Posted on 11/06/2011 10:03:09 PM PST by Kevmo
Media eCat Story Evolves
admin on November 6, 2011 — 27 Comments
The number of media organisations dipping toes into the eCat story continues to grow. From Fox to MSNBC and the UK’s Daily Mail to Wired UK, Forbes and more.
Wired was there before most and now they’ve updated their view, mirroring many of the questions informed skeptics have been asking for some time.
Reserving judgement, they nevertheless note that much of the coverage appears to be softening and wonder if AP is holding back for the bigger story to come. They note the dearth of substantial coverage in the mainstream but voice that and their views on Rossi in positive tones.
A shift is on the horizon. It would not take much for that shift to become a slide – a solid link identifying a credible customer or a qualified and independent observer breaking cover. There is a profusion of potential breakpoints and it is only a matter of time before something breaks. One thing seems likely – as journalists begin to see through the superficial certainty of those screaming Fraud, they are probably the canaries signaling a hidden change among potential investors, genuinely open scientists and cautious sceptics who recognise that there is more to this tale than the artificial noise suggests.
We all know that we do not have the proof required but the complex contortions required to construct a cohesive narrative that does not involve the possibility that Rossi is telling the truth are becoming as incredulous as that simple possibility. An interested person new to the subject and curious enough to peek through the preconception of junk science might be fooled by the contention stirred by a handful of commenters but more are sneaking through and thinking for themselves. Despite the lie that sites such as eCatNews.com are dominated by believers, the ranks of those taking a hopeful stance while waiting for real proof is growing.
The true voice of reason is becoming stronger.
How long did it take for the wise climate scientists interested only in the health and future of the world’s citizens to be shown for the money and power-grubbing, data manipulating, falsifying, intimidating men behind the curtain that they are?
I don’t understand what you are trying to say, but I can simply describe peer review as it would apply to Rossi: Rossi publishes an article describing the theory behind the operation of his device, the tests he conducted, and the results. Rossi would include highly specific details of the testing methodology employed so that other researchers (his peers) may duplicate his results.
I didn’t know about that Army thing. Fairly damning, I’d say!
All of you Rossi cheerleaders need to open your eyes.
I didn’t know about that Army thing. Fairly damning, I’d say!That's the problem with the Rossi story: There's so much junk being published that important information gets buried. I suspect that's exactly what the Rossi fans want. It has become impossible to do reasonable searches on anything related to cold fusion in the past year because of all the Rossi cheerleading going on.
I agree that the Army story is particularly telling. I also suspect it shows how Rossi will "blow off" this particular scam. At some point, his factory will burn down, or some other event will occur which will allow him to claim that his process for creating his "secret catalyst" no longer works (but he won't refund everyone's advance payments, so sorry).
I also expect him to drag this out for at least a year before doing so, so we have a long wait while his fans continue to gush over a glorious future even though they won't have any concrete evidence that the E-Cat actually works.
Speaking of "concrete", Horace Heffner has been "reverse engineering" a mathematical model of Rossi's E-Cat from the October 6th test, using Rossi's data, and he thinks a couple of slabs of portland cement with a heater between them would produce a device that matches Rossi's data. It only needs a very small electric valve (0.25 liter/minute, 7 watts) to control the water flow through the pre-heated concrete mass to reproduce the results seen in Rossi's test.
If Heffner's results are accurate (and I haven't seen any reason to doubt his work up to this point), we may have found the reason for Rossi's "frequency generator" in that and other tests. Heffner's latest status.
LOL. "The Army Thing", if it does anything, proves that Rossi is and was NOT scamming. The first prototype was tested by personnel at the University of New Hampshire, by UH personnel, with UH equipment and worked as claimed. You can find that info directly in the article.
In other words, it met "Johnny-Boys" own stated "gold-standard" criteria for a valid proof.
As far as I know, there has not yet been a genuine scientific test of the device. All we have are demonstrations of water being heated. As others have pointed out, there are many ways to heat water.
The kinds of tests that would show that genuine fusion is taking place would be:
1. Measurement of radiation inside the black box part of the device. I'd want to see gamma and particulate radiation measurements.
2. Careful measurements and isotopic analyses of the input materials and output materials.
Rather than running any of these tests, what we have seen is some slight of hand. Fusion would produce radiation. Rossi shields the device with lead, so when exterior measurements show no radiation, he can say, "See, no radiation escapes!" The intent is to deceive the viewer into thinking that the device is, in fact, producing radiation--why else would the lead shielding be there?--when no radiation has been measured.
The "evidence" that nickel has been transmuted into copper is provided in the form of a powder that Rossi said had been removed after operating the device (and no one saw him remove it). Upon analysis, the powder contained copper and iron. Iron would NOT be a fusion product of nickel. What I want to see here is an independent test, preferably with Rossi and his people at another location. The independent testers would then put the nickel of a known isotopic composition into the "reactor", and run hydrogen through it, of course, measuring every quantity that goes into and out of the "reactor". They would then analyse the products formed, with regard to mass and isotopic composition.
The tests needed to validate the process are not difficult to perform. The fact that they have not been done, and Rossi's past history of fraud, tells me that this, also, is a fraud.
Fusion reactions have an extremely high activation energy, which is why they have only been observed to naturally occur in stars (including the sun). That some guy, not even a scientist, somehow found a way around that activation energy is, in itself, less than credible.
Speaking of nuclear reactions, I think it is appropriate to mention that today is Marie Curie's 144th birthday.
"Dr." Rossi (notice that the Army thought, for some reason, that Rossi was a "Dr.") could improve the efficiency of these devices from "the current science of 4%" to 20%
Perhaps the Army thought he was a doctor, because he claimed to have earned a degree in "Philosophy of Science and Engineering" from the University of Milan. My initial impression when I first saw his claimed major was that he chose something that would imply a high level of education, without actually having that education. That major is not listed at the University of Milan website. Of course, an actual doctor would have a Doctor of Philosophy degree...
You make some good points.
IMHO, the main argument that LENR is absent in Rossi’s reactor is that if LENR is actually occurring in such mild conditions, said LENR would be occurring in the Earth’s interior (core and mantle) and the geology of the planet (along with cosmology) would be very different.
I always wanted to be in the front row to see closely how such delusional schemes terminate themselves. I learned about the Hydrino/(Randell Mills) scheme a little late in the game so I missed out on the twists and turns of that delusional set-up.
Blacklight Power (Randell Mill’s hydrino company) have preceded Rossi’s Ni/H scheme by more than 2 years and it amounted to nothing. It is quite revealing that fanboy Kevmo never referred to the hydrino scheme.
The so-called “proof” by Rossi’s fanboys that the process in Rossi’s reactors is LENR by comparing the energy output per unit mass of hydrogen with comparable chemical reactions has been used by the hydrino fanboys about 2 years ago. And Rossi’s fanboys never acknowledged their stealing their “proof” from the hydrino fanboys.
What the fanboys of Rossi and Mills overlooked was that the Ni/H reactors had not 1 but 2 chemical reactions, one of them was never referenced in their “proof”. This second chemical reaction is -strictly being- a physico-chemical process whose dynamics do not follow the conventional chemical reaction. What is this physico-chemical process? That is the homework for the Rossi/Mills fanboys who seem intellectually lazy.
I am very sure that - at least in the beginning - Mills and Rossi were very sincere.
When a freshly-made reactor was used, the initial - keyword: initial - energy output per unit mass of hydrogen is about 20 to 60 times the energy output of a typical chemical reaction.
What excitement!!! This 20 to 60 ratio was the basis of the fanboys’ “proof” that what one is seeing is indeed LENR.
Now is where the sense of dread kicks in for the fanboys: as more hydrogen is fed into the reactor, the energy output per unit mass of hydrogen decreases eventually to 1 time the energy output of a typical chemical reaction. If one sum up the total energy output of the Rossi/Mills reactor, the average energy output per unit mass of hydrogen is about 2 to 4 times that of 1 typical chemical reaction. Rossi’s fanboys are not divulging everything and they need to - somehow - account to whoever is/are the investor(s). Mills’ fanboys have been a little bit more honest.
Inconsistent statements have been made about the radiation. Before, they claim no radiation and used the analogy of a body sinking into water: instead of 1 gamma photon, many low-energy photons were emitted. Now they claim there is gamma radiation but no forthcoming experimental data.
Inconsistent statements have been made about the ratio of Cu isotopes. Before, the ratio given was (63Cu/65Cu)=2.2 which is incidentally the ratio found in nature. Now, the ratio is given as (63Cu/65Cu)= 1.6.
I am very sure that Rossi’s team will change their story about Fe being produced. Anything to maintain the LENR narrative (the same for Mill’s team to maintain the hydrino narrative).
Thanks for posting the links. You saved me the trouble of having to dig up specifics on Rossi's various frauds.You're welcome. But you should really thank Wonder Warthog. It was his insistence that Rossi had never faked data that prompted me to actually look up the relevant articles to find the details.
I find the Petrodragon episode particularly interesting. Rossi claimed that he had a process for converting garbage into fuel, and that it was a conspiracy between the Italian government and the Mafia that unfairly put him behind bars, and the Rossi fanboys have been spreading that story around as though it were Gospel.
However, it's clear from reading the actual news stories that Rossi was complicit in a money laundering scheme. Instead of processing the garbage, he simply dumped it, leading to a massive toxic waste landfill. Far from being a victim of the Mafia, it appears that he was working for them.
Kevmo is algore?
Link please, I'd like to see how they tested. Now you're sure UH was involved? I can go to Sac State and rent a room for a demo, it doesn't mean Sac State endorses what I'm shilling.
But, this was a test run for the customer, and they were satisfied with the results.It's worth remembering that we don't know anything about this customer other than what Rossi has stated. There's no particular reason to believe that the customer even exists.
Link please, I'd like to see how they tested. Now you're sure UH was involved? I can go to Sac State and rent a room for a demo, it doesn't mean Sac State endorses what I'm shilling.Good point. The report from the Army is very vague about the testing that occurred. The only thing it specifically states is that some parameters were measured every half hour. That struck me as rather odd point to emphasize.
Along those lines, it's worth noting that the University of Bologna has made it clear that they have not been working with Rossi on his E-Cat:
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg54321.html
There certainly was the implication from the Rossi fans that Rossi was working with the University on this. That turns out to be not true.
Far from showing that peer review is worthless - these e-mails showed it was working as designed - thus the scammers needed to change the system.
And there is a reason why these E-cat scammers are also avoiding peer review - because it WOULD work as designed.
If I was Rossi, I’d have instruments on ever facet of this thing’s operation.
1) Water flow per minute.
2) Water inlet temperature.
3) Water outlet temperature.
4) Water outlet flow.
5) Current in DC for all heaters.
6) Frequency generator, on/off?
7) Several thermocouples inside reactor.
8) A Geiger counter to see if there is anything nuclear going on.
9) Test run by an independent party and no, not one of Rossi’s cronies.
10) A monitor for the pressure inside the reactor.
11) Examination of the water as it goes in and out, to prove it’s not Hydrogen Peroxide.
12) An exact measure of the Hydrogen container and please avoid typos which make the hydrogen cylinder to be the size of a grain elevator.
13) An assay of the reactive materials inside before reaction.
14) An assay of these same materials after the E-Cat has run in supposed self sustaining mode.
15) All cables, pipes and anything else hooked up to this thing need to be accounted for and measured.
16) Anything else?
I'm shocked that you would post this. After all, Rossi wants to help the world and kids with cancer. What a cynic you are! /sarcasm
Far from being a victim of the Mafia, it appears that he was working for them.It occurs to me that one of the arguments used by Rossi's fans is that Rossi couldn't find qualified "shills" to appear as "customer representatives" to help him fake his October 28th test.
But I'll bet the Mafia (for lack of a better word) could.
I know people have been trying to find the identities of the alleged customer representatives of the secret company. I wonder if anyone has thought of checking police records for known organized crime members for these "experts"?
Point taken. As I said, one way or another, this will all shake out in time. I've got no dog in the hunt, and am just watching with interest from the sidelines to see what comes of this.
If I was Rossi, I’d have instruments on ever facet of this thing’s operation....You've put far more thought into this than I have! I'd be satisfied if someone with "no skin in the game" (i.e. MIT, CalTech, Navy, etc.) would test an E-Cat under their control. They could agree to respect the "secret box" part of the device, and just test the inputs and outputs. They would know within a day whether it worked or not.
The fact that Rossi has refused to do anything remotely like that for the last year tells me everything I need to know about his E-Cat.
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