What do you guys think of claims for stuff like cold fusion?

[Gingerbread Demon]

What do you guys think of things like claims for cold fusion and devices like the E-Cat or other such devices where there are claims that they generate energy or power but they can't do that without external input?

I've been following this particular one and a lot of stuff seems a bit dodgy for want of a better word. Then you get all those random "free energy" devices people promote...

Anyway let's have a discussion.

Link about the E-Cat from their official page "cough"

http://ecat.com/

Wiki article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer

 

[Amaris]

I think it's a pipe dream at best, and outright fraud at worst. It has been a perennial hard-on for a number of scientists over the many decades, but none of the experiments up to this point have held up to scrutiny, not because of a massive peer reviewed pile of data, but rather because the scientists behind the various experiments don't want outside observation.

Popular Science has a great article on the "fraud" aspect of it: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-10/andrea-rossis-black-box
So does an astrophysicist who writes over at Medium: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-e-cat-cold-fusion-or-scientific-fraud-624f15676f96

 

[{ Emilia }]

This seems like a fraud and the wiki article is rather telling. It seems the scientists from the University of Bologna (hey, my alma mater!) aren't particularly impressed either.

Having said that: I'm not going to close the thread yet. If people want to discuss new technology for energy production then that's fine as long as the actual science of it isn't forgotten. And it seems like nobody is claiming "HERE BE FREE ENERGY!" so far. And even the OP was very skeptical.

Thing is: I don't want to close threads left and right as long as people aren't getting delirious about "amazing new pseudo-tech".

How's ITER doing these days anyway?
You know... serious tech.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

This seems like a fraud and the wiki article is rather telling. It seems the scientists from the University of Bologna (hey, my alma mater!) aren't particularly impressed either.

Having said that: I'm not going to close the thread yet. If people want to discuss new technology for energy production then that's fine as long as the actual science of it isn't forgotten. And it seems like nobody is claiming "HERE BE FREE ENERGY!" so far.

How's ITER doing these days anyway?

Yeah but people like Rossi are trying to get people to part with their money for devices that are never delivered. isn't that a kind of fraud?

Whatever happened to tokomaks? You know the rings of giant magnets that generated a plasma inside a magnetic field?

 

[{ Emilia }]

Yeah but people like Rossi are trying to get people to part with their money for devices that are never delivered. isn't that a kind of fraud?

Hm, let me quote myself:

This seems like a fraud

Does that answer your question?

I'm happy to close your thread if you ask for it but I see an opportunity to talk about the importance of peer review and a proper scientific process here.

It reminds me of something I read about a different field the other day: How the Biggest Fabricator in Science Got Caught
Yoshitaka Fujii falsified 183 papers before statistics exposed him.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah but people like Rossi are trying to get people to part with their money for devices that are never delivered. isn't that a kind of fraud?

Hm, let me quote myself:

This seems like a fraud

Does that answer your question?

I'm happy to close your thread if you ask for it but I see an opportunity to talk about the importance of peer review and a proper scientific process here.

It reminds me of something I read about a different field the other day: How the Biggest Fabricator in Science Got Caught
Yoshitaka Fujii falsified 183 papers before statistics exposed him.

Nooooooooooo don't close it "on knees begging"

I want to discuss stuff here and ideas like tokomaks..

 

[JES]

As much as I'd like to see this cold fusion work, it seems that thus far, it hasn't been able to hold up under scrutiny, or the claimed results just haven't been verified to work independently as claimed, which is the problem with the E-Cat.

The fact that the inventor of the E-Cat refused to have tests run to confirm that the device actually worked as claimed makes it frustratingly impossible to confirm that the device actually, well works.

Didn't the Mythbusters once test available claimed free-energy devices that were around at the time? I believe the result was busted, and I don't know of any cases where a customer confirmed that these devices actually worked.

Maybe one day, they'll be real, but for now, it looks like it is just a dream, and it might even be a pipe dream, as J. Allen put it (I like that term, pipe dream), and cold fusion devices might be far more complex, too much so for little device kits.

On the subject of fusion, I heard that fusion reactor they were working on somewhere in California was actually successfully giving out a surplus of energy, and just needs the funding to be put to work. At least I think it was in California, and the same one I once did an article one once.
I don't know if that is actually true or not. You'd think if it was working, it would get funding, and we'd hear more about it by now.

To be honest though, I think we're not going to get this cold fusion business licked before hot fusion.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I have met Professor Sergio Focardi (he was head of the Bologna section of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics while I was doing my master's degree), and he was a polite, sweet, old man utterly convinced of his results on cold fusion.

He was also clearly deluded, and everybody was very careful to tiptoe around the issue but at the same time it was obvious nobody actually believed him. This didn't interfere with his (mostly clerical and administrative) office, so he was left undisturbed.

Andrea Rossi was just a scumbad using Focardi's name and connections to perform a scientific fraud. He belongs in jail.

 

[publiusr]

What do you think about This man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rubbia

He seems to think Americium may play a part in spaceflight...

 

[iguana_tonante]

Of course I know about Rubbia. Care to explain?

 

[Dryson]

There seems to be a lot of secrecy surrounding the E- Cst Project and for good reasons. If it does work and the information was shared with other scientists investors would find ways to steal the technology so that it wouldn't interfere with natural gas providing the worlds economies with natural gas to power numerous household and automobiles.

The same thing was said about Einsteins theories as well which helped paved the way for nuclear power plants that have gotten rid of coal power plants.

 

[iguana_tonante]

No.

 

[AlainCo]

About E-cat, Rossi organized demo many times, and beside some failures that Mats Lewan explains well in his book (An Impossible Invention), the test were not so bad.

Recent test don by a team funded by the Swedish DoE, Elforsk, raised the level because they are independent.
The Lugano test was don with total control of the testers and that alone eliminate fear of fraud... however the physicist probably made a huge error in emissivity.
anyway the previous 3 tests in Ferrara, does not suffer from that problem, and the 2 reports together, let no doubt.
the main argument is that a fraudster doe snot let his device be independently powered in a closed room by physicists free to use any test method...
http://elforsk.se/LENR-Matrapport-publicerad/
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1305/1305.3913.pdf

note that there is a discrete but real growing awareness of business actors.

I have met Jean-Francois Geneste, the chief scientist of Airbus Group, at LENRG meeting in Milan.
there is dissenters , but also many supporters in Airbus.
Today to close the critics he propose to give a thermoacoustic engine to a team having a COP>3... Rossi is not interested currently (he have his own field test in process)
http://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/1337-LENRG-G-Day-Milano-Airbus-and-LENR/

You should really get more information of what is happening.
The recent move of Tohoku University with their LENR lab, inaugurated without shyness.
Same for Texas TU and the CEES lab, mirorin the SKINR of Uni Missouri.
what happened at ICCF19.
I've seen carl Page, and Mats Lewan as a journalist exchanged much with him.
Tom Darden of industrial heat (the boss of Rossi) made a talk about his approach to LENR... not so interesting for me, except the fact that it is in public, supporting E-cat and Rossi.

You should read the 30 articles published in CurrentScience, in India... this is a move.
What is happening in Tianjin with Industrial Heat should be investigated... There have been official reports of technology exchange structure inauguration involving LENR NiH...

there is a big effort to replicate Lugano, in russia, China, US, France, ... with scientists and hobbyists... the recent work of Songsheng seems a good start, to be improved. Parkhomov started the race, but until now he lack of rigor.
MFMP may have a positive result, but not so convincing...

Don't expect to have a clear vision of LENr domain without few month of reading...

It took me 2 month in 2011 for me to reload my 1993 review of the domain.

there is no doubt for me that it is a revolution in process, but it is so disruptive for scientists and for industry, that there is and there will be huge opposition, above all you can imagine.

today contrary to the myth, most opposition if from academics, editors and media, while oil companies and industry were helpful (Shell, Amoco, Toyota, Mitsubishi, all replicated LENR and published).. It will change... anyway some companies either take it as an opportunity, or prefer "to shape the future rather than be shaped by it" (JF Geneste).

good research.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Well if things like the E-Cat really do work as promised why can't you buy one and have it delivered? The guy is happy to take people's money but where are all these actual working devices, and has anyone been foolish enough to buy one and hasn't received it?

And what happened to those tokomak things? Weren't they a big idea in the 80s / 90s?

 

[sojourner]

ITER is stilling rocking the tokomak.

 

[Starborn Dragon]

Excited but cautious.

I'll believe it when I see it.

But I am interested in this sort of thing.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

ITER is stilling rocking the tokomak.

Interesting..

 

[AlainCo]

Well if things like the E-Cat really do work as promised why can't you buy one and have it delivered? The guy is happy to take people's money but where are all these actual working devices, and has anyone been foolish enough to buy one and hasn't received it?

Be cause designing an industrial ready reactor is very difficult, especially because we have no theory, only successful and often unreliable experiments, with the best one (Piantelli, Rossi) hidden becaus eof hope to make money.

Currently there is no money taken to clients with rossi.
Tom Darden is not a chicken of the spring, and took control of Rossi.

One have to clearly separate the scientific claim of LENR in PdD evidence, which are solid since about 1991 without reasonable doubt (don't hear the media/academic hype, LENr is proven/replicated/published since McKubre, Oriani, Miles, F&P, and hundreds of other... even Heinz Gerischer admited it in 91 http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GerischerHiscoldfusi.pdf#page=2 ), from teh industrial claims, relative to NiH reaction.
NiH is much less published, probably because of hope of applications, but also because it is new.

The reason to think that Rossis E-cat is real, is Tom darden behavior, his talk at ICCF19, his contacts in China, the behavior of Elforsk and his CEO.

For Brillouin, the support of SRI, who itself collaborate with Navy NRL and ENEA, let some evidence of serious behavior... Anyway LENR is a difficult technology and delays are uncertain.
the claim of Robert Godes in ICCF19 of a CHP ready in 18month is to be taken with caution. Delay is very short for a home appliance.
Designing a new gasoline car is much slower!

For LENRG, they have not yet any technology but they prepare an ecosystem of enterprises who will accelerate innovation. Piantelli is in the ecosystem, as Tripodi, Widom and Srivastava, and I have seen academic structures in UK and Italy preparing to participate to LENRG ecosystem, provided they find "clients" buying research programs.
Current "clients" are mostly interested in nuclear transmutation for radioactive waste remediation... strangely heat/energy application does not attracts so much... I admit I'm puzzled.

Anyway it is hard for outsiders to imagine the level of opposition inside academic circles, who desperately work in derailing all of that. Uninformed mindguards can have a very toxic influence, but it seems some lower level scientists and universities start not to care anymore.
Material science physicist, nanotech experts, when informed , have few problems with LENR claims, unlike particle physicists. LENr is more of the kind of superconduction (see Tripodi's work) or semiconductors, than of plasma physics.

if you want photographies of latest E-cat power plant in field test, see
http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/02/1...e-andrea-rossi-com-pictures-of-the-new-plant/
http://andrea-rossi.com/1mw-plant/

Unlike the myth, Rossi's delivers slowly, but regularly what he promised (beside some loose optimistic dreams)... with some delay, but not so much. Only unreal things follow the plan without any delay.
the field test is planned to finish early 2016, even if it can crash like any industrial project

 

[iguana_tonante]

Same old drill. Evil academics, independent researchers, suppressed truths, media conspiracy, etc.

When your arguments are the same of chemtrails, you should know something is fishy.

If it works, it works. But I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Same old drill. Evil academics, independent researchers, suppressed truths, media conspiracy, etc.

When your arguments are the same of chemtrails, you should know something is fishy.

If it works, it works. But I'll believe it when I see it.

Word...