

Paper on Ni-H Fusion by Focardi - mrb
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/FocardiSlargeexces.pdf

======
mrb
I posted about the history of nickel-hydrogen fusion on my blog:
<http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=61>

Let's just say that I did enough research that I am now convinced that the
E-Cat device is not only possible, but likely very real. Read everything,
especially the site of Christopher Calder that I submitted as another entry
because it is worth it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3176820>

~~~
dhimes
I would think this would be on the "front page" of every media outlet by now.
It would rival the announcement of the potential aids vaccine. OWS folks would
be playing it up as the beginning of the end of the Evil Corporations.

Instead, silence.

I consider it very unlikely that the experiment was a success. So that leave
two possibilities: 1). Deliberate fraud, a la Madoff. Or 2). interesting
science, not fusion, but still a reaction that is not well understood.
Something like a fuel cell, when for a while it looks like e_out > e_in, but
in reality e_in happened over a long time, and as such the reaction is non-
sustainable.

I'm hoping for 2)- an honest mistake in which we learn something.

~~~
vidarh
While it's right to be skeptical, it's worth considering that the press has
been burned by cold fusion claims many times by now.

No serious journalist would touch this without a ton of caveats, and then
what's the point? So a lack of massive mainstream media coverage doesn't
really mean all that much.

Especially given that these guys seems to be secretive, which is
understandable whether or not it's real or a scam - if the process is easy to
reproduce, and claims are that the process is very simple, and thus _if_ the
effect is real they're probably worried about someone copying it and finding
simple ways around any patents they might apply for.

Of course the second reason to be secretive would be if it blatantly is a scam
or they have failed to make it work and refuse to accept that they won't find
a way to fix it.

And history is littered by companies like this that claimed to have similar
stuff for all kinds of reason and then just fell off the radar after it turned
out they were frauds, wrong or delusional...

~~~
dhimes
My point exactly.

~~~
mrb
The most trusted media outlet who wrote about E-Cat was Forbes:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/30/believing-i...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/30/believing-
in-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/)

It is worth noting that the Italian Patent Office first rejected Rossi's
patent on claims it was dubious, but they finally recently granted it in April
6, 2011:
[http://www.uibm.gov.it/uibm/dati/Avanzata.aspx?load=info_lis...](http://www.uibm.gov.it/uibm/dati/Avanzata.aspx?load=info_list_uno&id=1610895&table=Invention&#ancoraSearch%20Patent%20Issued%20by%20Italian%20Patent%20Office)

As I said, Rossi and Focardi are very bad at making themselves look credible.
Hopefully, over the next year or so, the situation will clear up.

------
romaniv
Personally, I no longer think "is this true?" when reading about stuff like
this. I know that the odds are in favor of this being another fake technology.
What I do think about is whether there is any mechanism for real inventions to
become acknowledged in this kind of environment. Would Nikola Tesla be
considered a fake these days? Did he have good documentation for his devices?
How did his public demonstrations go?

~~~
dhimes
Initially Tesla would be viewed with skepticism. But his work with AC was
reproducible. His anti-gravity experiments are not accepted.

An interesting contemporary thread currently is the inflationary expansion of
the universe that was reported a couple of years back
([http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334907/title/Cosm...](http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334907/title/Cosmic_acceleration_discovery_wins_physics_Nobel)).
It was a remarkably unsettling find, yet seems to be confirmed other teams. If
it's not true we will learn something truly fundamental (like h-bar isn't
really constant or something).

------
alvarosm
This is very likely to be a scam. The guy is just delusional and trying to get
financing to make it work because it probably doesn't work _at all_. Why don't
they visibly disconnect the generators? why don't they allow anyone to verify
that new elements have been created inside the fusion modules? why all the
secrecy and only letting reporters go in for a few minutes during the test?
They've been publishing their bullshit papers since the mid-90s. If this was
for real, reproducible and all, somebody else would have verified it by now.

~~~
mrb
In 1996, the CERN did reproduce Focardi's first experiment: <http://lenr-
canr.org/acrobat/CerronZebainvestigat.pdf>

They discovered results consistent with Focardi et al.: excess heat around the
nickel bar and hydrogen absorption. However they also placed an additional
temperature sensor on the container of the cell which was unable to measure
any significant excess heat. They theorize that the nickel bar is prone to
local variations of its thermal characteristics, correlated to the phenomenon
of hydrogen absorption. They concede that hydrogen absorption remains
unexplained.

Then Focardi took this feedback into account and wrote the 1998 paper which I
linked above.

But the stigma attached to cold fusion did entice researchers to have a 2nd
look at this later paper. Some of the scientists interviewed on October 28,
2011 for the test admit that they had never read about hydrogen-nickel fusion
until 2011. You can bet that from now on, many are starting to look into it...

~~~
mrb
I meant: "did _not_ entice researches to have a 2nd look"

------
mrich
Everything I read about the E-Cat sounds fishy to me. Especially the latest
experiment - so the output is 480kW, and there is a 500kW generator connected,
but supposedly not operating? What a coincidence!

People want this to be true so I can understand the reporting but come on,
this is just not real.

~~~
mrb
In other smaller experiments earlier this year, they had no generator attached
to the cell:
[http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article31...](http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3144827.ece)

------
terhechte
I'm kinda always falling for free energy stories because they appeal to my
hopes. Rationally, I know it doesn't work and my brain keeps telling me it's a
scam. In my gut, however, I dream of a world where free energy reigns and we
don't have to burn fossil fuel en masse just to keep society afloat.

However, lately I wondered: Would free energy really be a good thing? If
there's limitless energy for everybody, wouldnt it be even easier for a
lunatic - or a government run by lunatics - to run amok. Economically and
Ecologically, it would be terrific. But I wonder if we, as a species, are
already adolescent enough to be given such power.

~~~
wladimir
Free energy appeals to the dream to keep up the historic trend of human
expansion, using more and more energy. It could prevent a lot of struggles in
this century.

However I somehow feel it isn't going to be this easy.

------
Mvandenbergh
It's more accurate to say that the this is a paper on the experimental setup
with which they claim to have achieved low temperature Ni-H fusion.

A plausible mechanism for the supposed fusion itself has yet to make an
appearance.

~~~
DennisP
There actually is a theory that seems to have some credibility:
[http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/nasa-confirms-widom-
larsen-...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/nasa-confirms-widom-larsen-
theory.html)

According to the theory, it's not actually fusion, it's some kind of new
reaction involving the weak nuclear force. (Rossi's not a fan of the idea.)

------
angdis
If this were a real breakthrough, we would be seeing a trickle of
confirmations followed shortly by a flood of news and immensely stepped-up
activity.

I'm impressed by Focardi, however. Not because he can make energy from nothing
(I triple-dare say he can't). Making money from nothing, however, doesn't
violate any physical laws and this guy seems to have that talent although it
is probably a "once-in-a-lifetime" trick.

~~~
merraksh
Focardi is a co-author. Andrea Rossi is the one that set up the whole
experiment and is in contact with this mysterious US company.

------
nickzoic
> Novembre 1998

Has there been any progress since, is the question ... googling around I find
a lot of press-release type material breathlessly translated into English but
not much else ... surely, by now, someone has been able to measure the copper
isotopes produced and at least take a stab at a theory ...

------
zby
Nickel and hydrogen are abundant on Earth - do they fuse in nature?

~~~
arethuza
I wondered if nickel fuses in a supernova - a bit of browsing shows that it is
apparently one of the main seeds for creation of heavier elements through
neutron capture:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process>

Edit: The conditions in a supernova are probably just a wee bit different from
anything we can create outside of the core of an H-bomb.

------
robinduckett
So... this is real?

~~~
hcles
No. It's a free energy scam. It will go away and in a couple years another
scam will bubble up against all odds and make it into mainstream media. Call
it zero-point quantum energy, call it magnetism, cold fusion, free energy by
any other name.

Research the people, not the techno babble. If they don't submit to
independent scientific scrutiny and approach ignorant investors individually,
well there you go.

