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Oct 122014
 
Andrea Rossi, E-Cat Inventor

Andrea Rossi, E-Cat Inventor
(Image courtesy Mats Lewan)

October 12, 2014 – By Steven B. Krivit –

In a document recently circulated on the Internet, collaborators of Andrea Rossi, a convicted white-collar criminal with a string of failed energy ventures, have again tried to establish credibility for the device that Rossi calls his “Energy Catalyzer,” or “E-Cat.”

His collaborators said that they performed an independent test, despite the fact that Rossi’s hands were all over the device. It’s been a while since New Energy Times has written anything on this topic, so this latest claim offers an opportunity to review the broader situation for newer readers.

Most of the authors of this latest document have been collaborating with Rossi for several years. With one exception, the authors are the same as those in a 2013 document that New Energy Times discussed in our news articles “Rossi Manipulates Academics to Create Illusion of Independent Test” and “Scientific Ethics of E-Cat Promoters Questioned.”

New Energy Times covered Rossi’s claims extensively in 2011 and, after several months of investigation, visiting the empty garage that Rossi called his laboratory and interviewing him and his key collaborators, determined that his claim lacked scientific credibility.

In July 2011, we published “Report #3: Scientific Analysis of Rossi, Focardi and Levi Claims.” The 200-page report included scientific and engineering analyses from 20 independent experts. The following month, we condensed that report into two pages.

A few weeks later, we distilled our findings into four sentences: ” In a seven-month period, the Rossi group sought credibility for its claim of extraordinary levels of excess heat through scientific and academic validation. In seven public attempts, the group tried to demonstrate convincing experimental evidence for its claims. In all attempts, the group failed. It has no experimental evidence on which to base its extraordinary energy claim.”

Rossi responded to our and other scientific critiques, saying that he didn’t need scientific validation and that he would go directly into commercial production of a working 1 MW reactor.

He wrote on his blog, “We have already passed the phase to convince somebody. We have arrived at a product that is ready for market. Our judge is the market. In this field the phase of the competition in the field of theories, hypotheses, conjectures etc. is over. The competition is in the market. If somebody has a valid technology, he has not to convince people by chattering, he has to make a reactor that works and go and sell it, as we are doing.”

A year later, on Feb. 17, 2012, he wrote on his blog, “In Autumn we will surely send the detailed offers to all the horde of pre-orderers. The deliveries will start hopefully within the next winter, surely within 18 months.”

The drama surrounding Rossi’s proclamations about a working 1 MW reactor available for purchase soon escalated. (See articles “Rossi E-Cat Never Delivered To Customer; Needs Gaskets” and Rossi Blames E-Cat Delivery Discrepancy on Translation Error.”) There is no evidence that Rossi has produced and delivered a single working commercial reactor.

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Sep 142014
 

Chase Peterson, Former University of Utah President

Sept. 14, 2014 – By Steven B. Krivit –

Chase Peterson, a former University of Utah president, died on Sunday. He was 84.

He died of complications from pneumonia, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Peterson, who served as president from from 1983 to 1991, played a key role in the March 23, 1989, public announcement of room-temperature “fusion” by University of Utah chemist Stanley Pons and University of Southampton visiting professor Martin Fleischmann.

Peterson, along with a team of intellectual property attorneys, coordinated patent applications, a press release, and a press conference to ensure that the university would retain rights to Fleischmann and Pons’ research.

The University of Utah team had been worried that physicist Steven Earl Jones, at nearby Brigham Young University, was trying to pirate the Fleischmann-Pons discovery and steal not only their thunder but also their claim of priority.

Peterson and his staff pre-empted Jones with a press release and news conference that triggered one of the most chaotic and controversial science stories the world has ever seen.

In March 1990, in his eagerness to promote “cold fusion” research in Utah, Peterson arranged for an anonymous donation to the University of Utah’s newly established National Cold Fusion Institute, in the hopes of attracting outside investment. When faculty members later learned that the donation did not, in fact, come from external funding but from the university itself, they protested.

On June 4, 1990, the Deseret News, wrote that the “academic senate called into question Peterson’s ability to lead the university.”

“In an overwhelming vote,” the News wrote, “the senate passed a resolution asking the state Board of Regents and the University Institutional Council whether it was in the best interest of the university for Peterson to continue at the helm.”

A week later, Petersen announced that he would retire during the following academic year.

Fleischmann died in 2012. Pons, who has declined all media requests since 2004, is believed to be living in southern France.

The idea of “cold fusion” — positively charged atomic nuclei joining together at room temperature — has long been discredited. However, new insight in the last decade reveals that there was, and still is, a valid underlying nuclear process to Pons and Fleischmann’s discovery, though it has nothing to do with fusion.*

* Krivit, Steven B., “ENERGY: Review of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions,” Reference Module in Chemistry, Molecular Sciences and Chemical Engineering, Reedijk, Jan (Ed.), Elsevier, Waltham, Mass, ISBN: 978-0-12-409547-2

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May 072014
 

LENR - The Good News About Climate Change May 7, 2014 – By Steven B. Krivit –

On May 6, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released its Third National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report on climate change and its impact in the United States. The news is not good.

But the good news is that interest in the potential of greenhouse-gas-free low-energy nuclear reaction-based energy alternatives will grow.

All indicators suggest that LENRs may offer a radiation- and emission-free nuclear energy source, pending further development and effective scale-up. As the price for pollution caused by carbon-based energy sources goes up, and as social awareness rises, so too will investment in LENRs. Click here to learn more about LENRs.

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Apr 242014
 

Nikkei Reports Mitsubishi to Use LENRs To Clean Nuclear Waste
April 24, 2014 – By Steven B. Krivit –

On April 8, 2014, Nikkei, the Japanese equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, reported that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Yokohama, Japan, plans to use low-energy nuclear reactions to clean nuclear waste. This patented LENR transmutation method was developed by Mitsubishi physicist Yasuhiro Iwamura.

New Energy Times has translated the Nikkei story below. We have also placed online a copy of a recent slide presentation from Iwamura and an updated European patent specification from the company.

The patent claims that the reactions occur not by fission or fusion, but by a two-step mechanism beginning with a weak interaction; a neutron is created and is followed by a neutron capture process. (Click here to see a related mechanism.)

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