4 ms·

This is very likely to be a scam. The guy is just delusional and trying to get financing to make it work because it probably doesn't work at all. Why don't they

This is very likely to be a scam. The guy is just delusional and trying to get financing to make it work because it probably doesn't work at all. Why don't they visibly disconnect the generators? why don't they allow anyone to verify that new elements have been created inside the fusion modules? why all the secrecy and only letting reporters go in for a few minutes during the test? They've been publishing their bullshit papers since the mid-90s. If this was for real, reproducible and all, somebody else would have verified it by now.

ArchD 15y ago
AFAIK, there are government regulations about nuclear experiments they would trigger if there was a big audience, so they showed the machine to 1-2 people at a time as a workaround.
mrb 15y ago
In 1996, the CERN did reproduce Focardi's first experiment: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CerronZebainvestigat.pdf http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CerronZebainvestigat.pdf They discovered results consistent with Focardi et al.: excess heat around the nickel bar and hydrogen absorption. However they also placed an additional temperature sensor on the container of the cell which was unable to measure any significant excess heat. They theorize that the nickel bar is prone to local variations of its thermal characteristics, correlated to the phenomenon of hydrogen absorption. They concede that hydrogen absorption remains unexplained. Then Focardi took this feedback into account and wrote the 1998 paper which I linked above. But the stigma attached to cold fusion did entice researchers to have a 2nd look at this later paper. Some of the scientists interviewed on October 28, 2011 for the test admit that they had never read about hydrogen-nickel fusion until 2011. You can bet that from now on, many are starting to look into it...
- mrb 15y ago
  I meant: "did not entice researches to have a 2nd look"
ChuckMcM 15y ago
"The guy is just delusional and trying to get financing to make it work because it probably doesn't work at all." This has been my litmus test for years for the free/excess energy folks. One of the things that has always been true is that if you have energy, even in small amounts, which is 'free' you can sell that energy for 'money'. In developed countries this is trivial, run the power meter backwards at your house/business, less so at less developed countries although I was at a talk by the guy who built a windmill generator in Africa and he charged batteries for a fee with it. So you work at a 'real' job for a while and use your savings to build energy machines, you start ganging them together and you sell their energy, once they are making enough money to pay your bills plus a bit of working capital you start building them full time. Once they provide enough funding for V2 you start working on that. If its real there is no requirement to raise money, if its a scam, well the money is the point. The area where this gets a bit weirder is with the actual fusion guys. They want to raise money to do basic research with the promise of offering you a piece of the action if they succeed. This isn't exactly a scam, but its definitely very speculative. The focus fusion guys come under this umbrella. They have math that says it works, but they don't know how to build the gear yet, hence the speculation.

ArchD 15y ago

AFAIK, there are government regulations about nuclear experiments they would trigger if there was a big audience, so they showed the machine to 1-2 people at a time as a workaround.

mrb 15y ago

In 1996, the CERN did reproduce Focardi's first experiment: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CerronZebainvestigat.pdf http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CerronZebainvestigat.pdf They discovered results consistent with Focardi et al.: excess heat around the nickel bar and hydrogen absorption. However they also placed an additional temperature sensor on the container of the cell which was unable to measure any significant excess heat. They theorize that the nickel bar is prone to local variations of its thermal characteristics, correlated to the phenomenon of hydrogen absorption. They concede that hydrogen absorption remains unexplained. Then Focardi took this feedback into account and wrote the 1998 paper which I linked above. But the stigma attached to cold fusion did entice researchers to have a 2nd look at this later paper. Some of the scientists interviewed on October 28, 2011 for the test admit that they had never read about hydrogen-nickel fusion until 2011. You can bet that from now on, many are starting to look into it...

mrb 15y ago
I meant: "did not entice researches to have a 2nd look"

ChuckMcM 15y ago

"The guy is just delusional and trying to get financing to make it work because it probably doesn't work at all." This has been my litmus test for years for the free/excess energy folks. One of the things that has always been true is that if you have energy, even in small amounts, which is 'free' you can sell that energy for 'money'. In developed countries this is trivial, run the power meter backwards at your house/business, less so at less developed countries although I was at a talk by the guy who built a windmill generator in Africa and he charged batteries for a fee with it. So you work at a 'real' job for a while and use your savings to build energy machines, you start ganging them together and you sell their energy, once they are making enough money to pay your bills plus a bit of working capital you start building them full time. Once they provide enough funding for V2 you start working on that. If its real there is no requirement to raise money, if its a scam, well the money is the point. The area where this gets a bit weirder is with the actual fusion guys. They want to raise money to do basic research with the promise of offering you a piece of the action if they succeed. This isn't exactly a scam, but its definitely very speculative. The focus fusion guys come under this umbrella. They have math that says it works, but they don't know how to build the gear yet, hence the speculation.