Fake facts and true lies

This a little “relax after getting home” exploration of a corner of Planet Rossi, involving Mats Lewan — but, it turns out, only very peripherally –, Frank Acland’s interview of Andrea Rossi just the other day (June 11), and some random comments on E-Cat World, easily categorized under the time-wasting “Someone is wrong on the internet.” Continue reading “Fake facts and true lies”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the QUA[R]CK-X!

LenrForum:

Demonstration thread started November 15Start reading here, Alan posted before the DPS (Dog and Pony Show) started.

E-Catworld:

Youtube:

3 hours. As I write this, I have not yet viewed more than a little of it. I will be compiling links to specific times in this video, and will appreciate assistance with that. Above, by the headline and by “DPS”, I reveal my ready conclusion. I will be providing a basis for that, but, meanwhile, fact is fact and we need be careful not to confuse fact with conclusion.

Test methods

From this page:

Here are the slides that Mats Lewan used in the first segement of the E-Cat QX demonstration of November 24, 2017 in which he gave an introduction to the E-Cat QX and explained how the presentation was to proceed.

Unless he hedged this in the actual presentation (and I will edit this if I find that he did), Mats is responsible for this content.

Slide 1:

E-CAT QX

Third generation of the patented E-Cat technology:
A heat source built on a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR)
with a fuel based primarily on nickel, aluminum, hydrogen and
lithium, with no radiation and with no radioactive waste.

The fuel is “Rossi Says” [* is used below] “No radiation” is possibly controversial: many tests, however, have looked for radiation and found little or none.

Claims E-Cat QX:

I have numbered the claims, and brief comments:

1. volume ≈ 1 cm3 [plausible]
2. thermal output 10-30 W [plausible as dissipation in device]
3. negligible input control power [* not plausible]
4. internal temperature > 2,600° C [* unlikely]
5. no radiation above background [plausible]

Today: Cluster of 3 E-Cat QX

Slide 2: (diagram, shows water circulation)

Water reservoir -> K-probe  -> QX -> K-probe -> Water tank on scale

(This looks simple and solid. While a magician or fraud, given control of conditions, can create fake anything, if there is fraud here, it is probably not in this part of the test.)

Slide 3: (calculations)

Thermal output
W = mwater* Cp* ∆T
Cp water = 4.18 J/(g·K)
Pav = W/t

W is, misleadingly but harmlessly, in a common confusion in Rossi presentations, not wattage but energy, in watt-seconds or Joules. Average power, in watts, is then is the energy divided by the measurement interval.

Slide 4:

Thermal output

(diagram, QX light -> spectrometer)

Wien’s displacement law:
λmax = b/T or T = b/λmax
where b ≈ 2900 μm·K
Stefan–Boltzmann law:
P = AεσT4
where
A = area
ε = emissivity
σ ≈ 5.67 × 10−8 W/(m2⋅K4)

This is BS. The QX is allegedly a plasma device, and light from a plasma does not follow the laws for black-body radiation. Light can appear to be intense but the energy will be in narrow bands, characteristic of the plasma gas. This approach simply does not work. However, it is not actually a significant part of the test. A very small spot can be very hot, that does not show high overall power if the very hot region is small, with low mass, and, as well, if it is transient.

(Mats in the video claims that the device is “similar to a black body,” but no evidence is provided for that claim.)

Slide 5: (schematic diagram)

Electric input. [explanation at video 11:28)

Shown is AC line power (unmeasured) feeding a Direct Current source (the symbol for DC is used), incorporating a fan, “active cooling ca. 60 W”. Then the DC output is connected to a 1 ohm sense resistor, and there is a voltmeter across it. Then the other side of the resistor is connected to one terminal of the QX. There are two labels, overprinted, “0 Ω” and “800 Ω.” This refers to two conditions, the zero resistance is to test conditions, allegedly, and the 800 ohms is a Lewan “test” which shows essentially nothing. The other side of the QX returns to the power supply.

I = U/R
P = UI
P = RI2
800 * 0.252 ≈ 50 W

This is utter nonsense. There is no reported measurement of the “power input” to the QX. This is the same preposterousness as was in the Gullstrom paper, widely criticized. What is “U”? Unstated. Perhaps it is in the videos. By the formula it is a voltage, the voltage used to determine the current through the 1 ohm sense resistor. If I is then that current, “P” would be the power dissipated in the sense resistor. The figure of 800 is used, but this is not under test conditions, the QX has been replaced by the 800 ohm resistor. So there is, from the power supply, 50W of power delivered to an 800 ohm resistor, apparently. This means what? It means about 200 V, that’s what!

Mats says in the video that the white box is the power source. Then he says it is a black box. Well, Mats? Which is it, white or black? He describes it as producing “direct current, which is pulsed.” That is quite different from “direct current,” depending on details. Mats says that the 1 ohm resistor is not necessary for the function of the generator. Yet, in operation, the resistance of the QX is described as zero. These descriptions have driven many who know a little electronics crazy. Yes, the 1 ohm resistor is a sense resistor, used only to measure current, but if the QX resistance is actually zero, nothing would limit current other than the supply max, and there would be no control.

The QX is a plasma device. Such devices have high resistance until a plasma is struck. It appears from the video that a plasma is repeatedly struck. At that point the voltage to the QX must be high. There will then be a short period when input power to the QX is high, until the resistance drops and input power with it. Zero resistance is quite unlikely. There is no evidence shown in the video of zero resistance, but the largest missing is any actual measure of input power.

At 13:22, Lewan explains the Rossi insanity that the heat of the reactor is conducted through the cables to the power supply, causing destruction of components. Later, on ECW, Lewan reports that Rossi is “no longer” giving this explanation. But why did he believe it in the first place?

This is said to explain the cooling fan for the power supply.

I later said, during the presentation, that Rossi no longer claims the heating problem is due to heat through the wires, but an internal heating problem in the control box. Fulvio Fabiani, who has built the original design of the control system, confirmed this, and said that it would need investments to and resources to build a control system that eliminates this problem. I agree that this seems strange. However, high voltage, high frequency, and high velocity might be challenging, combined.

The power supply is creating an output with substantial high voltage and frequency, but nothing shown as input to the reactor is high voltage or frequency. There is no consideration in the input power discussion of anything other than direct current, at low voltages.

It is obvious: there is high-frequency power being generated, and there is indirect evidence in the demo that this is roughly enough to explain the reported output power. I was discussing this today with David French, and he said that a test with forbidden measurements of a factor that might be crucial is not a test. He’s obviously correct.

If Rossi were a reliable reporter, we might decide to trust his reports. But there is voluminous evidence in Rossi v. Darden that he is not reliable. For as long as I have been following Rossi (since early 2011), he has put on one demonstration after another where some critical factor was hidden. With some of his early E-Cat demos, it was claimed that the cooling water was all vaporized, that the output was “dry steam,” but a humidity meter was used to verify this, and humidity meters cannot measure steam dryness. The physicists observing these tests had no steam experience and were easily fooled. In the Krivit video, Rossi clearly knows that there is condensed or overflow water in the output hose, because he walks it to the drain before pulling the hose out to show Krivit the steam flow, which was completely inadequate for the claimed evaporation rate. And that little demonstration concealed that water was slowly overflowing, and overflow was never checked. (Overflow is a different and larger concern than steam quality; steam quality itself was a red herring.)

In discussions on LENR Forum, THHuxleynew wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

[…] The 800 ohm resistor was used as part of the calibration demonstration. Since the Q-X has virtually zero resistance there is not much point in measuring the voltage drop across it, so in order do show that (for example) an 800 ohm resistive heater was NOT present inside the Q-X capsule, the Q-X was taken out of circuit and a low-wattage 800 ohm resistor was put in its place. The voltage drop was measured again over the 1 ohm resistor to show there was a significant difference. This also was used to prove that the PSU was a constant voltage device, not a constant current device.

Anyone with substantial electronics experience would know how crazy-wrong this is. You don’t know that a device has “virtually zero resistance” unless you measure the voltage drop across it at a known current. The resistance of quite good conductors can be measured this way.

In any case, one would measure the voltage across the QX to verify that it is low (or “zero” as claimed, which is very unlikely for a plasma device.) Who there has experience with plasma devices? I played with neon tubes when I was young, great fun. Yes, they show “negative resistance,” i.e., the more current that flows through them, the lower the resistance, but zero? This is a major discovery all of its own, if true. It almost certainly is not. But the resistance of the QX might well be very low, because it is not the resistance of a plasma device, but of an inductor.

The test does not show what Alan claims for it. An ordinary 800 ohm resistive heater was not a reasonable possibility. With no measurement of voltage, this is all meaningless. The power supply is said to be “adaptive,” so conditions for the QX test and the 800 ohm resistor could be different. There was no description of what was actually done. The power measured with 800 ohms, from calculations was 50 W, which would certainly not be a “low wattage” resistor. But then there is more:

That is a weirdly indirect way of showing the QX has a low impedance. Also it is likely wrong! What was the 800 ohm resistor cal current? You also can’t prove CV from a single measurement.

only Rossi would give such indirect and dubious evidence… Why not measure the PSU voltage directly?

Sekrit, that’s why!

THHuxleynew wrote:

Also, these voltage measurements, are they DC or AC? And is the supply DC or AC? Without all these questions answered the word prove that Alan uses is way off beam… Impedance is not a single value independent of frequency. Nor is the QX likely linear.

Indeed. Alan’s response?

Alan Smith wrote:

The QX is stated to have near zero resistance. Which tends to suggest it has near zero impedance. Though after 5 beers I am not looking for an argument about that. Have at it.

After 5 beers, it gets worse.

THHuxleynew wrote:

[…] Suppose it has low resistance when in plasma state but high resistance when off. Driven by AC it would have varying impedance, and maybe absorb much power during these HV spikes some believe exist.

Or, take an inductor in parallel with a resistor. Low impedance at DC, high resistance at AC.

Perhaps I need to drink some more wine to even things up…

He’d have to drink a lot to approach Alan’s dizziness….

Oldguy points to the obvious: [To Alan]

Was the 800 ohm resister inductive or non inductive?

I am still having trouble with the claim that the claim that the device has “virtually zero resistance”.

Was it measured while running? How was that measured for the system as demonstrated?

Sure seem like there IS a “point in measuring the voltage drop across it”. A major point. It is possible to have a device with a low DC resistance but high inductive impedance. If there was any pulses or AC present, it could make a very big difference. -(example: a wire coil around some Ni) If It is to demonstrate the reality of excess then the voltage needs to be measured across with what ever waveform it is running with.

One would think. But Rossi certainly does not think like this. Unless he does. Unless he figured out  a way to make it appear, to those who don’t look or think carefully, that he is putting on low power, when he is putting in much more, there in plain sight and actually obvious and even necessary.

Alan Smith wrote: (about Oldguy’s “device”)

Tell me about this device? A choke perhaps? I think you will struggle to find me a good example.

Weird, indeed, probably the beers talking. He said the word: “choke.” That’s an example.

Oldguy also wrote:

No, again, you can have near zero DC resistance but have a large inductive impedance to high frequency (or spikes). The narrower the pulses the greater the “effective resistance” for an inductive device. […]

A simple wire coil with a nickel or cobalt core would do it. For example, a 10 mH inductor, would appear to have near zero resistance (depending on gauge) but about 4 ohms at 60 Hz and 7.5 ohms at 120 Hz and then about 160 ohms at 2500 Hz. Very fast pulses (single wave of a very high freq in effect) would make the effective R very high and with power going as V^2 you could transfer a significant power. A flyback transformer, cap and a read vibrator could easily be put in the housing of most DC supplies to add high V pulses.

Bottom line – the DC and AC across the device must [be] measured while running or you know nothing about possible power consumption.

Yes. The DPS pretends otherwise, and Mats Lewan, while he is aware of the massive deficiencies, goes along with it. It does not appear that Rossi invited anyone likely to question his claims. Mats seems to be on some kind of edge. Yet, in the end, he’s been had.

THHuxleynew:

All these (dubious even at DC) indirect measurements are no good if the PSU is AC, or has HV AC spikes.

Rossi, remember, has a proven (by Mats, of all people) history of mismeasuring things with meters to show positive COP from devices that are actually electric heaters.

Adrian Ashfield wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

Tell me about this device? A choke perhaps? I think you will struggle to find me a good example.

The pathoskeptics are just looking for a way to back up their previous firmly held opinions. I doubt you can win against hem short of units for sale.

Even if the setup were perfect they would say the readings were false, or there’s hidden battery, etc, etc. The current and voltage appears to be low enough that would be very difficult claim measurement error would wipe away a COP of 300.

Ashfield has shown again and again that he is utterly clueless. There are certainly pseudoskeptics who will not accept even good evidence, but they are matched by pseudoscientists (i.e., “believers”) who assume what they want without evidence. Here, Ashfield has nothing to contribute to the conversation, but still bloviates about what he has no understanding of.

Genuine skeptics (people like THHuxleynew) are very important for the future of LENR, because they can form the bridge. Genuine skeptics are willing to look at evidence and not dismiss it out-of-hand.

As to Ashfield’s claim, input power was not measured, and easily could be enough for a COP of 1. I.e., no excess power. Mats Lewan even points this out:

‘I think the demonstration today went well, with some limits that depends on what Rossi will accept to measure publicly. The problematic part is that the voltage over the reactor could not be measured, which would be necessary to calculate the electric power consumed by the reactor. In the calculations made by Rossi and Eng. William S. Hurley, who oversaw the measurements, the power consumed by the 1-ohm resistor was used as input power instead, assuming that the plasma inside the reactor has a resistance close to that of a conductor, thus consuming a negligible amount of power since the voltage across the reactor would be very low.

(“could not be measured” because Rossi would not allow it. Then it is claimed that it was “very low,” but the evidence for this is entirely missing. They don’t even try. The power dissipated in the 1 ohm sense resistor would be irrelevant, having almost no relationship to the QX input power. That only shows DC current, not power input, even at DC, and no attempt was made to measure RMS power, and there was very substantial RMS power, it’s obvious.)

[…] it seems strange that the power supply, even if it is a complex design, is such that it needs significant active cooling, resulting in a total system that has a COP of about 1 or less at this point.

That power supply needs cooling because it is generating high voltage pulses to strike the plasma, and with no measurement of these (and it seems that the pulsing was frequent), there is no clue as to input power, but it easily could be enough to explain the “output” power.

William S. Hurley III

Sam provided a list of comments on JONP from Hurley.  It came from LENR Forum, Bill H.  (There appear to be many more comments from Hurley there.) There is speculation about Hurley on LENR Forum, with people doing a search, finding a William Hurley, and then saying that this is the DPS engineer. No. There is more than one Hurley, that much I had. I suspect the DPS Hurley lives in Huntington Beach, California, but I haven’t yet seen any strong evidence. However, his alleged company name, somewhere (I think in Lewan information), was spelled Endeavor. From the JONP comments, it is Andeavor. $6 billion in assets. Web site.

Bruce H wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

He is Willam Hurley, an engineer who works in the oil business. That’s what he told me. At the beginning of the demo he was introduced as an an ‘overseeing expert’. But he was pretty low key for that role. nodding now and then was most of it.

Thanks. I think he probably has the background he claims. My interest is in his role in the proceedings. One thing that has puzzled me is that a summary of COP calculations was sent to Mats Lewan and then posted on ECW over his name (http://e-catworld.com/2017/11/…comments-from-mats-lewan/), and yet this report is written in Rossi-ese complete with “Wh/h” notation and slightly ungrammatical English.

He strikes me as a pawn who was under the impression that he had an important role in the proceedings, but in reality did not.

I pointed out the Wh/h trope yesterday. There is a history behind this. I once pointed to Rossi’s usage of Wh/h for power as a “trope.” That did not  mean “error.” It is simply relatively rare, i.e., idiosyncratic. I’ve researched it fairly deeply, it may be more common in Europe, and I think Jed said some Japanese use it. I have never seen an American engineer or scientist use this.

In my training, we always reduced units. Working with units like that is an important part of learning science and engineering.

Wh is watt-hour, i.e., 1 watt for one hour. The SI unit is joules/second, but the definition of a joule is one watt-second, i.e., one watt for one second. So an alternate unit for energy is watt-second, and watt-hour is common. The unit for power is simply “watt.”

I explained all this maybe a year ago. Rossi commented on it, claiming it was completely wrong, and his treatment showed that he thinks of “watt-hour” as a unit of energy, and that then power is the obvious rate, watt-hours/hour. He claimed the “hour” cannot be cancelled, and for further discussion, he referred to an well-known book author. I researched this issue in that author’s work, and found that he confirmed that the “hour” would cancel out. I.e., Rossi’s source contradicted Rossi. Rossi never, however, admits error.

It was not the use of wh/h that was wrong, that would be a pedantic objection. Rather it was his claim that “watt” or “kilowatt” was wrong.

(By the way, Rossi called the Plant the “1 MW E-cat.” Not the “1 MWh/h E-cat.”)

The point was not that Wh/h was incorrect, but that this was a red flag that this was not written by an American engineer, unless he was copying Rossi.

There is another clear sign: the company name spelling “Endeavor” is in that text, linked by Bruce H, taken from ECW. Hurley would not make that mistake. Period. Rossi would, easily. Rossi wrote that report. Hurley may have approved it, but even there, I’d expect the Endeavor error would have stood out for him and he’d have corrected it.

Alan Smith wrote:

Bruce_H wrote: “Wh/h”

Don’t start this again or we will have MY banging on about it. Wh/h is power supply engineer shorthand for the sustained load a system can handle. It is however not a recognised SI or Imperial unit of measurement.

Alan doesn’t want accurate information expressed because MY will jump on it? His comment may be misleading, or may be accurate for Great Britain, where he lives. However, “Wh/h” is not how a power supply engineer would express the load a system can handle. They would either state that it can handle X Watts for time T. Or they would state that the system can deliver so many Wh, but they would want to state peak load. Another way to say this is that a supply can sustain a load of so many watts (time not specified, and time is not specified in Wh/h, it’s an average). “Sustained” in this case is about what the supply will do without burning out. It’s a rating.

Bruce_H wrote:

I agree completely. I only use it as an indicator that that it was not Mr Hurley who wrote the report that appears over his name.

This is the DPS Hurley.

Tesoro Senior Project Engineer, Tesoro Petroleum Corp.

(Tesoro became Andeavor, August 1, 2017.)

This is also Hurley, engineer for a radio license with an address given for Tesoro in Huntington Beach., 2101 E PACIFIC COAST HWY, LOS ANGELES, WILMINGTON, CA. Mr. Hurley has a boat.

If it were important, we could contact Mr. Hurley. It’s not. We know what data he worked with, and if he made a mistake, as we think, it is no skin off our teeth. He should know, however, that he is hitching his reputation to a known fraud and con artist.

I finally found his Linked-In profile. It’s listed under Bill Hurley. (there are many of these.) Behold:

 

Mr. Hurley has a decent background. However, he has a conflict of interest. Considering the above, he would want, at this point, to encourage Rossi to deal with him. He gains no benefit by being skeptical in his analysis, as long as he is honest with his employer, and he would know, if he’s researched Rossi history, that any sign of significant skepticism, he’d be history in the Rossi story.

If Andeavor actually buys a reactor — or power — from Rossi, this would become very, very interesting. Otherwise, this is SOP for Rossi.

Kevmo toast on E-Cat World?

Well this was a wild-goose chase. Most of what is below about ECW is incorrect, because the software is … misleading. Contrary to what I found, Kevmo has not been blocked on ECW, AFAIK, and his posts have not been deleted. He did change accounts, apparently, creating some of the confusion. I’ll explain below. Meanwhile, I’m leaving this because there are tidbits of value. When I’m wrong, I’m happy, because I learn things! I’m also glad I caught this before publishing it. Continue reading “Kevmo toast on E-Cat World?”

Science, pseudoscience, and legal decisions

On my bus trip home from Washington, DC (where I went from Miami), I had plenty of time to read and write comments on E-cat World, where there are many claiming the settlement of the case means that Rossi technology is real. On the other side, here and elsewhere, some are complaining that it is tragic that Rossi v. Darden did not go to trial, because then Rossi would be prevented from “fleecing more sheep,” or the like. Yet all a verdict in that case would have established, almost certainly, was some kind of fraud, on someone’s part, and fraud may have nothing to do with underlying reality. It shows that a judge and/or jury was convinced, which can be a matter of truth, or a matter or skill or lack of skill on the part of attorneys. And then arguments may continue forever.

This is an ECW post that refers to Stanley Meyer. Analogies prove nothing, but provide indications, and there are analogies between Meyer and Rossi. There are also massive signs of pseudoskepticism in the critique of Meyer, and pseudoskepticism is belief, often masquerading as science. Genuine skepticism is essential to science, pseudoskepticism avoids the scientific method. Continue reading “Science, pseudoscience, and legal decisions”

Mats Lewan buys condo in Cloud Cuckoo Land

Well, that headline is perhaps a bit dramatic. But, I’ll confess, I was shocked by seeing the following from someone whom I had treated as a friend, long into the past (back in my Wikipedia days), and with whom I had positive correspondence.

I had been considering writing a post about a Lewan blog entry that was mentioned in a comment here.

Rossi’s engineer: ‘I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe’ (November 25, 2015)

After an interesting interview, which reveals that Fabiani clearly believes that Rossi’s work is real — and that he has seen amazing things — Lewan gives this:

Since mid-February 2015, Rossi and his US industrial partner Industrial Heat are running a one-year commercial trial on a customer’s site with a heat plant producing 1 MW. The plant is made up of four 250kW modules, each based on E-Cat technology. Unless something unexpected happens, the trial, which is controlled by a major independent third party certification institute, should be concluded by February or March 2016, and the results should then be presented.

In the comments, Lewan explains a bit:

November 25, 2015 at 11:25
@Slad
Everyone I have talked to confirm that a major independent third party certification institute is involved in the control of the 1-year test and that this institute will also be able to confirm the results when they are presented. I have no further proof though.

Mats does not tell us — at all — who “everyone I have talked to” is, but we know he talked with Fabiani, who would know of the involvement of a “major independent third party certification institute,” and we know he talked to Levi, who might have known of such. And did he talk with Rossi?

Since there was no such institute involved, only Penon, we know that Lewan relied on unreliable sources. He does acknowledge having no “further proof,” but that’s weak. It implies that the evidence for what he wrote was strong. That’s not the only problem.

IH allowed the installation, but as a sale of power, and only secondarily as a trial, with the idea that if Rossi clearly demonstrated to IH that there was substantial power generated, they might voluntarily pay him $89 million on that basis. The Doral demonstration was not the “Guaranteed Performance Test” of the IH-Rossi-Ampenergo Agreement, because Ampenergo explicitly refused to sign the Second Amendment allowing the GPT to be postponed. Rossi covered up this fact in his Complaint, though it was obvious from the start that the Ampenergo signature was missing. The Rossi attempts, in his pleadings, to convert some kind of vague consent to a test into the specifics of a GPT, even though there were obvious elements of a GPT missing; and not only signatures, but matters of substance, such as the ability of IH to actually observe the “test” in detail. Rossi excluded IH experts, twice (in July and in December).

The whole thing stunk, from lies about the customer at the start, to what appears now to be a hastily-invented “heat exchanger” that nobody saw, and that would have been very visible. Yet Mats is still stuck in his glorious past, where he was the world’s foremost confidant of Andrea Rossi. He wonders about conflict of interest, but has a huge one, a subtle one. When people criticize Rossi, or threaten his interests and plan in some way, he cuts them off, and he had done this over and over, and Mats knows this behavior. If any of the Lugano team had questioned what Levi and Rossi were doing (and Rossi was apparently there the whole time, and the Swedish team, not, not what the Lugano Report implied), they’d have been history.

Mats has never cleaned up that mess. Believe me, if I find a major error here, even years later, I will at least annotate it. That is what a responsible journalist will do, if he or she can.

So then we have this sequence on E-Cat World:

Critique of the Smith Report from the JONP

Mats LewanSunday, April 9, 2017 9:54 AM [post time extracted from HTML]

I think there’s a list of advisors to IH somewhere. Anyone remember where it is?

Andreas Moraitis Mats Lewan • a day ago

214-23, p. 7.

That is here. It was actually a list of potential places for investment, and then included a list of advisors. None of this was a description of actual payments. Jed Rothwell is on the list of advisors, and has continually maintained that he has received no payments from IH, but this was used to, once again, accuse him of being paid by IH. He is known to have visited them in North Carolina, and that was then misinterpreted to indicate that he had visited the Plant in Florida (which he has always denied, and which would then make a certain IH response to interrogatories into perjury — unless Rossi arranged the visit, which seems a tad unlikely, given that Rossi excluded Rothwell from visiting him in Italy years before — and in spite of that, behind the scenes, Rothwell was a supporter of Rossi, arguing that people he trusted had seen the technology and it was real). Rothwell later reassessed that opinion, apparently after seeing data from Penon, which had all the obvious defects that have become public now, with the court filings.

Lewan is clearly not using the Rossi v. Darden resources here. They may be searched. The core page is the Docket page. Yes, it’s a huge amount of information. So resources are being created for analysis. That takes time. We just had a huge amount of data dumped on us. Much of it is redundant, but then, much is not.

The best organization is probably found in the Motions for Summary Judgment, where each party puts its best and strongest case forward. I was going to start with an analysis of the Rossi MSJ, but the exhibit references were such a mess (almost all incorrect), and it depended so strongly on a legal claim that has failed, the attempt to exclude all IPH claims based on an allegedly defective corporate deposition, that my opinion became that making it the core of a study would be a waste of time, so I started with RvD: Study of 203:IH Motion for Summary Judgment

This document also includes all the support paragraphs from DE 207. This is the case as it appears from the IH Motion. Anyone who actually wants to understand Rossi v. Darden would do well to study this. But it’s huge, still. I will be going through it, point by point and the first analysis will be looking for what is clearly established as fact, and what is not, what might remain legitimately controversial. At first impression, some of the IH claims are that, not as clear as required for Summary Judgment, they might require determination of fact by a fact-finder, i.e., a jury. However, there are many layers to this IH strategy, and the strongest aspects are likely to blow the Rossi case out of the water, leaving only the counterclaims active. At that point, settlement becomes far more likely.

Now, to come to what astounded me, though I’d certainly seen signs a year ago, that Mats was falling for a conspiracy theory, in spite of his warning to Sifferkoll.

Mats Lewana day ago

Anyone knows what the rules are for presenting evidence that hasn’t been brought up earlier, when the case goes up in court in June?

Josh G Mats Lewan • a day ago

Go ask Abd. Double dare you. (-;

Mats Lewan Josh G • a day ago

BTW do we know if Abd works for IH or not?

Once upon a time, Mats was a reporter and would have asked me that question directly. Now he asks with a “we” that is a narrow group of people. IH would obviously know if I work for them, and so would I, so, for starters, I’d be excluded from “we” or the question would be meaningless. This question was brought up many times, and Rossi himself accused me of being a paid puppet.

At one time, Mats was officially staff at LENR Forum. That disappeared. This blog is open for anyone to comment, and author privileges will be granted to real people, and Mats is real. Even if a bit deluded. This went on.

Josh G Mats Lewan • a day ago

Not sure but I don’t think we’ve seen any evidence to support it other than his quixotic behavior on IH’s behalf. But I stopped following things for quite awhile until the mid-March filings. So not sure.

SG Mats Lewan • 19 hours ago

I think he claimed that he has been paid to blog by somebody, but not IH.

I am attempting to respond there, the editor keeps locking up. But this would be it:

I suppose I should correct this. I have not been “paid to blog” by anybody. I was collecting documents and putting them in the filespace for the newvortex list, and an attorney, not connected with IH at all, offered to pay my PACER expenses. I have received a total of $50 so far, I may ask for more, and another person, also not connected with IH other than being long-term interested in LENR, has offered additional support, enough that I will probably be able to go to Miami to cover the trial if it happens. Enough to cover my travel, I may still need more to cover details like hotel.

I later started the blog when I was temporarily banned on LENR Forum, and then got serious about it when the newvortex archive became unusable (a yahoogroup problem) and LF banned me “permanently.” (Fun question: for what?)

One of the functions of the blog is to build analytical resources, as distinct from endless debate that goes nowhere, i.e., Blog Normal. This is intended long-term for general cold fusion issues, but is currently being used for Rossi v. Darden.

Mats would be most welcome as a participant, but he lost his status as a neutral analyst some time ago. He could recover, if he chooses to. It would take some work, and his excuse has been that he is too busy. It would be fun to guide him through the maze of documents in the case. One step at a time, which is rarely done. Mostly people start with conclusions (on more than one side — I hope that readers realize there are more than two “sides” here).

As to Mats’ question, others have answered reasonably, but not necessarily addressing the point clearly, and Mats himself summarizes it incorrectly:

Mats Lewan GiveADogABone • a day ago

In fact, I don’t interpret it as a blanket ban. Rather that most of the evidence is presented during discovery. But it doesn’t exclude some evidence to be presented in court, as long as it doesn’t contradict earlier depositions or testimonials, I guess.

It’s somewhat shocking that Mats will guess, but he declared previously that he did not have time to do actual research, the kind expected for a journalist.

The reality is that witnesses will be on the stand, and either side may ask them questions, and they may answer outside of what they said before. However, if what they say is new, an attorney may object. To introduce new evidence will require the permission of the Judge. It is not exactly a “blanket ban,” but failure to disclose evidence to the other parties can result in sanctions, all the way up to total dismissal of a party’s case.

“Contradiction” is not a characteristic of evidence, but of the assessment of evidence. Evidence could not be excluded based on contradiction. Rather, if there is contradiction in admissible evidence, there can be a question for a jury to resolve.

However, what may not be realized here is that the Motions for Summary Judgment do not necessarily disclose all the evidence. Rather, there is a huge volume of evidence — truly enormous — that was disclosed in discovery. As long as it was disclosed, it may be introduced at trial. What is disclosed in discovery is generally attested under penalty of perjury.

IH has adduced enough evidence, my present opinion — remember, I am in process of studying the materials — to obtain summary judgment on the core claim of Rossi, breach of contract re the $89 million, and if that claim is gone, so is the rest of his lawsuit. Because, then, there would be no trial on that claim, we can expect Rossi to go all-out in his Reply. We do have that Reply at this point, but I have not studied it. I will, comparing each point with the evidence we have.


Drama ensued. See the comments below. Someone apparently spoofed Mats Lewan, using his name and, most importantly, his real email address, so that the avatar displayed would be picked up from Gravatar, which we have enabled. The second post of this user started out more or less innocuously, but then the user edited it to add a gross sexual reference. Mats complained on LENR Forum, which is a bit odd, since I’m banned there and don’t necessarily see everything. However, THHuxleynew pointed out that post here. There are some aspects of possible interest in what ensued.

On LENR Forum, Mats Lewan wrote (creating a new topic)

ALERT:
Abd ulRahman Lomax yesterday posted a blog post at http://coldfusioncommunity.net…ndo-in-cloud-cuckoo-land/ commenting some of my actions and reports.
Under the blogpost there are comments made by Mats Lewan.

These comments are NOT made by me.
They are false and fraudulent, made up in short, and if Abd ulRahman Lomax reads this, I expect him to delete those comments immediately.

Apparently I read the second remark before it was edited to add the truly offensive remark. The rest of the material in those posts matched, at least to a degree, what Mats had posted elsewhere. Impersonation is still a major public offense, not to be tolerated. I might have some view that I might express in one context, but may not want to express it in other contexts, and that should be my right. But trolls may disagree.

THHuxleynew wrote:

Mats – perhaps you could post this on Abd’s site. It will immediately let you do this – I think. Then he would certainly get it, and also he could check IP etc… Furthermore the correction gets seen faster than if you wait for Abd.

THH was completely correct. Mats’ response was relatively unskillful. The basic harm — someone thinking that was him — could be most quickly addressed by Mats himself posting a comment exposing the impersonation, and confirming this by email from his known email address. Because Mats has not posted, his first comment would need to be approved, though it might be approved simply by using that same email address. (It was on his personal domain, and he obviously uses it wherever the gravatar shows up.)

Posting on LENR forum then drew more attention, exactly what trolls often want, and the obscene comment was then repeated there, and obviously was read by moderators who didn’t care.

Alan Smith wrote:

THHuxleynew wrote:

Mats – perhaps you could post this on Abd’s site.

I don’t expect that to happen in a hurry.

Classic Alan Smith, useless snark. Why not? I used to have direct email communication with Mats. Has Mats fallen into a Krivit hole? I will agree in one way, it is odd that Mats did not communicate directly with me. Maybe the fumes on Planet Rossi finally created too much mind-rot. It would also have been somewhat effective if Mats had responded to my comment on E-Cat World, in reply to his question there, since I get notification of responses.

THHuxleynew wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

I don’t expect that to happen in a hurry.

I’ve done it for him. Though why he should not be able to do it himself is beyond me.

And indeed THH did post here, something actually useful. Alan Smith continues to emit smoke:

Able but unwilling I expect. I would be too.

Yes, Alan would be. Why? For the same reason that Alan Smith banned me from LF: he can’t stand my presence, he knows I can see what he does. So all this does come up:

AlainCo wrote:

Abd answered and leaked the IP of the fraudster

http://coldfusioncommunity.net…cuckoo-land/#comment-2382

[This link is a bit better, juicier. –Abd]

If there is disagreement with Abd, I estimate it is more about Doxxing/Transparency/Shaming vs Privacy than about tolerance to fraud.

Thanks, Alain. Zero tolerance here for fraudulent posting (which is not about disagreements, nor would it be about ordinary socking. Socking that impersonates another is generally illegal, and Mats had good reason to expect me to correct the situation. He wanted me to delete it. Because there were responses, I elected to not delete, but changed the user name to “(spoofed) Mats Lewan,” and used strike-out for the text, only actually deleting the obscenity. I think it is of interest that someone would spoof Lewan, and I think that it could be useful to find out who that would be.

And that is why I revealed the IP. I also have more data, obtained from the server logs. True administration at LENR Forum would very likely be able to identify the fraudster, at least with other accounts. However, what I found was that not only do moderators there not have access to IP information, neither do administrators; someone has server access, and that is probably Barty and the Owner. So if Barty wants to address this, he could. I’d happily correspond with him. I have also provided the information directly to Mats.

This is all standard stuff for WikiMedia Foundation administrators, and I was one. Privacy is respected, but the right to privacy is lost when one commits certain offenses. (Access to normally private IP information is confined to Checkusers and others with that level of privilege on WMF wikis, but any stand-alone blog owner, running on their own domain, has access to that information, it is in the raw server logs.)

LENR Calendar wrote:

THHuxleynew wrote:

I’ve done it for him. Though why he should not be able to do it himself is beyond me.

Abd wouldn’t be able to tell which user is the real one. Mats here has been verified.

Oh, I was able to tell. I already had been suspicious about the IP, but Lewan accessing the internet from student housing wasn’t impossible, so I didn’t reject the post on that basis. Yes. The LF Lewan account is long-standing, thus verified, which I immediately knew; however, at the first plausible allegation of spoofing, I’d have quarantined that post so that it could do no harm, pending resolution. I also have had direct email communication with Lewan, and verification would be trivial.

There is no rush, but perhaps, out of this, Lewan will start to help clean up the mess that he helped to create. I’d be happy to assist. One easy step at a time.

Living in a fog

Planet Rossi is enshrouded in fog. Some of the fog may be deliberately produced, of the nature of FUD; however, much of it is simply wishful thinking that interprets evidence in certain ways, and is not even aware of the interpretation, it imagines it is declaring fact.

The Request for Hearing filed by Rossi on Tuesday is seeking a Protective Order. The Motion is extremely brief. The title:

NOTICE OF HEARING (add-ons – to be heard if time permits) 

And then the text is in a box, unusual as well:

Plaintiffs’ Motion for Protective Order As to the Depositions of J.M. Products, Inc., United States Quantum Leap, LLC, Fulvio Fabiani, and The Boeing Company

There is no clue what this is about. There are, as discussed, two kinds of Protective Order. The one that there is a stipulation about is about protecting disclosed information, already disclosed. This may be different, this may be attempting to prevent information from being disclosed, and, if so, it does make sense that this would not be described in public, more than it has been.

On E-Cat World, Frank Acland posted:

I believe this is the first time I have heard mention of Boeing in connection with Rossi, and Boeing has not been brought up in the court case until now. The only possible connection that I can think of is that Rossi has said in the past that he had been doing some kind of research involving a jet engine, and there was some kind of connection with an aerospace company — but as usual he was pretty vague about it all.

It sounds like whatever the depositions here are, that Rossi’s team is seeking a protective order, which means they don’t want the information in the depositions to be made public. So we might not find out what Boeing’s involvement might be. But it’s interesting to see them mentioned.

This was reasonable speculation.

Ged wrote:

We know Rossi was investigating the use of the QuarkX output for jet engines. Boeing most likely would have just consulted Rossi on what output, tolerance, and other design conditions would be necessary to work with different jet engine designs, and seen the data regarding all that. Maybe they even went as far as doing simulations. This would explain why Boeing is appearing on the Leonardo’s third parties’ side of the table.

What I notice is “Leonardo’s third parties’ side of the table.” There is no indication of Boeing being on “Rossi’s side.” Rossi previously opposed subpoenas for uninvolved parties (ie., his bank, and the telephone service provider).

 barty wrote:

According to Dewey Weaver (investor in IH and good friend of Thomas Darden) Boeing was testing the E-Cat together with IH: (LENR Forum link).

Well done, barty. Straight information, clearly attributed, including the affiliation of Dewey. How this was taken:

Ged wrote:

This is the first we have heard of this… Dewey is also extremely biased (monetarily and personally! Can’t get more biased than that) and has already heavily and intentionally mislead with statements about this case many times before, as we have seen as more data is released (as well as used absurd ignorance/hyperbol like the place melting and the heat being visible from space).

That’s a personal attack without evidence. “…. heavily and intentionally mislead.” I have never seen an example of that. Dewey is not a careful witness, writing like a scientist. He is, as stated, a friend of Darden and an investor — and a consultant for Industrial Heat. This is not any secret, and it’s obvious. Dewey has strong opinions. However, this would be a simple fact, the relationship of IH and Boeing. (The place melting would be hyperbole; it merely would get too hot for human habitation, if a megawatt were being dissipated in that warehouse without heat handling equipment, so … what was “misleading” about a little hyperbole, easily recognized as such or at least marginal? Some stuff might have melted, in fact, with a megawatt. Don’t carry a chocolate bar into the place! I don’t recall seeing that statement, but Dewey wrote quite a lot on Mats’ blog and elsewhere. “Visible from space” is quite possible, for a megawatt dissipated in a warehouse. Depends on what one was looking with, of course, but that much heat should be visible in the IR from a satellite, and, in fact, it is quite possible that IH purchased such images instead of hiring a helicopter, which is what I’d thought they might have done. If Dewey said “visible from space,” I’d certainly consider it possible! It makes sense, but not to someone who will knee-jerk reject anything from such a biased source.

In short, I don’t believe him or anyone till we get more actual information.

There is no basis for considering it a lie. It’s testimony, “information.” Sure, one may want to see corroboration, but if we consider the side Ged is arguing on, the constant flow of disinformation from Rossi, with a series of clear lies, exposed by uncontroverted evidence, and this comment about Dewey stands out in its full ridiculousness. Sure. Wait and see … but meanwhile, what is stronger, baseless speculations or actual testimony from someone likely to know?

Could be Boeing just made or leased some important piece of equipment and that is the extent of their involvement, or gave some consulting not directly related to the E-cat (like consulting on how to build a jet engine), and much less than actually testing one. Considering they are showing up on Rossi’s side and not being brought out by IH, that also is suggestive (could be they are the ones behind JMP in that case, that is how baseless we can speculate with such meager info on this surprise appearance).

One could speculate endlessly, it is always possible. However, none of these are at all reasonable in the sense of being substantially likely. Further, Rossi has actually commented on this, and this more or less nails it.

It’s hilarious: his attorneys have told him over and over, he claims, not to comment on the case, but …. he does.


    • Darius

      Dr Rossi, Now there comes a new claim that Boeing tested the Ecat for/with IH, and it did not work for them, were you present during this demonstration?

    • Andrea Rossi

      Darius:
      I never knew of this demo and I do not know with which apparatus it has been done. I apprehended of it during the litigation. The replications and tests I have been informed of from September 2013 through February 2016 are the ones on the base of which Cherokee Fund Partners-IH have collected 250 millions in UK and China. No further comment.
      Warm Regards,
      A.


Now, Rossi lies, so we cannot assume this is true. However, take it straight: Rossi did not know of the relationship with Boeing “until the litigation.” This matches Dewey’s story, this was between IH and Boeing. Then, of course, Rossi introduces his meme about $250 million from UK and China, which has, so far, no support. He continues the drumbeat about Cherokee being involved, when it has been Industrial Heat from the beginning. Yes, Darden got entree by being Cherokee principals, but Cherokee would have no business investing in Rossi. This was something Darden and Vaughn wanted to do, personally — and obviously.

Now, this is fascinating: If Rossi doesn’t know anything about the testing (probably not “demo”)  — and I would expect IH to have arranged fully independent testing, with Rossi not present, very much with Rossi not present! — then why a Protective Order motion?

This was last-minute, tacked into today’s hearing. If there is a difficult issue, I’d expect a temporary Order while they argue it.

One thing is clear from the Rossi comment, assuming he is not lying. This was not about Rossi and Boeing collaborating in some way. All that speculation was just typical Planet Rossi, as Dewey pointed out on LENR Forum:

Dewey wrote:

Bob – they’ll continue to create alternate realities as long as they possibly can. Fake news is real news on Planet Rossi.


Update, February 10, 2017:

“Darius” asked again.


Darius
February 9, 2017 at 1:34 PM
Dr Rossi, According to the source on LENRForum, IH did in fact present a ecat to Boeing and that it did not work. That would seem highly unusal that the priciple engineer was not part of such an important presentation?

Andrea Rossi
February 9, 2017 at 6:45 PM
Darius:
No comment.


Rossi deletes spam and other garbage. It’s clear that, at the very least, he approves what he wants to be seen. Most observers seem to have concluded that many posts on JONP are sock puppets, i.e., Rossi himself.

Here, he makes an argument that would be typical for Rossi. How could one expect the ecat to work without Rossi being present? An easy answer: of course not, since it never has worked without Rossi Grease.

If Dewey is correct, IH asked Rossi to assist with their work to verify the technology, and Rossi refused, being too busy with the “test under way.” What Dewey has claimed now is that they asked or allowed Boeing to do their own verification. This would not be a “presentation.” Presentations are what Rossi has done for years. He’s put on a show, a “demonstration.” But what everyone sane wanted, and a real commercial effort would absolutely need, would be devices that can be made and work according to clear instructions (such as a Patent!), not with Rossi Grease.

This is so obvious that it’s a complete wonder that Rossi supporters manage to show their faces from time to time. MrSelfSustain just changed his user name on LENR Forum to THEDEBATEISUSELESS, and then dropped a LANCB message.

Kablooey!

For those who don’t know colloquial English, definition of kablooey.

For those who need it spelled out:

Yesterday’s filings:

Mediation reached an impasse. There has been some misunderstanding. Attendance at this mediation conference was obligatory. Coming to an agreement was not obligatory, and the mediator will not criticize the parties, generally, if they showed up and appeared to be participating in good faith, which could still be quite stubborn.

IH filed a motion to extend certain deadlines, adding 60 days to the dates set by the Judge in D.E. 23.  These remain before the trial date set in that Order, but the latest deadline is only two days before the “calendar call” on June 20, 2016. See below for more implications.

With the motion for extension, IH attached copies of emails involving Rossi, Bass, and J.M. Products. Summary:

Britt Wilson, 2012

Continue reading “Kablooey!”

In the heart of Planet Rossi

What is “Planet Rossi”? This was originally a pejorative term, apparently coined by Dewey Weaver, for the community that “believes in” Andrea Rossi’s work. However, I recommend to those who support Rossi that they accept the language. “Planet” really just means a community. Human communities will have characteristics, but individual “members” may vary greatly.

There are two hearts to Planet Rossi. The first heart is the Rossi blog, which is how Rossi uses the Journal of Nuclear Physics, regularly commenting there in comments that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the article they are appended to. This is almost the only regular information as to what “Rossi Says.”

The other is E-catworld.com (ECW), apparently founded by Frank Acland, who authors most posts. While critics of Andrea Rossi often think that commentary on ECW is heavily censored, I have not personally found that to be so.

The occasion for this post, today, is a discussion on ECW of the recent disclosure of “interested parties” by J.M. Products, see Does Rossi’s “customer” matter?
Continue reading “In the heart of Planet Rossi”