Andrea Rossi's 'E-cat' nuclear reactor: a video FAQ

[nbrado]

Rossi has a very bad background, futhermore nobody has seen the central fuel unit or reactor core which leaves open spaces to hide stored energy. until such time any and all units are subjected to real scientific procedure and independent verification I would remain very skeptical of any claims made by Rossi. Why? he has a history of FRAUD!

[cogito2]

@nbrado A lot of this denigration has been manufactured by Rossi's enemies, and I am unaware of anything that actually proves fraud rather than making some people suspicious. The 'open spaces to hide stored energy' theory has been looked at by investigators and declared to be very doubtful when one looks into the details. But it is perfectly in order for you to be sceptical; indeed we should all take a sceptical attitude until such time as there is clear proof.

[nbrado]

@cogito2 Well for a start you should examine his criminal record. furthermore the 40 million euro clean up case from petrol dragon, then there is the Gold Tax VAT fraud which was huge in the UK also at the time with the wembley mob specializing in it. I would like to refer the swedish skeptics society who recently looked at device and said in their report with no access to central fuel unit and reactor container they could not validate. in fact nobody has been able to validate. skeptical I am.

[cogito2]

@nbrado No outsider has recently looked at the device, and Rossi was cleared of a lot of the charges against him.

[nbrado]

@cogito2 Hanno Essen, associate professor of theoretical physics at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and chairman of the swedish skeptic society viewed it. a lot of free energy sites band around that he validated it. of course they were too LAZY to actually read the report which states glaring holes in it with no access to parts of machine where stored energy can be kept. the believers believe what they WANT to believe but ignore the problems.

[cogito2]

@nbrado Yes, your quote above is indeed in the Kullander-Essen report dated 29 March 2011, but you draw the wrong conclusions from it. The other author, Sven Kullander, who is chairman of the Swedish Royal Society's energy committee, gave a lecture in Nov. where he stated his view that Rossi is *not* a fraud.

[Rumdumdecker]

Ironically, brilliant scientists know very little about proper microphone techniques.

[cogito2]

@Rumdumdecker Nothing to do with techniques, everything to do with equipment available in cash-strapped universities. While the music clip used was from a professional recording, the main recording used a dept. camcorder and its own dubious quality mic, added sound used a college computer with no socket for an external mic (!), and I believe the Bushnell clip was from a telephone interview. You'd like to donate funds for better equipment for our next video, perhaps?

[Rumdumdecker]

@cogito2 Fair enough, however I suggest that it would add a lot more credibility to subject matter as important as this if the presentation doesn't look "home made". I do support you efforts though.

[cogito2]

@Rumdumdecker It would be nice if you could get the scientific establishment to take the subject matter seriously just by producing the perfect video! The CBS 60 minutes programme with Robert Duncan a couple of years ago had absolutely no effect on people's attitudes.

[cogito2]

Note from channel owner: the above comment is rather off topic, but since the thread it initiated touches on significant issues (university funding, the rigidity of the scientific community), it seems worth retaining. Helpful advice on recording technique given separately from this comments list has been noted.

[0730Ender]

Something I'd like to see is the energy spectrum of the gamma rays. So far what Rossi has shown is the result from a Geiger counter or something similar, but we know electromagnetic noise from surrounding equipment can fool such devices. Whether these are nuclear reactions require further testing. Aren't there any nuclear physicists at Bologna who can make a proper assessmet? Maybe the lack of suitable proof is what has lead stablished scientific journals to reject Rossi's papers.

[cogito2]

@0730Ender The people at the Univ. of Bologna presumably will be doing this in accord with their contract. Rossi has objected to people from outside running spectrum analysers as this might give information about the secret process.

[0730Ender]

@cogito2 But this is the kind of secrecy that triggers incredulity. Something else that would be necessary to make this credible is a radiochemical analysis showing there's transmutation of Nickel into Cooper, or anything else. I'm sure that a paper showing both the gamma ray spectrum and transmutation evidence would find it's way into refereed journals without any problem.

[nixter1nixter1]

I always thought the process was real, but I completely underestimated the amount of energy that could be produced at low temperatures. It is the absurdly high numbers that make it both interesting and unbelievable at the same time. Believers and skeptics alike are drawn to the spectacle of fantastic claims and assertions of implausible discoveries. With so many physics professionals backing the LENR postulations of anomalous heat production, it is safe to say this is an authentic milestone.

[baddoggie101]

I have created a “We the People Petition” asking for a review of the Energy Catalyzer by the White House that you can sign by going here: wh dot gov/j3P

[cogito2]

@baddoggie101 I was interested to see that someone flagged your comment as spam, which strikes me (after checking the link) as distinctly sinister!

[baddoggie101]

@cogito2 There are quite a few snakes and ells slithering about. Some have legitimate worries about the manner of the tests performed on the E-Cat but too many are just trolls spouting cynical useless comments and have no engineering or scientific basis for their opinions.

[NaturesFirstGreen]

@cogito2 It's not necessarily sinister. I think that if comments are copy/pasted, youtube automatically marks them as spam.

I've been following the ecat story closely for months now. It's frustrating that the overall situation has not significantly changed. At the moment I'm looking forward to the upcoming talks by Kullander and Ahern and also Defkalion's announcement, but I expect to be disappointed...

[ke4uyp]

@NaturesFirstGreen It's not necessarily sinister. I think that if comments are copy/pasted, youtube automatically marks them as spam.

[hpeterh]

Dear Professor,

it was said 2 Months ago there will be people that are aware of all pifalls at the 1 MW demo and we have to wait for this.

(See in the list of comments 2 months ago)

Now we have waited and the demo is done and it did not happen in the promised way, no independent experts where allowed.

How to explain this?

[cogito2]

@hpeterh I believe it was done as promised -- there were people there acting on behalf of the purchasers who tested it for them and I believe declared themselves satisfied and payment was made. They were indeed independent of Rossi. Not very satisfactory from our point of view, but Ed Storms has pointed out that this was an 'engineering demonstration' directed at people interested in buying the reactor, not scientists. Buyers can do their own tests first, see PESN site for the details.

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

The 1MW plant test might have confirmed the e-cat technology. As an ordinary industrial heater it has exposed serious problems. Operated with doors closed and 100% power, it would overheat, leak and fail.

A real HVAC engineer had not accepted delivery. If there is a customer then he was not interested in an industrial heater, but in e-cat technology. Possibly it where strawmen and want to steal or license the technology. Possibly they where madmen.

[cogito2]

@hpeterh I have it on pretty good authority that they are serious people. No doubt ways can be found to cope with the difficulties you point out. The question is always why Rossi would go to all this trouble it it were a matter of fraud (and surely a mad person would not be able to organise all this so that doesn't explain it). And the article re E-cat sales on the PESN site indicates that the sale conditions promised offer little opportunity to cheat buyers.

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

A customer who really seriously needs high confidentiality would not reveal himself to Rossi & compagnions. He will sent a proxie or strawmen. Rossi is not a highly trusted person. You know him.

I dont believe Rossi knows the customer.

So if you got pretty good authority he must have already violated confidentiality or you got not good authority, but false authority.

In all friendly respect, this is not to believe.

[cogito2]

@hpeterh I agree, it could be a proxy, and all we and probably Rossi know is what the proxy has said. And of course anyone who buys the reactor might want to steal or license the technology. But would not anyone want to check it out before handing over the money? It is theoretically possible I suppose that Rossi is a fraud and the proxy was both mad and incompetent ... . If so, Rossi was very lucky!

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

The customer might have been convinced by previous demos and captured by friendliness and charisma of Rossi and then he doesnt check whats going on.

I was the first who said, there might be a vacuum on the steam outlet sucking out the water, even Krivit was unable to explain how to do a scam. All these specialist had never this idea and even a trained engineer would not have considered this possibility and might be fooled. If its a scam, then its a clever trick or many clever tricks.

[cogito2]

@hpeterh The pesn site now reports an agreement with National Instruments to have them make all of the instrumentation for the E-Cat. These certainly seem well established people, not in the shadows, and it is hard to see why Rossi should want to do business with them if the reactors are dubious, as they'd soon discover any problem.

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

The real meaning of this agreement is not known, this can be a million dollar contract or a custom programmed processor, which is much cheaper (some 1000 dollars)

More information and confirmation by NI is needed.

[cogito2]

The event on Oct. 28 2011 where the 'customer' tested the 1MW reactor (run at half power as the customer opted for self-sustaining mode) appears to have been successful. See Mats Lewan's article 'Half a megawatt E-cat in Bologna'.

[packoftwenty]

Did anybody else immediately think 'Davros!' when they started watching this?

[goblin003]

@cogito2 I wouldn't trust the calorimetry based on you not knowing what the secret reactant is. Of course my theory is easy to disprove by excluding the required water vapour stream exiting the reactor chamber (to atmosphere or to the water effluent). If there is an exhaust stream then a simple check for water would prove my theory.

[goblin003]

Here is my theory. The "secret" catalyst is actually a copper oxide that is being reduced by the hydrogen. That's an exothermic reaction and also explains the copper being found.

So no nuclear reaction, just a chemical reaction on the so called catalyst. That's my theory anywah.

[cogito2]

@goblin003 Chemical reactions can't produce enough energy. Do the math!

[goblin003]

@cogito2 Happy to! Where's the data? Oh! I forgot , there is no data. Sorry I can't do the math on an undisclosed process.

[cogito2]

@goblin003 The data is given in the video. Have fun!

[cogito2]

News flash: just as per plan, there is scheduled a test later this month where money will be handed over if the experts agree that the 1MW reactor works. So, no crash ... yet.

[thatguyweheard]

the snake was wrong dot com  :)

[cogito2]

@thatguyweheard Yes, his blog really shows up his serpentine agenda (he can' t be so stupid as to consider his heading a true representation of the facts, can he?).

I've been discussing various issues with Mats Lewan and he seems pretty convinced that despite the imperfections in the expt. the conclusions remain valid. So will pigs fly first, or will Nature admit that something has been happening in Bologna first?

[cogito2]

@thatguyweheard ... and thanks for the link

[cogito2]

Update: Mats Lewan has posted an article 'New test of the E-cat enhances proof of heat' re the Oct. 6 test: to see this follow the usual link for his Ny Teknik articles as given in the description above The total amount of heat generated in the period with no input being fed in is more than twice as much as you could get by filling the part that could not be examined with Li-ion batteries.

[cogito2]

@cogito2 My contact who was there notes that hidden fuel to generate the heat is also ruled out because the weight loss would have been detected.

[cogito2]

Important (for those who have seen the wrong information!) correction: a number of blogs have stated that I (BJ) will be running a test of the reactor next month. This is not the case: the experiment concerned (invitation only) is one run by Prof. Levi. This happened because I reposted, in a discussion, text from an email by Levi, and someone who did not read that posting carefully enough thought that the text was my own, not Levi's.

[itoldyousoisaid]

@cogito2 So it will be October in a few days time.. Is the MW factory up and running yet or even close? I would really love to see it make it but history tells me it hasn't got a chance. Not unless more ppl start demanding these technologies.

[cogito2]

@itoldyousoisaid Well, October hath 31 days, and it is said that the production is on track. Check out Mats Lewan's article "Here’s Rossi’s one megawatt plant" (follow link in the description of this video above), where he says he's seen the reactor.

[cogito2]

@itoldyousoisaid Thanks for your further comment. In fact, there have been many requests from people who would like to have the technology when it is available.

[itoldyousoisaid]

@cogito2 This technology is not even all that impressive - relatively speaking - i see he expects his MW factory to be "only" 6:1 over-unity and R&D would take years (Rossi) to get this technology into cars.. NOW if the powers that be can allow this to happen by some means of a (prob false) explanation for this achieved energy gain, that won't open the Pandora's box ( "free" energy becoming fact! ) then THEY might let it happen but can be sure it's contribution to energy generation

[itoldyousoisaid]

@cogito2 worldwide will be minimal at best. IF on the other hand they can't pass this energy gain off on the world with some bs THEN E-cat does not have a hope and all the optimism in the world cognito2 will not make a blind bit of difference. WHAT would make difference is if ppl woke up but the human condition is predominately a herd mentality - sadly for the rest of us

[cogito2]

@itoldyousoisaid Saving money can be a powerful inducement to adopt a technology. And there is talk of being able to run it in 'self-sustaining mode', so it may get better than 6:1 in future.

[itoldyousoisaid]

@cogito2 cognito2 i applaud you fighting the good fight, but truth is saving money has got nothing to do with how this world works. There has to be a social revolution on a global scale the like NEVER seen before in humanity before ANY self-sustaining energy device will be marketed to the ppl (or even acknowledged as being possible)... OK then if saving money is going to be the catalyst for the realization of this type of device, WHY oh why has it not done it before.. riddle me that ??

[cogito2]

@itoldyousoisaid Partly because only recently have the devices (that I know about) produced useful amounts of power. But a previous enterprise ran aground because of insufficient funds for development; Rossi's advantage is having his own funds from his previous successful enterprises. BTW, I hear Bill Gates is funding his own fission process, something to do with a travelling wave, and other fission methods are proposed by people. A lot depends on being lucky and everything going right.

[hpeterh]

It is possible to insert links when these are changed so the youtube parser does not recognize them.

h t t p: / /hphsite . de /Temp /Journal_of_Nuclear_Physics . h t m

Copy & paste to adressbar of browser and remove the spaces;-)

@nich1f : I dont think it is a simple invention. The catalyzer is the invention. The device is indeed simple but I dont think this design is necessary. The design can be changed, the catalyzer substance probably not.

[cogito2]

@hpeterh Of course, there are ways around YouTube's ban, but ecatmania's trick is especially simple.

May I take this opportunity to note that this video gained the unwelcome attention of a spammer recently, who posted getting on for a dozen identical messages, which because of moderation I was able to reject before they ever got here! It looks as if he's moved on now.

[cogito2]

There are new articles now by Mats Lewan in NyTeknik, one about the 1MW reactor and one about a test with no energy being fed in (but not providing conclusive proof that energy had not been stored up beforehand). The description of this video provides a link to Lewan's articles.

[cogito2]

Incidentally, the fact that Lewan is allowed to carry out such tests provide an answer to nick1f's earlier criticisms. The test was terminated at Lewan's request as he had to go and would probably have settled doubts about stored energy if it had continued.

[nick1f]

I am skeptical about this invention. They do not allow scientist to perform some tests on the device. They tried to install the power station to a dubious Greek company, which ended up not paying. The contribution of Sergio Focardi is sort of unnecessary at the moment (it is in regard to some preventive safety issues). Most of all, the discovery is too significant and quite simple. I wish it is true but probably the future will prove it is just some elaborated scam.

[cogito2]

@nick1f Not a problem, as proper investigations are being carried out both by Bologna University and NASA, taking full account of issues previously raised regarding the reliability of earlier measurements. These are scheduled to be completed before the 1MW demo in October. I think it is unlikely to be a scam, but I agree that Rossi seems to have put too much trust in the Greek company.

[nick1f]

@cogito2 Yeah, I checked more on the internet, I've seen a blog where Mr Rossi answers questions and he seems genuine. Contrary to (other) scams he is not trying to obtain funds from "sophisticated investors".

Maybe we just see history in the making. If this invention can deliver what's expected from it, it will have a tremendous impact on the whole planet. I still can't understand how it has not been already discovered. On the other hand, science still has a long way to go.

[itoldyousoisaid]

@nick1f There has been HUNDREDS if not thousands of DOCUMENTED over-unity devices going back well over a hundred years ago. Science just ignores them. Truth

[cogito2]

@ecatmania: just like penicillin, wireless transmission ... clearly also very improbable claims at first. And I must remember your trick for indicating a link to a youtube video despite youtube's disapproval of links in a message.

[MeUDntKnw]

@cogito2 youtube have no problem with youtube links, and that's what that link is, a youtube link, which youtube has no problem with.

[cogito2]

@MeUDntKnw I'll try it out and see if you are right.

'fraid not. I inserted the _full URL_ of a youtube video and, as I expected, it came back to me saying 'Error, try again' -- it makes no difference that it is a youtube URL. What ecatmania did was to leave out the youtube part and just put in the rest, leaving people to guess what they needed to add to create the working URL.

You can however put in URLs when writing to users and in the description field of a video, but not in comments.

[cogito2]

The number of views of the original, low quality version of this video having dropped to 107 in the past week, I felt it appropriate at this point to make it no longer available, though it has not been deleted and I can still access the comments. The final number of views was 14,280.

[hpeterh]

There are a lot of companies online that claim to produce energy.

Most of them have measurements and calculations, often backed by scientists.

Some have certificates from Underwriter Labs and TÜV.

None of those has yet evidently produced a milliwatt, these only claim and calculate energy, but dont produce energy. They make money nevertheless.

This all is not convincing.

Humans can be fooled and hypnotized . Scientists and Engineers are human.

Nature cannot been fooled or hypnotized. ;-)

[cogito2]

@hpeterh There are people who are aware of the pitfalls who will be testing the reactor before the 1MW reactor is rolled out. As noted in the video, that will be the test and unless new information comes in, discussion along these lines is a rather pointless activity, people can believe either way. I suggest we just wait.

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

Thats what I wanted to know. Thank you very much!

[hpeterh]

I want to propose an easy and quick and reliable energy test method:

1 kg of saturated steam at air pressure can melt about 8 kg of ice.

Thats easy to calculate. Thats not a very precise method, but very reliable.

It has high evidence, error is almost impossible.

Blow the steam into a container filled with ice and measure the water flowing out. The melted ice must be about 8 times more than the water consumed.

Rossi should stop chattering and present facts.

best wishes,

Peter

[cogito2]

For people interested in the details, Mats Lewan has written an article about it in Ny Teknik. You can find this via the link given in the description.

[cogito2]

As many will be aware, the agreement between Rossi and Defkalion has been terminated, but because of financial issues rather than the science (see comment on Rossi's blog, 2.22pm on Aug. 7th.). A lawsuit is in the offing, brought by Rossi it would appear. Meanwhile, a new agreement has been signed in the US, and rigorous testing will be carried out by the people concerned before the demonstration of the 1MW reactor in October.

[cogito2]

The saga is being covered on the Pure Energy Systems Network (PESN) web site.

[NaturesFirstGreen]

@cogito2 And now the agreement is back on... If nothing else, it's a hell of a soap opera. Rossi himself seems sketchy, but it also seems there is something in the technology. I'd like to see the scientific establishment eat mountains of crow almost as much I'd like to see the world saved from disaster. Thank you for the video, Dr. Josephson.

[cogito2]

@NaturesFirstGreen Unfortunately, it seems this is not the case. Rossi has said on his blog in response to a query by Sterling Allan: "It is totally false that EFA srl has cured the agreement with Defkalion. There is nothing at all to add to the press release already published the last week (August 6th 2011).

This answer is valid also for many other Readers who have asked us the same thing.

WE WILL NOT RETURN ON THIS ISSUE."

[hpeterh]

I have a 1500 Watt 1 liter waterboiler at home. Normaly this automatically switches off, when the water is boiling. I made an experiment and surpressed the switch off.

After some minutes steam bubbles are so intense that water is thrown out.

Therefore I believe, a 1 liter steam boiler, that produces 10 kWatts of dry steam at air pressure is impossible to build from an engineering point of view.

I think even 5 kW are impossible.

Therefore I think, this is a scam.

[cogito2]

@hpeterh Unless all the details (water flow rate, tube diameter etc.) are the same as for the Rossi reactor, that test would not prove very much.,

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

With all respect, Professor Josephson:

The Water flow rate at 10 kW is 10kW/(2706 kWs/kg) = 3.7 g/s or 222g/minute if all water is vapourized.

I have a flow rate of zero, a measuring duration of < 2 minutes and Power of 1500W and already get steam bubble problems. So the tendency is obvious.

But better a skilled steam boiler engineer should be asked. I am not a specialist.

But I did study technical data of commercial industrial steam boilers before writing this.

[cogito2]

@hpeterh It's not that simple, I think, there are all sorts of potential complications. Anyway, Rossi appears to be focussing his efforts on the October 1MW version; let's hope that is clearer.

[hpeterh]

@cogito2

I have now found some evidence in Mats Levan's Test and in Essen and Kullander Test. For both tests exist a PDF document. (Unfortunately I cannot give a link here)

From both documents we can see, that the electrical input is too low to heat the given water flow to 100 centigrade. Nevertheless the water starts to boil. So we have hard evidence (if it is not a Houdini trick).

Same for the january demo. Unfortunately this is not emphasized in online mass media.

[GetMeThere1]

It's interesting. When others can produce the same results it will be fascinating. Until then, the odds suggest it's yet another "magic box" capable of fooling those unsophisticated about magic.

One FACT is that--since he's unwilling to show the "guts"--it doesn't MATTER whether people "believe." If he decides to build power stations all over the world we'll know it's true, and if it stays in the realm of chatter for years we'll know it's baloney.

[cogito2]

@GetMeThere1: a number of people are hoping to buy his power generators (which are already being manufactured); Rossi has no intention to keep it 'in the realm of chatter'. As I say at the end of the video, we should know the situation by the end of the year.

[GetMeThere1]

@cogito2 : It does sound hopeful--even though (to a non-expert like myself) the detractors seem to have substance (the lack of gamma radiation). The world certainly need this, if it's real!

[cogito2]

Soutitres en Français! French subtitles are now here, thanks to Tonino, who says they are less successful than the Italian ones as French is more verbose. But you can use the options menu or just +/- keys to adjust the size so they take up less space on the screen. Inferior copies of this video that you may come across on this site do not have subtitles :-)

[cogito2]

Thanks to offers that have come in from people, there are now Italian subtitles, and French ones are under preparation.  These are selected using the CC button.

[cogito2]

A missing colon in the link for the Mats Lewan articles has been restored, and the link should now work.

[datzfast]

i can see the world taking notice when 2,457 people view out of billions. mabey smart folk are truly a minority. even if its a crue joke on us all, to not take notice of something so important is criminal. i hope its a real discovery for my children. if true it may be like a gift from god if god were real.

[cogito2]

@datzfast: 2457, plus 13K at the original URL and more than 4K for the version on our media server, so nearly 20K in total. But most of these will be non-scientists as scientists 'know' that it is nonsense and won't even look. They rely on the scientific media to discover what is 'true', so the total block means they can't find out. The media are afraid to breathe a word, even sceptically, because of what it might lead to, and go for the safe option. But some of my colleagues think differently.

[cogito2]

I can't resist repeating the splendid phrase 'blanket of complicity', used by someone on the radio since I wrote the above in connection with the way a number of organisations created collectively the impression that the NI phone hacking activity was really nothing. While the analogy is by no means perfect, that phrase nicely captures the collective action that ensures that nothing gets out generally re the Rossi reactor, the protective Iron Say-wall.

[highvoltage1968]

He had better buy a bullet proof vest and stay out of his back yard.

[neo2007neo]

This is Prof Dr Brian Josephson, already a nobel laureate AND famous (in his field) for the famous Josephson junction, a sort of transitor or switch function at a quantum level, laying basis for future quantum computers.

So listen carefully to Josephson! Thank you Brian Josephson for standing up and being heard and counted...

And Mr Rossi please make your secret catalyst known freely on the internet to the world before some trillion dollar force stamps it underground or national security...

[SuperGukke]

@neo2007neo hear hear!!

[Lichtwerk0172]

I can't wait to get it !!!

Thank you for who you are

Namasté