Brings to mind Richard Dawkins' (and many others) aggressive put-down of Lovelock's initial hypothesis. At least Dawkins had the balls to subsequently admit he was wrong and come out publicly in support of Lovelock's theory.

And no, this post isn't about Lovelock, it's an illustrative example, it's about keeping an open mind.

It's possible to argue that the reason for the secrecy is because he doesn't have a patent yet. However I've read the patent officers comments on his US patent application and as things stand he won't get one because he doesn't disclose how it works. For example there is no mention of what the secret catalyst is so the patent doesn't contain enough information to replicate what he's doing. As I understand it that alone means he won't get a US patent.

After reading some of the 'fuels for 21st century' thread I went and done a bit of browsing on LENR. I read a few articles on Andrea Rossi and his wondertechno nuclear fusion kit and kind of smelled a rat. I then watched a linked video showing the apparatus 'working' and showing Rossi at work and smelled an ever larger and notably stinkier rat. Just didn't trust the guy when I saw him.

LENR-CANR.org website has a couple of telling comments -
"Unfortunately, this test was marred by problems that made it impossible to accurately determine how much energy was produced. Peak power was nominally 8 kW but the instruments were so imprecise it might have been lower or much higher, perhaps 10 kW. Problems included: poorly placed instruments; the arrangement of the outlet hose that prevented accurate independent verification of temperature and flow rates; critical parameters such as flow rates not instrumented or recorded; and an instrument that was not set to record electronically, even though it would have taken only a moment to insert an SD card and begin recording. Critical temperature and flow data that should have been electronically recorded every minute had to be manually written down by Lewan. He was only able to read the instruments every 10 or 15 minutes, which left large gaps in the data.

These problems could have been fixed at in a few hours, at minimal expense. The test could easily have been arranged to answer most skeptical objections. All of these problems were anticipated because they were present in previous tests. Experts advised Rossi how to fix them in the weeks leading up to the test, but he ignored this advice."

"...the company is capitalized at €200 million, which includes €100 million to be paid in as royalties, presumably to Rossi."

Taking both the above points together...if you were trying to increase the value of your company surely you would do what you could to improve the experiments to silence your detractors and further prove your design.

My instinct told me that this guy must have had dodgy dealing of some sort before so I turned to Wikipedia (source of all knowledge)...low and behold the guy has indeed has previous failed businesses, charges for fraud and has spent time in jail (acquitted some years later).

I'm pretty sure we won't see any useable science coming from this guy.

What about WGR, LWSR, LSMR .. I cd go on

Posted By: djhfostertom wrote:
How about
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/LENR_at_GRC_2011.pdf" rel="nofollow" >http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/LENR_at_GRC_2011.pdf

Thanks, not seen that one before.

Bugger!

I rather suspected the chap might be back to his old tricks (he hasn't exactly got an impeccable track record), but had hoped that there may have been an element of truth in his claims. It seems that he may have fallen victim to a mix of greed and what might, perhaps, best be politely referred to as "Walter Mitty Syndrome"...............

Two LENR presentations at Cern..

http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1433866

http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1433865

Oops yes watch the second link first.

Posted By: Joiner
Does make you wonder how much lobbying against funding for LENR has been going on by the fusion boys. $22bn worth of vested interest there!

Not much lobbying I would think (having met a couple of them).

I sort of wondered what would happen when a regulator quizzed Rossi about producing domestic reactors - the answer seems to have been that he fobbed them off... photons which are "low energy"... compared to what?

Are the photons emitted gamma rays or not? Well if we assume his device does what it's beginning to look like it does, then that would seem to be a matter of opinion - there's no completely fixed definition of what a gamma ray is, and there are plenty of other sources for photons in the energy range mentioned in the CERN talk (I used to write control software for a >1MeV accelerator - used to make silicon chips), and there are a few theories for how such a device might work, but no one really knows - so he could reasonably say that he doesn't think they're gammas (even if he believes that they are).

Incidentally, not really a packed lecture theatre for the CERN LENR talk was it? I'm pretty sure I watched Tarantino's Jackie Brown in the same room to a larger audience about ten years ago.

I think I'm about 80% convinced that Rossi's device is real (although my Physics stopped at A-level, BTW). If so, it'll be nice to see all those people that have continued to invest in the coal, and petroleum etc. lose their shirt. OTOH, that probably includes a chunk of my pension, and for that matter renewables won't do very well out of it either.