5 ms·

Mass-Scale Cold Fusion a Success?

79 points by andrewcross 15y ago

jakeonthemove 15y ago
I really want to believe it works, but this cloak and dagger stuff is killing me. Anonymous customer, technical glitch preventing it from generating the advertised megawatt, connected power cable? Is it real or not? Then again, with Starlite we have real videos showing that it withstands at least a torch, yet nobody commercialized the stuff, because the inventor was supposedly too greedy... what a shame.
- powertower 15y ago
  You would think that anyone with half a brain would have foreseen that not disconnecting the 500KW generator from the set up would look suspicious. But neither the inventor nor the customer had this insight? It's also very suspicious for the planned 1000KW output to be reduced to the exact output level of the generator.
  - div 15y ago
    I'm sure they did, but being connected to the grid is probably necessary for generating the 500KW.
  - Sapient 15y ago
    I don't believe this is real for a second, though I would love it to be. But I wonder why, if it was connected to the grid, did they not just produce the expected 1MW...
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
jameskilton 15y ago
Other discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170907 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170907 Frankly I'm assuming it's a scam, or at best very very badly named, until we find out more details.
synctext 15y ago
If it sounds too good to be true...? No graphs, no public measurements, no scientific publication: no merit. Honest inventors want to be transparent and have their historical claim validated by top-ranking organisation. Clearly another case of wired.com diving into the fantastic and inspirational. Just search and see what their methodology is over the past months. Just invest a bit more money and we can do a bigger test... Nice income source, not an energy source. Just look at how the media is being manipulated. Amusing if it wasn't a waste of time and resources.
- eftpotrm 15y ago
  And if DARPA have genuinely just funded research that will permit them to run cold-fusion powered units they'd be publishing this knowledge for all to use rather than using it as a decisive advantage why...? I agree that this looks very suspicious and by Occam's razor it's probably a hoax. But by Clarke's third law, when successful fusion is finally announced honestly - whether it's this time or beyond any of our lifetimes - it's going to look quite a lot like a hoax, I suspect.
  - redwood 15y ago
    DARPA would not make the test pubic at all. Rossi is using DARPA-speculation via one word "colonel" to create buzz and legitimacy
- lutorm 15y ago
  Clearly another case of wired.com diving into the fantastic and inspirational. Actually, Ny Teknik, one of the publications cited in the article, is a serious engineering/technology news publication. They do voice strong concerns, so I wouldn't say the media is obviously manipulated.
  - anothermachine 15y ago
    That's the problem. It's a classic con technique. They get a few respectable organizations to cover you and write articles like "2011's Cold Fusion Fraud", and then they go around promoting their product as "Featured in Ny Teknik!" You can't defeat a con with a rational discussion. The solution is to shun or propagandize back.
jberryman 15y ago
So I'm guessing this guy invented the bit about his secret customer too. Hired some actors in lab coats to play engineers from said company.
njharman 15y ago
As described, no independent validation, power cable connected, all smoke and mirrors; it's an egregious wrong to call that a "test".
- mousa 15y ago
  Add to that it's all being done by an ex-convict entrepreneur and it looks to me like the only reason this is a story is because it's a story. He did a good job hyping it.
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    I don't think, after a very cursory review of some of the reports on this E-cat stuff, that yours is a fair summary. He didn't just do a good job "hyping" it, it seems, but a good job selling it too. I don't mean selling in the exchange of goods/services sense but he appears to have won some high profile support. For example: "Rossi has licensed the technology to a start-up called Ampenergo. Though new, the company has credentials; one of its founders is Robert Gentile, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy at the US Department of Energy (DOE) in the 90's." (Wired, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/06/e-cat-cold-fusion?page=2 http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/06/e-cat-cold-fu...) "Together with Sergio Focardi, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, and Giuseppe Levi, a professor in the university’s Department of Physics, the trio claimed a low-energy nuclear reaction device that produced extraordinarily large amounts of excess heat." (from a New Energy Times article strongly criticising Rossi, http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/08/07/rossis-scientific-failure-in-seven-steps/ http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/08/07/rossis-scientific-...). And again: "On March 29, two Swedish professors went to Bologna, expenses paid by Rossi, to see Rossi's device in action. Sven Kullander is professor emeritus at Uppsala University and chairman of the Swedish National Academy of Sciences Energy Committee. Hanno Essén is associate professor of theoretical physics and a lecturer at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and was the chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Association until April, when he declined to run again. On April 3, they wrote a report endorsing Rossi's claim." (New Energy Times again, http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml) Clearly there's a bit more to this than just a convict hyping some vapourware. I'm not saying you can't fool professors of physics however. From the little I've read it seems that there is an assumption being made (see http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml, "Steam quality ...") that all of the water is being ejected as dry steam when it is probably wet steam, steam mixed with a fog of droplets of water. This error leads to vastly inflated calculations for the emitted energy. However, that wouldn't explain the current ½MW demonstration ... It's going to be interesting to see how this one breaks down.
SimonPStevens 15y ago
Leaving aside the speculation about whether this is real or not, the E-Cat is not cold fusion. Rossi: "is not cold fusion but weak [force] nuclear reactions." New energy times quote from Rossi - http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/3626-energycatalyzer.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/3626-energycatalyz... Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer
- Mizza 15y ago
  "New Energy Times" is published by Rossi. Why are we all still talking about this nonsense.
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    In which case he publishes a lot of dissenting matter, http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml. Wouldn't that suggest that he believes the process works too? Or is it your contention that this is all part of a huge fraud and that publicly annihilating his own claims is part of Rossi's method?
ck2 15y ago
If they used US tax dollars to buy this, there would be serious hell to pay.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  What if the secret investor is Solyndra? ;)
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    If that were true then it would represent a microscopically small fraction of the taxpayer money wasted on experiments and prototypes performed every year on behalf of the defense department.
dgregd 15y ago
They should sell energy, not that power plant. You don't sell duck that lays golden eggs. Obvious scam.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Not necessarily. If I'd invented a wacko free energy source (and I don't believe for a moment that they have) then I'd sell the machines, or the patent to the machine, and not the energy. Why? Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life running a utility company.
anothermachine 15y ago
Question in Headline? Answer: no.

79 points by andrewcross 15y ago

I really want to believe it works, but this cloak and dagger stuff is killing me. Anonymous customer, technical glitch preventing it from generating the advertised megawatt, connected power cable? Is it real or not? Then again, with Starlite we have real videos showing that it withstands at least a torch, yet nobody commercialized the stuff, because the inventor was supposedly too greedy... what a shame.

powertower 15y ago
You would think that anyone with half a brain would have foreseen that not disconnecting the 500KW generator from the set up would look suspicious. But neither the inventor nor the customer had this insight? It's also very suspicious for the planned 1000KW output to be reduced to the exact output level of the generator.
- div 15y ago
  I'm sure they did, but being connected to the grid is probably necessary for generating the 500KW.
- Sapient 15y ago
  I don't believe this is real for a second, though I would love it to be. But I wonder why, if it was connected to the grid, did they not just produce the expected 1MW...
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

jameskilton 15y ago

Other discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170907 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170907 Frankly I'm assuming it's a scam, or at best very very badly named, until we find out more details.

synctext 15y ago

If it sounds too good to be true...? No graphs, no public measurements, no scientific publication: no merit. Honest inventors want to be transparent and have their historical claim validated by top-ranking organisation. Clearly another case of wired.com diving into the fantastic and inspirational. Just search and see what their methodology is over the past months. Just invest a bit more money and we can do a bigger test... Nice income source, not an energy source. Just look at how the media is being manipulated. Amusing if it wasn't a waste of time and resources.

eftpotrm 15y ago
And if DARPA have genuinely just funded research that will permit them to run cold-fusion powered units they'd be publishing this knowledge for all to use rather than using it as a decisive advantage why...? I agree that this looks very suspicious and by Occam's razor it's probably a hoax. But by Clarke's third law, when successful fusion is finally announced honestly - whether it's this time or beyond any of our lifetimes - it's going to look quite a lot like a hoax, I suspect.
- redwood 15y ago
  DARPA would not make the test pubic at all. Rossi is using DARPA-speculation via one word "colonel" to create buzz and legitimacy
lutorm 15y ago
Clearly another case of wired.com diving into the fantastic and inspirational. Actually, Ny Teknik, one of the publications cited in the article, is a serious engineering/technology news publication. They do voice strong concerns, so I wouldn't say the media is obviously manipulated.
- anothermachine 15y ago
  That's the problem. It's a classic con technique. They get a few respectable organizations to cover you and write articles like "2011's Cold Fusion Fraud", and then they go around promoting their product as "Featured in Ny Teknik!" You can't defeat a con with a rational discussion. The solution is to shun or propagandize back.

jberryman 15y ago

So I'm guessing this guy invented the bit about his secret customer too. Hired some actors in lab coats to play engineers from said company.

njharman 15y ago

As described, no independent validation, power cable connected, all smoke and mirrors; it's an egregious wrong to call that a "test".

mousa 15y ago
Add to that it's all being done by an ex-convict entrepreneur and it looks to me like the only reason this is a story is because it's a story. He did a good job hyping it.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  I don't think, after a very cursory review of some of the reports on this E-cat stuff, that yours is a fair summary. He didn't just do a good job "hyping" it, it seems, but a good job selling it too. I don't mean selling in the exchange of goods/services sense but he appears to have won some high profile support. For example: "Rossi has licensed the technology to a start-up called Ampenergo. Though new, the company has credentials; one of its founders is Robert Gentile, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy at the US Department of Energy (DOE) in the 90's." (Wired, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/06/e-cat-cold-fusion?page=2 http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/06/e-cat-cold-fu...) "Together with Sergio Focardi, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, and Giuseppe Levi, a professor in the university’s Department of Physics, the trio claimed a low-energy nuclear reaction device that produced extraordinarily large amounts of excess heat." (from a New Energy Times article strongly criticising Rossi, http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/08/07/rossis-scientific-failure-in-seven-steps/ http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/08/07/rossis-scientific-...). And again: "On March 29, two Swedish professors went to Bologna, expenses paid by Rossi, to see Rossi's device in action. Sven Kullander is professor emeritus at Uppsala University and chairman of the Swedish National Academy of Sciences Energy Committee. Hanno Essén is associate professor of theoretical physics and a lecturer at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and was the chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Association until April, when he declined to run again. On April 3, they wrote a report endorsing Rossi's claim." (New Energy Times again, http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml) Clearly there's a bit more to this than just a convict hyping some vapourware. I'm not saying you can't fool professors of physics however. From the little I've read it seems that there is an assumption being made (see http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml, "Steam quality ...") that all of the water is being ejected as dry steam when it is probably wet steam, steam mixed with a fog of droplets of water. This error leads to vastly inflated calculations for the emitted energy. However, that wouldn't explain the current ½MW demonstration ... It's going to be interesting to see how this one breaks down.

SimonPStevens 15y ago

Leaving aside the speculation about whether this is real or not, the E-Cat is not cold fusion. Rossi: "is not cold fusion but weak [force] nuclear reactions." New energy times quote from Rossi - http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/3626-energycatalyzer.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/3626-energycatalyz... Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer

Mizza 15y ago
"New Energy Times" is published by Rossi. Why are we all still talking about this nonsense.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  In which case he publishes a lot of dissenting matter, http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/3705report3.shtml. Wouldn't that suggest that he believes the process works too? Or is it your contention that this is all part of a huge fraud and that publicly annihilating his own claims is part of Rossi's method?

ck2 15y ago

If they used US tax dollars to buy this, there would be serious hell to pay.

cpeterso 15y ago
What if the secret investor is Solyndra? ;)
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  If that were true then it would represent a microscopically small fraction of the taxpayer money wasted on experiments and prototypes performed every year on behalf of the defense department.

dgregd 15y ago

They should sell energy, not that power plant. You don't sell duck that lays golden eggs. Obvious scam.

hugh3 15y ago
Not necessarily. If I'd invented a wacko free energy source (and I don't believe for a moment that they have) then I'd sell the machines, or the patent to the machine, and not the energy. Why? Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life running a utility company.

anothermachine 15y ago

Question in Headline? Answer: no.