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Do you have any good ideas how the demonstrations to date could be faked (and how any similar demonstrations could then be exposed as frauds?) I agree with you that any delays in the 1 MW reactor (no matter how plausible-sounding the excuses) will be a major red flag. I said as much myself in January.

I'll admit that I'll have to do some soul-searching and review things carefully, if this turns out to be a hoax. I'll be interested in understanding how I misjudged the evidence and claims over these past months. But, by degrees, they have been winning me over. It takes more than generic close-mindedness at this point to deal with the evidence that has been presented.

I'll admit that I'll have to do some soul-searching and review things carefully, if this turns out to be a hoax. I'll be interested in understanding how I misjudged the evidence and claims over these past months. But, by degrees, they have been winning me over. It takes more than generic close-mindedness at this point to deal with the evidence that has been presented.

I have been a bystander reading and studying the available information. I agree with you. If I am wrong and this is proven to be a fraud, I want to know where I went wrong. If it is real then many other industries will be revolutionized. Thermal conversion companies would be a great investments.

What I have missed is if the device is scalable "down". Instead of 50,000 watts equivalent heat, can a "nano" size device be developed in the <100 watt equivalent range? If the answer is yes, and the reaction is real, then this device will have the same revolutionary effect as the transistor.

They have my attention.

You know what? This is an impressively thoughtful response. I tend to approach discussions of claimed energy revolutions with pretty poor expectations of the participants, having dealt with all kinds of irrational true believers before, but you have completely disarmed me. Let me give some thought to your post and get back to you.

Do you have any good ideas how the demonstrations to date could be faked (and how any similar demonstrations could then be exposed as frauds?)

One possibility came to mind when reading the most recent report (from Swedish group). The device output about 4 KW (thermal) and used a (approximately) 400 watt auxiliary electrical heater coil, with the 400 watt auxiliary input power measured by a calibrated voltmeter and ammeter.

What was not clear was the power source for the auxiliary heater. Depending upon the type of voltmeter and ammeter, it would be possible to use a pulse waveform with a high RMS (heating value) and low average power (as measured by average reading voltmeter and ammeter). So, the "auxiliary" heating coil could be operating at 4KW, but measured at 400 watts, thus providing a fake result.

To detect that sort of fake, it would be useful to continuously observe the auxiliary heater power input waveform with an oscilloscope and also to use calibrated RMS-sensing voltmeter and ammeters on the auxiliary heater power leads.

Another way of sneaking power into the device would be to use the water supply pipes as an electrical heating circuit. This would be detectable with a clip on DC-AC ammeter presumably. (I think plastic or rubber tubing is used from the photos I saw, which would make it more difficult to run power through the pipe, although the tubing could have conductors running through it. Or, one might even use the water as a conductor, if it has impurities.)

Not saying this is a fake, just responding to how one might go about faking the results.

Jack

“Do you have any good ideas how the demonstrations to date could be faked (and how any similar demonstrations could then be exposed as frauds?)”

Any demonstration on home terf can be faked.

I would be more comfortable if he were sending units to independent labs where they were setting up and evaluating the equipement. Having experts observe the unit does not rule out manipulation, after all, magicians fool the eye all the time.

Okay, let me give a fuller response. I have three basic problems here.

The first problem is that the facts of Rossi's story aren't convincing. I've read the Swedish experimental report. It creates more questions than it answers. Was the "auxiliary heater" turned on during the test? At what power? What does it even mean to say that the auxiliary heater is present to act as a safety if the heat gets out of control? Why did they use a "power meter" and not an oscilloscope to measure the current to the main heater (to eliminate the possibility of high-frequency power transfer)? They apparently calibrated the fluid apparatus in some quick and dirty way, but were the electrical measurements calibrated at all? Getting to your question of how this would be done fraudulently, playing games with electrical power input would create several options; e.g. delivering short high-power pulses that aren't detected by a typical mains-frequency ammeter.

Basically, the physicists' report does not even leave me with a basic understanding of what was being tested, and how. Ironically, even they didn't have a good idea of what was being tested, as they apparently did not have access to the supposed reactor core! They were given a sample of metal powder which Rossi claims was the fuel to the reactor, and a sample of metal powder which Rossi claims came from a reactor after fusion. Unless I've missed some other report, this entire line of evidence of fusion based on nickel-to-copper transmutation is entirely based on Rossi's word. It is particularly suspicious, also, that the supposed spent fuel has the naturally-occurring isotopic composition. The Swedish scientists themselves call this "somewhat strange." Less generous commentators have called this sure evidence of outright fraud.

My second problem is that Rossi's claims would require radically new physics. Even beyond the standard cold-fusion claims, there's a big problem with the fact that no radiation is detected outside the device. Rossi's theory is, according to accepted physics, complete nonsense. The fact that there is a miniscule possibility that he has in fact revolutionized physics doesn't mean that this is not a blinding red flag.

My third basic problem is that Rossi acts like a kook. He has named his blog the Journal of Nuclear Physics, and claims that "All the articles published on the Journal Of Nuclear Physics are Peer Reviewed." This is embarrassing. He also claims that he's just too busy to have scientists from tier-one institutions like MIT verify his claims. His "board of directors" includes at least one nonexistent person. This is how cranks act. For me it's another red flag.

Basically, I'll agree that this energy revolution hoax has risen slightly above the field. There will be a few damaged reputations of apparently respectable scientists involved here, which most hoaxes don't accomplish. But until Rossi rolls out a product, or vastly more and better evidence comes in that he is able to, I don't see anything particularly interesting or unusual here.

This is a long post, so if you want to respond I suggest you do it in a different post for each point. Up to you, of course; I just hate following three parallel conversations in a single reply thread.

I'll be interested in understanding how I misjudged the evidence

Not just you but now several universities. If this is a hoax the very idea that universities have value in revealing truth is at risk.