New Energy Times: Interview with Sergio Focardi, June 14, 2011

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

New Energy Times: Interview with Giuseppe Levi, June 14, 2011

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Ny Teknik: Rossi breaks with Greek Defkalion

"Andrea Rossi, inventor of the ‘E-cat’, has terminated his agreement with the Greek pilot customer Defkalion. The planned launch of a one megawatt heat plant in October is now supposed to take place in the United States."
Continue to article

Andrea Rossi terminates agreement with Defkalion

There has been circulating a rumor that there has been a split between Andrea Rossi and Defkalion Green Technologies. Today it was confirmed by Rossi himself in his blog.
The press-release can be found here

"Marcia Pires

August 7th, 2011 at 12:50 AM

Dear Andrea Rossi,

There is a rumor that Defkalion is not working with you anymore. Is it true?

Best,

Marcia.

Andrea Rossi

August 7th, 2011 at 7:52 AM

Dear Marcia Pires:
Thank you for your question, and here is the
PRESS RELEASE :
Bologna-Rome (Italy) August 4th 2011
EFA- Energia da Fonti Alternative srl, the Italian Company through which the rights for the production of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat were granted to Praxen Defkalion Green Technologies LTD, publicly announces that the License and Technology Transfer Agreement between the two companies has been recently terminated. All business relationships with Praxen , the Cyprus based company that owns the Greek company Defkalion Green Technologies S.A., have been cancelled and asof today neither Praxen nor Defkalion, nor any other Greek company whatsoever holds any rights for the production of the E-Cat or for any other exploitation of Andrea Rossi’s technology.
Furthermore Andrea Rossi and EFA announce that no information, nor industrial secret, nor any technology whatsoever has been neither transferred, nor disclosed, neither to Praxen, nor to Defkalion, nor to any other Greek company whatsoever and currently Andrea Rossi and EFA are not planning to deal with any other project in Greece.
Not one single test, of the many demonstrations of the E-Cat technology held around the world, has ever been done in Greeceand no E-Cat has ever been brought, produced, or assembled in the territory of the Ellenic Republic: so not only the technology is still fully owned by Andrea Rossi’s company, Leonardo Corporation, but it still remains a well preserved industrial secret.
Any declaration or public announcement of third parties claiming possession of rights on the E-Cat technology and/or indide knowledge of said technology, as well as any statement of third parties in conflict with the above facts shall be considered a fake and treated as misleading information.

Andrea Rossi is the inventor of the “Method and Apparatus for carrying out Nickel and Hydrogen Exothermal reactions” (known to the general public as E-Cat) for which international patent demand no. WO2009/125444 is pending and Italian Patent office has already been issued on April 6th, 2011 the final patent no. 0001387256.
EFA Energia da Fonti Alternative s.r.l. is incorporated in Italy.
Leonardo Corporation is incorporated in New Hampshire, USA.
Contact:
EFA srl- Via Marsili 4- 40124 Bologna- Italy"

New Energy Times: Steven Krivit´s third report

“In Bologna, we say if  it crows like a rooster, and scratches like a rooster, then it is a rooster!”
—Giuseppe Levi,  RAI-TV, May 3, 2011


Steven Krivit´s  awaited third report is finally published here.
(Note: Although I was happy to compile a logo for this purpose, I have no connection to New Energy Times, other than that I really appreciated Steven´s critical approach in his previous reporting on this issue) 

The clown that stirred the hornet´s nest!

A clown, a snake and some hornets!

Yesterday there was a comment on the blog Ecatnews :
"Rossi gave me a personal demonstration of a group of 4 e-cats working at his premises outside Bologna on Friday 8th. 
I saw essentially the same set up reported by Krivit in June. I was there in the capacity of friendly off-the-record adviser re patenting issues. Whilst I didn’t like the tone of Krivit’s June 16 report, I had arrived in Bologna full of optimism. I am afraid that I now fully share Krivit’s opinion. 
There are a number of reasons for this. Here are a few. As has been pointed out numerous times on this blog, the dryness of the steam/water vapur is abolutely crucial to the viability of the e-cat. 
Imagine my astonishment and disappointment on finding that Rossi makes no attempt to monitor the dryness of the output and there was no appropiate equipment visible on the premises. It follows that Rossi can not possibly know whether he has 1,2 5 or even 10 percent unvaporized phase by weight. Passive observers like myself, Krivit, Essen & Kullander have even less chance of determining this crucial parameter. Even worse, since the output tube went straight through a hole in the wall to be vented/flushed outside, it could have been pure hot water and nobody, least of all Rossi, could possibly know. 
Basically, the whole set up defies even approximate quantitative calorimetric analysis. 
Another odd thing was that Rossi pumped up the electrical power for a minute or two shortly before turning it off and allowing me to see that the water kept an output temperature of 100.5 for a couple of minutes. This gave me the impression that it was a performance for my benefit and not the rigorous testing procedure that the technician sitting in front of the PC appeared to suggest.
The final clincher for me is that Rossi made a point of telling me that he was currently vaporizing 15 litres / hour. BUT, the peristaltic pump was exactly the same one he uses in all demonstrations and it was pulsing about once every 2.5 seconds. I make that 3 litres / hour, only 20 percent of what Rossi told me verbally. And yet this small flow was being shared amongst 4 e-cat modules. That isnt much of a stress test is it ? 
The small chimney will result in a small overpressure and a boiling temperature > 100 Celsius, so I am not impressed by 100.5 Celsius I must admit that I didnt reach these dismal conclusion on the day. It took about 3 days of pondering what I had seen before all the pieces of the puzzle dropped into place. It may be this explains why Rossi has been able to convince so many qualified people.
You dont want to believe it is just a gross and extremely simple circus trick. He certainly has a charming manner; I liked him and would never suggest he has criminal intent. My hunch is that he did make a discovery that goes beyond the level acheived by Piantelli and Focardi, but that he got too enthusiastic too soon, before he had really done due diligence. He is now trapped in the web of commitments and claims he has made. A tragic figure really.
PS I was in experimental atomic physics research at Oxford from 1981-1989 and have since that time been an employee of the European Patent Office."

Rossi commented on his blog as follows; 
"Very funny: this clown, named xxxxxx xxxxx, wrote me saying he was an officer of the Patent Office and that he wanted give me suggestions.
I received him to get those suggestions, curious to know about what he had to suggest. I was working in my Bologna lab when I received him and he saw one E-Cat under test for no more that 30 seconds, after which I invited him to exit. He made no tests, he saw nothing, he just has taken a 30 seconds glance at a totally closed box. He saw nothing, I said nothing, also because he inspired me no trust, because said he is a Quantum Physicist, but said so much stupidities that not even a 13 years old student of middle school could say, so I understood he was an impostor.
We agreed, after a short meeting, that he would have mailed to me a text of a patent that he thought would have had many probabilities to be accepted: I was very baffled, because I could not understand how an officer of the European Patent Office could behave like that: he asked me to be paid by my company’s shares in change of his help!
After some day I received from this clown ( who until that moment spoke only positively of all what he saw) some text, simply ridiculous, for a new patent (I conserve the copies, of course) and in these texts there was written that my patent was to be based on an already granted patent made from one competitor of mine, obviously a “friend” of his. I made a research and discovered that the patent of my competitor he referred to had not been granted, but had been refused. Of course he has been sent from such competitor to spy and to try to mess up with patents. I wrote him a mail inviting him not to contact me again: he was clearly an impostor. At this point he made the comment on Ecatnews…
Conclusion: he lies when he says he made a test, he lies when he says he has seen an E-Cat enough to say anything about it (just has taken a 30 seconds look), he lies if he says he has seen the steam, he saw nothing because the circuit was ermetically closed, he lies when he says that he is an officer of the Patent Office (if he is, he made a crime, because he asked me, in change of his help, shares of Leonardo Corporation), he lies when he says he is an expert of patents, he lies when he says that my competitor he works with has a patent on this matter granted in 1995.
It is clear that somebody, desperate of the fact that a 1 MW plant is close to be started up from us, is trying to use all the methods of a snake to try to put clubs in the wheels. But all this is just clownery: my plants will give evidence in the real market of the validity of my effect.
It is also clear that at this point I cannot allow any more info or courtesy visit before the start up of my 1 MW plant.
I have evidence, registrations and witnesses of all what I wrote here: BY THE WAY, ALL MY LABS AND FACTORIES, FOR SECURITY ISSUES, ARE SUPPLIED BY HIDDEN CAMERAS AND MICROPHONES TO REGISTER EVERYTHING WHICH HAPPENS AND IS SAID INSIDE.
Warm Regards,
A.R."


Maybe it is a bit rude of me to post this, as the original commentator later writes:
"Can i ask you, for the sake of my family, to remove my submission to your blog. It was sent in good faith, because I really care about the LENR field and don’t want it to suffer yet another set back, but I see I may have stirred up a hornet’s nest."
It´s interesting to note that his observations and thoughts have not been met in a nice way, obviously, also by people that have not seen the E-Cat in action themselves. 
What to say...? Hold Your Hornets!, perhaps?

Sergio Focardi interviewed by Energy Lab

Sergio Focardi

Sergio Focardi was recently interviewed at Energy Lab.
It was re-published at Daniele Passerini´s blog right here. (English translation by Google)

Edit: Rossi commented the interview as follows:
"Andrea Rossi

July 16th, 2011 at 8:20 AM

Dear Martin:
First of all, thank you for the interesting link.
The English translation is very confusing. I spoke with Prof. Sergio Focardi by telephone few minutes ago, he explained to me that he wanted to say that when we made our tests heating the water we did not calculate the steam that was produced, so that the output has been underestimated.
The Italian journalist, by the way, made a wrong statement: I never worked in G.B. with Petroldragon, which has always been unknown in G.B.
About Petroldragon, please go to http://www.ingandrearossi.com
Warm Regards,
A.R."

Andrea Rossi interview at EV World, July 11

Andrea Rossi

As you already might know Andrea Rossi participated in an interview at EV World that was published July 11.
You find the audio version of the interview here
It is transcribed by Hank Mills at PESN here
Hank has as well summorized the recent happenings concerning Rossi and the E-Cat here

Ecatreport:"Andrea Rossi on the E-Cat"

"Ecatreport met with Dr. Rossi in Stockholm on the 5^th of July during his business trip to Uppsala University, where talks about E-cat had occurred earlier the same day with Sven Kullander and Hanno Essén. Rossi was kind enough to give us a short interview about his amazing discovery, many anecdotes never published before."
Continue to interview with Andrea Rossi, on Ecatreport here


Edit: The second part of the interview is here
This second part includes a statement, of unclear origin, that "The management team of both Defkalion and AmpEnergo will meet on the 14th July (2011) together with NASA for an important discussion regarding the research and business development around the E-Cat. After the initial meeting with NASA, Defkalion GT and Ampenergo will sit down and develop a joint program for the introduction of the E-Cat as a main energy source to the world."

Free Energy, Baby!

Even technologies - and research projects - that fail to live up to its expectations, might have unexpected spin-off effects, hard to imagine from the beginning. If the E-Cat will not produce energy as promised, there might be an album release to look forward to, instead.
Angel Cold Fusion Song by Elienation
Source: Cold Fusion Now

Bologna physicist speaks about coldfusion July 23

There is a conference announced about the Bologna cold-fusion experiments, that will include participation by


Mario Menichella
Sergio Focardi (recorded video)
Francesco Celani
Daniele Passerini
Read more on Passerini´s blog 22.passi.blogspot.com or in this article (Translated by Google)


You find the list of participants and schedule for the event here (Italian)

Defkalion Green Technologies Press Conference

Hopefully English subtitles will be added soon.
Defkalion Green Technologies press conference

And now for something completely different!

The silence of the Swedish media

In connection with the 14th of January demonstration some Swedish media paid attention to Andrea Rossi and the E-Cat. An e-mail with a suggestion sent to various Swedish news-channels resulted in at least some coverage in four different news-channels; TV4, an article in Ny Teknik, as well as a small article in tabloid Aftonbladet and an even smaller note in Dagens Nyheter. 

In the following articles in Ny Teknik, Mats Lewan has taken a
role as reporter that has been criticised for being way too credulous to Andrea Rossi´s claims.
Except for Ny Teknik´s follow-up there has been an almost complete absence of news about the E-Cat  in Swedish mainstream media. (after the initial articles mentioned)
Many starts to wonder why, and the most fantastic conspiracy theories are growing.

I have been in contact with two of the largest newspapers in Sweden; Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter.

None of them have yet replied to the questions;

1) Is the E-Cat seen upon as being to insignificant to report about?
2) If not, what is the reason for the absence of coverage?


The situation is similar also for the rest of the world, except Italy and Greece, where at least some coverage has been done. 
Two links that discuss the issue;
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?23616-Cold-Fusion-The-most-important-energy-NOT-to-be-released
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/04/10661/media-ignores-energy-breakthrough-worry-free-nuclear-power

E-Cat Report: "E-Cats in the Americas – Enter AmpEnergo"

E-Cat Report has compiled a brief description of Ampenergo, that is said to receive part of the royalties on all sales of licenses and products built on the E-Cat in the Americas. 
Continue to post at E-Cat Report.
Here is an interview (from May 16th) with Craig Cassarino, one of the founders of Ampenergo, in Ny Teknik

Defkalion Green Technologies board-members

The following information was published at the user-forum at Defkalion Green Technologies, 


(Soon to be updated with more information regarding the specific people involved.)

Directors:
George Sortikos, born 1942 – Chairman 
Engineer. Ex banker and industrialist (high tech ceramics). Ex president of the state owned Greek Industrial Investment Bank (ETBA) in 80-90s and founder of Omega Bank.(90s) 

George Xanthoulis, born in 1987 – Deputy Chairman, 


Aurel David, born in 1969 – CEO
Swiss, Banker with vast experience in project finance and logistics. Ex president of a Montenegro Bank.

Alexandros Xanthoulis, born 1954 – Board member, representative of Praxen
Macro-Economics, Greek-Canadian. Former EU officer, Head for Energy and Financial Reconstruction EU delegation in Central Asia (90s).

Christos Stremmenos, born 1932 – Board Member
Chemical Engineer. Professor (retired) in the University of Bologna, ex Ambassador of Greece in Italy

Ioannis Chatzichristos, born 1958 – Board Member
Mathematics/Systems theory, vast experience in software development, management and IT project management. 

Andreas Meidanis, born 1953 – Board Member
Industrialist 

Mouafak Saouachni, born 1961 – Board Member
Medical doctor, Greek-Israeli, responsible in labour health and environmental safety

Andreas Drougas, born 1945 – Board Member
Mathematics/IT, ex-executive consultant in LARCO (Greek Nickel mining co, now state owned), vast experience in management consulting and IT

Professor Peter Hagelstein on coldfusion research

Peter L. Hagelstein

During recent days several prominent researchers have expressed concern that if the E-Cat turn out to be a scam, the research-field of LENR will have even more difficulties to reach credibility from the established science community in the future. 
Here is some older links about the issue. 


Professor Peter L. Hagelstein is a principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His recent efforts have included continuing investigations of low-energy nuclear reactions. (LENR) 
Here is an interview from March 2010 where he explains his interest and his experience in the LENR-field, and the practical problems related to it. Quote from interview;


PH:"With respect to funding, I don't know that funding has eased up in this field. For example, I don't have much in the way of funding these days. Most of my research is unsupported, and that's been true for a while. I'm going to the conference because I'm buying the ticket with my credit card, and I'm paying the conference fee with my credit card, and so forth. So, if there is funding, that's very nice, but I'm not familiar with available funding in this field these days.

TB: The one other big question I do have, and this is of course the one that's on everyone's mind, would be "how long do you think it would be before this technology is in use?". Knowing what you know now, and assuming things go relatively well.PH: If things go on the way that they're going on today, the answer is that it's never going to happen. There's fewer and fewer people each year, and the amount of resources are not great, and basically we're getting older. We're not going to live forever — I don't think we're going to live forever, anyway. Unless something changes, there's a very good change we're not going to finish our work before there's none of us left to do any of it. Generally new people have not been joining the field, and there's a lot of reasons for that. If a young person thinks of joining the field, he or she does it at peril of having a career ruined by association with being in the field. So, it's not guaranteed at the moment that this technology is actually going to make it into any kind of commercial used without a fundamental change in how things work. There needs to be some support in the field that's more significant than what's present now by a couple of orders of magnitude — at least. We need to find a way to remove the taint, such that young people can join in the field so we can hand down what we've learned — both in training up scientists in the field and making the science available in good documentation, journal papers, textbooks and that kind of thing."

Concering the E-Cat, Hagelstein made the following comments the 15th April this year.

 "They've (Rossi and Focardi) been keeping the technical details under wraps because they aren't patent protected, so it's hard to tell what they're doing from the photos and written descriptions. There is essentially no information that's useful to ascertain whether they've done it."
 "If some arrangement could be made we would love to do a test of the E-Cat at MIT to verify that it works," Hagelstein said.

This is precisely what the research-field of LENR would need; a serious, well-respected researcher on MIT, that is not dismissing the possibility of a scientific breakthrough, but is interested to perform further tests.
One might think that it would be just what Andrea Rossi and Defkalion Green Technologies as well as its investors and future customers also would strive for. However, Andrea Rossi responded not only professor Hagelstein but all "wannavalidate of the Planet" as follows; 

• There is no time and no need for any validation.
• If anyone want to validate the revolutionary claims, they have to buy a plant to do so themselves.

Excerpts from Andrea Rossi´s reply;
"Should I accept, 24 hours per day, 365days per year would not be enough to be so much validated."
"Not to mention the fact that the real target of the wannabe validators, in 99 cases out of 100, is to get information and make industrial espionage, as already occurred to me with another “validator” with whom we severed any collaboration after getting evidence of the fact that data obtained from us have been utilized for a competition."I thank anyway Prof. Peter Hagelstein for his attention. If the MIT is interested to our product, they can buy a plant, and make all the validations they want.."

Andrea Rossi obviously does not trust the established science community. 
But we all are supposed to trust Andrea Rossi. Without asking the hard questions. 
Steven B. Krivit did. But instead of getting answers to the critical issues he highlighted in his preliminary report ,he was called a"snake".

Here is a presentation from Berkeley  (not connected with Hagelstein, though) about prevoius coldfusion claims, that focus on Fleishmann&Pons. It is understandable that many are highly suspicious of new colf-fusion-claims and looks forward to independent testing. Hopefully this will be done in the R&D-programme at Bologna, that is claimed to be initiated soon.

Second thoughts about blogging

My name is Daniel and I just put up links about the E-Cat on this blog. 
I suddenly had some second thoughts about doing so.
I know hardly anything about nuclear-physics. (Nor does the E-Cat,  apparently)
In my life I probably have worried more about the future of jazz, than the future of the planet.
But this story fascinates me. It´s a hell of a scam, or a truly fantastic invention, that´s for sure. The E-cat, if it works, has the potential to change the world to the better, for so many people, on so many levels. That creates hope. And perhaps false hope. At least for me. Although the "scam-alarm" is shouting out loud on every level, I might continue to post links here for a while...maybe it can save some Google-searchtime for others. That´s the only reason I can think of for the blog to exist.

However, soon the blog have 100.000 visits, and it happens to be growing fast in recent days, after the Defkalion press-conference last week. As I have read in several discussion forums, many people are thinking about risking their own money and invest in the Defkalion business. Things are getting serious, and therefore I probably have to take certain responsibilities(?). I try to find links that focus on the skeptics point of view. However, the established science community still prefer to be silent, and the people writing about E-Cat are often devoted bloggers that seems to believe in anything but self-criticism, and there is (maybe) a risk that this tiny little blog becomes part of a thousand others that repeats lies(?) until people start to believe them. If so(?) I will just stop... What do U think?
If you have the time to comment, please do so. Thanks./ DL
energycatalyzer@gmail.com

Two short interviews recorded after Defkalion's press conference.

Two short interviews recorded after Defkalion's press conference. from Giacomo Guidi on Vimeo.

Update on the Bologna research study

A Bolognese radio station, Città del Capo Radio Metropolitana, recently interviewed Loris Ferrari and Giuseppe Levi from the University of Bologna about their R&D contract with Andrea Rossi.
According to the article, the study will last for at least a year, financed by Rossi, and it will take at least six months for the results to be published. (Although the research group may release some preliminary results as early as December, 2011.)
Some aspects of the research may be subject to trade secret protections.

You can read a summary of the interview here. (translated via Google)

Steven B. Krivit´s second report

Quote:
"This is the second in a series of reports based on my interviews with Andrea Rossi, creator of a device he calls the Energy Catalyzer, or E-Cat, Sergio Focardi, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, and Giuseppe Levi, a professor in the university’s Department of Physics, and based on my investigation of their claims of a low-energy nuclear reaction device that produces commercially useful levels of excess heat." 
You find the report here