I don't have the details of the design, but this phrase shows up in every test report. Something is odd here; a 1MW system generating 470kW that still needs a little external help. How do they say this, the follow with the claim that is produces a surplus. There is not a surplus until the unit produces enough energy to sustain itself then have extra left over.
That is far from being unique. As far as I know, many powerplants use external power. For example, Fukushima depended on external power for safety - and when that power was gone, along with the backup, the reactors melted down even though they produced plenty of power at that time.
I have no idea how valid or scientific that test was, but from what I saw in photos the devices are pretty much made in a basement, by hand. I'm not surprised that some of them didn't work well. Rossi doesn't own a factory yet to make them.
Now that he apparently sold the thing, we should expect two independent developments. First, the customer may eventually tell the world what kind of a pig in a poke they bought. Unrelated to that, we should expect Mr. Rossi to learn from this experience and produce the next set of equipment for someone else. At this point he doesn't need to convince scientists and journalists anymore; his products should be doing that, at full steam.
“There is not a surplus until the unit produces enough energy to sustain itself then have extra left over.”
Your remarks are not very well thought out. The device produces thermal energy which is legitimate. the suggestion that you should be able to connect the output to the input and require no electrical input would depend on the “temperature” of the output not the amount of power in the output. One could legitimately produce a megawatt of power with a very low output temperature, say a 50 degree increase. Such a low temperature output may very well not be high enough to run the device, yet doesn’t take away from the success of the test.
Let me give you an example... I have solar heaters on my garage roof to heat my swimming pool. They produce about 40KW of heat for the pool in the sunshine. The pump that is required is about 1 HP. It is run from an electrical circuit. I can’t run the pump from the heated water even though the heated water is 40 times the energy that the pump takes.