Does Italian Demo Show Cold Fusion, or Snake Oil? 479
An anonymous reader writes "Today, Wired.co.uk is running a story, 'Cold fusion rears its head as "E-Cat" research promises to change the world.' It gives an overview of the technology that claims to fuse hydrogen and nickel into copper, with no radioactive by-products, to produce copious amounts of heat, inexpensively, with a 1 megawatt plant scheduled to come on line later this month. Apparently, Wired was not aware that today is a big test in Italy by scientists from around the world, who will be observing the technology in operation, including self-looped mode. A real-time update page has been set up at PESWiki, which has been a primary news provider of this technology since it was announced last January." Wired's article is remarkably optimistic. I'd love for this to be true, but many decades of scientific-looking free-energy machine scams make it hard to be other than cynical; the claim of a secret catalyst which "can be produced at low cost," controlled-access for outside observers, the lack of published science to explain the claimed effect, and skepticism even from the free-energy world — along with a raft of pro-E-Cat websites registered anonymously earlier this year — all make it sound like this follows the marketing style of previous "over unity" / perpetual motion machines. I invite Andrea Rossi to take part in a Slashdot interview, if he's willing to answer readers' questions about his claims.
Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:5, Informative)
Wired's article is remarkably optimistic.
Parts of it, yes. But I think the article does an okay job of keeping cautious. Maybe you read only the sentences you want to? Allow me to cherry pick a few:
Rossi's heavyweight supporters include 1973 physics Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson. Josephson also supports telepathy research.
Skeptics point to the lack of published science, and the way that Rossi keeps details of his special catalyst secret. They also point to his past involvement in Petroldragon, a company involved in converting organic waste into fuel, which collapsed in the 1990's amidst allegations of dumping toxic waste. (Rossi maintains that he was the victim in this complex case).
Until August of this year, Rossi was planning his big launch in Greece, and an E-Cat factory was being built in Xanthi. But the deal has somehow fallen through for unexplained reasons, vaguely blamed on pressure from "international energy interests" who may be threatened by the invention.
"According to my analysis, his claim has no scientific credibility," Krivit told Wired.co.uk. The device he claimed to heat a factory in Bondeno seems to exist only on paper."
At this point, I'm calling it 'tabloid science journalism.' This guy is looking to get rich quick not contribute to human knowledge so I'm not paying attention to him just yet. Hopefully I get to backpedal in a couple months when he starts shipping but ... well, I'm betting there will be some 'delay' imposed by 'ominous forces' as Rossi's wallet fattens.
Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy is looking to get rich quick not contribute to human knowledge so I'm not paying attention to him just yet.
If what he's selling is true (my money is on not for the record) he can get rich and change the world for the better. I can't hardly blame someone with a potentially world altering invention wanting to keep it under wraps for as long as possible. Yeah, it's against the open source ethos, but it's also how reality works for 99% of the people out there; you don't give your work away for free. Quite frankly, this would be the exact kind of invention that the patent system works for; one that would still be useful in 20 years, is simple to replicate given a working sample (presumably), and is completely un-obvious to experts in the field.
Personally, they won't convince me until they are making money over the course of a year from operations (as opposed to investment) and/or they hand over a sample of the device to some independent researchers. There's way too much about this company that just doesn't smell right, but that's just my opinion.
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Screw that. I already filed patent apps for "Rossi-device-in-a-computing-device" (which is innovative prior art upon which your "Rossi-device-on-the-internet" infringes, and very likely your "Rossi-device-with-an-LCD-digital-clock" because I already patented the "Rossi-device-with-an-electronic-display" in addition to the aforementioned "Rossi-device-in-a-computing-device" which covers clocks) and "Rossie-Device-in-a-portable-wireless-communications-device," oh, and a "Rossi-device-powered-wheeled-vehicle."
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"Making money with a product speaks louder than hand-waving."
I take it you don't speak Italian? Sorry couldn't resist :)
Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't hardly blame someone with a potentially world altering invention wanting to keep it under wraps for as long as possible.
then...
Yeah, it's against the open source ethos, but it's also how reality works for 99% of the people out there; you don't give your work away for free.
then...
Quite frankly, this would be the exact kind of invention that the patent system works for....
You are trying to argue both sides of the fence here. If you had a potentially world-altering invention, you would be racing to the patent office at each stage of the invention to prevent competition. That is how is works for 99% of the people out there. Otherwise, you would eventually be giving your work away for free.
So where are the patents? If there are no patents, and this thing (through some miracle) is legitimate, then it is now ripe for someone else to swoop in and patent it (first to file wins; former publication, which this would qualify as, is mostly irrelevant nowadays). That would make this guy the dumbest inventor on Earth.
So yes, this is 99.9999999999% certain to be a scam.
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Let's say they are a huge success. Just how long, and for what prices, will I be able to buy a bag of nickel to feed into the machine?
You seem to have no idea of the energy densities of nuclear reactions. A bag of nickel that you can lift would power an entire country for a year. If it works (big 'if') then the cost of nickel is not going to be a problem.
The real problem is that fusing hydrogen and nickel into copper is an energy-negative reaction. I just tried to do the sums to work out how much energy would be released, and came out with a negative number. If I'd checked the periodic table first, I'd have known to expect this - n
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Until August of this year, Rossi was planning his big launch in Greece, and an E-Cat factory was being built in Xanthi. But the deal has somehow fallen through for unexplained reasons, vaguely blamed on pressure from "international energy interests" who may be threatened by the invention.
This one I don't find at all implausible, at least taken by itself. Greece is collapsing economically, corruption is hilariously wide-spread, and international energy interests include the likes of OPEC and Exxon; I wouldn't put a damn thing past those organizations, and Greek officials are probably about the easiest in the world to bribe at the moment.
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Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rossi does not want your money. He has solely funded all development of the e-cat with his own money: He has sold a company he owned, and he has now even sold his house. Peswiki asked him if they should set up a donation site for him, but rossi does not want that too. He also does not want to apply for FP7-ENERGY, a european research program for energy.
So Rossi either is a completely self-deluded man that manages to delude lots of other people around him as well, or he really has something working.
I'd like to sell him a bridge in Manhattan... (Score:2)
What do you bet someone sold him the secret to fusion for a rock-bottom low price? Of course, all it needed was someone with enough resources to get it started.
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This guy is looking to get rich quick not contribute to human knowledge
Agreed. He is a toned down version of the guy that invented the MYT engine. http://www.angellabsllc.com/mytengine.html [angellabsllc.com]
Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:4, Insightful)
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My support for the optimism claim would all stem from one fault in the article:
In fact, only the first question matters. Nobody needs to read speculation about a return to the steam age or the massive economic benefits of low cost energy.
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No, a catalyst is just something that participates in a reaction, but is not consumed by it. For example, muons have been proposed as a catalyst for hydrogen fusion. If you replace the electron in orbit around a proton with a muon, you get an atom with a much smaller radius than a normal hydrogen atom and no charge. Moving two of these close enough together for the strong attraction to overcome the electrostatic repulsion requires a lot less energy than with normal hydrogen atoms. The only slight proble
Waste of space (Score:2)
No reason to even look at this since there is absolutely no proof that this works because it's "Secret!!!!"
Why would you want to waste slashdot readers time by doing a question and answer with someone that has a magic spell to create energy, but of course no one can verify it.
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http://22passi.blogspot.com/2011/10/test-e-cat-7-luglio-2011.html [blogspot.com]
http://www.esowatch.com/en/index.php?title=Focardi-Rossi_Energy-Catalyzer
http://coldfire-lenr.blogspot.com/2011/09/ready-set-go.html
But the most important public tests are happening today, and at the end of this month in the US.
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"today is a big test in Italy by scientists from around the world, who will be observing the technology in operation, including self-looped mode."
If it produces enough power to sustain its own activity, without consuming anything but water (and presumably nickel at a very slow rate), then at the very least we have a device from which w
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There is this thing called a patent...
There is also no reason not to create an enclosed box that generates power for long enough that it has to be cold fusion.
Where are the patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the world operates on first-to-file, not first-to-invent. If you had a working "secret sauce", how insane would you have to be to not file a zillion patents on it? Protecting such inventions is exactly what the patent system is actually for.
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Reply to my reply: Aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahah. Is this for real?
It reads like an Al Gore infomercial, not a patent. More space is given to banging on about saving the planet than about the actual claims.
Ah, here's the snake oil: "said high temperature generates internuclear percussions which are made stronger by the catalytic action of optional elements [...] for a proper operation, the hydrogen injection must be carried out under a variable pressure".
Obvious troll is obvious. You can't replicate this?
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>It reads like an Al Gore infomercial, not a patent. More space is given to banging on about saving the planet than about the actual claims.
What? Are you saying Gore's global warming presentations were full of false information? Granted, his agenda was to popularize a marginalized message (which what it was when he started) but the facts were in line with IPCC.
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Any heat generating process is an exothermal reaction. The sun for example.
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It's funny that the first claim is for a "hexothermal" reaction of nickel and hydrogen.
Anyways...The patent mentions catalysts, but doesn't specify them. So for now, the sauce is still secret...
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No, in the US you have to be able to build a widget using the instructions for you to have patented the process.
However, much like the recipe for coke/pepsi, there is no reason to patent it when you could just keep it proprietary.
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Most of the world operates on first-to-file, not first-to-invent.
Not in Europe. If you have not a fully working implementation of your idea, you can't file a single patent for that idea. You can't patent ideas, just inventions.
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When you file all the details become public. That's a big risk if you aren't sure you'll get it granted. Some choose to try, some choose to keep it secret for as long as possible.
Catalyst or not? (Score:2)
The summary says that the device consumes hydrogen and nickel to produce copper by fusion (something that seems naively likely given their atomic numbers but a bit unlikely given their mass numbers, unless we're creating weird and radioactive isotopes here) but the article says that the nickel is just a catalyst over which the hydrogen passes.
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On the FAQ:
The two isotopes 62Ni and 64Ni are apparently being transmuted into non-radioactive isotopes of copper and trace amounts of other stable and non radioactive elements such as zinc.
Where are the neutrons coming from?
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62Ni + p -> 63Cu
64Ni + p -> 65Cu
I don't see a reason for a neutron ;D
Re:Catalyst or not? (Score:5, Interesting)
The bigger problem is that Ni62 is the most tightly bound nucleus known, http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/nucbin2.html#c1 [gsu.edu] or http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/ [bnl.gov] Fusion or fission of Ni62 require an input of energy; they clearly aren't measuring spontaneous release of energy in a fusion event...
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You're ignoring that other little part to this: Hydrogen.
Reaction: Ni62 + p -> Cu63
Energy: 62.92960u - (61.92835u + 1.00728u) = 0.00603u = ~28MeV
Just because Cu63 has more energy than Ni62 doesn't mean that Cu63 has more energy than Ni62 and H1 combined.
Self Important Much? (Score:2)
I invite Andrea Rossi to take part in a Slashdot interview, if he's willing to answer readers' questions about his claims.
The guy doesn't answer to us. We're not experts; the vast majority of us aren't even educated layman on the topic of nuclear physics. How pretentious and pointless is it inviting him to waste time justifying his "claims" to us rather than suggesting he have an open Q&A with the staff at CERN or something?
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I think most scientists are actually enthusiastic to talk about their work, so it doesn't hurt to ask for an interview.
Re:Self Important Much? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's apparently not an expert either. He's not a physicist, but rather an entrepreneur. (But to be fair, his partner is a physicist.)
Actually, the invite from /. may be a great litmus test - if he eagerly agrees, it suggests that he's a charlatan who will take any publicity he can get--which he almost certainly is.
Really incredible evidence! (Score:2)
Look at this graph. [blogspot.com]
Am I imagining that they've not actually graphed an object giving off energy over time, but an object being heated up and then slowly cooling?
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After reaching a temperature of around 450 to 500 Celsius, the reaction starts up. Once the reaction has started the input is lowered to around 80 watts.
So, he heats up a pile of nickel to 450-500 degrees celcius, then he turns the heat off. And he's surprised that it keeps boiling water for some time afterward.
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No it doesn't. The graph starts slowly sliding back down, as one would expect of a large metal container full of hot metal. The temperature of the steam stays at 100C, but that's axiomic - if it wasn't at 100C it wouldn't be steam.
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Er yes, what does it mean? (Score:2)
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I'm no longer sure.
Bet (Score:5, Funny)
I bet you $200 it's not cold fusion, or any other kind of new physics.
Re:Bet (Score:4, Funny)
Can I pay in Bitcoins?
Re:New Physics (Score:2)
It's not new physics at all, if you read the patent application. Nuclear reactions are a well understood part of physics.
What he is claiming is fusion of Nickel and Hydrogen to make Copper. A simple inspection of the Periodic Table shows that much is plausible since Copper is one place higher, and adding a proton moves you up one place. Next you would look at the accurate atomic weights. When you do hot fusion, such as Deuterium + Tritium = Helium + proton, If you sum the atomic weights of the starting
This is scientifically impossible (Score:4, Informative)
Nickel has the highest binding energy of any nucleus. When stars die it is because they've turned every element into iron and nickel and it is impossible to fuse anything further exothermically. Heavier elements, including copper, can only be produced in supernovas and they take excess energy to make. How could you get energy out of changing nickel to copper if copper has a lower binding energy? You can't. This process, like most free energy scams, defies the conservation of energy at a fundamental level.
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iron is the minimum, but start with some more hydrogen and you make a host of new possibilities (there is lots of potential energy in that proton).
The real problem is the idea that it is clean. Cu is 70% Cu-63 and 30% Cu-65. Add a proton to these and you get Ni-64 and Ni-66. But Ni-66 is not stable, so you will get a radioactive material.
I guess it could be that only the Cu-63 reacts... yeah, that even seems likely that one isotope would work and the other would not. Anyway, also a way to produce pure Ni-66
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And endothermic reaction is an endothermic reaction. Catalysts, novel mechanisms, etc. only let you alter the activation energy.
Only 1 megawatt? (Score:2)
We've only got a couple more years before we're supposed to have Mr. Fusion providing at least 1.21 gigawatts!
Cold Fusion? (Score:2)
Highly unlikely to work (Score:4, Interesting)
They appear to claim that injecting a nickel powder with hydrogen gas under high pressure forces hydrogen into situations where the nickel will capture a proton, turning into an unstable copper isotope, which will beta decay back to nickel emitting a positron which annihilates with an electron, producing heat energy.
As far as I know there is no known theoretical basis for such a reaction. Even if you could squeeze the hydrogen into really tight spaces in a heated crystal structure then cool it to get atomic forces to squeeze the hydrogen to an insane degree, you still won't come close to enough force to get proton capture. And the heat levels they are talking about aren't going to get there either.
History is littered with crackpots who believed their own nonsense and fakers who drummed up hype to get investor's money (or just coast for a few years while drawing a paycheck and not having to get a real job). I predict more of the same in this case.
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Even the likes of Isaac Newton believed in alchemy.
I'm not saying this isn't crackpot deceptive bullshit, mind you. (I mean, it's an Italian we're talking about here, right? :P) But it shouldn't be ruled out so fast. Fight bad science with science and all that.
I seem to recall seeing this, or a very similar theory, passed around a couple months ago, maybe even posted to slashdot. Wonder if it's the same guy...
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Inspection of the atomic masses of nickel, copper, and hydrogen isotopes will tell you if any of the possible reactions are exothermic. If none are, the Rossi device would violate conservation of energy. If there are any possible reactions, that narrows down what to investigate.
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Even if you could squeeze the hydrogen into really tight spaces in a heated crystal structure then cool it to get atomic forces to squeeze the hydrogen to an insane degree, you still won't come close to enough force to get proton capture.
So.... Are you sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroelectric_fusion [wikipedia.org]
Sure it's not a positive energy fusion reaction, but they're doing exactly what you're describing and obtaining fusion. So you might want to reconsider your position.
I believe he is using... (Score:2)
Besides hydrogen which is supplying the needed electrons to turn nickle into copper but that he is also using Iron Ferrite Magnets.
Magnets have been shown to help in HHO production in fuel cell experiments
The Iron found in the used nickle would be explained by Iron Ferrite magnet deterioration in unit use.
The idea of getting more energy out of something than put in is NOT contrary to physics, in fact it fits quite well.
Otherwise life would not be able to sustain itself. Its really quite obvious it really ab
I Want to Believe! (Score:3)
I really do want to believe, but after finding an article that has real facts [pesn.com] about the E-Cat, it seems like a joke.
Ok, when I have a rapidly boiling pot on the stove and turn it off, the boiling does stop in 1 minute, not 35. So, I can see why people are stumped after witnessing this "parlor trick."
You and I have very definitions of "a very large amount of energy". We're talking about nuclear fusion, and you say that keeping a pot of water at 125 degrees qualifies as "a very large amount of energy"?
The Steam temperature is very different than the water temperature. I'm assuming that while the steam temp dropped from 130 C to 120 C, the water temp dropped from 400 C to 99 C. If you put the steam temp sensor far enough away from the production source, this seems about right. Even at 400 C, the water won't instantly boil away, and especially not if it is under pressure. I'm beginning to understand exactly how this parlor trick works.
The Wired article makes it sound as if the company has already designed the consumer unit, and is ready to put it in production. The facts I've listed above make it sound more like a strange phenomenon that warrants a bit of investigation. These are very different things. If the reaction in the lab isn't even self-sustaining, how can they be discussing the design of consumer units yet?
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Temperature of the steam leaving the apparatus is irrelevant, what matters is the amount of heat being lost. They don't provide anywhere near enough information to evaluate their claims which is obviously a big red flag in and of itself. I imagine with a well insulated pressure vessel, some smart regulator design, and a block of metal to act as a heat sink, it should be pretty easy to create a device that will continue to produce steam at 35 minutes; not very much steam mind you, but enough to produce the
Site moving to high-traffic shortly. (PESWiki) (Score:3)
Well, we got slashdotted, and we were already getting bogged down on the server from the traffic we were getting; so we're in process of moving the site to a high-traffic server. Sorry for the inconvenience. It should be resolved shortly. Today is a historic day for cold fusion. Lots of people will be watching.
This test is, appropriately, in Bologna (Score:3)
Link to the swedish paper Nyteknik about this (Score:3)
The comments about this is that they are very very skeptical.
Follow today's test on twitter (Score:2, Informative)
As of now, it appears to be running in self-sustained mode (creating heat with little or no electrical input) for over 2 hours.
Add this fusion worker to the skeptic list (Score:4, Insightful)
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For those saying "why aren't there patents" - there have been attempts, which were rejected for lack of clarity on what was being patented. For most of the time (including now as far as I know) the only people willing to publish their papers are owned by, well, themselves.
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I've not looked up the masses, but yes, this end of the periodic table doesn't have much you can do with binding energy in it. I probably should, so I could state definitively that this can't work. If it was really that easy, would we not have seen it before now, happening by accident and so on? I put hot H (actually mostly other H isotopes) in nickel containing stainless steel daily -- nothing special happens at any energy regime I reach (which are in general well above what the Rossi claims are).
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I think everyone honestly in the fusion field wants some form of it to be real, and to work. But we also realize that there are a lot of people in this field for various dishonest reasons, from gaining corner offices with perks, to tenure, to just making sure they have a job for life, as in give us X billion more dollars and Y more years, and we'll really make it work this time - we just didn't make it big and expensive enough the last 4-5 roundy rounds. Even fairly honest people fall into that trap when it means lifetime security at a cushy job, and those of us in the open source fusion world (yes, it exists and is thriving) wish it were otherwise - but there it is.
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I AM a betting man - my day job is as a trader. Anyone want to take a bet with me? You get the side that "this is real" to win, I'll take the other side for plenty of money and a year time limit. I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'll take anyone, but what would be fun is say if Rossi himself would take that bet for say, half a million -- with a registered agent holding the bucks (must be real money, and guaranteed no counterparty risk). I note that while they've taken plenty of "bets" it's under conditions where it's not actually a bet -- they don't pay back if they fail.
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To me it looks like they climbed to the top of the snake oil tree and fell out, hitting every branch on the way down. No disclosure. No duplication of the results in independent labs. No explanation of why it could work. No patent apps that actually disclose the process. Just the usual "gimme money and someday it will work". A couple of prominent boosters mean nothing - those guys can be had with the average financier's lunch money, famous or not, and examples abound on both sides of every science controversy.
Seen this before, it's baloney (Score:5, Informative)
About a month ago I got an email from my dad in which he asked my opinion on this issue, since I have a PhD in engineering and work as a researcher. The case had been presented to the public in a Italian TV magazine [youtube.com]. I drafted a debunking on various grounds, which for your benefit I report here.
Short version: this Rossi guy is a convicted felon, his buddy Focardi an old, crooked professor with no relevant publications since the 60s, and they are after the money of naive investors.
Detailed version:
Mr. Rossi is therefore only looking for rich, greedy fools that will pump money in his next bankruptcy fraud. As a consequence of a certain prime minister and his modifications to the legal system, crimes like bankruptcy fraud are now very difficult to prosecute in Italy, so Rossi could just get away with it this time.
That's Bullshit, Explain This to Me Then (Score:2)
Professor Rossi is already independently wealthy, money is not his motivation.
If his motive is pure and he does not want money, why must his nickel based catalyst remain so secret?
From the article:
The catalyst is secret, but Rossi says it can be produced at low cost.
Why doesn't he just file for an international patent and release a paper to a journal like all other scientists who are financially interested do? Hell, if he's "independently wealthy" he can screw the patent or anything and go down as one of the greatest men of all time. Think about how many wars, death and resource contention this could alleviate. Right now I view this as either a
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If he spent all his savings on it he's no longer independently wealthy and has a vested interest in making money off it, whether it works or not.
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If you reduce the cost of transport to close to zero, would that benefit locally made products or imports? W
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Oh, so he's not independently wealthy. According to your rendition of the past, he USED to be independently wealthy. But he's not now.
Of course, without evidence (say, his comprehensive expenditures record for this research), there's no provable difference between "He used to be independently wealthy, but sunk all his riches into this" and "He never had a cent, and he still doesn't" Both sentences would be continued "... and therefore needs to secure his exclusive rights to this innovation, in order to..."
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I would've thought that an independently wealthy man could afford to publish in an open-access journal instead of inventing his own.
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The process is pulling money out of the gullible.
Remember the second law of thermodynamics - you can't get something for nothing. It's not called "the second suggestion of thermodynamics".
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Perhaps you should read up what the second law of thermodynamic actually states, before using it in arguments. ;D
After all a transmutation like the proposed one is exothermic, so in fact it could work
As you are obviously to lazy to educate yourself, the second law of thermodynamics says: "There is no change in state possible that only transfers heat from a body with low temperature to a bdy with higher temperature" Or: "It is impossible to build a cyclic(or periodic) working machine that lifts a mass by dra
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Not all do, in fact most don't.
Sorry this sentence is utter nonsens.
This sentence makes no sense either. Either there is copper and/or iron created in this "aparatus" then there clearly is
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Strange claim, since he hasn't sought any money from anyone, not even from organizations and government programs that might normally fund ideas such as his.
You can, at worst, accuse him of believing his own hype; the con-man angle just doesn't fit.
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That's the first law of thermodynamics.
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Is the process pulling hydrogen out of water or are they providing pure hydrogen? If pulled from water would that mean the only byproduct is oxygen? If so this could be huge. Yes I did RTFA.
If this turns out to be legit (and it's a very big if), then it's a nuclear reaction. The energy available from nuclear reactions dwarfs that of chemical reactions by many orders of magnitude, so chemical nature of the source of hydrogen would be irrelevant.
Re:Can someone clarify (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the big question on everyone's mind is if this actually *is* a nuclear reaction. There could be some sort of chemical reaction going on with the hydrogen, causing it to give off heat. If so, this 'reactor' is just another hydrogen fuel cell (possibly more efficient, maybe not). Not that a fuel cell which can be made using a "cheap catalyst" would be a bad thing - Slashdot has had a number of stories of people working towards such. But, fuel cells are not an energy "source", in the same way as an alkaline battery is not an energy source - but it could be a very convenient storage mechanism.
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Re:Can someone clarify (Score:4, Informative)
Sigh.
Look, Uranium, it's higher up than Iron. Heavier, more protons, higher atomic number.
Uranium is hard to fuse. You can't move from Uranium to Plutonium easily, lots of input energy required. It happens, but it's not efficient. Most of the Uranium in breeder reactors turns into lighter elements, and a lot of energy is released. Enrichment setups where you line the walls of the reactor core with Uranium absorb energy lost in reaction to radiation. The natural production of Plutonium occurs the same way.
Conversely, breaking down Helium or Carbon into smaller elements (Hydrogen, Lithium, etc) is not easy. Fusing Li + Li into C would emit energy, whereas fissing He into H would lose energy. It's exactly in reverse.
Iron is the most stable point here. Fissing Iron into lighter elements is hard, and absorbs energy to create mass--the products of the fission are slightly heavier. Fusing iron into heavier elements is also hard, and creates slightly heavier elements.
Nickle is heavier than iron.
Fissing Cu into Ni + H would result in Ni + H + free particles (electrons, neutrons, whatever) that are LIGHTER than the original piece of Cu. This is because part of the mass of the original Cu is released as thermal energy. Conversely, fusing Ni + H into Cu will bind some of the thermal energy input into the structure of the Cu atom, raising the mass of the products.
Re:Can someone clarify (Score:4, Informative)
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Well, oxygen and copper.
This would be awesome; nickel and hydrogen are both extremely plentiful, and if copper is a byproduct, this would become a very inexpensive source of pure copper, which can eliminate at least some environment-damaging copper mines.
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Adding to that - I'll believe it when I see it. We haven't even achieved a sustainable, practical Hydrogen to helium reaction, and we're expected to believe a hydrogen+nickel fusion reactor is going online this month?
If it works, awesome! It will mean the "energy crisis" is solved, and fuel prices will plummet. In reality, I think the chance of this being real is every bit as high as the chance that the Moller Skycar will go into full production this year.
Re:Can someone clarify (Score:4, Informative)
This would be awesome; nickel and hydrogen are both extremely plentiful,
No 'they' aren't.
Nickel is the fifth most common element in (in, iN, IN!) the Earth.
Nickel is a metallic element, making up [ONLY] 0.008% of the Earth's crust.
http://oldsite.nickelinstitute.org/index.cfm?ci_id=13&la_id=1 [nickelinstitute.org]
Nickel is abundant in space, where supernovae and stellar cooking
has created it in chunks and hurled it about the universe. Exactly
where we can't get to it.
[although I have imagined a time where 'mining' asteroids ended up being
the controlled deorbiting of chunks of mined asteroids. Think there are
big crowds for a shuttle launch? I think the antithesis would be a deorbited
chunk of nickel. New lines of betting would come up in Las Vegas. People
with a death wish would use boats and planes or pilgrimage to the target
zone. We'd have some awesome footage... for the first dozen times, then
people would get bored with it, haha.]
Hydrogen is only abundant on earth in molecular or compound form
with a really weak 0.14% by weight showing. Once again, abundant in
space, where we can't get it to cheaply.
and if copper is a byproduct, this would become a very inexpensive source of pure copper
No, it wouldn't... are you getting that nickel for free??? Remember why
hydrogen cars "aren't taking off"? Where are you getting the hydrogen from?
which can eliminate at least some environment-damaging copper mines.
And replace them with nickel mines???
It sounds like you are regurgitating college 'book facts'.
Lastly, I know the nickel is used as a catalyst... and a lot might not be used
but anything that increases its price will change the price of another process
that uses nickel and none of use want to see it go up in price. STEEL.
-AI
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The powerplant is quite clearly a shipping container in the second image.
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Hey a shipping container would be a great housing. Doesn't stand out, does the job.
But I'll believe this when some details come out and other scientists get a look at it.
Re:I do wish that... (Score:5, Insightful)
You really find a lack of skepticism about global warming out there? Rather, despite more skepticism than about any other topic in current science, 98% of scientists with expertise in the field conclude that anthropogenic global warming is a major threat to our species.
Sometime you might try skepticism about skepticism. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. A skepticism that's promoted by a PR firm working for the oil companies, that previously promoted skepticism about tobacco and cancer on behalf of the tobacco companies, is a good target for skepticism about skepticism. Or do you believe that loading up the lungs with tobacco is health, too, just as you apparently believe that loading up the atmosphere with CO2 is benign?
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Sometime you might try skepticism about skepticism.
I see it as an abundance of skepticism coupled with a lack of scientific knowledge. Same with the cigarettes.
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Add to that: deliberate for profit misinformation with a sprinkling of the fevered apocalyptic dreams of the ultra right wing fundamentalists and you have a deal.
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You really find a lack of skepticism about global warming out there? Rather, despite more skepticism than about any other topic in current science, 98% of scientists with expertise in the field conclude that anthropogenic global warming is a major threat to our species.
The question I'd like to ask the OP is, what is your track record on these issues? Has your skepticism on these subjects proven to be founded in the past, or have you had to eat crow over and over again before you move on to your next conspiracy?
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Could this be used to extract the salt from 300,000,000 gallons of seawater a day? They'd have enough salt to last forever!
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This place went from a news site, to a warez site, then to a Window$ fanboi site , and now it is a nutball krackpot site.
Hey now! It's just plain krackpot. It's not nutball krackpot until timecube gets its own story.
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Interesting perspective. It certainly works for the vain and greedy, both of which appear to be true here.
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There are no taboo subjects. If you have evidence that your cold fusion device works, and are competent enough to write a real paper demonstrating that it works, you'll be getting handed the Nobel prize within a couple years, while raking in billions of dollars from the thousands of corporations which are licensing reactors based on your patented design. Your comment might be a reflection of how quacks rationalize their inability to show evidence, but it has no reflection on how inventors and scientists d
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Wow, that is one of the most elitist things I've ever heard. Just because I'm not willing to bend over and take abuse, I'm suddenly not good enough to be a scientist.
Yep, pretty much. Someone who doesn't want to take orders isn't good enough to be a soldier. Someone who doesn't want to run into burning buildings isn't good enough to be a firefighter. And someone who isn't willing to publish controversial work in the face of opposition isn't good enough to be a scientist. You can call that "elitist", if you want, but anyone with an IQ above the boiling point of Ether will realize that you're just whining because you want to be granted the same kind of respect and def