Open Letter to Rossi’s Academic E-Cat Promoters

Jun 062013
 
Open Letter to Rossi's Academic Promoters

Motto of the U.K. Royal Society: “Nullius in Verba.” (Take no one’s word for it.)

— June 6, 2013 —

Steven B. Krivit
Publisher and Senior Editor, New Energy Times
369-B Third Street, #556
San Rafael, CA USA 94901

To Drs. Giuseppe Levi (University of Bologna), Evelyn Foschi (INFN), Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson, Lars Tegnér (Uppsala University), Hanno Essén (Royal Institute of Technology)

Dear Drs. Levi, Foschi, Hartman, Höistad, Pettersson, Tegnér and Essén,

This is an open letter about your preprint submission to arXiv on May 16, “Indication of Anomalous Heat Energy Production in a Reactor Device.”

In your preprint, you claimed that you made an independent test of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat device and that, according to your test, his device produced energy that was an order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources.

This letter is prompted by my concerns about your preprint, the validity of the device’s thermal output that you claimed to confirm, and the integrity of the inventor whom you have endorsed.

In June 2011, I traveled to Bologna, Italy, to meet Rossi in person and to observe his device. He offered to demonstrate it to me while it was running and allowed me to videotape. In the opinion of skilled engineers who later viewed the videotape, the steam output appeared to be equivalent to a 1,000 Watt electric tea kettle. Rossi, however, claimed it was producing 5,000 Watts of heat. In fact, his results were consistent with the 770 Watts of electrical power that he was putting into the system. (Please see “The Failure of Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer, Caught on Video.”)

Despite the obvious problems with Rossi’s public claims of extraordinary output of excess heat from his E-Cats, I am convinced that LENRs are real nuclear phenomena.

Statements in the Preprint

1. “[We] carried out … an experimental investigation” (page 1, paragraph 1).
This gives the clear impression that you constructed, set up, operated and performed a scientific experiment. However, you only performed thermal measurements on someone else’s (Rossi) device, which you failed to clearly disclose.

2. “[We made an] independent test of the E-Cat HT reactor under controlled conditions” (page 1, paragraph 6) and “independently test[ed] the apparatus” (page 29, paragraph 2).
This implies that you performed your own experiment, with at least some degree of independence from the originator (Rossi), and you did so under conditions that you controlled. However, you did not conduct your own experiment, and you did not have complete control over the E-Cat device or the environment in which you performed the critical thermal measurements.

3. “The E-Cat HT … is the latest product manufactured by [Rossi’s] Leonardo Corp.” (page 1, paragraph 4).
There is no evidence that Rossi has produced any commercial products or even has manufacturing facilities. A year ago, Rossi claimed that he was delivering two 1MW E-Cat thermal systems to “customers”; there is no evidence to support this assertion.

4. “Both experiments were performed on the premises of EFA Srl” (page 2, paragraph 2).
However, in the preprint you did not identify clearly this location as Rossi’s premises.

Rossi’s E-Cat Device

1. Rossi and his associate Sergio Focardi have never published a peer-reviewed journal paper that substantiates their excess-heat claims.

2. Neither Rossi nor Focardi has attempted to give a conference paper on their mutual work.

3. No Rossi device has ever been replicated by anyone.

4. No Rossi device has ever produced substantial amounts of excess heat outside of Rossi’s control or premises.

Rossi’s History of Unsupported Claims and Faulty Devices

Between 1970 and 1990, Rossi tried to turn industrial waste into fuel. The project was called Petrol Dragon. He produced only toxic waste and caused environmental damage to the land and groundwater in the Milan, Italy, area that required cleanup at great expense to taxpayers. Please note our index of Rossi’s criminal history. (See New Energy Times Rossi’s Italian Financial and Environmental Criminal History.)

On that Web page, we provide links to 105 news articles from Italian local and national media sources. For each of these news reports, we have translated the headlines, which are illuminating in themselves. For four of the most important news articles, we have performed a full English translation.

After Rossi persuaded technicians, scientists and important institutions to go along with his failed plan to turn toxic waste into oil, he abandoned his environmental disaster and became a fugitive in the U.S. Once there, he began another technology project, this time with thermoelectric devices. (See New Energy Times Report #5: Rossi’s Profitable Career in Science.)

In his thermoelectric venture, Rossi obtained a contract from the U.S. Army to produce devices that Rossi claimed would provide breakthrough levels of efficiency. The grant and award of funds from the U.S. Army were based on Rossi’s “tests” allegedly performed at the University of New Hampshire. Strangely, the breakthrough results, allegedly observed at the university, could never be repeated. Rossi got the money from the Army, but according to the Army report, not one of the devices Rossi had agreed to deliver under contract worked.

As you see from this historical record, a consistent pattern of behavior emerges.

Issues

In your preprint, you have effectively endorsed a claim by Rossi that has not been peer-reviewed, presented to the scientific community, replicated, or tested successfully outside of Rossi’s premises.

In doing so, you have lent your and your institutions’ scientific reputations and credibility to a man convicted of fraud in one failed energy venture in Italy and involved in another possible fraudulent venture in the U.S.

Consequently, your preprint does not reflect well on you or your institutions.

Steven B. Krivit

 

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