There have been a lot of claims over the years by true believers. Some of them by very smart people, but being smart, really believing what you say and not trying to hustle for cash is not the same thing is being right.
I had a college professor, an absolute genius, PHD in organic chemistry, absolutely convinced that fluoridation of water was going to cause the deaths of millions. He traveled around the country on his own dime for 30 years fighting to outlaw fluoride. Great guy, a wizard in the lab but his predictions did not pan out.
My point is, you can’t make any claim on validity based his personal characteristics. What I want to see is for him to give instructions on how to make his machine and see published results from other labs using reactors built on site.
Even if he is 100% legit, if he does not patent the secret sauce, he will never be able to market it. The first reactor that leave his facility will be on its way to China to be studied, analyzed, and copied. If he puts everything out there, in the patent, no one can suppress it, and he has legal protection.
I would love for this all to be true, but honestly, it doesn’t smell right. He claims patents but won’t patent what makes it work.
Not at all the case. The FIRST patent is on the simple case if Ni-H without the catalyst. Piantelli has already shown that to work and yield anomalous excess heat, and has his own patent on it. Rossi has made an improvement over Piantelli by using "nanostructured nickel powder", and that is what he is submitting an application for FIRST. If he gets that (and he already has done so in Italy) he says he will then apply for a separate patent on the catalyst-based system, probably a "composition of matter" type application.