PROCESSES OR MEANS, e.g. BATTERIES, FOR THE DIRECT CONVERSION OF CHEMICAL ENERGY INTO ELECTRICAL ENERGY (electrochemical processes or apparatus in general C 25; semiconductor or other solid state devices for converting light or heat into electrical energy H 01 L, e.g. 31/00, 35/00, 37/00). http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2717510/replies?c=77
As mugwump56 pointd out, "It would appear the Rossi patent has slipped past as a chemical reactor in which case its possible a practical demo of the device for patent examiner's benefit never occurred."
Then you have the ridiculous claims of huge amounts of energy that generate little puffs of (visible?) steam. I suppose there's no steam jet because the cold-nuclear process opens up a wormhole that bleeds it off into another dimension. </sarc>
You need to consider that the point at which the "steam" is being shown is at the end of about 3 or more meters of exhaust tubing, which is more than sufficient to condense out most of water from the stream (and transfer most of the energy to the room interior as "waste heat".
You'd be surprised at how easily heat is lost through tube. I'm currently doing much the same thing on a much smaller scale...we're working on a small fluidic "digester" to chemically treat samples. We push an aqueous solution (about 500 ul) into a small, very thick walled glass vessel, close a couple of valves, and heat it up to 200 C. At the end of the digestion, we open a different valve, and the steam (and analyte) exits the reactor into a 1/16" OD (0.030" ID) Teflon tube. The steam makes about two inches before it starts to condense. We then take the condensed liquid aliguot to further processing and measurement.
What you see with Rossi's gizmo is absolutely NOT surprising (or unusual).