NASA Engineer Explains Why Rossi Demos Failed

New Energy Times Blog ^ | 11/10/2011 | Steven B. Krivit

[Johnny B.]

According to a slide presentation given by NASA engineer Michael A. Nelson, which New Energy Times obtained under a FOIA request, “Energy Catalyzer” inventor Andrea Rossi failed to conclusively show that his device produced excess heat from a nuclear energy source.

According to Nelson, a NASA engineer who investigates low-energy nuclear reactions and space applications, Rossi did not run his demonstration long enough to prove his extraordinary claim.

At the Sept. 22, 2011 LENR Workshop at NASA Glenn Research Center, Nelson explained that Rossi “would need to run [his experiment] for eight hours or more with a small E-Cat and much longer for an Ottoman [Fat-Cat] to rule out a chemical reaction.”

According to Nelson, it would take “three or more days for a small E-Cat, two or more weeks for an Ottoman [Fat-Cat] E-Cat and several months for a 1 MW plant.”

Brian Ahern, a researcher with expertise in LENR, wrote to New Energy Times with a concise summary of the recent Oct. 28 Rossi demo:

“Rossi has been clever enough to change the trick on each successive demo. Using a secret customer is a great way to allow him to fulfill his promise to demo the 1 MW unit in October. He then evaded conducting the demo transparently by saying that the customer demanded the demo conditions. The “customer’ signed off when Rossi gave him the wink and he shut things down without any measurements by anyone except the shill.

“Occam’s Razor, on the other hand, says that 12 inconclusive demos in succession are not random. It is well planned and orchestrated. He has used the journalists like a team of puppets.”

[muawiyah]

It’s still Italy.

[expatpat]

Thanks. The zirconia is full of oxygen, of course, and hydrogen can cause reduction with the right conditions (heat is supplied and there is supposedly a catalyst (the nickel powder?)) The hydrogen/oxygen reaction is quite exothermic, of course.

The amount of hydrogen available is an issue, but in addition to the free hydrogen there is probably also a very large quantity of hydrogen adsorbed on the extremely large surface area of the nanopowder, before the disconnection.

This is why the experiment, which seems quite primitive to me, needs to be repeated objectively in a more sophisticated laboratory, with careful measurement of the amounts of materials present, and experiments devised to see the effect of changes in those amounts.

[Johnny B.]

Give you an idea of what goes on in the junk business. When I was a kid you rarely saw a geiger counter in a junkyard ~ today, even your basic smash and trash vehicle crush operations have them.

Where in the world did you get the idea that PetrolDragon had anything to do with nuclear waste?

Rossi was collecting garbage from a syndicate of partner companies, adding some lime and dumping it, then selling non-existent fuel back to those same customers. It was a classic money laundering scheme. Prosecutors noted that the other companies were still generating invoices for the fuel a year after Rossi's company had been shut down.

I'll ask again: Why did Rossi drop his garbage-to-oil process as soon as authorities started investigating it? That's not the action of someone with a legitimate discovery. That's the actions of a con artist when he's about to be caught.

[muawiyah]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_nickel ~ is this wrong? (I ask only because it’s a Wiki piece). 5 stable isotopes. One of them can decay to iron ~ was there a problem in finding Fe in the debris?

[muawiyah]

Money laundering is a process whereby you move funds around to make it look like they were ordinary earned income. You might want some money laundering done if you get most of your income from prostitution, selling controlled substances, or stealing.

You end up getting prosecuted for money laundering because you cannot prove the legitimacy of your income.

Theft is a different matter ~ as is Mail Fraud.

I noticed the Italians didn't hit him with mail fraud ~ hence none of his checks were uttered in furtherance of any sort of unlawful process.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Thanks. The zirconia is full of oxygen, of course, and hydrogen can cause reduction with the right conditions (heat is supplied and there is supposedly a catalyst (the nickel powder?)) The hydrogen/oxygen reaction is quite exothermic, of course."

Yes, but the problem with your scenario is that zirconium oxide is a VERY STABLE compound. Hydrogen doesn't react with it under any conditions I know about, and certainly not at the low temperatures in the E-Cat. You may be confusing the situation with zirconium METAL (used as fuel rod cladding in nuclear reactors), but it goes the other way....at high temps, in the presence of water, the reaction MAKES hydrogen and forms zirconium oxide.

"The amount of hydrogen available is an issue, but in addition to the free hydrogen there is probably also a very large quantity of hydrogen adsorbed on the extremely large surface area of the nanopowder, before the disconnection.

Nope. They determine the hydrogen loading by weighing the cylinder before and after. Doesn't matter if the hydrogen is free or "on the surface of the nanopowder". The total amount is known. And it's only a few grams.

FYI....I'm a chemist.

[dinodino]

What in the hell does your rant about smoke detectors in landfills have to do with Rossi’s waste oil to fuel scam? Nice attempt at misdirection.

[Wonder Warthog]

Feb. 2011

[dinodino]

This weighing before and after was with the bathroom scales, right? The ones that would support 13,000 kg?

[PapaBear3625]

NYC practically runs on as much steam as electricity.

Even if all it can do is supply heat at around 212F, it would be very useful in generating heat in the winter and hot water all year.

[dinodino]

You have no idea what you are talking about. I have many times used inductive cooktops which were more than capable of boiling water, and I can assure you they did not measure 4’ x 4’ x 5’.

[muawiyah]

You are digressing from the topic attempting to cherry pick what you believe to be weak points. Think of it this way ~ these services advertise: http://www.fccenvironmental.com/hydrocarbon_services/hs_used_oil.html?gclid=CILxq4furqwCFRAj7AodP0EtFg My comment, though, had to do with the risks of accepting used anything ~ people dump things and naive junk and waste collectors end up holding the bag. No one can be naive in that business.

[Johnny B.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_nickel ~ is this wrong? (I ask only because it’s a Wiki piece). 5 stable isotopes. One of them can decay to iron ~ was there a problem in finding Fe in the debris?

But there was no depletion of that one isotope of Nickel. All of the isotopes would have to have been "burned" without regard to their atomic weight. You're trying to argue that all 5 stable Nickel isotopes all converted in to only stable isotopes of something else, and in exactly the right ratio to maintain the natural ratios of those new elements.

Again: If Rossi was doing any kind of transmutation, we would see non-natural ratios of the Nickel "fuel" and the Copper/Iron/whatever "ash". They didn't find anything like that.

[Johnny B.]

You end up getting prosecuted for money laundering because you cannot prove the legitimacy of your income.

Yes, indeed. And the prosecutors found that the transactions Rossi and his cohorts had were not legitimate. They were money laundering. That doesn't require mail fraud, nor does it require writing checks.

Keep in mind that Rossi's company was only one of several that were all successfully prosecuted for collusion in this fraud.

[muawiyah]

So, why would we need non-natural distributions? BTW, check out http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2805993/posts ~ that answers one of the questions about why folks in the recycling industry need to protect themselves with radiation detectors. The guys letting this stuff boil off have some other hot isotopes to dispose of ~ and will probably be sticking recyclers in Southern Europe with the goods as fast as they can.

[Wonder Warthog]

"This weighing before and after was with the bathroom scales, right? The ones that would support 13,000 kg?"

Look up the other tests.

[muawiyah]

Mail fraud is simply the utterance of a document (check, credit card slip, money order) that directs the conveyance of money from one account to another account.

The Mail statutes in the US exactly parallel the Mail statutes of every other country that's a member of the Universal Postal Union. Not sure how you can do money laundering without transfering money from one account to another.

Which raises a question ~ why would they go after money laundering (where there was no gain) when they could simply go after mail fraud ~ a much easier charge to support?

I suspect what we have is a TAX AUTHORITY in Italy making up charges to support what they saw ~ that's the Italian way!

They then seize and sell your assets and stuff the money in the national treasury.

[Normandy]

National Instruments of Austin Texas has signed an agreement with Rossi’s Leonardo Corporation to supply intrumentation components to be used in the E-Cat.

http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/11/national-instruments-to-make-instrumentation-for-e-cat-plants/

[Johnny B.]

National Instruments of Austin Texas has signed an agreement with Rossi’s Leonardo Corporation to supply intrumentation components to be used in the E-Cat.

http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/11/national-instruments-to-make-instrumentation-for-e-cat-plants/

They're just reporting what was claimed by a Rossi fan site. See my POST about that.

We're still waiting for any independent confirmation that Rossi's gadget does anything useful.

[Johnny B.]

They're just reporting what was claimed by a Rossi fan site.

For that matter, "e-catworld.com" is probably not a neutral observer in this.

I'll be interested in seeing a press release directly from NI (not "as reported by a Rossi fan site") about this. This could be nothing more than Rossi ordering some controllers (which he may or may not actually receive or pay for).