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Cold Fusion: A Better Study On The Infamous E-Cat
Do you remember the E-Cat ? That is an acronym for "energy catalyzer", the device invented by the Italian philosopher Andrea Rossi. The E-Cat is claimed to produce nuclear energy through the heating of a "secret" powder made up of nichel, hydrogen, and lithium plus some additives. A new chapter was added to the saga of the E-Cat this week, with the publication of a new study by an allegedly independent group of Italian and Swedish researchers. , titled "Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel", apparently follows t indeed the authors of the former and latter studies are partly the same (with the addition of Torbjorn Hartman). In particular, the technique devised to measure the radiated power of the reactor is the same, based on thermal imaging cameras.The most significant addition from the former study is that this time the reactant (the substance contained in the device, which is subjected to heating by resistor coils inside the reactor and which allegedly produces excess heat) is studied for isotopic changes after a period of over 30 days of continuous operation. A further improvement is the careful monitoring of ionizing radiation emitted by the device, with the use of several independent detectors.One further add-on is the analysis of the coating of the device, which might be suspected to be made of some special material. It is found to be aluminum oxide, so the explanation for where the excess power comes from must come from somewhere else. Also a direct-current component of the applied electrical power is monitored, finding it negligible. This probably is meant to address earlier criticism that some tricky wiring of the device allowed more power to be supplied to it from the ground wire.Despite all the above important improvements, the study betrays one of its major shortcomings in clear already on page 7, when it clarifies that the inventor of the device took part in the experimental activities:"Rossi intervened to switch off the dummy," (the reactor unloaded with reactant) " and in the following subsequent operations on the E-Cat: charge insertion, reactor startup, reactor shutdown and powder charge extraction."This means that part of the test was conducted with the physical presence of Rossi in the critical phases. Here it is useful to remember one famous quote by Dick Feynman: "I believe a scientist dealing with non-scientific issues is as dumb as the next guy". With this I mean to say that the authors of the study, despite their curricula and scientific reputation, may have overlooked some simple trick. The absolutely mandatory requirement for an independent test is the total absence of the interested party from the scene. So it is a rather idle occupation to read the rest of the 53-page document. For your benefit I did read it anyway, and I can summarize here the main points: first of all, the heat output measured by thermal cameras has been calibrated with a dummy unit (a reactor with no reactant inside) subjected to some input power (a smaller one than the power the full reactor was subjected to, as the researchers feared to damage the coils ?!). The main measurement of the working E-cat has then been performed at two different operating points for 32 days. The result is that the output power far exceeds (by a factor of 3.5) the input, and the difference cannot be ascribed to chemical reactions - the mass of the reactant being too small to produce similar yields. The total produced power in 32 days of operation is claimed to be of 5.8 MJoules, with a production of 2 million watts per kilogram of reactant.A second point is that no radiation has been detected to come out of the unit. So we are asked to believe that not only nuclear reactions have happened inside the reactor during operation, with no known mechanism allowing such a thing, but also that those mysterious nuclear transitions involved only emission of heat and no x- and gamma rays, or neutrons.Then, the analysis of the isotopic content of a few grains of the reactant is rather sparsely described in the paper, but an appendix discusses it in great detail. The summary of the scanning electron microscopy analysis is that the "ash" collected from the reacted material has an inverted population of Li and Ni isotopes - with Li7 abundance dropping from 92% to 8% (with Li6 passing from 8% to 92%) and the Ni62 abundance raising from 4% to 99%. This result is indeed quite startling, and appears confirmed by an independent analysis performed with a different technique based on mass spectroscopy.All in all, the study seems to overcome many of the shortcomings of the previous publication, except for the fact that the reactant was inserted and extracted by Rossi himself! Given the extraordinary nature of the claim to have produced a cheap way to extract energy from ordinary materials, through a unknown physical process, to me this constitutes a major flaw, which totally invalidates any conclusions one might otherwise draw from the data alone. It would be like if I asked you to believe that by putting a dollar bill in a special laundry machine and spinning it for half an hour with some special detergent the dollar turns into a $1000 note. You are allowed to watch the machine as it does its work, but it is me who opens it and extracts the bill when it has finished its magic conversion. I doubt you would buy it.Alas, I feel the problems of mankind will not be solved by magical tricks. Hard science is hard not only because it is difficult to study it and further our und it is hard also because it yields no free lunch.UPDATE: a much more complete view at the whole issue is , with links to a lot of material that readers of this post need to give a look at, if they believe the E-Cat could really be a working thing.
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Tommaso Dorigo is an experimental particle physicist, who works for the INFN at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS experiment...
(not verified) | 10/11/14 | 05:17 AM
Well David, thank you for your kind words. It was a pleasure reading the reportand trying to extract some readable summary.Cheers,T.
| 10/11/14 | 13:18 PM
Ruggero (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 22:19 PM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 08:20 AM
CyrusSmith (not verified) | 10/15/14 | 05:16 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 10:03 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 12:49 PM
Tom (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 06:53 AM
Tom (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 06:53 AM
Tom (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 06:54 AM
Hi Tom,I question that there was excess heat. There are tricks to get more power from the electrical outlet than what one may detect. The wiring of the device have always been far more complex than needed and I see no discussion of a deep investigation of that aspect in the paper.Cheers,T.
| 10/11/14 | 13:06 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 06:56 AM
Marc (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 07:51 AM
No, the extraction of the note to me is the analogue of the production of the spent reactant. The excess heat is another matter - it may come from the electric outlet if there is some trick in the wiring. If Rossi wants the study to prove he's the inventor of the century, why does not he allow the researchers to pull the reactant out themselves ? It is plausible that he has tampered with it.Cheers,T.
| 10/11/14 | 13:08 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 06:47 AM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/15/14 | 20:22 PM
RLambertus (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 08:06 AM
Hi RLambertus,I offer no critique ? On the contrary, I am saying that Rossi handled the spent fuel before it could be analyzed. To me that totally invalidates any study of the powder after the reaction.Cheers,T.
| 10/11/14 | 13:09 PM
RLambertus (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 08:18 AM
(not verified) | 10/11/14 | 09:04 AM
Dear Tommaso,The energy released was ~6GJ of energy ( and not ~6MJ), which is around 120L of gasoline.I think the case of deception should not be looked at Rossi exchanging the fuel, that would be work for 0.1L of gasoline and manipulating the isotope proportions. So, the error must be in the measurement and the isotope manipulation.
| 10/11/14 | 10:46 AM
Dear Daniel,6GJ, okay. Divided by 32 that means 190 MJ a day, or 8MJ an hour. That is 2300 watts. It is entirely possible that all the power comes from the outlet.Cheers,T.
| 10/11/14 | 13:12 PM
So, you have to add the complete incompetence of the testers, to the point of metal development issues or just dishonesty. I'd rather criticize the odd measurement by IF, which are prone to errors like P~T^4.
| 10/11/14 | 13:34 PM
jay (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 10:53 AM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 23:29 PM
Then go on and make a startup, why not ?T.
| 10/12/14 | 03:56 AM
jay (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 07:28 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 10:14 AM
jay (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 10:57 AM
sacu (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 11:16 AM
Dear Sacu,GOMBLODDO!!11!!!Sorry but, jokes aside, science is not made of "there is talk of a COP 10" and similar unsupported b*****t. Rossi wants to sell his toy? Fine, he can do it - nobody is stopping him. You however did not read well the article above, as the main points are two: where the power comes from - and here the electrical outlet has not been ruled out in a way that cannot be questioned, and whether nuclear reactions have taken place - and here the tampering of the reactant that Rossi himself handled is certainly a possibility. Cheers,T.
| 10/11/14 | 13:16 PM
Tom (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 13:41 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 07:11 AM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 06:59 AM
Dear Zephir,not everybody has an agenda to push or is motivated by a conflict of interest in the world of science, thank god (whatever that means). I may well understand that there are toes to step on everywhere if one talks about some research being a waste of money etcetera, but I do not believe I did that in the article above. What I did was to criticize a paper which supports a extraordinary claim (the one that you can transmute elements by plugging a filled tin can on your wall's outlet) with a method which isunscientific. Their measurements may be all good and valid, but if there is even the slightestsuspicion of fraud in a case like this, our prior beliefs (on the very low likelihood that transmuting elements at 2000W power is possible) step in the way and make the fraud still a gazillion times more probable. I would actually believe in a fraud even if Rossi had been in jail for the whole duration of the trial. Much in the same manner, I believed there was a unknown systematic uncertainty (and I correctly pointed my finger at the delay cable) when the OPERA measurement of superluminal neutrinos was first released. Note, in that case I did not talk of a fraud, because nobody was going to earn huge sums from the claim per se. Whether it's a fraud or incompetence is besides my interest anyway.Please appreciate the point: the extraordinary nature of the claim calls for much more proof than is required to e.g. discover a Higgs boson.& The only way to prove that the E-Cat works is - well - to have it work for users. No shortcuts are possible. Rossi does not care about getting scientists to prove he is right, if we stand by his declarations. So he must go ahead and sell it. No other way, sorry.As for the rest of the research, I admit I am not following it nor interested. I am interested in debunking unscientific claims, however. That's why this piece.T.
| 10/13/14 | 07:29 AM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 17:25 PM
Eugene Alexandrov (not verified) | 10/16/14 | 08:20 AM
Dear Eugene,thank you for your kind mesage of support! I believe fraud in science is unfortunately a bit more common than we would like to think, and we always have to question evidence. This is one of the pillars on which the advancement of human knowledge rests...Best,T.
| 10/16/14 | 14:49 PM
monty (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 12:27 PM
Tom (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 13:37 PM
Builditnow (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 13:18 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 10:24 AM
It is suspicious that the inventor is unwilling to send a couple of prototypes to independent labs. One to take apart and put together and see if it works afterwards.&
Science advances as much by mistakes as by plans.
| 10/11/14 | 13:53 PM
Tom (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 14:07 PM
In other words the most critical part was held back.&I believe that openness is the key to advancement. &If he is legit he should open the whole process to scrutiny by uninterested parties. &Let a university have a fully tenured professor and some post docs or grad students assemble the thing. &(A fully tenured prof us more likely to suffer a bias to debunk this as anyone who found favorably would be under fire instantly.)
Science advances as much by mistakes as by plans.
| 10/11/14 | 19:58 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 11:29 AM
Keith McClary (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 14:14 PM
(not verified) | 10/11/14 | 15:17 PM
Grumpy (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 17:33 PM
stefanbanev (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 01:37 AM
I agree, some of the comments are really hilarious.T.
| 10/12/14 | 11:29 AM
CimPy (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 17:19 PM
Keith McClary (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 18:53 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 07:19 AM
Eric Puntel (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 19:22 PM
Hi Eric,this is a silly comment. I have no contract with CERN. I work for INFN and have no business in nuclear fusion.Cheers,T.
| 10/12/14 | 04:02 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 11:07 AM
You apparently don't realize, you're a typical proponent of mainstream physicsTranslation: 'you are an actual expert who requires evidence and does not rely on wishful thinking, like most of the physics community'.Some people actually believe prayer heals illnesses. Mainstream medicine rejects that also. Do you now understand which side of science you are on?
| 10/12/14 | 11:26 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 11:44 AM
I do not know what personal story of suffering brought you to this anti-scientific-method attitude Zephir, but I believe you should go back to mr. Motl's company - you seem to be made of the same stuff and delusions. There is no place for you here.T.
| 10/12/14 | 13:25 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 18:30 PM
You seem to not understand the difference between the pipe dream of cold fusion and the scientific reality of fusion. Fusion research gets funded every year for the last 50, and if it takes another 50, the money will have all been worth it.&But throwing money at perpetual motion, homeopathy or cold fusion is wasting funds that could be used to do real science, including viable fusion.You shouldn't try to make it so simplistic as to say that disregarding cold fusion means disregarding fusion or the future of energy. It just looks to the world like you have no idea what you are talking about.
| 10/12/14 | 18:39 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 20:21 PM
stefanbanev (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 21:18 PM
KoreBreach (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 23:02 PM
I am very sorry to see the low intellectual value of comments to this thread -I hope you guys are not part of my usual readership, which usually makes muchmore sensible comments.The issue is not what is in the initial fuel, the issue is whether there was nuclear isotopic change. I do not give a damn about how the trick with the emissivity or input power works -that is illusionist realm, while I am a scientist. I am interested in the claim that a nuclearisotopic change occurred, so the issue is what is the CHANGE. Thedifference in isotopes is due to looking at two different samples, okay ? This can beinvalidated if one tells you he will insert sample A, which you test, and then inserts a differentone A2; or if it extracts sample B and gives you B2 to test.T.
| 10/12/14 | 04:06 AM
CimPy (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 06:29 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 07:24 AM
CimPy (not verified) | 10/16/14 | 05:05 AM
Ante (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 08:40 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 10:35 AM
Lol, 2MWatts would have blown the whole setup off. And Watts are not a measure of heat.Please go back to Physics 101 before discussing these issues again...T.
| 10/12/14 | 10:41 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 10:51 AM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/15/14 | 20:48 PM
KoreBreach (not verified) | 10/11/14 | 23:12 PM
Phaeton Rudegar (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 00:10 AM
Keith McClary (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 00:32 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 07:33 AM
CimPy (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 08:22 AM
Keith McClary (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 00:20 AM
Tom (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 02:58 AM
Tom (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 03:00 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 11:21 AM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 03:34 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 07:44 AM
Ervin Goldfain (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 08:02 AM
Thanks Ervin, that is interesting. However this thread has gone way off from the direction of the post, which discussed the scientific evidence of nuclear fusion in the E-Cat. The gullible folks who desperately want to see Rossi as the victim of the scientific establishment take the stand of defending cold fusion research as a whole, which of course this article does not attack....Cheers,T.
| 10/12/14 | 09:11 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 10:44 AM
Read the linked article in the update. It might give you some clues.T.
| 10/12/14 | 11:34 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 11:55 AM
Marc (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 09:38 AM
maryyugo (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 11:29 AM
Martino (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 13:03 PM
maryyugo (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 15:37 PM
Martino (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 05:29 AM
Sorry, why should he be "fooling" everybody ? He could be bribing a few.Cheers,T.
| 10/15/14 | 13:47 PM
Martino (not verified) | 10/16/14 | 03:22 AM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 14:25 PM
(not verified) | 10/12/14 | 17:26 PM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 17:51 PM
ApteryxNZ (not verified) | 10/12/14 | 21:19 PM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 08:51 AM
ApteryxNZ (not verified) | 10/14/14 | 01:14 AM
Wurgl (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 01:22 AM
Sure, you bombard a sample with an accelerator to change the isotopes ratio - not in your kitchen, but not too difficult either.T.
| 10/13/14 | 03:12 AM
Wurgl (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 04:25 AM
Billions ? Just make a phone call to Dubna and you can get what you need with way less.T.
| 10/13/14 | 07:31 AM
I guess it's easier to buy some enriched isotopes and mix them with a spoon, since they generally comes in powder form.&
| 10/13/14 | 15:29 PM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 04:01 AM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 08:29 AM
Kirk (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 15:03 PM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 15:27 PM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 17:51 PM
(not verified) | 10/13/14 | 18:09 PM
tpb (not verified) | 10/13/14 | 20:46 PM
Hi tpb, yes, that's another point I forgot to make. There are many weak points in the whole thing, but at some point one just gets tired of arguing. Cheers,T.
| 10/14/14 | 01:16 AM
(not verified) | 10/14/14 | 04:41 AM
(not verified) | 10/14/14 | 05:14 AM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/15/14 | 01:18 AM
(not verified) | 10/15/14 | 05:29 AM
(not verified) | 10/14/14 | 07:00 AM
tpb (not verified) | 10/14/14 | 12:07 PM
This same logic applied to transistors would say because they have gain, they will overheat and fail.
Never is a long time.
| 10/14/14 | 10:16 AM
(not verified) | 10/14/14 | 13:52 PM
Hi,sorry but since you touch on a subject dear to me (the analogy, about which I have written extensively) - the analogy is not a form of evidence, is just the way intelligent thought organizes often in the right direction, occasionally away from it.Cheers,T.
| 10/14/14 | 15:15 PM
(not verified) | 10/15/14 | 05:05 AM
While vexing for scientists steeped in the Standard Model, it appears that commerce and industry have replaced their opinions.& This technology has an enormous catalogue of experimental evidence accumulated and now there are dozens of industrial applications under development.& What cold fusion commerce proves is, if there is money to be made, science's objections will take a back seat.& If there is a LOT of money to be made, even an army of bespectacled scientists with shiny new slide rules will be ignored.& The number of multinational corporations& with LENR projects underway has multiplied in the last four years.& And highly paid consultants with technology transfer expertise have counseled major financial institutions on LENR futures.& Hence the dramatic selloff in oil pricing starting on or about October 8th, the day the new Elforsk-E-Cat report was released to public.& Petroleum market specialists now predict Brent to drop below $70.00, a fall of about 45% since July peak.& This follows a similar analogy, put a thousand dollars into the Standard Model machine and watch it spit out $500.00.& Sobering at best.&
| 10/14/14 | 23:08 PM
(not verified) | 10/15/14 | 05:17 AM
That cold fusion "violates the standard model" is the kind of unmitigated BS that I would really love to see elsewhere but not in this column. Hence while I do appreciate most of your comments here, as you bring in a legitimate point of view -not mine but a legitimate one- I would appreciate it if you abstained from similar statements. As you probably understand I view open discussions about science as always a positive thing as they have a positive impact on science outreach. However, the dissemination of false statements is another matter, and sometimes I feel the urge to delete them.Thanks for your understanding,T.
| 10/15/14 | 13:45 PM
(not verified) | 10/15/14 | 18:29 PM
To all:this comments thread has become too long for me to manage it. So while I am still not closing it, as I do encourage open discussions here, be aware that I may overlook your posts in it as I am moving on to other topics (and answering everybody is really beyond my powers here).Best,T.
| 10/15/14 | 13:48 PM
Anonymous (not verified) | 10/15/14 | 20:09 PM
(not verified) | 10/16/14 | 04:44 AM
(not verified) | 10/17/14 | 06:10 AM
Hopeful doubter (not verified) | 10/24/14 | 13:48 PM
CimPy (not verified) | 10/24/14 | 14:08 PM
Sorry but a ridiculous test made by an anonymous source does not even qualify to be discussed here, leave alone in a scientific setting.Cheers,T.
| 10/25/14 | 04:35 AM
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