At 09:23 AM 1/24/2012, noone noone wrote:
Hello Everyone,
The obvious anti-Rossi agenda on this list is getting absolutely disgusting.
This is useless in the other direction. There are strong reasons to
remain skeptical of Rossi's claims, and a desire and actions to
openly examine these reasons is not an "anti-Rossi agenda." What was
beyond the pale was a claim that Rossi is a fraud, that he's lying,
etc., without proof. On the other hand, "fraud," "con artist," are
among the possible explanations of what we've seen over the last
year. "noone noone" with the "interesting" user name "thesteorn
party" might as well be trolling for negative comments about Rossi,
by presenting, as if it were obviously true, an "explanation" for
Rossi's behavior that relies upon a series of assumptions that are "pro-Rossi."
To address one issue, there is a very simple explanation of why
Rossi did not pay the University of Bologna.
The explanation isn't as simple as claimed. It merely looks simple if
you don't have in mind the full history.
Simply put, he is devoting all of his time, energy, and most likely
FINANCIAL RESOURCES on the factory that will produce the one million
home units.
If we assume that Rossi is not a total con, if we assume that he did,
in fact, discover a way to get far higher energy release in NiH than
anyone else had shown, what he then did is only justifiable on a
theory that he's crazy, or at least, seriously self-deluded as to his
personal capacities. The goal, of one million units was invented by
Rossi, it was not imposed by the natural realities of the situation.
If Rossi, for example, had focused on preparing *ten* units for sale,
and had he delivered on that promise, and the units worked reliably,
he'd have been successful, it would all be over.
Instead, Rossi claimed he could do what he obviously could not do. He
claimed that it would all be over by October, 2011, and that's how he
answered critics and questioners: wait till October, you'll see. He
announced and used such things as the contract with Defkalion and the
contract with the University of Bologna to support his claim of legitimacy.
And they were a form of support for that. So when these props are
pulled out from under his claims, when he fails to deliver, we now
see an attempt to rationalize this as deliberate. We are seeing a
repetition of the past with Rossi: inflated claims that he can't deliver on.
The fact is the University of Bologna testing has never been a huge
priority of Rossi's. It has been a side issue. His number one goal
is getting this technology into the market place. To do that, he
needs to focus all of his effort and resources towards that.
Sure. But getting into the marketplace if you don't have a product is
cart before the horse. He didn't have a product. He had something
that he believed (if we assume that this is, again, not a fraud)
could, just with some tweaks, be made into a product.
But the "little detail" of self-powered operation, of reliability, is
not little with LENR. Rossi, if we trust certain appearances, did
find a way to get higher output power than had been realized before
-- but much LENR had deliberately been scaled down, to avoid the risk
of uncontrolled reaction, such as what led to the meltdown in the lab
of Pons and Fleischman some years before their public announcement.
The problem, all along, had been two-fold: finding ways to reliably
demonstrate the effect, *and dealing with the apparent loss of
reactive capacity that takes place with time with prior approaches.*
The general physics community doesn't believe in LENR at all, in
spite of ample experimental evidence, but one of the elements of this
disbelief has been the lack of reliable and clear demonstrations. In
many fields, reliability isn't necessary, because statistical
analysis can show that an effect is real (or "real" within a high
degree of certainty). For energy production, however, reliability is
essential. It's possible to imagine reactors that rely upon many
small reactors that might only work so often and for so long, but it
vastly complicates matters. In any case, one of the arguments of the
skeptical community has been a catch-22 argument:
"It isn't real, and, besides, it isn't practical." Somehow the
contradiction in those two positions is overlooked. The 1989 and 2004
U.S. DoE reviews did *not* conclude that LENR was not real, but they
did conclude (rightly or wrongly) that reality had not been
*conclusively* demonstrated, and especially that practicality had not
been demonstrated as likely, which was their charge: should a massive
program of research be undertaken? Instead, they *did* recommend
research (at modest levels), which they would not have done with
"pathological science."
What's been obvious for quite some time is that those who actually
investigate LENR consider that there is a "real anomaly" being
demonstrated, without being united on what that anomaly *means.*
Anomalies are great stuff, when they can be replicated with some
reasonable chance of success, when they can be studied. That's where
we learn, that's where science advances beyond prior limitations.
If Rossi had to decide between testing at the University of Bologna
and having more money to devote to the factory for the home E-Cat
units, I think he made the best decision. He really does not need
the University of Bologna. What he needs he already has.... the
"customer" (US military) and National Instruments to help with his
control systems.
Noone noone "knows" what the rest of us don't, apparently. Whether or
not Rossi has a customer or not is mostly an idea that depends on our
judgment of Rossi. We do know that Rossi makes claims that turn out
to be deceptive in effect. He may claim he has a customer when he has
no firm contract. A customer contract, as well, may contain serious
escape clauses. Blacklight Power has "customers." If they can
deliver. So far, they haven't.
If Rossi has a device that reliably produces clear excess energy in
the kilowatt-hours, even for a short time, as shown by independent
demonstration (and any real customer having a real products is
obviously going to be able to independently verify the power), all
he'd have to do is sell a few of these devices. He'd certainly have
buyers! Does he have such a device? If he does, why hasn't he sold it
to anyone? It could certainly be sold under non-disclosure, etc.
For that matter, giving one of these units to the University of
Bologna, or to any other reputable research institution, with the
understanding that they could publish test results, having performed
fully independent testing, following sound protocols, would have
allowed him to raise huge sums for further work and deliveries.
Meanwhile, absent this, the rest of us need to step back and say,
wait a minute! We have no fully independent evidence that Rossi has
*anything.* It seems reasonably *possible* from the various
demonstrations that he has *something*, but once fraud is considered
possible, we don't know *anything* with certainty. Every
demonstration has been open to various errors and, as well, possible
fraud modes, that could reduce the real excess energy to zero. That's
why we want independent testing.
I'll note that Defkalion has described a testing program that is
essentially what some of us suggested long ago: control experiments.
Rossi rejected this idea, out of hand, saying "I already know what
happens when there is no catalyst: nothing." He was demonstrated a
total lack of understanding of the scientific method. (Not
surprising, he's not a scientist.) Control experiments, identical
except for the secret sauce, would demonstrate that the *testing
methods* were working, and that the catalyst was necessary. Defkalion
then reverses the positions of the test unit and the control, the
goal being to show that the presence of the catalyst is truly
necessary. In theory, at least, Defkalion is way ahead of Rossi, in
understanding how to run a convincing demonstration. But until there
are units being *independently tested*, we won't know for sure that,
again, they have anything. When there are trillions of dollars of
value at stake, we cannot rule out fraud, the motivation for fraud can be high.
And sincere inventors have, in the past, been tempted to fake
results, when they run into some unexpected obstacle. It's a slippery slope....
The fact he did not pay the University of Bologna does not mean he
is broke or is a fraud. It means that he is re-directing his
resources towards what matters most.
PUTTING ONE MILLION E-CATS ON THE MARKET
Sure. That is, it would mean, then, if he's not broke and not a
fraud, he's *crazy*.
He's beating his head against an obstacle that "defeated" investors
with very deep pockets: making LENR reliable. Hundreds of millions of
dollars of investment *was not enough.* If Rossi has found
high-output LENR, he was very lucky. He's now depending, it appears,
on being just as lucky again, making it reliable and sustainable, all
while promising to deliver under fixed deadlines. He already failed
his first deadlines.
I rather doubt that he's a *total fraud.* He can look like one,
though, and faulting people for pointing out the obvious is not ...
fair. On the other hand, we don't want to hear that *possibility*
repeated over and over, as if everyone else was an idiot.
