015 and indicated there was a lot of excess heat being produced, and at the time, he was either employed by IH or working for them on a consultant basis, so he would have presumably told them what he was seeing, and they would presumably have told him if they disagreed or felt that there was a mistake being made. Of course, it’s conceivable that he might have been lying, but it’s not clear why he would risk his career and reputation to cover up a fraud. Certainly if this were a fraud (as it would be if there was a COP of 1, or really any COP below 2 or 3), then one would think that this man would never have done that interview with Mats in November, 9 months into the 1-year test.

     Then you are proposing that at some later date, after having been fooled for a long time, IH suddenly figures out, somehow, that they made a mistake and that excess heat is not being produced. Given the November interview that I just mentioned, it seems likely that this discovery would not have taken place until after that – so, sometime during mid-November though early February, during the last 3 months of the test.

     I find this sequence of events to be barely plausible, albeit maybe theoretically possible. Your ideas require a lot of strange and unusual assumptions, and therefore seem a bit far-fetched. These ideas and assumptions are not needed to explain the current dispute between IH and Rossi, it can easily be explained just based on everything else we know:

     One thing that we know happened during the last 3 months of the test is that Rossi started making comments about the Quark-X, then on Dec 27, he said he had finally succeeded in using LENR to make electricity directly from the Quark-X. Of course, this was in his own lab, and by his own words, he was not letting anyone else into that lab. He was not sharing his new-found results with IH, although these results would make the E-Cat somewhat obsolete and less valuable. We also know that Rossi had been displeased with IH ever since 2014 because they failed to start the 1-year test after he sent them the E-Cat in 2013, they started filing their own patents on E-Cat technology, and they invested in his competitors. We can infer that since Rossi was displeased with IH, so it is possible (and quite likely, given that his personality seems a bit temperamental) that he might not have treated them as respectfully as he otherwise would have, in addition to not sharing his latest technological advancements with them. In light of all of this, it is not surprising that IH would have wanted to resist paying Rossi $89 million, and that they would have had an increased motivation to avoid paying him in light of the developments that took place during the last 3 months of the test, when Rossi revealed that he had developed new technology (the Quark-X) that is superior to the E-Cat. Therefore, although we cannot possibly be privy to all of the details, the fact that there is a conflict between Rossi and IH is nothing mysterious. Explaining it doesn’t require the whole slew of assumptions that you are making, assumptions that involve massive carelessness and incompetence on the part of a wide range of experienced professionals.

134. @ Thomas Clarke,
     – “no more than 20 litres could be poured in and boiled off as wet steam. Worst case 4 litres assuming the vented water was all dry steam.”

     In one of his messages on JoNP (1), Rossi wrote that the volume free for the water was about 30 L (liters). In another one (2), he said that the water remained in the ecat at the end of the October 6 test was 20 L. They are rounded numbers, so probably the right value is in between. In my model, the free volume was 22.75 L.

     Rossi also wrote, that the pump flow rate was 15 L/h. For sure, this datum is heavily wrong, because the maximum flow rate of the pump was 12 L/h, as reported by Lewan. Instead, the best estimate for the primary flow rate was 3.3 L/h, corresponding to the 0.91 g/s measured by Lewan at 18:57. At that time, assuming that the pump was turned on at 10:42 (the first time in the Lewan’s spread sheet), the total water poured into the fat-cat was 26,4 L. In the model, I assumed that the pump flow rate was a little higher (1.1 g/s) for the first 5 h, so that the fat-cat reservoir could have been completely filled by water at the time Lewan measured the output flow, taking also into consideration a mass of 5,3 kg vented out as dry steam.

     In any case, most of the water pumped in the fat-cat during the October 6 test did not escape as steam.

     (1) “http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=510&cpage=21#comment-95021”
     (2) “http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=516&cpage=1#comment-93550”

135. In any event, there have been enough LENR replication reports now from sources all around the globe that it would seem to be quite naive for anyone to still doubt that LENR can be used to produce excess heat. Surely there are countless scientific and technical questions that remain, as well as many big-picture ones. Some of the big-picture questions that remain are things like the ones below:

     1) what are the obstacles or problems preventing high sustained and reliable COP,
     2) what level of COP can be produced in a sustained and reliable manner,
     3) what’s required to run and control the reactions in a sustained and reliable manner,
     4) which researchers are furthest along in their efforts,
     5) how fast can LENR devices be powered up and turned off, and what’s required for this,
     6) what’s it going to take to commercialize this technology,
     7) who is closest to commercialization and what’s needed for them to do it,
     8) what are the most likely near-term and medium-term applications,
     9) what are the economic and societal implications of commercialization, and
     10) is Rossi really far ahead of everyone else and how far along is he really?

     Part of the reason we don’t have more answers to these questions is most likely that some – perhaps many – or those currently researching LENR are keeping certain info to themselves. That is understandable and to be expected, unfortunately, for competitive and legal reasons, and to avoid the sort of scrutiny and negative criticism that Rossi is facing. Nevertheless, I have read that IH has patented a device they claimed in the patent could reach a COP of 10 or 11, I believe (although I haven’t read the patent), so it seems that exciting things are happening in the field apart from this interesting but unfortunate IH-Rossi dispute.

     Hopefully at least some of the above questions (and others) will be addressed this June at the conference that Mats is organizing, unless he decides to postpone it, which would be understandable and appropriate if he can’t get enough good speakers or if he determines that most speakers are going to keep too much of their knowledge confidential. (On the other hand, I imagine Mats also would be happy if he could play a role in helping to move the field forward, and getting interested parties together at a summer conference in Stockholm might be beneficial not only for information-sharing but also for networking purposes, which would argue in favor of having the conference, although of course there should be at least a reasonable amount of good information shared by the speakers, even if they keep certain things private.)

     The main topic of the dialogue on this particular page is largely question #10 above (and #2, with respect to Rossi and IH), which is understandable since Rossi is the most open and communicative of the LENR researchers, but I look forward to seeing more written about the other questions as well. Focusing too much on just question #10 on the above list may not be the best way to learn more about LENR or to facilitate further LENR progress.

136. “Even if he really screwed up and was off by an order of magnitude and the COP was only 5 instead of 50, that would still make the E-Cat a unique, worthwhile and valuable innovation.”

     It does not really work like that. If he screwed up then the real COP could be anything including the probable 1.

     Jed’s point was that Penon was very far from a credible expert. You cannot say, well it is still not likely he made more than an OOM mistake….

137. Regarding Jed’s comments about Penon’s ERV report, I would note that with a stated COP of over 50 on average for over 350 days, he could be off by 80-90% and it would still be a very impressive – indeed, groundbreaking – accomplishment. So, even if he made some measurement mistakes or cut some corners and didn’t measure the heat output perfectly accurately, that would not fundamentally change the results, and even if he really screwed up and was off by an order of magnitude and the COP was only 5 instead of 50, that would still make the E-Cat a unique, worthwhile and valuable innovation. And Rossi claims he has a new and superior device, the Quark-X, capable of producing electricity directly. If the Quark-X is sufficiently superior to the E-Cat, then it doesn’t much matter if the true COP of the E-Cat is 5 or 50.

138. Regarding the ERV report by Penon, it is extremely likely that the Penon’s contract with IH and Leonardo included a non-disclosure clause such that the report cannot be released unless both IH and Leonardo agree to its release. Rossi has said that Penon was paid 50-50 by IH and Leonardo, so Penon’s contract would have been with both IH and Leonardo, and it would have made sense commercially for IH to want to include a non-disclosure clause. That is why Rossi said he can only release it after he gets permission from his lawyer – which, in practice, means after it becomes a required filing as part of the court proceeding – and that probably doesn’t happen until the court requests to see it. IH has to file a response by April 26. If the ERV report is a major part of their response, then the court might request it at that time; if the ERV report plays only a minor role in IH’s response, then the court might not ask for it until it becomes a subject of debate during the trial. Even when the court asks for it, if IH requests that it remain confidential rather than public, it is possible that the court might agree to that and then it would not get posted anywhere, in which case we may never see the ERV report, although Rossi (presumably based on consultations with his lawyer) does not seem to believe the court would keep it private after it gets filed with the court, since Rossi has said that the ERV report will be shown publicly, but Rossi could be mistaken on this. I don’t know the details of Florida law with respect to the circumstances under which courts can mark documents as confidential or classified, but I would think they could do so under some circumstances.

139. @timar

     Thanks for that. Jed’s comments (very selected)

     Of Penon: “He is a certified nitwit.”

     Of the Penon Report: not sure it will be released since would be embarrassing for Rossi

     Of the ERV: there are two ERVs (or which Penon is one) , with very different reports.

     I’m paraphrasing the last two comments.

140. [quote]Rossi and Penon being either fraudsters or as in your case merely as fundamentally incompetent that it combined with other facts surely implies fraud (without putting all your ass in the fire).[/quote]

     Technical incompetence is common. There are specific reasons why Rossi’s tests and claims are difficult for individuals to analyse, they require multiple competences. The issues about bad test methodology are uncontroversial and agreed by all. I have never thought Penon or the Lugano testers are dishonest.

     The Lugano testers have shown poor academic style by not acknowledging in any way a published refutation that invalidates their work and was privately sent to them for comment before publication. But maybe they are under undisclosed conditions that prevent that – I don’t know. They have no compulsion to answer criticism, however severe.

     Penon has authored a report with gross errors, both technical and methodological. It is not competent. I have some sympathy because of the fact that in these tests, to detect many of the problems that crop up, an alert tester with multiple competences is needed. But there are standard protocols when testing which any competent individual would follow and which Penon has not in the case of his publicised report.

     I stand by my (technical) revision of the Lugano results which was made a year ago and published on lenr canr 6 months ago, long before this quarrel between Rossi and IH. Of course there may be errors in my calculations, but the underlying mistake is very clear, and the results are to some extent self-validating as I’ve explained. I guess that report is the only thing I’m saying that is in any way controversial:

     Click to access ClarkeTcommentont.pdf

     Jed will confirm that I did not push for that report to be publicised – he asked to put it there.

     Rossi’s other public tests are nearly all equally bad – if more obviously so.

141. @ThomasClarke “Rossi is calling them fraudulent liars. If you support him, you are endorsing that view which is bad for their reputation.”

     Well, Rossi is doing it in the form of a complaint, which is the correct way to do it. Huge difference. As I said, I don’t believe neither of them are lying, but merely leaving stuff out. There are however many commentators stating with enormous certainty Rossi and Penon being either fraudsters or as in your case merely as fundamentally incompetent that it combined with other facts surely implies fraud (without putting all your ass in the fire).

142. Timar, I’m in contact with Jed and I’m listening carefully to what he says. I don’t have the information he has though, and neither have I seen the report. However, even though Rossi earlier said the report would be made public shortly, it has not yet been made public. I don’t know why. I thought it could be filed together with the other documents in the lawsuit.

143. Since yesterday, Jed Rothwell wrote a series of posts on vortex-l that are quite damning of Rossi and Penon. Moreover, he claims to have inside information not available to Mats that lets him come to this conclusion. Mats, as Jed is considered a trusted and well respected voice and an appointed speaker on your planned conference, could you comment on this, particularly the “new developments” he is talking about. Have you received any new information since Monday that throws a bad light on Rossi and reinforces IH’s stance? If not, why wouldn’t share Jed his sources with Mats?

     “Jed Rothwell, Wed, 13 Apr 2016 06:30:10 -0700

     Ask him why he will not release the Penon report. He will give some sort of
     bullshit answer I expect. The real reason is because the report makes him
     look like a fool.

     I do not know if there is another complete report, but I do know that the
     I.H. observer disagrees with the Penon report, for good reasons.

     – Jed”

     https://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg109293.html

     “Jed Rothwell, Tue, 12 Apr 2016 18:27:58 -0700

     a.ashfield wrote:

     You also say you know from secret sources that the report is worthless and
     > that you have been talking to Mats. So presumably he knows the report is
     > valueless too.

     No, he does not know that. Perhaps he has not talked to my sources, or
     perhaps he does not believe them, but as of yesterday he did not know the
     report is valueless. He was still waiting to see it. You can ask him to
     confirm that. There may be new developments, after all.

     As I said, we have slipped past several previous deadlines he set.

     It is possible I am being misled, but I doubt it. I do not think much of
     Penon’s 2012 work. I already gave my reasons.

     – Jed”

     https://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg109277.html

144. Mats,

     I’ve found the analyses of the Oct 6 2011 test fascinating. I’ve now read and considered rothwell, Higgins, and Roberson. I’ve posted a detailed meta-analysis of their respective arguments on lenr forum:
     https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/3005-Mats-Lewan-s-Test-Report/?postID=17067#post17067

     I can half see why you are so convinced. You have detailed technical arguments some of which claim this is absolute proof of LENR. I find to make sense of a maze like this you need first to analyse the detailed arguments, then to stand back and see what you’ve got. I’ve done that.

     The thing you did not have when considering these is ascoli’s (and implicitly mine, but he has thought about it more than me) “hot core” model. I’m sure, for example:

     Jed would now agree this model answered his “this must be LENR” points
     Higgins would now agree the TC measurements were unsafe
     Roberson would now agree that a heating element loosely coupled from a hot core and the primary circuit, which he did not consider, could explain the T2 temperature graph that puzzled him.

     I’m not sure any of these would change their view, since they all seem to be convinced for reasons outside this experiment that LENR in this case is likely. But they would all I think have to agree that the evidence from this one test just does not exist.

     I am continually impressed by how impressive Rossi’s flawed experiments are! The continuously boiling reactor for 3.5 hours of self-sustained operation is a classic example of this.

145. @sifferkoll

     I’ve never claimed to understand the legal arguments, and have explicitly stated that I’m not competent to do so. like most others here I guess.

     As far as business arguments I’d say my experience is broad enough to have a decent view, like many, but not expert. Both my mother and father were board-level managers in manufacturing business (one quite large, one a startup that grew medium) and brought business issues home.

     My point that you quote was neither legal nor business. It was about reputation – important to IH and to LENR (of which IH is the strongest private supporter I know). Rossi is calling them fraudulent liars. If you support him, you are endorsing that view which is bad for their reputation.

     You need neither business nor legal expertise to see that. Sorry I did not make it more clear. And as far as reputation goes legalistic arguments that allow something in between “fraudulent” and “not fraudulent” will not help.

     Since that was your one contribution which you use to justify the (continued, after my apology) insults – I think crypto-denialist implies that I’m dishonest? – perhaps now that I’ve explained you are off-beam you’d like to apologise?

     I think by the way you are also cherry-picking. Suppose I was arguing legal or business matters outside my competence? That is only what 80% of the posters on ECW and here have done!

146. @ThomasClarke

     “Sifferkoll has claimed recently that both Rossi and IH could be telling the truth. That does not help – if Rossi is telling the truth then IH are fraudulent: it is an accusation that cannot be brushed under the carpet, and should not be accepted even provisionally without serious evidence.”

     See. This is what I mean. Your problem is that you can not see this from the business/legal perspective. The answer is not binary. Rossi has filed a complaint from his perspective (not too uncommon in business…). It’s up to the judge/jury to descide (or the parties in a settlement) if hos complaint has merit. So far IH has not denied anything in particular (except for the substantiate word); only that they do not agree with the complaint; which could be considered a standard lawyerBot answer.

     Further you say

     “Did you have any substantive comment on the matter of this thread?
     Because your last comment was I think an ad hominem argument with no content.
     I notice you have recently written on your blog about this matter: “Now everyone is in fighting mode. Ad-hominem arguments are flooding the forums. “. Is that not hypocritical?
     I do not ask you, or anyone else, for their credentials in this debate. Nor have I ever claimed credentials myself. (I’ve stated I have a decent technical background – but so do many – and I validate that on my ability to understand and provide technical analysis).”

     At least I’m telling you in person that I believe you lack the knowledge to analyze this affair since you obviously try to analyse business and legal affairs with technical tools (of which I supplied an exhibit). Probably you suffer from the “if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” syndrome … Or, maybe you are trying to move focus from the current issues to old minor ones. (a typical cryptodenialist strategy for that matter).

     So I believe I addes something important to this discussion. Yes.

147. @sifferkoll, He left out “internet troll” from his bio but yes that’s Tom.

148. I think Rossi wants the doubts. He only demonstrates small COP on purpose. If he was to convince the most skeptic of skeptics, there would be a rush to commercialize. As long as skeptics keep his invention out of the world’s eye, Rossi has time to commercialize without having to look over his shoulder. So until he gets products, he will always allow the skeptics their ammunition. The skeptics are working for Rossi in his mind. Good work skeptics, help keep the world from getting involved. Which explains why IH is unhappy. And it explains clause 13.1 of the contract between Rossi and IH.

149. @Thomas Clarke I agree with you that maybe excessive posting here does not help anybody. Most of your actual points are valid or at least many can agree with. So no harms caused, but maybe ‘beaming up this tree’ has gone few years ago. Those tests and their details have already been argued and many inconsistencies detected already back then.

     Final truth can not come out from ‘documents’ or even numerous ‘tests’ or ‘replications’ if not independently and numerously verified. That is why I personally think that we should concentrate more on following actual events happening at the moment (Like Rossis court case and IH responses and real actions, Cherokee funding crisis etc.).

     That does not take away need of work that for example @sifferkoll and I also am interested on. Meaning trying spot trolls who are trying to mix stuff because of interests of big players. Google ‘Black Swan’ and if article is related to Oil business, there is typically no mention of #LENR. Should big international oil consulting companies and banks be smart enough to list it as one BlackSwan alternative even as ‘non propable’ instead of some local crisis in Nigeria or where ever? Coincidence? One may try to speculate but not know for sure, since maybe the just want to keep Energy gigalomeres far away from these speculations to avoid unnecessary fuss.
     With better insight of other topics, for me it was fairly easy to spot members of paid group of <100 'Putin trolls' in reader comments under global news paper articles, many youtube videos and so on. But these guys, if exists, are bit better paid and professionals, and sometimes it is more important 'what is not said', to make people to look wrong direction. I don't want to spread the fuss either at this point.

     Additionally most important thing for community, again in my opinion, is to make sure that real truths sees daylight, whatever it may be. So Rossi&IH settling case outside a court room and things to disappear after that would be bad sign. Rossi winning court case does prove only that he managed to fullfill agreement according to 'documents' which court have accepted, but that is not either guarantee of e-cat being real.

     New independent testing is not solution either, because cryptodenialists and trolls would have something to question anyway as Rossi very well predicted in Jan 2011, when he was reluctant to arrange demo, but wanted to do last service to Levi who had given him so much (Levi was known being terminally ill then).

     All that said all speculation on _current status_, latest developments, theories and future prediction is more than welcome to keep people interested. And as I would like to see, solve this most important puzzle for human kind, using 'community approach' like 'MFMP' and 'me356' is doing. That would release many people from poverty, wars and childhood deaths, CO2 crisis etc. Change simply to big to ignore based on 'Rossis reputation', 'gut feeling', 'errors in details' or 'misinformation circling around'.

     PS. Look what 'community approach' and 'open source' achieved when mighty Microsoft was publicly trying to kill Linux over 20 years (=they are now using it in their cloud services and declared 'loving it).

150. Martin T
     “What could his motivation be for continuing this fraud? What motivation could he have for filing court documents in which he is lying? Surely if he is lying and his technology doesn’t work, then he will not be able to win his court case (which he might not win even if he is not lying, since he may be in breach of his contract with IH, so they might not have to pay him even if his technology works).”
     Money, money, money.

     Since Rossi does not have anything that works, his only option is to sue IH. The court will not decide if E-Cat works or not, it will only rule on what the agreement says. So it comes down to how clever Rossi was when he negotiated the agreement.

151. Dear all, i think I’d better stop posting here – I’m suffering a distinct loss of sense of humour – apologise to you all for that and Sifferkoll especially – the tone of my reply to your ad hom was too po-faced even by my standards.

152. The October 6 test that convinced Mats.

     Mats – Jed’s argument about the water poured in. Do you remember the total volume of water poured in during SSM?

     ascoli’s assumptions on mass and temperature of the internal heated element would I think mean (unless the calculations below are wrong) that no more than 20 litres could be poured in and boiled off as wet steam. Worst case 4 litres assuming the vented water was all dry steam.

     There is some wriggle room here due to approximations.

     Do you need the issue of the water temp vs TC temp to be examined further? Jed I note considered that unsafe, though Bob Higgins did not. Jed has more experience of calorimetry.

153. @sifferkoll

     Did you have any substantive comment on the matter of this thread?

     Because your last comment was I think an ad hominem argument with no content.

     I notice you have recently written on your blog about this matter: “Now everyone is in fighting mode. Ad-hominem arguments are flooding the forums. “. Is that not hypocritical?

     I do not ask you, or anyone else, for their credentials in this debate. Nor have I ever claimed credentials myself. (I’ve stated I have a decent technical background – but so do many – and I validate that on my ability to understand and provide technical analysis).

     In fact you will see that when I criticise the Rossi testers as I have below it is on the basis of the mistakes in their test reports, not their credentials. In the case of the testers the errors are very obvious in the reports – you don’t need technical credentials to see them. (The Lugano miscalculation is not obvious – but the lack of ‘at temperature’ controls – contrary to Optris camera “how to use” guidelines – that allowed it to pass unnoticed is obvious).

     Somone with a bit of paper saying they have passed a test exam will not necessarily be a competent tester.

     It is not that anyone in this story is – as far as I know – deliberately doing wrong. But the lack of rigorous an careful tests mean that the personal bias we all suffer (we are only human) can color both the results and their interpretation.

     As for my comments about Rossi. I do not like his approach to things – because he makes strong public claims, and then repeatedly does not allow them to be properly tested all the while claiming that they have been properly tested. That is fact, based on his actions, not an ad hom.

     He is recorded as lying about the real world use of his invention in 2010. It is true that people lie, and some people lie about their own achievements, but when someone claims miracle technology, and also is on the record as lying about the existence of this technology, it is only common sense to demand a very high standard of proof before accepting their future claims to have it. Especially when as Rossi they sign contracts with unusually large up-front payments.

     My point on this thread has been (technically – and thanks to ascoli for understanding the new to me Oct 6 informal test much better than I did) that the standard of proof available is very low. Superficially, the 5 formal publicised tests (3 formal reports) from Penon and the Swedes look impressive, and might be considered “high standard”. When examined closely they look very poor. Partly that is because the Lugano test which has an impressive write-up shows no excess heat when properly calculated.

     A single test with high integrity would be immensely useful to Rossi – opening the gates to high quality funding and partners. Rossi has had many chances to provide this (by tightening up an existing test) and has refused. The real question here is how that can possibly be if Rossi’s stuff actually works. Even COP = 1.5, substantiated, would be a very major technological revolution. (Even leaving out the technical argument that COP=1.5 could almost certainly be engineered into COP = infinity by suitable feedback).

     My other point (surely common-sense – not deep psychology) is that IH can rationally go ahead with the $11m payment because given very high rewards if real it was worth a bet to find out what Rossi had. That is what VCs do all the time. It is highly embarrassing that they so recently raised money on the strength of tests that they now cannot substantiate, but not improper. I’m sure the other investors were in the same position – and again you can see why rationally they might invest. A high risk gamble.

     In the current situation Rossi claims that Darden et al are liars and fraudulent. The basis on which he does this must include something I believe, for the reasons above, to be almost certainly untrue – that his claimed miracle technology works. It is just not rational to give Rossi the “benefit of the doubt” in this situation when his resistance towards rigorous tests of his device is known, and all the tests he has allowed are not rigorous. It is grossly unfair to IH to equivocate because that is hurting their reputation.

     IH are responding in a much calmer way. They do not claim Rossi is fraudulent (and you will see in the above that I do not do that either – it is neither relevant nor helpful). They simply say what they have not found.

     The disproportion in this matter is weighted so strongly that I can’t see Mats willingness to give credence to Rossi’s accusations of fraudulent behaviour from IH as rational. Fence-sitting is superficially always balanced, but where the evidence tilts strongly one way it is biased.

     Sifferkoll has claimed recently that both Rossi and IH could be telling the truth. That does not help – if Rossi is telling the truth then IH are fraudulent: it is an accusation that cannot be brushed under the carpet, and should not be accepted even provisionally without serious evidence.

154. @CimPy @ThomasClarke I have no problem with that – You are Trolls … 🙂 or actually I would call it cryptodenialists.

     And Tom, is this you? http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/tjwc/tom/ In that case it does not seem like you have a lot of credentials discussing legal and business matters the way you do. Or psychology/human behaviour …

155. Sam North asked ‘You have to wonder why I.H. Would not stipulated in the agreement that A.R
     would have to work with there people and show them the skills needed to get the Rossi effect.

     If there is no good will, then all the words in the world won’t help.

156. I have a question for those of you – including Thomas Clarke – who seem to believe Rossi is a fraud. What could his motivation be for continuing this fraud?

     In ANY kind of fraud where fraudster is well known , there is a constant effort of the cheater to keep on the game.
     It is not for fun or madness, it’s to keep/spend what has been stolen as long as it is possible, as – when game would be over – it will be all claimed back.

     Keeping game on and claiming it is truly working is the only option to avoid being searched by people with knives, to keep jail as far as possible and, in general, to be able to walk freely and safely around.

     Stopping the game, on the contrary, would mean all is over, those who loved you now would harm you, money and houses would be asked back and entering jail could be safer than remaining at home.

     As long as you’re able to keep on a doubt it could be real, you could always start a new scam even citing previous one as reference (see Petroldragon affaire….)
     If you should be recognized as a scammer by everyone, your market would be really hard to restart (but you might, as world is plenty of gullible people not even able to undersrand why a fraud must be kept on)

157. mats, sometimesposts do not go through. what is the procedure at your end – automatic or moderated? if moderated, what are the criteria for acceptance. best to you.

158. mats, after reading your report it appears that you were bamboozled by ar on the 6 oct 2011 test.

     most problematic
     incomplete energy balance analysis
     incomplete data
     apparent complete absence of impartiality and critical analysis
     misunderstandings of the implications of the ar apparatus design
     misunderstanding the meaning of physical effects like boiling vibrations
     to the degree that you have been misled into believing a horribly miscalculated gain.

     nothing different here, you were not the first of ar’s marks, and will probably not be the last. “there is a sucker born every minute”, or in the case of over-unity enery systems, every millisecond.

159. mats, it appears that you were simply another pawn in the ‘master fairy teller’s play’, just another who was again fully enamoured of and bamboozled by ar on the 6 oct 2011 test.

     although it seems probable you have good intentions, most problematic in your report are the incomplete energy balance analysis, incomplete data, apparent complete absence of impartiality and critical analysis, and fairly obvious misunderstandings of the ar apparatus and physical meaning of physical effects like boiling vibrations, all to the degree that you have misled yourself into believing a horribly miscalculated gain.

     in consolation, you were not the first of ar’s marks, and will probably not be the last. “there is a sucker born every minute”, or in the case of over-unity enery systems, every millisecond, as again evidenced here in this blog.

     a comment on the ip – looking at the patents and patents pending, all of the ip concerns apparatus best characterized as ‘water heaters’, and none represent any improvement on those we already have in masss production. it is difficult to see anyone sane or having a clue arguing over rights to a water heater design.

160. Another great post by Martin Tornberg. Thanks Martin.

     https://animpossibleinvention.com/2016/04/12/and-heres-the-opposite-hypothesis-on-the-rossi-ih-affair/#comment-4495

161. It could mean Tom Darden wants the
     Technology for 12 million.
     A.R wants 12 million and not give them
     Technology.
     There is one comment on Ecat world
     saying they both are trying to get
     publicity to launch E cat.
     Anything seems possible.

162. “This misalignment of interests is, of course, largely a function of how the contract was written in the first place. Rossi and IH should have been given some mutual ownership in each other’s companies, or Rossi should have been given a right to a certain percentage of IH’s revenues so that he would have the right incentives.”

     According to guest rumours (close matters) the contract with massive upfront payments was what Rossi wanted, and highly unusual. As a result many investors were put off. It is obviously better to have smaller amount up-front and then a share of royalties etc.

     As for why Rossi wanted that type of contract… Maybe he was less confident of commercial success than he seemed?

163. “A much more straightforward and logical scenario is that Rossi refined his technology further and chose not to provide IH with all of the information they would needed to replicate his results, which is why IH has been unable “to substantiate the results claimed by Mr. Rossi” ”

     But if IH had what they were expecting why would they not want the license? They have money – Rossi says $250M. The license has a non-competition clause. Even if Rossi has better technology he cannot compete, or give it to others to compete, unless it has no relationship to the original.

     And can you imagine Rossi turning down $89M? I can’t.

     By the way, in your quote from the IH PR you left out part of the sentence which changes the meaning:

     “Industrial Heat has worked for over three years to substantiate the results claimed by Mr. Rossi from the E-Cat technology – all without success.”

     From the e-cat technology (ie what is in the license agreement). not x,y, or z -cat.

164. “You have to wonder why I.H. Would not
     stipulated in the agreement that A.R
     would have to work with there people
     and show them the skills needed to get
     the Rossi effect.”

     It is stipulated. Not sure how watertight, a matter for lawyers. Rossi (according to IH rumour via guest – and they would not falsify this) was asked to help a number of times when on long-term test but refused to do so saying he was too busy and would help after payment.

165. “requires something more than a belief that Rossi is a fraud – it requires a belief that he is mentally insane, self-destructive and masochistic”

     This is a very common argument (Rossi has what he claims or he is a fraud) which I’ve always been clear about. People are not always rational. Rossi specifically does not seem very rational. Rossi does not need to be a fraud to have fake demos, and even lie about his device. He probably believes the fake demos, the way inventors often do. He may be a fraud if his lies encourage people to invest. But as I’ve pointed out he lies very rarely. Mostly he misdirects and it is him giving his distorted view of the world. And if he really believes his fake demos then its not lying.

     Does he believe he will win? We are speculating now (and I’m not clear). I suspect that his feeling of entitlement to that $89M is that he would always sue to claim it, and not pay attention to lawyers saying he would not win. In any case, what he told the lawyers would be the Rossi version of snakes – according to that version he would be in the right and win!

     I’m no expert on law and so don’t know who will win or whether they will settle out of Court (clearly best for both parties since however right they are IH get very bad publicity from a trial).

     If Rossi is clever, then maybe he would sue just reckoning IH would have to settle and give him something to avoid the appalling PR? But they currently don’t sound in the mood to do that. And I think Rossi would act in this from feeling not calculation. I may be wrong though. His lawyers (someone said they were a young firm) may even be doing this no win no fee.

     So many options…

166. 11MJ
     water 20->120 400kJ/kg
     water (phase change – not sure if needed) 2000kJ/kg

     so to heat and vaporise your 11MJ gives 4 liters of added water, or 20 liters if any vapor condenses keeping its heat.

     100W input over 3.5 hours gives 1MW so +10%. With mismeasurement (entirely possible +30%. Not necessary but alters things a little.

     OK – so if this is correct – how much water was poured in during the SSM period?

     @ascoli
     You have considered this matter at greater length than me, so I may not be seeing all of it.

     The certain take home is that Mats finding the boiling convincing does not wash.

     He does not seem to understand the issue about TC temp does not equal water temp though…

167. @ Thomas Clarke, (with reference to your comment at 20:00)

     – “In the primary circuit there is a large internal thermal store heated up to some high temperature. the primary water circulates partially coupled to this with a thermostatic control.”

     Sorry, maybe I don’t understand very well what you mean, but it seems unnecessarily complicate to me. Did you look at the layout on my jpeg? It is similar to the layout in first version of the Higgins analysis report. The primary water is pumped into the external case and accumulates inside its free space. There, it receive the heat stored inside the inner box, mainly through the upper (and, maybe, the lower) fins. The water temperature is kept almost constant at 120 °C by the pressure imposed by the relief valve: when the internal pressure rises above 2 bar, the valve lets some steam go out toward the external heat exchanger. There is no need of an active thermostatic control.

     – “If we suppose 10kg of internal metal raised up to 300C we have for steel 500J/kgK*10kg*200K=1MJ …”

     As I already said, in order to get a total weight of 98 kg, the internal masses should have weigh at least 40 kg. If they are heated up to 550 °C, as shown in my diagrams, the stored heat is about 11 MJ. That’s enough to sustain the boiling for 3.5 hours.

     In a previous test held on September 7 (1), the total mass of the fat-cat was only 80 kg. It means that inside the inner box there were half the storage masses with respect to the fat-cat tested in October. The heating phase was also shorter and lasted for 1.5 hours instead of 4 hours. As a consequence, the so-called SSM period in that occasion was shorter, and was interrupted after 35 minutes.

     All fits. In a very simple way.

     (1) “http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3264362.ece”

168. I have a question for those of you – including Thomas Clarke – who seem to believe Rossi is a fraud. What could his motivation be for continuing this fraud? What motivation could he have for filing court documents in which he is lying? Surely if he is lying and his technology doesn’t work, then he will not be able to win his court case (which he might not win even if he is not lying, since he may be in breach of his contract with IH, so they might not have to pay him even if his technology works). At this point, it seems to me that taking the point of view of the skeptics (or of Thomas Clarke and any others who believe Rossi is a fraud) requires something more than a belief that Rossi is a fraud – it requires a belief that he is mentally insane, self-destructive and masochistic (wanting to inflict pain on himself). That seems like a rather extreme view, and one that seems somewhat far-fetched and unlikely. If it is true, then it would certainly seem like a very unusual psychological condition in an otherwise intelligent and functioning human being.

     A much more straightforward and logical scenario is that Rossi refined his technology further and chosenot to provide IH with all of the information they would needed to replicate his results, which is why IH has been unable “to substantiate the results claimed by Mr. Rossi” (quoting from the IH press release). Rossi claims to have achieved a COP of over 50 for 350 days, and to be able to now also use an enhanced version of the E-Cat to generate electricity directly. IH, on the other hand, is only able to generate a COP of about 10 from the E-Cat, according to a patent they filed. IH refuses to pay Rossi the $89 million stipulated by the contract because he has not given them what they need in order to replicate his results, which IH considers to be part of the contract, and which explains why IH, in their press release, claimed that “Leonardo Corporation and Mr. Rossi also have repeatedly breached their agreements.” If the technology didn’t work and Rossi was a fraud, then it would be irrelevant for Leonardo and Rossi to have breached their agreements because their agreements would have been worthless and meaningless. The fact that IH is even complaining about a breach of agreement indicates that the technology works; if it didn’t work, breaching the agreements would be irrelevant, it wouldn’t matter.

     The reasons Rossi may have breached his agreement and not provided IH with the full know-how to replicate his results are not difficult to understand if one examines the history and the court filings. After Rossi shipped the E-Cat to IH in 2013, they stalled on starting the 1-year test, which was supposed to have started right away, according to the original contract (which had to be amended due to this delay), and the test didn’t start until Rossi finally insisted on it in 2015, after Rossi had found a test location and arranged for the test. IH proceeded to file its own patents on E-Cat technology and to invest in Rossi’s competitors. Ross felt that IH was not acting in good faith, and Rossi came to the conclusion that the interests of IH were not aligned with his own interests. This misalignment of interests is, of course, largely a function of how the contract was written in the first place. Rossi and IH should have been given some mutual ownership in each other’s companies, or Rossi should have been given a right to a certain percentage of IH’s revenues so that he would have the right incentives.

169. You have to wonder why I.H. Would not
     stipulated in the agreement that A.R
     would have to work with there people
     and show them the skills needed to get
     the Rossi effect.

170. The problem with this approach is spelt out in the first few words. “The starting point for this scenario is that Rossi has achieved LENR reactions”. Rossi is Rossi; he has delved into energy recovery and / or energy generation several times. The results have all been spectacular failures even though Rossi has consistently claimed success. He has even served time in jail for his antics. What is new or different this time? That is right,,,, nothing. the establishment have shown time and time again it is rubbish yet Rossi seems to recruit seemingly gullible followers that want the dream more than they want to face reality. The Rossi LENR story is one of regurgitation. every time his device is shown to be wanting or maybe even fraudulent a new and better device is rolled out and the old model pushed into the past and discarded. History is history and this particular individual seems to be on a merry-go-round. treading the same path over and over and over again.

171. Thomas I cannot answer all your questions, although most of them have answers. The TC’s would never pick room temp since they were heavily covered with insulation. For example. I cannot stay hours to tell you everything I observed being there. Sorry.

172. I’m too depressed. I’ll do one more report if anyone wants to choose.

173. Bob Higgins Oct 6 analysis (I’m choosing people I like but its a bit depressing)

     Bob sides with me on the 100W going in during SSM.

     But, most importantly, he does not realise that the water out temperature – given a fast flow rate – need not be the water out TC temperature (and will not be this). Also he does not consider the fact that a TC just measuring ambient air temperature would give an apparent 25kW output power – all that is needed is low thermal conductivity between the secondary water flow and the (room temp parts of) the heat exchanger.

174. “The test produced irrefutable proof of anomalous energy production, in
     several different ways. After input power was turned off, not only did it
     remain hot for 4 hours, it twice sharply increased in temperature. This is
     first-principle proof that large amounts of energy were being generated
     inside the reactor. There are no chemical or electrical sources of energy
     in the reactor that can explain this. During this 4 hour period, the surface
     of the reactor remained very hot, so it was radiating heat, and roomtemperature
     tap water was pumped into the reactor. Enough tap water
     was pumped in to fill the vessel twice. All of this water boiled away; it
     did not overflow. Without energy generation, with tap water being
     pumped in, the temperature would have fallen to room temperature
     within an hour. This was clearly show by the rapid temperature decline
     when the anomalous power stopped. Yet the vessel remained so hot that
     when a person accidentally touched the exposed metal 3 hours after the
     power was turned off, the person jumped back in pain from the heat.
     ”

     That is Jed Rothwell’s conclusion that aligns with his beliefs. I’m going to fact check it.

     Jed’s reasons:

     (1) sharp increases in temp.
     Jed did not consider ascoli’s point below. A thermostatic primary system would indeed provide sharp increases as long as the internal hotter core was above 100C. Specifically Jed forgets the possibility of a physical source of energy from hot cast iron etc.

     (2) The surface remained hot.
     This is unquantitative. I note the insulation all over the reactor and tubing to reduce heat loss. Jed has done a hand waving argument here. Dangerous, and what people do when trying to support a preconceived idea. We could revisit it now with Mats help and quantify heat loss, as Jed should have done were he making this argument seriously?

     (3) Room temp tap water was pumped into the reactor, enough water to fill the vessel twice.
     I don’t have the evidence which leads Jed to conclude this – how does he know when the vessel is closed? Nor the evidence that leads him to believe the water boiled away? Perhaps Mats could elucidate?

     (4) Without energy generation, with tap water being pumped in, the temperature would have fallen to room temperature within an hour. This was clearly show by the rapid temperature decline when the anomalous power stopped.

     Again this is because Jed is just not considering possibilities. A hot core allows both these things.

     (5)Yet the vessel remained so hot that
     when a person accidentally touched the exposed metal 3 hours after the
     power was turned off, the person jumped back in pain from the heat.

     When was the metal exposed? How much metal was exposed (surface area). then we can wok out the heat loss. People will jump back in pain from exposed metal at 60C. (guess, anyone got better – the high thermal conductivity makes it worse and the experience of heat when not expected is shocking).

175. Re analyses at the time. Bob Higgins did the best job of analysing Lugano. I reference him, and explain what he missed. He understood that band emissivity is different from total emissivity (COP from 3 to 1.5ish). He did not realise that the dependence between T and band radiation is about T^2 – he used the dependence between T and total radiation which is T^4. He did this implicitly without writing it down. If he had done so he would maybe have realised.

     Which of those analyses are from people with the majority science view of the likelihood of LENR (it is very highly improbable) – just as a matter of interest?

176. assuming you are calling me eetom:

     eestorfan – read the next sentence in my post?

     Rohner continues to have supporters who will no doubt commiserate with him in prison.
     Rossi will keep supporters – the ECW club may reduce in size but a core will stay believing.
     I doubt Rossi will go to prison again. It is in no-one’s interests.
     But serious money is now out of his grasp. He still has that$11M so no, I don’t suppose we have heard teh last from the Rossi show.

     I hope I’m wrong.

177. eetom wrote: “But this is the end for Rossi and it is fitting.”

     Tom you been wailing away about the Rossi for many years. You posted literally hundreds of times since 2011 (on the LENR thread on theeestory.com and elsewhere) about how Rossi was a fraud.

     Do you really think THIS is the end for Rossi’s “delusion”? Despite all your wasted pixels, Rossi is still pluggin away, taking millions from investors for his “impossible” invention.

     I think this is just the beginning.

178. you really seem to have a lot of time

     Next is: “you’re a troll”.
     Point is: not to have to answer non answareble questions.

179. Tom, here’s more for you to look at if you want—analyses at the time by David Roberson, Bob Higgins, Jed Rothwell and Horace Heffner:

     Click to access updated-analysis-ecat-oct-6-roberson.pdf

     Click to access third-analysis-ecat-oct-6-roberson.pdf

     https://animpossibleinvention.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/roberson_temp_data_with_charts_oct_6_formated.xlsx
     https://animpossibleinvention.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/higgins_ecat_27kw_test_20111006_analysisbh8.xls
     https://animpossibleinvention.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/ecat-document-collection-of-david-roberson.docx
     https://animpossibleinvention.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/conclusion-horace-heffner.doc
     https://animpossibleinvention.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/analysisbybobhiggins_20111019_revised.doc

     Click to access conclusion-ecat-oct-6-by-jed-rothwell.pdf

     Click to access analysis-ecat-oct-6-by-david-roberson.pdf

     Click to access analysis-ecat-oct-6-by-david-roberson.pdf

     Click to access analysis-ecat-oct-6-by-bob-higgins.pdf

     https://animpossibleinvention.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/analyses-of-october-6-data.doc

     Click to access 3-part-analysis-ecat-oct-6-by-roberson.pdf

180. The Rossi tests are fascinating. If I had not spent so much time on Lugano I would not be here. But this is the end for Rossi and it is fitting.

     Well, he will continue his deceitful delusion, but no longer be the LENR wonder-boy. I’m so glad that IH have now done enough real testing to doubt those seven deceitful tests…

     Mats, are you surprised that the “long term test” is in an empty factory put together just for the test? Were you expecting that?

181. Thomas, you really seem to have a lot of time 😉

182. I should point out. Rossi does not have to be consciously deceiving people to believe a test such as the one Mats witnessed shows he has a miracle. He just has to be a typical over-enthusiastic inventor only accepting positive evidence.

     Some would say that is too kind, but I always have befor me the example of Laithewaite who wrote a wonderful book on induction machines that I remember loving when young, was a great academic, but believed sincerely he had found reactionless trust from gyroscopes in his later years.

     On second thoughts, comparing him with Rossi is very badly unfair!

183. What Rossi maybe had…

     In the primary circuit there is a large internal thermal store heated up to some high temperature. the primary water circulates partially coupled to this with a thermostatic control. The boiling is primary water as it is heated.

     However, the primary circuit only extracts from the internal store as much power as is needed by the secondary circuit + losses. The secondary circuit requires no power – since we have no idea what is the water deltaT. The insulation will reduce losses but they will still be significant.

     If we suppose 10kg of internal metal raised up to 300C we have for steel 500J/kgK*10kg*200K=1MJ (we’d get 10X this with a high pressure water cylinder – let us be generous and suppose Rossi cares about safety).

     With 5 hours “SSM” we get 1MJ/(5*3600) = 50W total losses.

     Sounds about right to me. And all parameters adjustable.

184. I like the first hypothesis better

185. Yes I’d agree with that.

     More evidence – the insulation everywhere. Why bother if it generates copious power?

     BTW – it is worth noting that the heat exchanger housing, as measured by the output TC, is never hotter than room temp. You could actually get a decent deltaT just by decoupling part of the heat exchanger from anything else, making sure the heat loss from slightly colder water was small, and letting it equilibrate to room temp.

     This test is just so bad – the big giveaway being the unnaturally high water speed through the apparatus. Why on earth do this? It makes the output heat unusable. It makes the measurement unsafe…

     Let us see, given Mats believes this is the most convincing of all Rossi’s tests, how he explains that?

186. @ Thomas Clarke, (with reference to your comment at 18:00)
     – “no validation can be obtained from primary circuit temperatures,”

     Even if the data from the primary circuit are not able to confirm the generation of any excess heat, they are nevertheless very useful in order to understand what happened during the October 6, 2011, test.

     Look at the red line (T2(mis)) in the lower-right diagram of the jpeg linked to my previous comment (at 16:36). It comes from the data listed in the Lewan’s spread sheet and refers to the measured temperature of the water inside the fat-cat. After the initial heat-up phase, it remains at around 120 °C due to the pressure limit due to the relief valve (presumably set at 2 bar absolute). Then, it stay at this temperature for 3.5 more hours. The most important thing happened at the end of this so-called SSM period, when the temperature starts to decrease with the typical Newtons’s law cooling trend, and follows the similar trend of the temperatures, calculated by the numerical model for the most internal metal components. That’s exactly the time when it has been suddenly decided to stop the test, whose expected duration was much longer, up to 24 hours (1). So, it seems that the duration of the test was not predetermined, but did depend from the quantity of the heat store inside the inner box, and from the cooling rate of the internal masses.

     As for your points (a) and (b), my opinion is that:

     (a) we can ignore the contribution of the 100 W during the so-called SSM period, and all the other electric data reported by Lewan can be taken for good;

     (b) we can assume, as shown on the lower-left diagram of the above jpeg, that the flow rate of the pump has been nearly constant throughout the entire test, having been increased only at the end of the test, in order to accelerate the cooling of the fat-cat, as said by Lewan in his report.

     (1) “http://coldfusion3.com/blog/e-cat-demonstration-for-physics-professors-scheduled-for-october-6-in-bologna”

187. Why is IH not anti-Rossi?

     IH are stuck. They raised a lot of money on the back of Rossi’s tests. It is therefore difficu;lt now for them to say – “hey they were all faked but we did not realise it” even if that is true.

     Also, it is just bad PR for them to be sure Rossi’s stuff does not work. They always have wiggle-room and will use that to leave open the possibility it works even if privately they consider that very unlikely.

     As many others have said you seem to have been hypnotised by Rossi…

188. Mats – ypour “IH” hypothesis is fine, except that you add in, contrary to Occam, the idea that Rossi has something that works – onbly not as well as he claims.

     Now – to the test.

     You remember I said my gut feeling was that the lost 100W was significant? Looking closer, I see it perhaps goes into the “device making frequencies”. But those frequencies could go into the heater resistor, or into the ecat in some other way, thus heating it.

     I’ve checked the spec on your instruments: as far as I can see from rayther limited web data:
     (1) They will under-read on non-sinusoid waveforms (they are not true-RMS)
     (2) They will not detect anything high frequency (they are speced for 50Hz only).

     Therefore you cannot know that there is no power going into the device when your instruments read zero. All the evidence is that 100W power (at least) is going in.

     Given that the waveforms could be spiky there is a good chance for those powers to be under-reading by a significant amount as well.

189. Thomas, I’m sorry, I cannot invent a hypothesis only to fit your opinions. I have to base it on something, in this case on claims to a large extent coming from IH through different channels. I consider that as much not-Rossi as you could ask for.

190. Steve,

     I suspect not. Both of Mats views lean in favour of Rossi, but Mats has never found it easy to class as unlikely a pro-Rossi interpretation no matter how contrafactual, so he will probably be uncommitted?

191. Stephen, as I wrote earlier today: The second hypothesis I have presented is to counterbalance the first. Yet, the information I receive, from multiple sources, is very contradictory. It’s really hard to say, at this point, what’s true and what’s fabricated information intended to serve someone’s interest. From all parts.

192. So Mats:

     Given ascoli’s excellent point that internal parts of the e-cat with significant heat capacity could be heated >> 100C, his point that (I did not consider this because I thought it was obvious) no validation can be obtained from primary circuit temperatures, the fact that you agree secondary circuit power loss is unknown and could be ~ 0, what do you find in this test that convinces you Rossi has an extraordinary nuclear reactor?

     Incidentally, while my points (2) and (3) are not needed to account for the data I would still be unwilling to accept there is no issue in them:

     (a) The power anomaly must be explained – 100W appears to be vanishing during the SSM period – that is not possible

     (b) Flow rate modulation is such an obvious thing with the only reliable way to check flow rate being out of teh building. A dummy pump, very obvious, making a sound that is reassuring, together with another pump is quite possible.

     My gut feeling would be
     (a) indicates some real issue that may or may not affect the results
     (b) is not an issue

     But gut feelings are really not good enough here when we need proof Rossi’s stuff works and have so many other tests with provable false positive results.

     PS I notice on ECW another Rossi disinformation video is leading ECWers to state they are certain IH is behaving badly. It seems, ECW being what it is, that guest’s informed and plausible comment from players close to the matter, is just ignored.

193. Mats, Can you illuminate whether you are leaning one way or the other on your two hypotheses? Thomas Clarke seems to imply that the second hypothesis is your new belief and that you now agree with his anti Rossi position. I thought that you included it as alternative to show that the situation could be interpreted in multiple ways. I did not think that you changed your personal opinion from the first hypothesis to the second one.

194. Franco, all my suggestions, as well as those from others, were turned down by Rossi.

195. @ Mats Lewan

     Hi Mats now in April 2016 answering to Thomas you wrote:
     “1 – yes, the position of the thermocouples was an issue”

     Just one question:
     Why, at beginning 2012 when I (but if I remember well not only me) wrote a critical analysis about that demonstration (sorry it was in italian but you understand perfectly the Italian language and I hope that something Thomas can read using Google translation):
     http://rnbe.blogspot.it/2012/01/se-fosse-possibile-ripetere-un-test.html

     strongly asking for this test repetition using some suggested set-up corrections in order to clean the main doubts, you did not spend your best effort to obtain the test repetition instead of to accept as good the Rossi’s set-up and propagate test results obtained using that test set-up with “issues”?

196. @ gbgoble,
     – “The Lugano Report is accurate and valid. It clearly documents …”

     The only thing that your list clearly documents is that a big portion of the ecat public credibility came from some Government Agencies. This public support began on March 2010, when the JoNP appeared on the web. Whoever wants to shed light on this story, should start giving the proper answers to the questions posed by Krivit at that time (1-2).

     (1) http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg38052.html
     (2) http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg38061.html

197. @ Mats Lewan,
     in the previous post (*) you wrote:

     – “you could maybe check that calculation again.”

     In the “energy calculation” paragraph of your October 6, 2011, test report, you presented 2 ways to estimate the energy output. IMO, both are wrong.

     The first way is based on the secondary circuit. But, as already said here, the delta T measurement was affected by the misplaced position of the probe. Moreover, there was no reason to set the water flow rate at a such incredible high level (178 g/s), unless for taking advantage from the delta T relative error, in order to artificially magnify the energy output. So this first way is absolutely unreliable.

     The second way, based on the primary circuit, is also completely unreliable, for two major and evident flaws. The first flaw is that it takes into account only the SSM period ignoring the previous 4 hours of electrical heating. The second is that the primary water flow rate was measured at 18:57, nearly at the end of the so called SSM period. At that time, the internal reservoir of the fat-cat was full of water and the output rate you measured (0.91 g/s) was not dry steam, as you supposed assuming an entalphy of 2260 g/s, but it was just boiling water with a much lower specific enthalpy.

     To fully account for this, you have necessarily to model the time evolution of the test. You can look at the diagrams of the simple thermohydraulic model that I have recently described in the MFMP forum (1). In particular, the lower-left diagram in the linked jpeg (2) shows that the flow rate exiting the fat-cat as steam (QVvap) is much less than the water pumped in (Qp), the balance being the water which accumulates inside the reservoir. The heat absorbed by this water is only the thermal energy required to increase its temperature up to the boiling point (about 120 °C) at the pressure (around 2 bar) determined by the relief valve.

     –“The reason I checked this was that I thought that there was lead shielding inside the reactor, under the heat exchanger fins seen in the picture in my report. However, I later learnt that the lead shielding in the FatCat was on the inside of the outer walls, and could not be molten.”

     Did you see the lead by yourself? Otherwise, there is no reason to believe that there was any lead inside the fat-cat. Not for sure on the inner side of the outer walls, because the picture shows only the external case, the inner box, and the cooling fins over it, all made by steel. These components can weight 50-60 kg at maximum, the balance to 98 kg is necessarily placed inside the inner box, for which there is no public picture of its internals. Anyway, the common sense suggests that the inner box contains some steel plates placed around an electric resistor for a total weight of about 40 kg, and the steel can easily be heated up 700 °C, … without melting!

     Therefore, there is no valid reason to deem that in the October 6, 2011, test there has been any overunity COP.

     (*) “https://animpossibleinvention.com/2016/04/09/heres-my-hypothesis-on-the-rossi-ih-affair/#comment-4405”
     (1) “http://www.quantumheat.org/index.php/en/home/mfmp-blog/519-the-cookbook-is-in-the-signal/#comment-7944”
     (2) “http://i.imgur.com/FTstZqe.jpg”

198. apologies:
     I still you to get my DeChiaro’s e-m. ==>
     I still want you to get me DeChiaro’s e-m

199. PS – I sent an early draft to the report authors before publishing – suggesting they would find it less embarrassing to make corrections themselves. They did not and in the end I published.

     I would have sent this to arxiv (the quality is fine) but the riginal did not get accepted by arxiv so i felt it would be wrong to put a refutation there! I now wish I had done this – it seems whoever reviewed that report for Darden & Woodford did not check for new material on lenr canr.

200. G.B. Goble

     Have you read my refutation?

     You are thinking that offhand references in ppt presentations from people wanting to promote LENR are the same as a critical appraisal of a test report? I still you to get my DeChiaro’s e-m. No reply yet from the other person, but I expect I will get one.

     May I respectfully suggest that you read my refutation (Jed asked for it to put it on his library site because he thought it was well written), compare that with the one-line references you cite, and then change your view?

     Click to access ClarkeTcommentont.pdf

     The technical specifics I expect you will not want to be bothered with. There is however a long thread on on LENR FORUM where I explain and defend my analysis against initially strong criticism. Various people just did not believe it till we went through the math. You could read this (link below)

     Should you or anyone you know wish to discuss my analysis of the report some more we could also continue this on the old LENR Forum thread.

     https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/1754-Lugano-performance-recalculated-the-baseline-for-replications/

     I cannot alas post on ECW having been banned a long time ago for having the wrong views.

     There are many matters in this story about which speculation is possible. You can suppose the weird isotopic results are a shift rather than Rossi – true to his admitted past behaviour – “contaminating” the sample. But the testers just used wrong physics to do the calorimetry and this can be corrected as I’ve done. When you do this the result is COP = 1 and acceleration = 1. There are still large possible errors in the experiment. So you could claim COP = 1.5 and the experiment errors were negative. But your statement below is just wrong.

     I did this analysis 6 months ago or more, and sent it to the report authors. They received it, but never replied, nor retracted their proven wrong analysis.

201. The Lugano Report is accurate and valid. It clearly documents non radioactive high temperature LENR thermal and transmutation of elements. IH and Rossi are not in dispute over the reality of this. No sense in anyone else disputing it either. High temp LENR thermal is real.

     These recent works depend on the reality of high temp LENR thermal.

     So much effort for nothing? I do not think so.

     My basic view of the Lugano report validity rests partly on these two works that reference in it 2015/16. Good enough for them good enough for me.

     Canadian Defence Agency

     A) High temp LENR thermal as described in:

     “Evidence base for the development of an enduring DND/CAF Operational Energy Strategy (DOES)”

     They have no problem with the Lugano report.

     B) “LENR Phenomena and Potential Applications” Dr. Louis F. De Chiaro

     He joined the US Navy as a civilian Physicist in September, 2006 and since 2009 has been performing investigations in LENR physics and supporting the EMC efforts of Branch Q51 at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA. During the period 2010-2012 he was on special assignment at the Naval Research Labs, Washington, D.C. in their experimental LENR group.

     They have no problem with the Lugano report.

     Also dependent upon high temp LENR thermal.

     a) “Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Aircraft” 2015 NASA/NARI

     b) “The Application of LENR to Synergistic Mission Capabilities”
     Presented at AIAA AVIATION 2014 Atlanta, GA USA
     Douglas P. Wells NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA and
     Dimitri N. Mavris Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

     Dimitri Mavris is the Boeing Professor of Advanced Aerospace Systems Analysis at the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the director of its Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL). Dimitri Mavris received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His primary areas of research interest include: advanced design methods, aircraft conceptual and preliminary design, air-breathing propulsion design, multi-disciplinary analysis, design and optimization, system of systems, and non-deterministic design theory.

     c) “Impact of Advanced Energy Technologies on Aircraft Design” 2014 Roger Lepsch, NASA Langley Research Center; Matt Fischer, National Institute of Aerospace; Christopher Jones, National Institute of Aerospace; Alan Wilhite, National Institute of Aerospace; 52nd Aerospace Sciences Meeting, AIAA SciTech, (AIAA 2014-0538).

     d) “MPD Augmentation of a Thermal Air Rocket Utilizing Low Energy Nuclear Reactions” 2012 Roger Lepsch, NASA Langley Research Center; Matt Fischer, National Institute of Aerospace; Christopher Jones, National Institute of Aerospace; Alan Wilhite, National Institute of Aerospace.

     Once again, So much effort for nothing? I don’t think so.

     Links found in:

     “LENR NRNF Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Non Radioactive Nuclear Flight US and EU Applied Engineering” http://gbgoble.kinja.com/lenr-nrnf-low-energy-nuclear-reaction-nonradioactive-nu-1765958500

202. SamuelNorth

     according to ‘guest’s “sources close to matter” IH contacted Rossi several times asking for help but he refused saying he was too busy with the 1 yr test and they’d have to wait till after the $89M. See below.

203. If Tom Darden did not get Rossi effect why
     would he not have contacted A.R for help.
     Or did A.R contact T.D to ask him how are
     you making out getting Rossi effect.
     If neither did then this was a bad partnership.

204. @lookMoo
     “Wobbling back and forth with technical details and try to find THE detail, a smoking gun, is not a very good method to find out what is happening.”

     Lack of attention to technical details is what convinced IH (and other investors) to make an ill-advised initial investment.

     But they had an excuse – they could work the odds and $11m is small change, whereas in the case Rossi has anything the returns are very large.

     if by the smoking gun you mean evidence that Rossi arranges false positive tests that is found already. You can never prove a negative, so never prove that Rossi does not have low-level excess heat which cannot be reliably measured.

     However Occam’s Razor says you don’t suppose new Physics without evidence.

     If you are sure LENR is real (like Mats) you will think – well – Rossi is using Piantelli’s stuff, maybe he has a bit of it.

     But you will have no reason to think Rossi any more successful with this than any of teh otehr LENR scientists.

     Otherwise simplest is Rossi has nothing.

205. “I also immediately reported on the possible error in the Defkalion test, when it was proven

     And you had no clue of any lies while you were there – you recognized the fraud only after Gamberale wrote about it.

     So, now are you waiting for Darden to do the same? What a pity, then, that Darden is still on that business (the Cold Fusion Fraud)

206. @LookMoo
     Cui bono? or Cui prodest? Is literally the focal point…

207. @ThomasClarke Occams razor points to nobody flat out lying, but presenting their cases at their best, since it is verifiably stupid (even for you) to state stuff i civil court that is easy to counter (as a lie about the ERV, statements about IH replications, etc). These claimes has not been dismissed from IH, only the very vague “substantiate”, which I believe also to be true.

208. Cui bono ????…..literally “to whose profit?”.

     Wobbling back and forth with technical details and try to find THE detail, a smoking gun, is not a very good method to find out what is happening.

     Instead you should see how the business is driving for IH. IH have attracted and accepted several hundred millions of dollars, assuming only after have performed successful replications of the ecat for investors expert teams. IH backed Brillouin have recently approached the US Congress. New LENR patent is filed as we speak (with Rossi as co-inventor, but Rossi claims he have no part of it).

     IH is trawling the market for more LENR patents.

     Let me remind you with above in mind, that bankers that have conned investors on similar amounts currently spends life in prisons.

     So does IH feels lucky, sure they do.

     They just don’t want Rossi on-board. You see, it is like like cutting the Christmas tree.. on the way back you find a better.

209. Peter, I also immediately reported on the possible error in the Defkalion test, when it was proven. Not only suggested and talked about.

210. ML: “Finally, let me make clear that my fundamental aim in this story is to bring out the truth, whatever it may be.”
     It does not seem so since you still do not consider the most likely scenario: Rossi is bluffing and he’s got nothing with COP>1. What he does have is a clever scam to fool some people with more money than sense.

     ML: “I’m also confident that whatever the outcome will be, the LENR field have gained something in the end, if only by a significantly increased interest over the last years.”
     I think Rossi’s bluff will set LENR research back to 1989. LENR research will become even more pseudo-scientific alchemy than it already is. Here is an alternate theory: Rossi is hired by CIA to wreck LENR! 🙂

     About MLs measurements: did you not oversee the Defkalion demo? It is now obvious that their Hyperion device did not work!

211. All that is happening these days is giving VERY bad for the LENR theory. VERY BAD .
     We must not discard the idea that it could be intentionally,

212. Now, let’s have some lunch – take a pause Tom 😉

213. IH’s statement was intentionally vague and could be interpreted as needed.

214. Tom, it IS impressive. Put a pot on your stove, boil water, switch off power, add water, try keep it boiling. It has nothing to do with flow physics.
     And, the pump changed rhythm when flow rate changed. We tried that.

215. “And, again, what impressed me most in the end was not the values, but the fact that the E-Cat boiled water for almost 4 hours, in SSM, with cold water being input continuously.”

     the cold water input (and output) is nothing to do with the boiling so why is that relevant?

     I understand what you say sounds impressive, but if you look at the heat flow physics it is not.

     I take your point about the pump. It is evidence. Not strong evidence, because some pumps don’t change sound when output is blocked, however many do. There are also other more complex ways round this, like an additional (silent, why not) pump doing the real work…

216. Mats – re IH not more trustworthy.

     Companies will always spin things. It is sort of their duty. But very seldom lie. The IH comment so far – formal and informal – is clear and does not allow Rossi’s stuff to work as much as you claim.

     Also, if it did (COP=1.5 high power) it would easily be measurable beyond all doubt and result in Nobel prizes. that is not what other people have been getting. They have never had results that are reproducible and measure any COP above 1 + experimental error. If they had (it is MFMP’s dream) the world would be different.

     For Rossi to have COP of 1.5 at the kW levels he uses would be easily measurable bomb-proof to an accuracy of 10%, without expensive equipment or argument. It would need the right tests to do that of course. IH would have scientifically bomb-proof LENR. they would use this to get massive additional funding in the process of making that more usable.

     In any case, for devices with electric heaters, as you know COP=1.5 can be turned easily into COP=infinity with thermostatic cooling.

     So for Rossi to have this level of performance is not consistent with information.

217. Tom, every person on Earth is a recorded liar. I never paid attention to the 2010 story because it could never be verified, in any direction. It never seemed credible, I agree. But, I have tried to see the big picture, and while many claim Rossi is a convicted fraudster, I have found he was never convicted for fraud, and that many of the things people accuse him of in his past have reasonable, even if not provable, explanations. No one is a saint in this story.

218. Tom, I forgot regarding 3: The water was input with a peristaltic pump, making a rhythmic noise all the time. I’m a former musician, sensitive to rhythms, and would have noticed any change in frequency immediately.
     And, again, what impressed me most in the end was not the values, but the fact that the E-Cat boiled water for almost 4 hours, in SSM, with cold water being input continuously. I’ve made calculations on energy stored in molten lead and in solid steel, and it’s off by a factor 10.

219. I suppose I should qualify my statement:

     Either Rossi has a COP=10 reliable industrial heater in 2010 or he is a recorded liar. In the light of current events and past independent tests the first option looks so unlikely as to merit effectively saying the second option must be true.

220. Ok – so about the test analysis.

     Not much more to say. You can see why (1) is enough. I can’t for the life of me see how you could know (3) either – but i’ll leave that.

     Re electrical issues I don’t know. there is no need here to have electrical problems as well, but the 4X difference in quiescent current before and after the test bugs me. It is 100W, and 100W does not vanish into thin air. So either the measurements were contaminated (perhaps by waveforms from control box, or there is something else we don’t understand about this setup. I always treat inconsistencies like this as things that must be chased down till the squeal and die. Often they indicate some unconsidered additional issue and in the case of these tests those are exactly what you need to watch out for.

     Anyway, be that as it may, you can see why I’m not as convinced as you by this test.

221. @Sifferkol

     Your opinions below are noted but I think highly unlikely. We will find out. Eventually.

     Rossi is a recorded liar about his stuff. He may believe his lies, and also he may usually not tell overt lies, but I would not trust the accuracy of his views here.

222. Yes, it was unsafe.

223. Mats – the e-cat had no earth connection or earth bonding? That is unsafe…

224. “This is what I don’t understand. Tom Darden signed-off on a one-year test in which, afterwards, he would pay Rossi $89 million dollars; but as the document is written, he does not have an ‘out’ clause. If the ERV signs the document which says that the device performed according to specifications, laid-out in the agreement, then he must pay. If IH was not sure of the result before signing this agreement, then they put themselves into a bad legal state, because whether they believe in the device, or not, they are required to pay if the ERV signs the document.”

     I’m no legal expert so you’d need somone else to comment. But how do you know this.
     (1) Are they bound to pay, or only bound to pay if they want to keep the license?
     (2) Are they bound to pay if Rossi has not fulfilled the terms of the license (as it seems he has not). If he had fulfilled those terms they would be happy with working e-cats and presumably also happy to pay.
     (3) Does Rossi going ahead independently with his “empty factory” customer fulfill the terms of the contract? Who knows? IH’s lawyers I guess.

     Check out guest’s comments.

225. Thomas
     2 – I checked. It was clear.
     3 – Difficult to describe and evaluate afterwards. As I say, anything is possible in theory.

226. My take is that this is not binary; whith either of the parties lying. A more probable scenario is that all released docs, inluding the complaint are more or less true; as would expected since they are part of legal process. As such they are carefully worded to give as much advantage as possible to the party writing them. The complaint is probably backed up by docs not released yet, otherwise it will be nullified in an instant by the lawyers. Truth hypothesis: http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/the-rossi-vs-darden-lenr-saga-is-it-possible-that-they-both-are-telling-the-truth/ http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/the-rossi-vs-darden-lenr-saga-is-it-possible-that-they-both-are-telling-the-truth/

227. Thomas, I’ve learnt how to interpret Rossi through the years. My point is that in this situation, it’s not obvious that information from IH is more trustworthy.

228. Re the test integrity. (1) is enough for the claimed SSM results. However i’d like to question (2) and (3)

     (2) How do you know that the wires you measured were the only connection for electrical power to go into the reactor?

     (3) While I accept that what you say will have reasons, I cannot evaluate their strength without knowing what they are. Your views here are not evidence.

229. Mats –

     I’m not saying this comment by bachcole influences me much. For me the issue is the tests and Rossi’s tests have consistently been wrong. Further, Rossi has consistently misdirected everyone else and at times it seems almost certain he has directly lied about whether his device works (the 1 year COP = 10 in factory statement from 2010 in patents and to possible investor). Maybe he did have a device in a factory. All his devices are electric heaters and will therefore emit heat. But he claimed it reduced electricity bills by 90%, over 1 year.

     That is outright lying not just misdirection unless he had then a device better than ever tested since, and better than what IH expected to get, now 6 years later.

     Your support for Rossi’s position here is not sustainable. It never has been but now there is significant additional evidence.

230. Thomas:
     1 – yes, the position of the thermocouples was an issue
     2 – the power for the control unit in use during SSM mode was separate – a separate unit. I measured the voltage directly on the E-Cat unit during SSM, and the voltage was zero all the time, on all cables.
     3- Everything is possible in theory. Been at the site, for different reasons, I excluded such possibilities.

231. Thomas, please be realistic, when so much is at stake, you cannot exclude that even persons who seem to be ‘sincere committed christians’ have a hidden agenda serving someone’s interest.

232. “Alternatively, IH considered the condition of transferring the knowhow not fulfilled, and therefore they would not have to pay the remaining $89M, even if the one-year test would be successful. ”

     This is what I don’t understand. Tom Darden signed-off on a one-year test in which, afterwards, he would pay Rossi $89 million dollars; but as the document is written, he does not have an ‘out’ clause. If the ERV signs the document which says that the device performed according to specifications, laid-out in the agreement, then he must pay. If IH was not sure of the result before signing this agreement, then they put themselves into a bad legal state, because whether they believe in the device, or not, they are required to pay if the ERV signs the document.

233. Mats i’m quite sure guest is giving the IH line.

     What I fail to understand is how anyone would be giving equal weight to what Rossi says and what IH say when Rossi has a known record of lying about his stuff, and in any case makes paranoid comments, whereas IH need a reputation of integrity with both investors and researchers, and darden and Vaughn have no record of lying. (And Vaughn is a sincere committed Christian for what it is worth see bachcole’s comment).

234. Mats – I’ve read your report. I’d like to apologise. Your test methodology is pretty good and far far better than that of Penon – the ERV – who famously did not record any details of the equipment he used, even when its results disagreed with the readings from a kWh meter.

     I could nevertheless pick a few minor holes in the electrical measurements – but I’m not going to. A 100% error here is not significant.

     Here is how I think it was done. The subtle indicators from the report are as below:

     (1)

     Water temperature at the input and the output of the secondary loop was
     measured with thermocouples attached on the metal connections at the
     heat exchanger where the hoses were attached (see video) and the
     difference in temperature was used together with the value of the water
     flow to calculate the output power.

     The problem is that the TC temperature is not the water temperature. There is no reason to think the water heats up to equal the heat exchanger temperature – in fact at high flow rates in particular this is unlikely. The deltaT is small which means it is difficult for you to check in any other way what is the real output temperature of the water, although I guess a thermometer in the collected 1 litre buckets when the water is flowing fast would help. (You need several to ensure you are really measuring water that was flowing fast through the heat exchanger – I don’t assume speed stays constant).

     To get a COP of 10 (and maybe even believe it himself) all Rossi needs is a heat exchanger where the casing is hotter than the water inside.

     (2)
     At start:
     Total AC current 142 mA. Over all AC voltage 229 V => 32W
     During SSM: Overall current 544 mA. Voltage 230 V. => 130W

     We don’t know how the power changes during SSM of course, because you are measuring it at start and end with maybe one more measurement. But if we suppose these readings correct throughout there is at least 100W going into the device to keep it hot during SSM. (You might want to multiply that by 2 due to electrical issues which generally I’m not going to address here, because I don’t think that is the main issue).

     (3)

     “Water from a tap was fed to the secondary loop of the heat exchanger.
     The heated output water was led through a long hose to a well outside the
     building.”

     OK, so can I ask, when you measured water flow rate, where were you? The main issue here is that water flow rate could be reduced during SSM. The e-cat has a high heat capacity so it is the average flow rate that matters. Could this not have changed? Having the water output in such a different place from the main equipment makes it very easy for the flow rate to be increased when you are outside measuring. Even if Rossi goes with you, he can increase the flow rate before he leaves the building and decrease it after he returns.

     (5)
     Comments about steam. That is irreleant. If steam is generated and condenses there is no heat required so the whole steam thing is a distraction which makes it seem as though this device does something useful. In reality it heats up water by a few degrees (or much less than that) depending on the water flow rate in the heat exchanger and possibly other variables you do not control. (It could be for example that the water flows mostly through parts of the H-E that are much colder than the part measured with TC).

     Conclusion:

     I can’t tell what went wrong in this test. there are too many possibles:
     (1) At least 100W appears to be going into the device when it is off. That could be significantly higher due to electrical issues. also, that could change when not being checked. Why was the input power so much higher at the test end (when this would help keep it hot during SSM) than the test start?

     (2) the test is designed so that you can only check the flow rate when out of the building…. enough said!

     (3) The determination of water temperature coming out of the device is not safe because the heat exchanger temperature will not equal the water temperature.

     Overall I think the SSM comes from power in during SSM and flow rate change
     The COP when active comes from water temperature different from TC temperature and possibly flow rate change and possibly electrical measurement issues (relatively small factor).

     You see there is quite a choice. You might have additional info that could narrow it down.

235. BTW – ‘Guest’ seems to have good sources, but I have good reasons to believe that these sources are inside IH or Cherokee. Which has to be taken into account in this situation.

236. Tom, I added a link to the temp data from October 6, 2011.

237. Tom, several people who talked to Darden advised me to contact him directly.

238. One more thing.

     I think your style of reporting, admirable though it is in mnay ways, has one problem. You will gain information from anecdote and what people close to Rossi say, and prefer this to technical fact. For example, when I showed you the recalculation of Lugano, reducing COp and acceleration to unity, you stayed broadly with your previous position because the anecdotal evidence around Rossi that you had access to was so convincing.

     That may work in many scenarios. Rossi is the exception that breaks this. We know that when he is around his tests work well, miracles happen and convince independent testers. We know (believe?) he is convinced his device works. We know he is prepared to say whatever is needed, including in 2010 telling of a non-existent device in a factory heating it with COP > 10 for one year.

     I’d be happy for you to challenge any one of those statements if it is not true.

     It is not surprising you get no comment from IH. They are more professional than Rossi and you must realise that talking informally to a journalist such as yourself – given the current situation – is ill-advised.

     The best you will get is guest’s “off the record information from those close to the players”. That will not be a quote from darden or Vaughn!

239. Tom, just a few remarks regarding my own measurements. Of course I don’t claim professional standard level of testing. However, the instruments were my own standard instruments—not specifically calibrated for the test but with standard accuracy. Regarding wave forms—as long as I did measurements on the Low Temp E-Cat, there were no chopped wave forms. At the most, there were on-and-off mechanisms on standard AC current, with intervalls in one second range, which is not difficult for most instruments. That’s why I was always concerned about the electrical measurements from the HotCat and onwards, which I also describe in my book.
     Another general comment is that Rossi’s set-up is similar from a fuel point of view to Piantelli’s and Focardi’s, who reportedly achieved COP over 1, consistently, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Rossi always achieved similar results.

     BTW, link fixed now.

240. Mats –

     guest’s very plausible comments on this matter, which you now align with, leave it open to what extent Rossi’s stuff actually works. And I’m sure it is in IH’s interests to leave that ambiguity as far as they can.

     However, if Rossi has managed to arrange 7 independent tests most with COP > 3 and some much greater than 3 when in reality he has some marginal excess heat of 1.5 or less this means that his testing is wrong by a factor of more than 2.

     How on earth therefore can Rossi internally have accurate tests? The difference between “no magic” and “1.5X” magic is not significant.

     I guess that Rossi has convinced himself he has this over-unity behaviour. But why should it convince anyone else?

     IH are in the business of supporting LENR research. If Rossi’s tests had shown (in their own testing) solid COP of even 1.5 – which is after all measurable beyond any shadow of a doubt and worth a Nobel prize or two – would they view this as “unsubstantiated”. In that case the “technology” would be substantiated but it would be underperforming for them.

     Your interpretations in this matter have over the years always been hideously biassed towards Rossi actually having LENR. You now say your main reason for believing this is an October 2011 test which you witnessed. If you correct the broken link to your report I’ll have a look at it.

     Here are some questions for anyone liking the “Rossi-effect-light” view.

     Does it not seem strange to you that 7 formal independent tests should be less convincing than your own informal anecdotal report? Which if true would mean real rossi-effect, not Rossi-effect-light.

     Rossi in 2010 claimed in patent applications and in e-mails to possible funders that he was a practical guy, and that his invention had been heating an EON factory and reducing electricity bills by 90% for more than 1 years 24/7.

     That was at the start of this saga – and for details i’m afraid you will have to refer to Gary Wright’s rather weird and unpleasant website. Gary has the documentary evidence and I’m sure will give it to you.

     If he had such a device then it is not “Rossi-effect-light” but an average COP=10 and reliability that is fine.

     If he lied on oath in the patent, and in an e-mail to a funder, on a matter central to his credibility you have to adjust your story as follows:

     (1) Rossi is an inveterate liar and claims that he makes about his device cannot be trusted
     (2) indepedent tests – many – have all somehow managed to overestimate COP by a large amount in Rossi’s favour whenever he is present – but this does not work when he is not present.
     (3) I believe Rossi nevertheless has something because one demo Rossi gave me convinced me.

     Now, I’m not saying you are much worse than the independent testers who have made appalling departures from standard test practice. But you were not even trying to do standard testing:

     Did you note the precise type of each item of test equipment used, and when it was calibrated, and from whom it came?

     Would you realise the problems from measuring a very spiky waveform with voltmeters and ammeters and multiplying the two to get input power?

     You see the problem – no lay observer – no matter how eagle-eyed – can check these issues. And in this case where the inventor is known to have made false claims about his invention’s performance, even more than usual, rigorous testing is required.

     Nevertheless I’ll be happy to look at your test report and compare it with the 7 others…

     Tom

241. Thomas, let me point out that the second hypothesis I have presented is to counterbalance the first. Yet, the information I receive, from multiple sources, is very contradictory. It’s really hard to say, at this point, what’s true and what’s fabricated information intended to serve someone’s interest. From all parts.

242. Thank you Mats for adding a little balance – ever the good journalist.The truth will out, of course, be it shiny or black.

243. Dear Mats, we share the same problems, and many of the sources.

     If Rossi is right, the market will prove his technology and IH will disappear. Rossi as he always planned, will be the new Rockefeller.

     If Darden is right, E-cat affair will damage greatly the LENR domain (it is already damaging investments). We the supporters, will have to swallow the crow, eat our hat as we say in france.
     However its seems Industrial Heat have already created a small US ecosystem, a network, of collaborating scientists, who support him by the way, and this core team maye be able to regenerate the domain.
     It will be a collective efforst, of IH ecosystem, of hobbyist and independent researshers, of EU ecosystem(s), of Asian programs…
     The only risk is that this failure to deliver will stop domain funding. this would be tragic. I hope no.

244. ‘guest’ on LENR forum has asked me to provide some more context for his quote that I linked in the previous blog comments here. The 4 points he made were gleaned from rumours he was privy to from sources close to the action.

     Mats seems to agree now because his new hypothesis aligns with these.

     Here is a link to the thread with all of ‘guest’s comment:

     https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/3001-An-IH-friendly-reason-for-the-claimed-delay-in-finding-a-test-site/?postID=16935#post16935

     And here is the comment I quoted before in a slightly more complete form:

     Thomas – from what I have heard hinted from folks close to the matter your hypothesis seems very likely.

     Here are the rumors I have heard:

     1) Rossi moved forward with Penon as ERV for yearlong test without formal agreement from IH. Rossi likely believed that since Penon performed the 24 hr test he did not need IH’s approval (and contract language might support this).

     2) IH cared very little about the yearlong test, as what mattered to them was the transfer of all know-how that was to immediately follow the $10M payment. Therefore, they decided not to rock the boat over Penon or the apparent shell ‘customer’, as the test held no meaning for them. Being able to make the tech on their own was critical, as that would allow them to test to their heart’s content and both resolve any remaining doubts from independent tests as well as make refinements to optimize performance. Didn’t matter to them if the yearlong test was or was not a sham.

     3) On several occasions prior to conclusion of the yearlong test IH reached out to Rossi indicating they were having a hard time replicating his results and asking for his help. Rossi’s supposed response was that he was focused on the yearlong test and would only help them after the $89M payment (which seems to violate contracted terms).

     4) Sounds like Rossi constructed the contract as it was apparently shopped around to other potential investors in more or less the same form who rejected it on the basis that Rossi wanted installment payments and no ownership in the partner entity. Other potential investors worried this was a hallmark of a potential scam. So unlikely that Rossi was duped or tricked into any of the contract terms (and Rossi’s complaints about what IH has been doing regarding the IP all appear to be ok under terms of contract).

     This paragraph is all my interpretation – IH viewed the $11.5M as a necessary “ante-up” payment to get access to the know-how. It was a substantial sum, but one they could afford to write off if things didn’t pan out. Now the test is completed and Rossi has moved the goalposts refusing to help them independently make it work until after the $89M payment despite contract clearly stating that was to happen as a prior condition. IH has invested in other LENR researchers and is seeing encouraging results, they have also seen encouraging results when Rossi has been directly involved in tests so they want to keep the contract open, but that is not enough to justify paying $89M more on hope that Rossi will finally show them how to replicate. From their perspective a pre-condition of the $89M payment has not been fulfilled by Rossi, so they are legally justified in delaying and the contract remains in place along with all other conditions (e.g. first right to purchase additional territories, Rossi non-compete, access to all new inventions, etc.) until Rossi meets contracted terms. They are at a stalemate, but one that legally appears to favor IH despite the fact that Rossi has spun public opinion in his favor with selective truths and partial statements. To be clear – I don’t think this is fraud, I think Rossi truly believes in the results he is generating, but I also think it most likely that due to his own paranoia he is holding back from IH and mischaracterizing them as trying to screw him out of his money.