However it's similar to claims that a bumblebee can't fly. LENR experiments - other than Rossi's - do produce results that are not explainable by the current knowledge. The bumblebee flies. So perhaps more study is required?
I don't know if Rossi is a genius or a charlatan. I don't want to judge him. His work will judge him much better. I want him to continue doing whatever he is doing, and I want his machine to speak for itself. As one of the comments at the blog says, Rossi hasn't cost us even a cent, so why to bother?
He says he has buyers, and the buyers are happy. Good for them. Some say this buyer is a straw one. Fine, I don't care about theatrics. As soon as one real buyer buys the thing and it doesn't work the secret will be out.
I tend to agree with your entire post.
David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear suggests new physics as well.
That's a myth.
The article does a reasonably good job of explaining why LENR is not possible according to the knowledge of 1960's.Unfortunately, there is no explanation, based on knowledge of the 1960s or now, that can explain how Rossi is transmuting "natural" Nickel (meaning only the naturally-occuring isotopes, in precisely the same ratio as in nature) into "natural" Copper and "natural" Iron.
Focardi's paper doesn't offer a process that will do this. No one else's papers describe a way of producing this result. However, just mixing some Copper and Iron powder into some Nickel powder would produce exactly what Rossi supplied.
George Miley recently presented data from his research. Miley has found 39 non-natural isotope ratios in the "ash" from his process. This is compelling evidence that a nuclear process is occurring. Additionally, it would be very difficult and very expensive to "fake" such evidence.
Rossi has nothing comparable. His samples are identical to what you would get in a kid's chemistry set, mixed together using nothing more sophisticated than a kitchen scale. I suspect that producing realistic samples would be far too expensive for his scam, so he just ignored the issue and hoped that no one would notice.
According to the Google translation of the Italian wikipedia entry on PetrolDragon (Rossi's scam "fuel from waste" company), the toxic waste clean-up resulting from Rossi's scam has cost millions of euros and billions of pounds. So, Rossi's "eCat" may not have cost anyone except gullible investors a cent, but Rossi's previous scams cost everyone a LOT. I'm not sure why Rossi isn't currently in prison for that. For that kind of environmental damage, he does not deserve to be running around free to commit other scams.