Mats Lewan continues to believe, long after the frauds of Andrea Rossi became crystal clear. From his blog, An Impossible Invention:
The moment of truth is getting close with launch on January 31st
“An Impossible Invention” is the title of Lewan’s book about Rossi and the “E-cat.” The reference is to the alleged impossibility of a device, an “energy catalyzer,” to generate heat from nickel and hydrogen. Lewan, a science journalist originally, was right, my opinion, to treat the “invention” as “possible,” not “impossible.” However, the problem isn’t impossibility, it is that Rossi was shown, by incontrovertible evidence in the trial, Rossi v. Darden, to have lied repeatedly. Case guide.
On January 31, 2019, inventor and entrepreneur Andrea Rossi will hold an online presentation on the commercial launch of his heating device, the E-Cat. Thereby, the moment of truth is approaching for the carbon free, clean, abundant, cheap, and compact energy source that could potentially replace coal, oil, gas, and nuclear, and also solve the global climate crisis.
This is fluff. The moment of truth passed long ago. Rossi claimed to have a 1 MW reactor ready for sale before the end of 2011. That reactor was actually purchased by Industrial Heat, for $1.5 million, and delivered in 2013. With that, and a payment of $10 million, Rossi also agreed to disclose whatever was needed to build the reactors, and to license the technology to Industrial heat, for regions covering half the planet. In addition, subject to a “guaranteed performance test,” IH was to pay Rossi $89 million more. Rossi remained free to market or use the technology independently in the other half of the world.
It appears that Lewan has refused or failed to read the evidence from that trial, consisting of documents, almost entirely unchallenged, plus depositions under oath. We can assume that the unchallenged evidence is authentic, there are detailed responses from both sides, in motions to dismiss and answers to those.
The trial began, the jury was seated, and opening arguments were made. It was obvious to me how this was going to go. Rossi’s claim for $89 million was going to be rejected, for many reasons, IH was not going to be able to recover their investment paid to Rossi (because of estoppel), but IH would be able to claim fraud from the “Doral test,” and be able to collect damages from Rossi and those who assisted him perpetrate the fraud.
Obviously, Lewan could dispute that, but not reasonably unless he actually looks at the evidence, evidence that I studied and documented intensely, in order to make it available.
Since I started reporting on Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat technology in 2011, he always told me that his main goal, and the only thing that would convince people about the controversial physical phenomenon it was built on, would be to put a working product on the market.
What is truly odd about Lewan is that he says this, but actually ignores it. There was an allegedly “working product” on the market in 2011, with a price of $1.5 million, and it was purchased by an eager customer, IH. The guaranteed performance test did not take place in a timely fashion. Rossi blames IH for that, but the evidence shows otherwise, but Rossi then convinced IH to allow the reactor to be installed in Florida for a sale of power to a “customer” he had found, and he argued that an independent customer would be more convincing as a demonstration than what IH had proposed, an installation in North Carolina in a related company.
And Rossi clearly represented that the customer was actually Johnson-Matthey, Rossi’s emails show how he then attempted to create plausible deniability. A jury would have seen right through that. The customer was, in fact, a company set up by Rossi’s attorney, Johnson, who was also the President of Leonardo Technologies, Rossi’s Florida company. There was no “chemical company” other than Rossi’s activity, he controlled it entirely.
But if the reactor worked, so what? At least that is what many on Planet Rossi think. IH claimed that they had been unable to create any success with Rossi reactors, other than what appeared in some tests, later considered to be artifact (such as the Lugano test: IH had made that reactor).
This was the ultimate market test. IH was not about to pay $89 million for a “test” that did not satisfy the terms of the Agreement, but, because, the thinking would go, perhaps Rossi, known to be paranoid, had not disclosed to them the “secret.” So, having paid Rossi $11.5 million (and more in various ways), they would have wanted to keep the license, just in case it turned out to work.
They had four or five lawyers sitting there in the trial in Miami, it was costing them millions of dollars. They might not have been able to recover their legal costs, and there would be other reasons to avoid a trial. They are working to support inventors, and prosecuting a fraud claim against an inventor would not be the kind of publicity they would want.
So when Rossi, having claimed for a year that he was going to wipe the floor with Darden and Industrial Heat, proposed a walk-away, that no money change hands, he gives up his $89 million claim, and they give back the reactors (there were actually two 1 MW plants plus other prototypes), and the license was cancelled, they accepted.
They knew more about the Rossi technology than anyone other than Rossi. They had worked for about three years trying to get it to work. If it worked even modestly well, it would have been worth many billions of dollars, maybe trillions. With that knowledge, instead of spending a few million more, they chose to walk away, and focus on other LENR technology.
To me, this is beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence that Rossi technology was worthless. And the kicker: After the case settled, Rossi had people screaming for a plant, and he had two of them. If the technology actually worked, he could have installed it in a real customer’s facility, or could have sold heat to heating co-ops in Sweden. He’d have been making money hand over fist.
Instead, he dismantled the plants, destroying them, and focused on his “improved product,” which is what the upcoming demo is about.
Now, eight years later, after events taking unexpected and amazing turns which I told in my book An Impossible Invention and in this blog, Rossi claims to be ready to do so. His plan is to sell heat from remotely monitored devices at a price per kWh 20 percent below market price, with no carbon emissions from the operation of the devices.
The book did not cover the revealed information about the IH/Rossi affair. He has mentioned it on the blog, with shallow, very incomplete coverage that gives full voice to Rossi deceptive descriptions. Lewan has become a Rossi shill.
The Doral installation was a sale of power at $1000 per megawatt-day. So he already had, over eight years ago, a plant that could be installed to do what he now “plans” to do. Unless he was lying, then, and if he was lying then, why would we imagine he is not lying now?
(Note: The business model of selling a service rather than a product is a strong megatrend driven by digitalisation and by internet of things, making remote monitoring more effective, and it is already used by e.g. Rolls-Royce and GE, selling flight hours rather than aero engines).
This is basically irrelevant. Software is also licensed, not sold, etc.)
While this already implies a substantial cost-saving for the customers, it is most probably only the start of what the E-Cat technology can provide ahead, if it works as claimed.
There is no news here, only a “plan” which is not binding on anyone. On what basis does Lewan claim “probable.” Yes, he hedges it, “if it works as claimed.” Does he attempt to assess the odds of it working? Would past performance be a way of assessing this? Some who has failed many times to deliver what he promised, how much credence should be placed on new promises, in advance of a independently testable product?
At the online presentation (more info at http://www.ecatskdemo.com) Rossi plans to show a two-hour video of a device already in operation, reportedly heating an industrial premises of about 250 square meters in the US to 25°C since Nov 19, 2018. At the presentation, he will provide details regarding the commercial launch, but here is what I have been told and what I have concluded so far:
We know that what Rossi says is utterly unreliable. Does Lewan know that? Has he looked at the evidence, or does he just run on his gut?
A demonstration like that described can be faked six ways till Sunday. Rossi claimed that the reactor in Florida actually delivered a megawatt for most of the one-year period, based on measurements that he controlled, completely.
The problem was that a megawatt in that warehouse (is this the same “industrial premises”?), given the lack of a powerful heat exchanger, would have made it uninhabitable, fatal to occupants. That was one of the facts to be brought out at trial.
Rossi, last minute, as discovery was closing, contradicting what he had written on his blog for a year, claimed to have made a heat exchanger, didn’t keep receipts or take photographs, and he used the labor of guys who drive around in trucks looking for work, and … it would have had to have been there for the whole year, without anyone visiting noticing it, and it would have been noisy as hell and very visible.
No, he lied again, this time under oath, so that’s why his attorney had little trouble convincing him to settle if he could. He was facing not only losing millions of dollars, but also a possible criminal prosecution for perjury. Rossi was used to lying to the public, which is not necessarily illegal. He was playing a new game in U.S. federal court, where lying is a Very Bad Idea.
Lewan then goes on to give the alleged characteristics of the E-Cat SK. It is all “what he has been told,” and he reports what he was told with no sign of caution or skepticism. Lewan has had enough experience with Rossi to know he can be deceptive. This is my theory: if he were to ask inconvenient questions, he’d lose his access to Rossi. And he’s now made it a business, selling the book, which he is planning to update.
These characteristics are entirely Rossi Says. When we talk about generations of development of devices (Lewan calls the SK the “fourth generation”), it’s assumed that the earlier generations worked and the later generations are improved. If in mercato veritas, what is the truth of the earlier generations?
Bottom line, they were worthless. If they actually worked, they were worth, even as prototypes, at least hundreds of millions of dollars. The market has spoken the truth, but Lewan is ignoring it.
Lately, I have reported little on the E-Cat, simply because there has been essentially no new information that could be confirmed. Also in this case, in theory we will not be able confirm any of the claims presented, specifically since the existing customer will not be disclosed at the presentation on Jan 31, as far as I know.
There was a great deal of information revealed in 2016, in the trial. Lewan ignored it, relying only on what Rossi told him, apparently. Now, we still have no verifiable information. So why would January 31 be the “moment of truth”? Why is Lewan hyping this non-event, where Rossi will just present more smoke and mirrors?
But let’s assume that the there’s no working E-Cat device. Then either Rossi is fooling himself, and there’s nothing that makes me believe this now, or it’s a fraud, which hardly makes any sense at this point.
We already know that Rossi lies and that if the Doral plant worked, it was not working at anything like the level claimed. If it were a weak technology, but working, IH would have held onto it fiercely. They could afford it. (Prepping for the trial, Rossi claimed that IH wasn’t paying because they didn’t have the money to pay, but, in fact, IH had lined up $200 million ($150 million beyond what was already invested in other technology), plenty to pay Rossi and have money for development, but … they were not about to spend that when the frikkin’ reactors didn’t work!
It wasn’t even a weak technology. Before they made the deal with Rossi, they knew Rossi had a checkered past, but they decided they needed to find out. So they found out. It didn’t work.
It also “hardly made any sense” that a fraud would sue their defrauded customer. But he did. Basically, Lewan appears to have no idea how Rossi might actually think and operate, he has ignored the experience of those who worked closely with him for years.
In the fraud case, the E-Cat SK would be an electric heater consuming as much power as it outputs. But after at least a decade of hard work, without asking money from any third party, having earned USD11.5M from his ex US partner Industrial Heat, why would Rossi get back now and sell heat at a loss? To a customer that would immediately discover the fraud by looking at the electricity consumption of the device?
This is absolutely appalling. Rossi asked for and got funding from Ampenergo, so when IH bought the license from Rossi, Ampenergo was part of the deal, signed on, and IH paid Ampenergo millions in addition to what they paid Rossi. And then Rossi not only asked for and received $11.5 million from IH, he was also demanding $89 million. In Doral, there was no customer, but the fake customer agreed to pay $1000 per day for power, and Rossi approved invoice requests for IH to issue for those amounts. IH wasn’t convinced that there was a real power sale; for whatever reason, they didn’t issue those invoices, but the customer had no income, no business, so who would have paid those invoices?
Obviously, Rossi was willing to pay invoices, and it would then have strengthened his case to collect the $89 million. Spending $360,000 to gain $89 million? Lewan has the brain of a cockroach.
(Sorry, cockroaches, you are smarter than that.)
We don’t know anything about the conditions of a power sale. We don’t know how large the container for the reactor is. It must be large enough to protect the reactor from intrusion, and what kind of power source could be inside? We don’t know. This is all speculation, not news. Bottom line, a sale of power could be a fake demonstration of power generation, and, in addition, what if the “customer” is in collusion with Rossi? What would be the goal? Most likely, to gain investment.
Let’s suppose this is a 40 KW reactor.Say that power costs 10 cents/kW-h, that’s $4 per hour, $48 per day if it is 24/7, or under $18,000 per year, if the input power were free. Rossi could easily afford that for a time, and being able to report a satisfied customer — and he could create more than one –, how much more investment could he obtain?
(In this scenario, Rossi could smuggle fuel into the reactor, say propane, which would fuel an ordinary water heater.. So he could have apparent input power far below the heat output. He would be able to charge 80% of the going rate for heat, so, yes, he would be losing money, but not nearly as much as it might seem. Ponzi scheme!)
Clearly, only when at least one customer, having used the heat from the E-Cat SK for some time, will speak publicly about the service, the moment of truth will arrive.
No. There was “one customer” in Florida, apparently an independent company, with a lawyer representing it. In fact, it was a blind trust, in fact, it was not independent, and did not, contrary to the installation agreement with IH, measure the heat delivered independently. Lewan doesn’t think of the possible problems because he has paid no attention to what actually happened in Florida.
I looked above, and Lewan did hedge his claim. The moment of truth is not January 31. It is rather “the moment of truth is getting close with launch on January 31.” Except this is not a “launch.” With a product launch, the product becomes available. Is a product becoming available?
Once again, Rossi claimed an available product, a “1 MW reactor” in 2011. So was that “close to launch”? Lewan is more like “out to lunch.”
Meanwhile, everything else that I have observed and witnessed during these eight years, including my own measurements on the previous E-Cat versions, and the one-year test of a one megawatt plant in Doral, FL, during which Rossi started developing the E-Cat QX with its electronic/electromagnetic control system, indicates that the E-Cat is a working device, although many would call it An Impossible Invention.
About that “one year test” in Florida, it didn’t work, it was fraud. “Impossible Invention” is totally irrelevant. All the prior tests had glaring defects. Lewan was present for the Hydro Fusion test, which failed, and at which Rossi argued that they were not measuring input power correctly. Lewan argued with him, apparently think that this was just an honest mistake. But if Rossi could make that mistake with the Hydro Power test, how about with his own? Again and again, basic problems existed with the tests, never resolved because Rossi kept changing the device operation, so a possible artifact in one test could not be verified (or otherwise) in the next.
This is all obvious to many, many observers, so why not to Lewan?
By the way, I would like to share my impression that the groundbreaking control system of the E-Cat QX and the SK, is the result of a kind of dreamteam consisting of the genius Andrea Rossi, with elusive and creative ideas about physics and about what he thinks could be possible, and of electric engineer and computer scientist Fulvio Fabiani, not only being an expert on electronics but also being capable of interpreting Rossi’s wild and hard-to-grasp ideas, transforming them into real electronic circuits actually performing the job Rossi had in mind.
What a flack! Fabiani played a role in Florida, and I’m not going to go over it, but he was in line to lose substantial sums from his professional incompetence. He destroyed evidence belonging to IH.
I will develop this story further in the updated third edition of my book, which I hope to be able to conclude within a year or so, once the moment of truth has arrived.
And when the moment arrives, the E-Cat technology will most probably start providing clean, cheap, abundant, and sustainable energy to everyone in the world, in combination with solar and wind (which are a long way from replacing fossils on their own, and furthermore also require problematic large scale world-wide chemical battery implementations for energy storage).
Until then, the champagne remains on ice. And when I open it, I will be thinking of Sven Kullander and of late Prof. Sergio Focardi who played a fundamental role, helping Rossi to develop the E-Cat technology.
And Lewan has announced (twice, cancelled twice) a New Energy conference, featuring Rossi technology. He has lost all credibility. Here are his announcements:
UPDATE: The New Energy World Symposium was postponed in March 2017, waiting for an upcoming commercial launch of LENR based power. Read more here.
UPDATE 2: An online presentation regarding commercial launch of LENR based power will be held on January 31, 2019. Please get back to this blog for a report shortly.
I’m happy to announce that registration for the New Energy World Symposium is now open, with an Early Bird discount of EUR195 valid until February 17, 2018.
He knows that January 31 is unlikely to be the “moment of truth.” So why is he plowing ahead? (and this. scheduled for June, 2019, was also postponed indefinitely)
Update
Andrea Rossi today published, on ResearchGate, a “preprint,” E-Cat SK and long range particle interactions. This is a theoretical paper standing on unverifiable experimental results, but it does disclose some data not seen before. The paper begins:
The E-Cat technology poses a serious and interesting challenge to the conceptual foundations of modern physics.
There is no challenge until there are confirmed experimental results. Previous reports of SK performance were based entirely on RossiSays, with no verification allowed of necessary measurements. The device demonstrated in Stockholm was periodically stimulated with a high voltage, which would strike a plasma, which would then have low resistance. That strike would be relatively high voltage and would input power into the system. No measurements were allowed of the full input power, or, in fact, even of operating power, i.e., both the voltage and current in steady state operation.
This paper gives this description:
5 Experimental Setup
The plausibility of these hypotheses is supported by a series of experiments made with the E-cat SK. The E-cat SK has been put in a position to allow the eye of a spectrometer view exactly the plasma in a dark room: an ohm-meter has measured the resistance across the circuit that gives energy to the E-Cat; the control panel has been connected with an outlet with 220 V , while from the control panel departed the two cables connected with the plasma electrodes; a frequency meter, a laser and a tesla-meter have been connected with the plasma for auxiliary measurements; a Van der Graaf electron accelerator (200 kV ) has been used for the examination of the plasma electric charge. Other instruments used in the experimental
setup: a voltage generator/modulator; two oscilloscopes, one for the power source and one for monitoring the energy consumed by the E-Cat; Omega thermocouples to measure the delta T of the cooling air; IR thermometer; a frequency generator.
There are no useful details in this. What was the experimental procedure? In what is a plasma created? How is the plasma created? “Energy consumed” is a standard Rossi trope. Energy is not consumed, unless there is an endothermic reaction, we could then use that language.
The voltage across the device is given as 0.25 volt and the current 3.2 mA. He claims a resistance of 75 ohms. Previously he claimed that the operating resistance was zero. 3.2 mA might maintain a plasma, but would not strike it. Periodically, in the Stockholm demonstration, there was a zapping sound and a flash of light. He was striking the plasma, which would take a far higher voltage. There is no mention of striking a plasma in the paper.
In any case, no confirmed experimental results, no challenge.