Posted on 11/14/2011 11:34:43 PM PST by Kevmo
The Fusion Revolution
When the first human animal figured out how to make fire at will, life on earth changed forever. The fictional character Sherlock Holmes once said that "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Using that logic, I have come to the conclusion that fossil fuels will soon become obsolete, and human history will again be dramatically altered. A total switchover to fusion power will take decades, but basic economics tells us that fusion reactors will win in the marketplace over their more costly competitors. Imagine a clean new world where oil and coal are only used to make chemicals, and where every nation on earth has equal access to low cost energy. Scientist Andrea Rossi's "Energy Catalyzer" (E-Cat) pressure fusion reactor promises to accomplish all of this and more.
Rossi states that he uses micrometer grain sized nickel dust enriched to contain more of two useful isotopes, N-62 and N-64. The nickel is then processed to increase the number of surface tubercles (protrusions) to provide greater area for heat producing reactions with hydrogen gas under pressure. Secret catalysts are added to break apart molecular hydrogen gas (H2) into atomic hydrogen (H1), and to make nickel more receptive to hydrogen nuclei. It has been speculated that the catalysts are iron dust (about 10% by weight) and very fine carbon powder. The iron dust might be added to break apart H2 into H1, and the carbon powder added as a "scavenger" for contaminating oxygen, and perhaps for other, less obvious purposes. Rossi states that the total cost of nickel processing plus the catalyst adds just 10% to the total cost of the fuel. Heat is applied to the pressurized nickel-hydrogen mixture to get the reaction started. The low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) that result drives the nuclei of hydrogen atoms into the heart of nickel, turning small amounts of nickel isotopes N-62 and N-64 into the copper isotopes CU-63 and CU-65. Every 6 months the fuel load is refreshed and the old metallic fuel is sold as valuable scrap metal.
According to Rossi, in the latest E-Cat design the ordinary resistive style heating elements are quickly turned off as the reactor becomes self-sustaining, then switched on again for ten minutes every half hour to keep the units operating in a stable, safely productive zone of pressure and heat. If Rossi uses higher pressures to output greater heat and produce continuous, totally self-sustaining operation, E-Cat output can become unstable, releasing too much energy too quickly, resulting in explosion. Rossi states that he has purposely exploded dozens of E-Cats during stress tests in order to determine the exact limits of safe operation. Rossi therefore operates his first generation E-Cats in a powered down mode, finely balancing pressure and heat. Future E-Cat designs, perhaps incorporating new construction materials, different reactor shapes, and more refined microprocessor controls should result in improved performance over time. The first internal combustion engine looks like a joke compared to today's designs, and Rossi's first generation E-Cats may look very primitive compared to what will be available in the world marketplace in the year 2021.
Rossi claims that nickel-hydrogen fusion can give the world electricity at a cost of just one cent per kilowatt hour when produced by large scale LENR (low energy nuclear reaction) power plants. Even if we skeptically triple that cost to 3 cents per kilowatt hour, it is still an incredible bargain. We currently pay at least 40 cents per kilowatt hour for intermittent electricity produced by solar panels, 15 cents per kilowatt hour for unpredictable wind power electricity, and 8 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity produce by natural gas fired power plants. Rossi states that just one pound of nickel can unleash as much energy as burning 517,000 pounds of oil, which is approximately 1,590 barrels worth. Fortunately, the earth has enough easily mineable nickel to supply all of our energy needs for millions of years.
In 2007 Rossi asked Professor Sergio Focardi to help him test his E-Cat prototype and verify that it did not emit dangerous radiation. Conventional "hot" nuclear fusion using lasers to super-heat deuterium and tritium creates so much radiation that it would be impossible to shield in a small, portable device like the E-Cat. Through extensive testing the two scientists found no dangerous levels of radiation escaping from the E-Cat’s lead lined fusion chamber. No radioactive materials are used in the reactor's construction, and the temporary internal gamma ray radiation produced by pressure fusion stops when the reactor is turned off, leaving behind no residual radioactive elements and zero toxic waste. After four years of studying the E-Cat, Professor Sergio Focardi gleefully declared that "This is the greatest discovery in human history," and went on to say that "The results will be immense: clean energy at (almost) zero cost."
The men behind the most important invention of the 21st century
Left Picture - Rossi on left and Focardi on right
Middle Picture - Stremmenos and Rossi working together, Focardi by fan
Right Picture - Stremmenos on left, Rossi in middle, and very interested Chinese official, Hauard Chen, on right
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Background
Andrea Rossi - Master of Science and Engineering from the Università Degli Studi Di Milan. His degree is also known as "Philosophy of Science and Engineering." It is a broad science and engineering degree, not a degree in classical philosophy. Andrea Rossi has been an accomplished engineer since age 22, starting and owning several energy related businesses.
Sergio Focardi - Professor Emeritus of Experimental Physics at the Università di Bologna and author of numerous books and scientific articles. Focardi has a history of researching nickel-hydrogen fusion even before teaming up with Andrea Rossi.
Christos Stremmenos - Former physics professor at the Università di Bologna and former Greek ambassador to Italy. Stremmenos has many social ties to the current Greek Government because of his history of valiant political opposition to the military dictatorship in Greece during the 1960s. Stremmenos researched nickel-hydrogen fusion before meeting Andrea Rossi.
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Sometime in the year 2010, Andrea Rossi contacted Dr. Joseph Levi, a physics professor at the University of Bologna associated with the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). After conducting preliminary tests in private, Levi set up an historic public demonstration on January 14, 2011, attended by 50 scientists from the University of Bologna and the INFN. The E-Cat produced 12.4 kilowatts of heat with an input of just 0.4 kilowatts, a gain of 31 times input power. In a third test conducted by Levi in which the E-Cat was setup to produce large amounts of hot water rather than steam, the E-Cat produced a minimum of 15 kilowatts of heat continuously for over 18 hours, and outputted peaks of heat up to 130 kilowatts. This experiment showed that a potential measuring error caused by the production of incompletely vaporized water, known as "wet steam", was not a factor in determining the E-Cat's energy output. Dr. Levi stated that "Now that I have seen the device work for so many hours, in my view all chemical energy sources are excluded.”
On March 29th, 2011, two Swedish scientists participated in a test of Rossi's new mini E-Cat, which produced over 4.4 kilowatts of heat from a volume of only 50 cubic centimeters (3.05 cubic inches), just one twentieth the size of the original one liter E-Cat prototype. Hanno Essén is an associate professor of theoretical physics at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, and ironically a former chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society. Essén stated that "In some way a new kind of physics is taking place. It’s enigmatic, but probably no new laws of nature are involved. We believe it is possible to explain the process with known laws of nature.” He went on to say that "We checked everything that could be checked, and we could walk around freely and have a look at most of the equipment."
Sven Kullander, a Professor at Uppsala University and chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Energy Committee, also participated in the test. Kullander stated that "My belief that there is an energy development far beyond what one would expect has been strengthened significantly as I have had the opportunity to see the process for myself and perform measurements." Their group report stated that "Any chemical process for producing 25 kWh from any fuel in a 50 cm3 container can be ruled out. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production."
Sherlock Holmes would ask what are the odds that Rossi, Focardi, Levi, Essén, Kullander, Christos Stremmenos, and a dozen other top scientists could all go insane at the same time, deciding to throw away their reputations, careers, and scientific legacies by endorsing a fraudulent energy scheme. How could a public test closely observed by 50 scientists be faked? The E-Cat produced so much energy that if the power had come from the wall socket, the power cord would have melted. No tiny hidden battery could have possibly unleashed so much energy, and the small amount of hydrogen gas consumed during the reactor test was independently measured at less than 1 gram, thus simple combustion is ruled out as an energy source. Overall hydrogen consumption for the E-Cat is estimated at 0.01 grams of hydrogen to produce 10 kilowatt hours of heat. The only reasonable explanation for the excess energy produced is some form of low energy nuclear reaction (LENR). Thus, no matter how improbable it is that Rossi and others have discovered a new field of physics, it must be true according to the practical logic of Sherlock Holmes.
Unlike the notoriously flawed "cold fusion" experiments using deuterium and palladium conducted by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann in 1989, Rossi’s invention is decidedly "hot" in that the reactor yields generous amounts of reliable heat. The reaction is so powerful that even a first year engineering student could easily measure the E-Cat’s healthy net energy gain. We therefore know with certainty that the E-Cat’s energy is real and not an illusion created by measuring error, a possibility that haunted the work of Pons and Fleischmann. Rossi’s initial scientific paper on the E-Cat was rejected by established journals because even Rossi himself could not come up with a sufficiently detailed explanation of how the E-Cat works. Building an E-Cat is easier than explaining what happens inside the E-Cat’s reactor core. Andrea Rossi's explanation below is from a recent EV World interview and has been edited for clarity.
"To make it simple, what happens is that nickel has a particularity that protons spread from it's surface with extreme efficiency very close to the nucleus, even if repelled by the so called coulomb barrier forces. When we inject protons of hydrogen at high pressures and temperatures, they go pretty close to the nucleus of the nickel. At those points we have nuclear effects that produce gamma rays which add more energy. We increase the pressure leading to extremely high pressures... similar to ones that happen inside White Dwarf stars. In that situation the so called Gamow Factor, which is a probabilistic calculation of the coulomb repelling forces, is overcome. At that point enough energy is produced to make it worth being recorded." - Andrea Rossi
Professor Christos Stremmenos has submitted his own ideas on how the E-Cat functions here. Purdue University Professor Yeong E. Kim's paper suggesting that Bose-Einstein theory may explain E-Cat phenomena can be found here. Remember that scientists and engineers do not invent the laws of nature and can only attempt to explain the functions of nature within the limitations of our mortal human abilities. Andrea Rossi himself has paid the University of Bologna to test the E-Cat and come up with their own theories on how it works in a year long study program to begin in November of 2011.
Much experimentation will be needed before the full potential of E-Cat technology is realized, and as always the original inventor’s work will be greatly improved upon by other scientists from around the world. As pressure fusion is a completely new, inherently nontoxic technology, there are no regulatory barriers to slow its rapid technological advance. The growth of E-Cat use may thus be as exponential in progression as the use of personal computers in the 1990s. E-Cats may end up being sold by large chain stores and familiar online retailers. No precious metals are used in the low cost, easy to manufacture E-Cats, and any company with the technological skills required to build an air conditioner can produce them in large numbers on assembly lines. That means even poor, relatively undeveloped countries will be able to manufacture them.
Finding safe ways to scale up E-Cat technology to the giant gigawatt size needed to replace major fossil fuel and fission nuclear power plants will take a few years of research by big corporations. If E-Cats turn out to be as economical as expected, they will eventually be used to power cars, trucks, trains, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft. Imagine a luxury sedan you could drive for thousands of miles without refueling, or a small aircraft you could fly from New York to Beijing nonstop at low cost.
The American based company, Ampenergo, will handle E-Cat sales and technology licensing contracts in the Western Hemisphere. A European based E-Cat licensing and manufacturing deal with the Greek company, Defkalion Green Technologies, has come into question after a dramatic argument with Rossi. Rossi accused Defkalion of not living up to their financial agreement with his own company, Leonardo Corporation, by not coming through with an expected lump sum payment. A conciliatory Defkalion claims that both Rossi and Defkalion are under great pressure from banks and major corporations interested in preserving our reliance on fossil fuels. See Defkalion's dramatic statement, as if lifted from a best selling novel, or even from the Keanu Reeves movie, Chain Reaction. Rossi states that "The issue (with Defkalion) is just financial, not personal, nor technological, nor scientific." Rossi has recently sold his own home in order to raise funds to finish his one megawatt E-Cat reactor, so all of his own personal chips are now on the table.
Defkalion states they are surging ahead with plans to mass produce their own unique version of E-Cats, which they call Hyperion Modules. [NEWS: See November 14th, 2011, Defkalion press release with pictures of their latest Hyperion Modules and lab equipment] Internet rumors suggest that Defkalion's fusion reactors perform even better than Rossi built E-Cats, and that Defkalion figured out their own "secret catalyst" without Rossi's help. I predict we will not know all of the real facts until a major motion picture is made of the birth of E-Cat technology, something along the lines of the 2010 movie, The Social Network, about the birth of Facebook. May I suggest to Hollywood movie moguls the working title, The New Fire. Dramatic tension continues to build, and the stakes could not be higher. With the world economy in shambles, E-Cat technology represents the only magic bullet solution that can lead us out of global financial and ecological calamity. What will happen next?
Rossi's recent October 6th public test in Bologna, Italy, of a single E-Cat reactor cell in "self-sustaining mode" produced energy for almost four hours with inconsequential energy input, which was carefully measured and subtracted from the energy output measurements. If the E-Cat was not producing heat from low energy nuclear reactions (LENR), then the constant flow of water would have cooled the E-Cat down to room temperature. Instead, the E-Cat maintained stable heat production and continued to boil water. As the E-Cat did not lose any weight during the test, chemical reactions can be ruled out as a source of the heat. Defkalion's public reaction (and here) to the October 6th test has added more drama and soap opera interest to this breaking news story.
An unnamed corporate or military customer (possibly DARPA or SPAWAR) tested Rossi's one megawatt (heat) E-Cat power plant on October 28th, 2011. The test was conducted by Domenico Fioravanti, who reportedly is a NATO colonel and engineer with 30 years of experience in thermodynamics. The reactor was run in half power self-sustain mode for over 5.5 hours. That means there was no energy input during 5.5 hours of continuous operation. "According to the customer’s controller, Domenico Fioravanti, the plant released 2,635 kWh during five and a half hours of self sustained mode, which is equivalent to an average power of 479 kilowatts."
Rossi states that the first E-Cat reactors he sells will be for heating and cooling, including a low cost home heating model, a 40 centimeter (15.75") cube weighing 60 kilograms (132 pounds). You can keep up with fast moving E-Cat events through e-catworld.com/ The Swedish engineering journal, NyTeknik, helped with the October 6th testing and has a news story published here, and a technical report here. Below is NyTeknik's graph of the October 6th E-Cat test with notations by Andrea Rossi.
If E-Cat technology works as promised, and as every public and private test to date indicates, then humans will gradually replace all fossil fuels with energy from nickel-hydrogen fusion. There will be no risk of radioactive pollution because E-Cats contain no radioactive or fissile materials. Fusion power will put an end to biofuels and all the environmental damage and food price hyperinflation they create. E-Cats will raise our standard of living by lowering the cost of food, shelter, clothing, consumer goods, transportation…everything.
Andrea Rossi has potential competition in the design of very large scale nuclear fusion power plants. Tri Alpha Energy uses boron and hydrogen as nuclear fuel, which breaks up into three helium-4 nuclei and three alpha particles, a process that produces little or no radioactive waste. Rossi's reactor must heat liquids to push turbines to make electricity. Tri Alpha's reactor can theoretically create electricity directly with no turbine required, increasing efficiency while reducing size and construction costs. Tri Alpha's concept is so appealing that famed Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, has invested millions of dollars into the highly secretive Rancho Santa Margarita based company.
If nuclear fusion does not work as hope, then the next obvious alternative is the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), which is the safest, cleanest, and most efficient fission reactor design available. After the serious nuclear accidents in Japan, however, any development of LFTR technology or other new fission reactor design will be painfully slow, perhaps too slow to avoid further dramatic collapse of the world economies which rely so heavily on affordable energy. Let us all hope that nickel-hydrogen fusion does work as claimed, because billions of human lives will be saved by a major reduction in energy costs.
Christopher Calder email = archive100 AT inbox DOT com
Links:
Rossi's paper - "A new energy source from nuclear fusion"
Interview with Andrea Rossi
Andrea Rossi's website - "Journal of Nuclear Physics"
Rossi's patent application
main website, with overview of all major energy sources - The Renewable Energy Disaster
Why must it?? This is YOUR assumption. Apparently Dr. Kullander doesn't see that natural ratio as evidence of a scam, or impossible.....just "weird". Hell, most of Mother Nature is "weird" (see quantum mechanics).
They wanted to do a high flow experiment "now" but didn't have a large enough pump, so they hooked up to the wall pipe, put a totalizing flowmeter in the line to the e-cat, and away they went. A lot more ingenious than "half-assed". It's called "making do with the equipment you have.
And in doing the experiment that way also removed any possibility of things like the "hydrogen peroxide scam".
I make instrumentation do what it isn't designed to do on a virtual daily basis. The way the data was collected was "different" but completely valid.
"By the way, if there was a flowmeter used to take accurate volume measurements, the data sure wasn’t in the report I read.
Perhaps you should do more than just read the reports. You pathological skeptics seem to be channeling O.J. Simpson's lawyer (Johnny Cochran)....."if it's not on a list, it doesn't exist".
Ignore.
LOL....completely inaccurate, like all your stuff. At one time in my career, I did a lot of work with radioisotopes, but that was long ago. But I certainly didn't lose the knowledge gained during that time frame.
Apparently Dr. Kullander doesn't see that natural ratio as evidence of a scam, or impossible.....just "weird"I wonder if anyone ever asked Dr. Kullander if the sample was consistent with someone just mixing together some naturally-occuring Copper and some naturally-occuring Iron with some naturally-occuring Nickel?
I wonder if anyone asked him if there is anything at all about the sample that would preclude such an occurrence?
People like Dr. Kullander are giving Rossi a professional courtesy he doesn't deserve. They are assuming that he behaving like a researcher, honestly reporting all the relevant data, when he clearly is not. You yourself admitted earlier in this thread that he was lying (although you gave him an undeserved courtesy of using the phrase "deliberate misdirection").
Science, and scientists are often the least capable of spotting fraud, because their entire process is build on the assumption that if it happens it will be detected when others attempt to replicate the experiment. Rossi is "cheating" that process, so he doesn't deserve any presumption of honesty normally accorded researchers.
At one time in my career, I did a lot of work with radioisotopesOK, then in all seriousness, are you aware of any process that can convert one isotope of an element into a different isotope of that same element that can be done without major industrial processes, in kilogram quantities, for a price of pennies per gram?
Because that's what Rossi is claiming to do to "prepare" the fuel for his E-Cat.
If Rossi can do this, then it would be a far bigger discovery than the E-Cat. The medical uses alone would be worth billions.
And yet you and others just shrug your shoulders and accept that Rossi is doing this in order to sell some tea kettles.
Where is the “data” they collected with this meter, which isn’t listed as one of the measuring devices? The report I read had a volume which was apparently calculated from the rated output of one of the pumps; in any event, it was a round figure, which could not have come from instrumentation.
“Perhaps you should do more than just read the reports. You pathological skeptics seem to be channeling O.J. Simpson’s lawyer (Johnny Cochran).....”if it’s not on a list, it doesn’t exist”.”
By the way, just because I run a hose from a bib on the wall doesn’t mean that there’s no possibility of introducing foreign substances into the fluid coming from said bib. I can do that very easily with a bit of extra piping and some sheetrock, and you won’t know the difference unless you test the fluid.
You, Sir, are a hypocrite. I could probably dig up 25 posts you wrote saying over and over, “The only thing that matters is the data.” When we skeptics/seagulls/whatever read the reports and don’t find the data and call you on it, your response is, “you should do more than just read the reports?” Gimme a huge freakin’ break. You expect anyone to take you seriously when you can’t even maintain a consistent position?
You don't believe that a chemical process can create new elements.
For a small fee, I'll sell you my device that converts pb to au. What you say, why don't I just use my miracle to get rich myself by converting gold from lead myself? I'm an altruist, I want lots of people to be able to do that. That's why the cost of my device is so low. The cost is so low, how much risk are you taking even if it doesn't work? Isn't $49.95 worth the chance to become a millionaire
The product and service descriptions, if any, provided on the Lx gold Transmogrifier are not intended to constitute any promise that the device works as advertised All products are not available in all areas and are subject to applicable laws, rules, and regulations as well as laws defined by physics.
For a small fee, I'll sell you my device that converts pb to auI find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter
I have a PayPal account you can send the money to. If you bring in five new customers then you buy the machines from me at a lower rate and sell them to your customer at a high enough rate to give you profit.
Then you have those five people find five people on their own and do the same thing on down the line
I can’t believe no one has though of this before?
Do you accept Visa and Mastercard? I would also like a free set of steak knives and a Rossi E-Cat footwarmer/teapot.
I believe they're all busy fawning over Rossi's latest 3 ring circus.
What these people don't seem to get is I would love for this thing to be real. I can't even imagine the changes it would produce.
Now, Rossi probably knows this as well and as long as he can keep people hoping, they'll believe him.
Someone misspells a word and these folks are all over them but Rossi produces contradictory statements almost every day, even in the same conversation and you never hear a peep from the rah rah Rossi crowd.
I posted in post #247 a couple of folks saying no, we're not buying this thing. I even included a quote in my link from someone who was there about how he is sure this is a fraud after talking to someone from SPAWAR. Now of course, they'll come back and say that it's supposed to be a big secret.
Big secret, what a joke. One of Rossi's shills said he couldn't say who it was but it starts with N. N? Navy, NASA, NI, who could it be, what a joke??? Yeah, this is the guy I want to carry around our launch codes.
If you read the article I linked to, they're pretty funny, one headline:
University of Bologna Denies Faculty Involvement with Rossi
I don't know if this means ex-employees at the university because it looks like some of Rossi's supporters are from there or still work there. The question is, who to believe?
This is a great read as well, it lays out a chart of the timeline of Rossi's life.
This link has several stories about this whole affair:
This one Eviscerates him
It also has a place where NASA doesn't exactly give him a ringing endorsement.
No problem, on its way.
I prefer cash, if the government finds out, they’ll steal the secret of my machine.
Cash in a train locker is fine. Once I’ve picked it up, you’ll have more gold that King Midas!
Forget PayPal, I prefer cash. I think they’re on to me, there are cars driving by my house, can you imagine, cars driving on a public street? In fact, they’re so clever that they use a different car every time!
They must know, where’s Mulder when you need him.
Maybe I’ve sent them...after all, I’ve already been accused multiple times of muawiyah of being connected to the Italian mob and trying to suppress Rossi’s invention! Maybe I’m trying to suppress YOUR gold transmogrifier...
Bongiorno
Are you serious, muawiyah accused you of being in the Mafia, was he joking??
Is it because your name is the same name as Enzo Ferrari's dead son?
I've been to Sicily where if you want to be in the mafia, they have to be able to trace your roots back to Sicily. Based on my reference book, "The Godfather". It was an awesome place with great people. Of course Italians are naturally charming. Meet one and in five minutes you're in their living room with a glass of wine and their family. I love Italy. What the hell, this Rossi scam has brought out the worst in Freepers I used to have respect for. It used to be I believed one thing, you believed another, someone would present their version of the truth and the matter was settled or folks agreed to disagree. Now, people are taking this Ecat scam wayyyyy to personally and I don't know why.
One thing this reminds me of. I've had a couple of friends who had problems with the bottle, no big deal if you recognize you can't handle it and stop. The problem was that some of my newly sober friends were incredibly evangelistic about alcohol and now that they'd stopped, everyone else should as well. One thing I would tell them is that if you want to stay sober, you're going to have to stop hanging around your drinking friends because they will try to make you drink. I've seen people do this to people who they know have a problem and are trying to beat it yet they still try, just one drink I don't know if it's malicious but drunks like hanging around other drunks. So I'd tell them, stop hanging around them to stay sober and to stop them from their endless proselytizing. If you don't drink and you go to a party where everyone is hammered, it is the worse party you'll ever go to. Trying to reason with a drunk is an exercise in futility. That is what this Rossi scam reminds me of. I need a drink...
Good grief, I grew up next door to a mob soldier so there are "things" that trigger my Mob-Dar (like Gay-Dar but more targeted). Complaining about unauthorized competition is one of the biggies ~ another is to operate alone in a city without a significant mob presence they have to have a political "in" with somebody. The neighbor was a big buddy with the Democrat Party National Committee member (for example), and in this crowd there is a really, really, really small bunch of insiders ~ like the Members niece (knew her later in DC ~ she worked for CIA headquarters), and various of his, and their cousins. Used to carpool with one of Stephen Gallo's ex-girlfriends ~ all her male relatives were in federal and state prisons.
Ever imagine living next door to the Sopranos? I'm sure most everybody thought of that as a light opera about mobsters ~ I could put names to some of those stories, particularly the weird stuff.
So, Dinodino is upset? He should be, but he can join the discussions of LENR politely ~ we know he says he thinks Rossi is running a scam, but I have to put it this way ~ in relation to what? The hot fusion guys get billions of bucks per year and have never produced anything ~ at least Rossi is giving folks fairly cheap street theatre and the shake-hands price is high enough that only the really rich can get burned.
What's to complain about?
He may be using Iron in his catalyst, so yes, it would end up in the output product ~ kinda' like a process discovered/used by the LENR guys up in Hokkaido.
Maybe someone would like to dig up all the "Rossi Iron" references and cross index them to WHO is saying what.
Speaking of perpetual motion the biggest news in the world just happened ~ someone captured photons popping out of the vacuum! Sounds like a really neat trick: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-scientists-vacuum.html
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