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Does Italian Demo Show Cold Fusion, or Snake Oil? 479

Posted by timothy from the how-much-would-you-bet dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Today, Wired.co.uk is running a story, 'Cold fusion rears its head as "E-Cat" research promises to change the world.' It gives an overview of the technology that claims to fuse hydrogen and nickel into copper, with no radioactive by-products, to produce copious amounts of heat, inexpensively, with a 1 megawatt plant scheduled to come on line later this month. Apparently, Wired was not aware that today is a big test in Italy by scientists from around the world, who will be observing the technology in operation, including self-looped mode. A real-time update page has been set up at PESWiki, which has been a primary news provider of this technology since it was announced last January." Wired's article is remarkably optimistic. I'd love for this to be true, but many decades of scientific-looking free-energy machine scams make it hard to be other than cynical; the claim of a secret catalyst which "can be produced at low cost," controlled-access for outside observers, the lack of published science to explain the claimed effect, and skepticism even from the free-energy world — along with a raft of pro-E-Cat websites registered anonymously earlier this year — all make it sound like this follows the marketing style of previous "over unity" / perpetual motion machines. I invite Andrea Rossi to take part in a Slashdot interview, if he's willing to answer readers' questions about his claims.
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Does Italian Demo Show Cold Fusion, or Snake Oil? More

Does Italian Demo Show Cold Fusion, or Snake Oil?

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  • Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:5, Informative)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:06AM (#37626032) Journal

    Wired's article is remarkably optimistic.

    Parts of it, yes. But I think the article does an okay job of keeping cautious. Maybe you read only the sentences you want to? Allow me to cherry pick a few:

    Rossi's heavyweight supporters include 1973 physics Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson. Josephson also supports telepathy research.

    Skeptics point to the lack of published science, and the way that Rossi keeps details of his special catalyst secret. They also point to his past involvement in Petroldragon, a company involved in converting organic waste into fuel, which collapsed in the 1990's amidst allegations of dumping toxic waste. (Rossi maintains that he was the victim in this complex case).

    Until August of this year, Rossi was planning his big launch in Greece, and an E-Cat factory was being built in Xanthi. But the deal has somehow fallen through for unexplained reasons, vaguely blamed on pressure from "international energy interests" who may be threatened by the invention.

    "According to my analysis, his claim has no scientific credibility," Krivit told Wired.co.uk. The device he claimed to heat a factory in Bondeno seems to exist only on paper."

    At this point, I'm calling it 'tabloid science journalism.' This guy is looking to get rich quick not contribute to human knowledge so I'm not paying attention to him just yet. Hopefully I get to backpedal in a couple months when he starts shipping but ... well, I'm betting there will be some 'delay' imposed by 'ominous forces' as Rossi's wallet fattens.

    • Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MozeeToby ( 1163751 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:19AM (#37626220)

      This guy is looking to get rich quick not contribute to human knowledge so I'm not paying attention to him just yet.

      If what he's selling is true (my money is on not for the record) he can get rich and change the world for the better. I can't hardly blame someone with a potentially world altering invention wanting to keep it under wraps for as long as possible. Yeah, it's against the open source ethos, but it's also how reality works for 99% of the people out there; you don't give your work away for free. Quite frankly, this would be the exact kind of invention that the patent system works for; one that would still be useful in 20 years, is simple to replicate given a working sample (presumably), and is completely un-obvious to experts in the field.

      Personally, they won't convince me until they are making money over the course of a year from operations (as opposed to investment) and/or they hand over a sample of the device to some independent researchers. There's way too much about this company that just doesn't smell right, but that's just my opinion.

      • I call dibs on the Rossi-device-on-the-internet and Rossi-device-with-an-LCD-digital-clock patents!

        • Screw that. I already filed patent apps for "Rossi-device-in-a-computing-device" (which is innovative prior art upon which your "Rossi-device-on-the-internet" infringes, and very likely your "Rossi-device-with-an-LCD-digital-clock" because I already patented the "Rossi-device-with-an-electronic-display" in addition to the aforementioned "Rossi-device-in-a-computing-device" which covers clocks) and "Rossie-Device-in-a-portable-wireless-communications-device," oh, and a "Rossi-device-powered-wheeled-vehicle."

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by JDeane ( 1402533 )

          "Making money with a product speaks louder than hand-waving."

          I take it you don't speak Italian? Sorry couldn't resist :)

      • Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by StormReaver ( 59959 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @11:18AM (#37627232)

        I can't hardly blame someone with a potentially world altering invention wanting to keep it under wraps for as long as possible.

        then...

        Yeah, it's against the open source ethos, but it's also how reality works for 99% of the people out there; you don't give your work away for free.

        then...

        Quite frankly, this would be the exact kind of invention that the patent system works for....

        You are trying to argue both sides of the fence here. If you had a potentially world-altering invention, you would be racing to the patent office at each stage of the invention to prevent competition. That is how is works for 99% of the people out there. Otherwise, you would eventually be giving your work away for free.

        So where are the patents? If there are no patents, and this thing (through some miracle) is legitimate, then it is now ripe for someone else to swoop in and patent it (first to file wins; former publication, which this would qualify as, is mostly irrelevant nowadays). That would make this guy the dumbest inventor on Earth.

        So yes, this is 99.9999999999% certain to be a scam.

    • The clandestine nature of the whole thing leads me to believe Rossi has Atlas Shrugged on his mind. Be on the lookout for dollar sign cigarettes...

    • Until August of this year, Rossi was planning his big launch in Greece, and an E-Cat factory was being built in Xanthi. But the deal has somehow fallen through for unexplained reasons, vaguely blamed on pressure from "international energy interests" who may be threatened by the invention.

      This one I don't find at all implausible, at least taken by itself. Greece is collapsing economically, corruption is hilariously wide-spread, and international energy interests include the likes of OPEC and Exxon; I wouldn't put a damn thing past those organizations, and Greek officials are probably about the easiest in the world to bribe at the moment.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        It is also possible that Greece was not corrupt enough. Italy is a good place if you want to set up scams... their legal system is fairly two-tiered.. if you have the cash you don't really have to worry about laws and the laws do a good job of making sure weaker people can not negatively impact you.

    • Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by elmartinos ( 228710 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:48AM (#37626698) Homepage

      Rossi does not want your money. He has solely funded all development of the e-cat with his own money: He has sold a company he owned, and he has now even sold his house. Peswiki asked him if they should set up a donation site for him, but rossi does not want that too. He also does not want to apply for FP7-ENERGY, a european research program for energy.

      So Rossi either is a completely self-deluded man that manages to delude lots of other people around him as well, or he really has something working.

    • This guy is looking to get rich quick not contribute to human knowledge

      Agreed. He is a toned down version of the guy that invented the MYT engine. http://www.angellabsllc.com/mytengine.html [angellabsllc.com]

    • Re:Didn't Sound Optimistic to Me! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jafiwam ( 310805 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @11:09AM (#37627084) Homepage Journal
      He's waiting for Moller to make a bid to use it to power his air-car. That should have all the manufacturing capacity tied up for many years...

    • My support for the optimism claim would all stem from one fault in the article:

      The two questions that matter: does it really work? And what are the implications if it does?

      In fact, only the first question matters. Nobody needs to read speculation about a return to the steam age or the massive economic benefits of low cost energy.

  • No reason to even look at this since there is absolutely no proof that this works because it's "Secret!!!!"

    Why would you want to waste slashdot readers time by doing a question and answer with someone that has a magic spell to create energy, but of course no one can verify it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by bhlowe ( 1803290 )
      There is LOTS of information available if you know where to look. It appears to dribble out and there is very little mainstream media covering it. But here are some good links to the science and demos:

      http://22passi.blogspot.com/2011/10/test-e-cat-7-luglio-2011.html [blogspot.com]

      http://www.esowatch.com/en/index.php?title=Focardi-Rossi_Energy-Catalyzer

      http://coldfire-lenr.blogspot.com/2011/09/ready-set-go.html

      But the most important public tests are happening today, and at the end of this month in the US.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pla ( 258480 )
      Why would you want to waste slashdot readers time by doing a question and answer with someone that has a magic spell to create energy, but of course no one can verify it.

      "today is a big test in Italy by scientists from around the world, who will be observing the technology in operation, including self-looped mode."

      If it produces enough power to sustain its own activity, without consuming anything but water (and presumably nickel at a very slow rate), then at the very least we have a device from which w

      • There is this thing called a patent...

        There is also no reason not to create an enclosed box that generates power for long enough that it has to be cold fusion.

  • Where are the patents? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:12AM (#37626116) Homepage

    Most of the world operates on first-to-file, not first-to-invent. If you had a working "secret sauce", how insane would you have to be to not file a zillion patents on it? Protecting such inventions is exactly what the patent system is actually for.

      • Reply to my reply: Aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahah. Is this for real?

        It reads like an Al Gore infomercial, not a patent. More space is given to banging on about saving the planet than about the actual claims.

        Ah, here's the snake oil: "said high temperature generates internuclear percussions which are made stronger by the catalytic action of optional elements [...] for a proper operation, the hydrogen injection must be carried out under a variable pressure".

        Obvious troll is obvious. You can't replicate this?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Skreems ( 598317 )
          That's pretty awesome... he claims that 1g of nickel can produce as much power as 517 tons of oil. So either he's a genius, or a complete nut. Either way, it should be pretty easy to prove. That kind of scale seems pretty damn hard to fake.

        • >It reads like an Al Gore infomercial, not a patent. More space is given to banging on about saving the planet than about the actual claims.

          What? Are you saying Gore's global warming presentations were full of false information? Granted, his agenda was to popularize a marginalized message (which what it was when he started) but the facts were in line with IPCC.

      • It's funny that the first claim is for a "hexothermal" reaction of nickel and hydrogen.

        Anyways...The patent mentions catalysts, but doesn't specify them. So for now, the sauce is still secret...
             

        • Is a patent with "secret sauce" still actually a valid patent? If other people don't know what that sauce is, how could they possibly prevent themselves from inadvertently violating the patent? That's like claiming some other company stole your code and open sourced it, and then faffing about in court for years without giving any evidence to that fact.

          • No, in the US you have to be able to build a widget using the instructions for you to have patented the process.

            However, much like the recipe for coke/pepsi, there is no reason to patent it when you could just keep it proprietary.

    • Most of the world operates on first-to-file, not first-to-invent.

      Not in Europe. If you have not a fully working implementation of your idea, you can't file a single patent for that idea. You can't patent ideas, just inventions.

    • When you file all the details become public. That's a big risk if you aren't sure you'll get it granted. Some choose to try, some choose to keep it secret for as long as possible.

  • The summary says that the device consumes hydrogen and nickel to produce copper by fusion (something that seems naively likely given their atomic numbers but a bit unlikely given their mass numbers, unless we're creating weird and radioactive isotopes here) but the article says that the nickel is just a catalyst over which the hydrogen passes.

  • I invite Andrea Rossi to take part in a Slashdot interview, if he's willing to answer readers' questions about his claims.

    The guy doesn't answer to us. We're not experts; the vast majority of us aren't even educated layman on the topic of nuclear physics. How pretentious and pointless is it inviting him to waste time justifying his "claims" to us rather than suggesting he have an open Q&A with the staff at CERN or something?

    • I think most scientists are actually enthusiastic to talk about their work, so it doesn't hurt to ask for an interview.

    • Re:Self Important Much? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:27AM (#37626358) Journal

      He's apparently not an expert either. He's not a physicist, but rather an entrepreneur. (But to be fair, his partner is a physicist.)

      Actually, the invite from /. may be a great litmus test - if he eagerly agrees, it suggests that he's a charlatan who will take any publicity he can get--which he almost certainly is.

  • Look at this graph. [blogspot.com]

    Am I imagining that they've not actually graphed an object giving off energy over time, but an object being heated up and then slowly cooling?

    • After reaching a temperature of around 450 to 500 Celsius, the reaction starts up. Once the reaction has started the input is lowered to around 80 watts.

      So, he heats up a pile of nickel to 450-500 degrees celcius, then he turns the heat off. And he's surprised that it keeps boiling water for some time afterward.

    • The graph shows it reaching a steady state, not falling back to zero. I believe this is what they're referring to by "self looped" mode.

      • No it doesn't. The graph starts slowly sliding back down, as one would expect of a large metal container full of hot metal. The temperature of the steam stays at 100C, but that's axiomic - if it wasn't at 100C it wouldn't be steam.

    • One axis is degrees C, with the temperature rising to 70C (at which you don't get dry steam...) The legend refers to energy. What is it supposed to mean?

  • Bet (Score:5, Funny)

    by Karellen ( 104380 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:20AM (#37626248) Homepage

    I bet you $200 it's not cold fusion, or any other kind of new physics.

    • Re:Bet (Score:4, Funny)

      by jbeaupre ( 752124 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @11:01AM (#37626950)

      Can I pay in Bitcoins?

    • It's not new physics at all, if you read the patent application. Nuclear reactions are a well understood part of physics.

      What he is claiming is fusion of Nickel and Hydrogen to make Copper. A simple inspection of the Periodic Table shows that much is plausible since Copper is one place higher, and adding a proton moves you up one place. Next you would look at the accurate atomic weights. When you do hot fusion, such as Deuterium + Tritium = Helium + proton, If you sum the atomic weights of the starting

  • This is scientifically impossible (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:24AM (#37626316)

    Nickel has the highest binding energy of any nucleus. When stars die it is because they've turned every element into iron and nickel and it is impossible to fuse anything further exothermically. Heavier elements, including copper, can only be produced in supernovas and they take excess energy to make. How could you get energy out of changing nickel to copper if copper has a lower binding energy? You can't. This process, like most free energy scams, defies the conservation of energy at a fundamental level.

    • iron is the minimum, but start with some more hydrogen and you make a host of new possibilities (there is lots of potential energy in that proton).

      The real problem is the idea that it is clean. Cu is 70% Cu-63 and 30% Cu-65. Add a proton to these and you get Ni-64 and Ni-66. But Ni-66 is not stable, so you will get a radioactive material.

      I guess it could be that only the Cu-63 reacts... yeah, that even seems likely that one isotope would work and the other would not. Anyway, also a way to produce pure Ni-66

  • We've only got a couple more years before we're supposed to have Mr. Fusion providing at least 1.21 gigawatts!

  • I thought PHP replaced Cold Fusion years ago.

  • Highly unlikely to work (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @10:48AM (#37626692) Homepage

    They appear to claim that injecting a nickel powder with hydrogen gas under high pressure forces hydrogen into situations where the nickel will capture a proton, turning into an unstable copper isotope, which will beta decay back to nickel emitting a positron which annihilates with an electron, producing heat energy.

    As far as I know there is no known theoretical basis for such a reaction. Even if you could squeeze the hydrogen into really tight spaces in a heated crystal structure then cool it to get atomic forces to squeeze the hydrogen to an insane degree, you still won't come close to enough force to get proton capture. And the heat levels they are talking about aren't going to get there either.

    History is littered with crackpots who believed their own nonsense and fakers who drummed up hype to get investor's money (or just coast for a few years while drawing a paycheck and not having to get a real job). I predict more of the same in this case.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Even the likes of Isaac Newton believed in alchemy.

      I'm not saying this isn't crackpot deceptive bullshit, mind you. (I mean, it's an Italian we're talking about here, right? :P) But it shouldn't be ruled out so fast. Fight bad science with science and all that.

      I seem to recall seeing this, or a very similar theory, passed around a couple months ago, maybe even posted to slashdot. Wonder if it's the same guy...

    • Inspection of the atomic masses of nickel, copper, and hydrogen isotopes will tell you if any of the possible reactions are exothermic. If none are, the Rossi device would violate conservation of energy. If there are any possible reactions, that narrows down what to investigate.

    • Even if you could squeeze the hydrogen into really tight spaces in a heated crystal structure then cool it to get atomic forces to squeeze the hydrogen to an insane degree, you still won't come close to enough force to get proton capture.

      So.... Are you sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroelectric_fusion [wikipedia.org]
      Sure it's not a positive energy fusion reaction, but they're doing exactly what you're describing and obtaining fusion. So you might want to reconsider your position.

  • Besides hydrogen which is supplying the needed electrons to turn nickle into copper but that he is also using Iron Ferrite Magnets.
    Magnets have been shown to help in HHO production in fuel cell experiments
    The Iron found in the used nickle would be explained by Iron Ferrite magnet deterioration in unit use.

    The idea of getting more energy out of something than put in is NOT contrary to physics, in fact it fits quite well.
    Otherwise life would not be able to sustain itself. Its really quite obvious it really ab

  • I Want to Believe! (Score:3)

    by uigrad_2000 ( 398500 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @11:03AM (#37626980) Homepage Journal

    I really do want to believe, but after finding an article that has real facts [pesn.com] about the E-Cat, it seems like a joke.

    One argument skeptics are making about the most recent test performed is that the system was only allowed to self sustain for 35 minutes before the test was ended. Skeptics are trying to state that due to this short period of time, the energy expended that kept the water boiling was due to "thermal inertia." Simply put, they are trying to say that the heat retained in the metal and other materials in the device was enough to keep the water boiling for 35 minutes. This is absurd for many reasons.

    Ok, when I have a rapidly boiling pot on the stove and turn it off, the boiling does stop in 1 minute, not 35. So, I can see why people are stumped after witnessing this "parlor trick."

    The steam temperature of the E-Cat only dropped about 10 C (from 130 to 120 C) over the course of 35 minutes. This indicates that a very large amount of energy was being produced via a cold fusion reaction. If there was not a cold fusion reaction taking place, the water would have stopped boiling immediately, and the temperature would have dropped much more.

    You and I have very definitions of "a very large amount of energy". We're talking about nuclear fusion, and you say that keeping a pot of water at 125 degrees qualifies as "a very large amount of energy"?

    The Steam temperature is very different than the water temperature. I'm assuming that while the steam temp dropped from 130 C to 120 C, the water temp dropped from 400 C to 99 C. If you put the steam temp sensor far enough away from the production source, this seems about right. Even at 400 C, the water won't instantly boil away, and especially not if it is under pressure. I'm beginning to understand exactly how this parlor trick works.

    The Wired article makes it sound as if the company has already designed the consumer unit, and is ready to put it in production. The facts I've listed above make it sound more like a strange phenomenon that warrants a bit of investigation. These are very different things. If the reaction in the lab isn't even self-sustaining, how can they be discussing the design of consumer units yet?

    • Temperature of the steam leaving the apparatus is irrelevant, what matters is the amount of heat being lost. They don't provide anywhere near enough information to evaluate their claims which is obviously a big red flag in and of itself. I imagine with a well insulated pressure vessel, some smart regulator design, and a block of metal to act as a heat sink, it should be pretty easy to create a device that will continue to produce steam at 35 minutes; not very much steam mind you, but enough to produce the

  • Well, we got slashdotted, and we were already getting bogged down on the server from the traffic we were getting; so we're in process of moving the site to a high-traffic server. Sorry for the inconvenience. It should be resolved shortly. Today is a historic day for cold fusion. Lots of people will be watching.

  • This test is, appropriately, in Bologna (Score:3)

    by JoshDM ( 741866 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @11:12AM (#37627136) Homepage Journal
    Pronounced BAH-LONEY. I will take +5 Funny if I was correct, or -5 Troll if the device is proven a fake.

  • Link to the swedish paper Nyteknik about this (Score:3)

    by fredan ( 54788 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @11:14AM (#37627184) Journal
    See the E-cat run in self-sustained mode [nyteknik.se].

    The comments about this is that they are very very skeptical.
  • Follow today's test live on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/22passi [twitter.com]

    As of now, it appears to be running in self-sustained mode (creating heat with little or no electrical input) for over 2 hours.

  • Add this fusion worker to the skeptic list (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DCFusor ( 1763438 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @12:08PM (#37628066) Homepage
    Many of us in the fusion world, amateur (surprisingly large) and pro, think this must be crap. One respectable scientist we know of has tried to dupe Rossi, and did get some heat - about the amount you'd expect from the chemical reactions possible. No more. No excess copper in the reactor after.

    .
    For those saying "why aren't there patents" - there have been attempts, which were rejected for lack of clarity on what was being patented. For most of the time (including now as far as I know) the only people willing to publish their papers are owned by, well, themselves.

    .
    I've not looked up the masses, but yes, this end of the periodic table doesn't have much you can do with binding energy in it. I probably should, so I could state definitively that this can't work. If it was really that easy, would we not have seen it before now, happening by accident and so on? I put hot H (actually mostly other H isotopes) in nickel containing stainless steel daily -- nothing special happens at any energy regime I reach (which are in general well above what the Rossi claims are).

    .
    I think everyone honestly in the fusion field wants some form of it to be real, and to work. But we also realize that there are a lot of people in this field for various dishonest reasons, from gaining corner offices with perks, to tenure, to just making sure they have a job for life, as in give us X billion more dollars and Y more years, and we'll really make it work this time - we just didn't make it big and expensive enough the last 4-5 roundy rounds. Even fairly honest people fall into that trap when it means lifetime security at a cushy job, and those of us in the open source fusion world (yes, it exists and is thriving) wish it were otherwise - but there it is.

    .
    I AM a betting man - my day job is as a trader. Anyone want to take a bet with me? You get the side that "this is real" to win, I'll take the other side for plenty of money and a year time limit. I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'll take anyone, but what would be fun is say if Rossi himself would take that bet for say, half a million -- with a registered agent holding the bucks (must be real money, and guaranteed no counterparty risk). I note that while they've taken plenty of "bets" it's under conditions where it's not actually a bet -- they don't pay back if they fail.

    .
    To me it looks like they climbed to the top of the snake oil tree and fell out, hitting every branch on the way down. No disclosure. No duplication of the results in independent labs. No explanation of why it could work. No patent apps that actually disclose the process. Just the usual "gimme money and someday it will work". A couple of prominent boosters mean nothing - those guys can be had with the average financier's lunch money, famous or not, and examples abound on both sides of every science controversy.

  • Seen this before, it's baloney (Score:5, Informative)

    by orzetto ( 545509 ) on Thursday October 06, 2011 @12:52PM (#37628870)

    About a month ago I got an email from my dad in which he asked my opinion on this issue, since I have a PhD in engineering and work as a researcher. The case had been presented to the public in a Italian TV magazine [youtube.com]. I drafted a debunking on various grounds, which for your benefit I report here.

    Short version: this Rossi guy is a convicted felon, his buddy Focardi an old, crooked professor with no relevant publications since the 60s, and they are after the money of naive investors.

    Detailed version:

    • Mr. Rossi is a convicted felon, known for the Petroldragon [wikipedia.org] affair: in the 70s, he claimed he could make oil out of garbage. He was eventually sentenced five times, including bankruptcy fraud of said Petroldragon society. He managed to dodge some more convictions thanks to Italy's statutory limitations law.
    • Prof. Focardi has an academic career spanning over 50 years, yet he has amazingly few publications. On ScienceDirect only about 10 publications show up, of which only 2 as first author and dating to the 60s, the other ones are publication orgies with a dozen of authors or so dating to the early 70s. The greatest is the latest publication, dating back to 1986, with TWENTY-ONE other authors, that over 25 years gathered only 4 citations. In any case, Focardi never published anything on fusion, cold or warm.
    • The patent filed by Rossi [uibm.gov.it] is titled "process and apparatus to obtain exothermal reactions, in particular from nickel and hydrogen". There is no mention whatsoever that the reaction is nuclear.
    • The mysterious device is explained vaguely (also in Italian sources) referring to likewise mysterious unknown nuclear forces. So, there is no theory, no experiment that can be reproduced, only claims.

    Mr. Rossi is therefore only looking for rich, greedy fools that will pump money in his next bankruptcy fraud. As a consequence of a certain prime minister and his modifications to the legal system, crimes like bankruptcy fraud are now very difficult to prosecute in Italy, so Rossi could just get away with it this time.

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