Rossi vs IH: (Update: Sep. 9 20– James A. Bass now a Third Party in IH’s Counter Complaint)


    I'm sure that they just put out what Rossi told them. He lied. The Doral affair was not what any sane observer would call an "independent third party validation." Rossi was living in the reactor, more or less. He had full control of the environment, and he chose Penon. IH did presumably pay half the cost of Penon for Ferrara, per the agreement, and may have paid Penon for services regarding Doral. All this, though, can be filed under IH's decision to support Rossi as far as possible. Rossi wanted Penon to measure plant output. So they agreed to that. This was not an agreement to a Guaranteed Performance Test, which would never have been approved under the Doral conditions, with a megawatt of steam heat supposedly going through a wall into a secret area.


    If they did, it was astonishingly stupid, but if they did, something specific would have been alleged by Rossi's attorney, and it wasn't. Just an agreement to a measurement protocol and my guess is that the magic words "Guaranteed Performance Test" were rigorously avoided.


    What measurements made by representatives of Industrial Heat? By Barry West, intrepid electronics tech? Expert with a soldering iron? (don't knock it. I was an electronics tech and so was my son. But expert in calorimetry, no.) Who were the representatives of Leonardo Corporation? On the face, there would be only Rossi. Rossi classified Fabiani -- his old friend -- as a representative of IH.


    They claim that IH "desired "independent verification of the sustainability of the energy production." I'm sure IH did. Doral was not set up for that. It was set up as another Rossi-managed demonstration. Blatantly. With his old friend as alleged ERV and probably without consent as to that role.


    The interesting thing is that in a genuine independent sale of power, that a customer would pay for delivered power, at the megawatt level, would be a strong case for the reality of it! Well? Where did the $30,000 per month come from? This is traceable and, I assume, will be traced. IH subpoenas possibly looking for this were quashed, but that was procedural, it may have been premature for a civil case.


    I love the language of the release: "According to Andrea Rossi, Leonardo Corporation considers ..."


    Leonardo Corporation is wholly-owned by Andrea Rossi, "CEO." The only other officer (President) is Henry Johnson, also the President of JM Products, Inc., the alleged "customer."


    If someone wants to live on Planet Rossi while maintaining any sanity, at least recognize how this looks to people not in thrall to Rossi!

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    STDM,
    IH denies there was a GPT
    IH denies there was an ERV for a test in Florida, or that Penon was the ERV in Florida.
    Even Rossi does not state that Penon was the ERV for Florida in his lawsuit. He only says that Penon was the ERV for the Validation.


    Rossi carefully crafts what he says to create the impressions he wants. Rossi does say that Penon was the ERV for the GPT, but in other documents (such as the press release on April 6, issued by Silver Law Group). However, he does not want to call attention to the lack of consent to the test and to the appointment of Penon. So he sets up an implication without direct statement. Very Rossi.


    The original Agreement was written to provide that, by default, the ERV for the Validation Test would continue for the GPT, unless otherwise agreed. However, the original GPT was to happen on IH premises, and they would easily be able to arrange independent verification -- measure the power dissipation! -- and so a problem with the ERV would become apparent. But that original GPT did not happen, because Rossi avoided it, probably because of exactly that ability of IH to verify. One failed GPT would be enough to reduce the total Agreement compensation to $11.5 million from $100.5 million.


    (Who the hell set it up this way? It's fascinating. The agreement looks to IH supporters to be favorable to Rossi, and to Rossi supporters to be a rip-off of Rossi. In fact, it was slapdash. IH put enough in there to be able to protect themselves, though it might take some argument at equity. Rossi created what he thought he could manipulate, but was basically incompetent legally and with regard to real-world business. And did not apparently consult, I think he does not trust lawyers.)


    The original GPT requirement was covered by the Second Amendment. Assuming that amendment was valid (the strongest position, my opinion, in spite of the signature defect), it established a requirement for written consent of all parties to the start date of the GPT. It looks like that never happened. This requirement protected IH, for sure, but it did not screw Rossi over. If IH refused to agree to a reasonable GPT, Rossi would have a case at equity. But IH would have agreed, my opinion, to any good test, or even to much easier tests of individual reactors without the problem of Monster Heat. Rossi could have saved himself that year of obsessive work, and if he had a real technology, still received the $89 million. He could still do it, in fact, if he'd drop the lawsuit, under some conditions. IH might give him time, but probably no more money. The testing could be set up in Sweden. Either IH would participate there, or he would get a deal going with Hydro Fusion and then help IH set up an independent test in the U.S. Bottom line, if IH cannot manufacture devices that work when independently tested -- no Rossi presence needed! -- they don't have anything they can use to raise the money to pay Rossi.


    That is real business: cooperative. It requires understanding the needs of the other party and finding ways to meet all the needs. IH needed a fully independent test, fully satisfactory to them, so they could, without fraud, raise the money not only to pay Rossi but to then fully develop products (or support others in doing so). Without that testing, they could sell neither increased investment nor sublicenses. Rossi was neglecting and fighting against the IH crucial interests, and without meeting their interests, they could not meet his.


    His paranoid demand for control, if he actually had something real, completely defeated his purpose. Unless his purpose was to be rejected (and that actually happens, people do this, but not usually consciouslly.) The level of paranoia that's obvious is so high that it is possible the disorder created a conviction in him that he had real technology when he didn't. This, however, reaches beyond what I can clearly distinguish.


    Paranoia strikes deep.

    Quote from Bob

    While Dr. Duncan has not been accused of fraud, you have stated that he has spent (millions?) over the year(s) at Missouri U with nothing to show for it.


    Duncan facilitated SKINR but did not run it. I saw the SKINR labs and the work they were doing. This is long-term research, not short-term. I was not thrilled by some of the early work. However, they have graduate students getting their feet wet with LENR. This is a report from Current Science last year. http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0562.pdf


    They are not on a "commercial development" track, even though they were formed out of a company, Energetics Technologies. This is pure science. Pure science may work for years finding "nothing" that a pseudoskeptic would consider useful. However, what I notice, looking at the article today, is that they are looking for low-energy X-rays, and if they can find them with the apparatus they are developing, they may be peeking into the LENR reaction before the energy appears as heat. This is one of the two major theories of how the heat is transferred from excited nuclei to the apparatus: X-rays (or low-energy gammas, which are the same thing) or phonons. If they can find those X-rays, and especially if they can then correlate with helium, we would be a giant step closer to functional LENR theory. This is worth serious and patient investigation. SKINR was only funded with $5.5 million for 5 years. That is not a lot for this kind of research. If they can show some progress, I am sure they can get more money.


    Meanwhile, those graduate students are the future. This has long been missing. It is being supplied. I know of other projects. It's happening.


    Real skeptics love that genuine research is taking place. Pseudoskeptics consider it a waste of money and time, total stupidity. Somehow they overlook that both U.S. DoE reviews recommended this research.


    I have blocked STDM because ... he is either a troll or so ignorant and obsessed that he might as well be one. But I do sometimes look at posts of blocked users, now that I know it's one-button. In this case, I decided to answer this "logic" issue, with fact.


    IH did not "make" Penon the ERV for the Validation test. They accepted Penon at Rossi's insistence, and, from their account, Rossi refused to allow independent experts to observe, saying it would "cause big trouble" for him. They accepted that (they could have refused to accept Penon, and an impasse could have been created. My model for their behavior has it that they had already decided to go ahead, period.)


    That they accepted the test does not show lack of doubt. This is a "logic" that makes far too many assumptions about how people on the level of Darden and Vaughn operate. They are very much not "ordinary."


    It is understandable, though, that one would think that the placing of $10 million in escrow for transfer to Rossi was an acceptance; thinking that acceptance indicates the absence of doubt, though, is completely failing to understand how venture capitalists work. They allow doubt, and make choices based on assessed probabilities and potential benefits. If the Rossi technology is real, the license they bought could be worth a trillion dollars. If there is an 0.1% chance that the Rossi Effect is real, that makes it worth $1 billion. $11.5 million is a sound bet, if you can afford to lose the $11.5 million, and they could handle that, and were fully prepared for it.


    However, as to the "second test," they deny having "made" Penon the "ERV," and so assuming this as part of an argument about my "logic" is crazy.


    My assessment is that IH never consented to the GPT, that the impression that they did is all based on "Rossi says." There is no evidence in the case, Rossi v. Darden, that they accepted the Doral installation as a GPT. I find it extraordinarily likely that there was no signed, written agreement, as expressly required by the Second Amendment, and no act establishing estoppel (a defacto consent to what they knew was a GPT).


    All this has been explained and described and supported with evidence, many times, and that STDM continues to assert what, if he were paying attention, he would know is either wrong or at least contested, shows why I have blocked him. It gets old very fast. I find it hilarious that an anonymous troll calls a known person, writing under his real name -- the same as Jed Rothwell -- a troll!

    @MrSelfSustain


    The argument that IH are culpable in letting such an obviously flawed test continue is very common. It is certainly annoying that such a very bad test was apparently endorsed by IH for so long.


    But I'd like you to put yourself in the position of IH - as (we can imagine) they would have been. This is best guess speculation, since we cannot without direct disclosure be sure, but:


    (1) They were determined to find out whether Rossi had anything.
    (2) Rossi behaved in a highly deceitful and difficult way (this part is not speculation we have direct evidence for example from the letter re Hydrofusion).
    (3) They had to do the best for their shareholders, and allow the possibility that in spite of not having enabled them to get stuff working, still Rossi could have working plant. Equally they had to be in a position to keep their $100M safe in the case that Rossi had nothing. Possibly they also had to avoid being painted as "bad capitalists screwing Rossi" which we can see now happens very easily and is bad for them and the LENR field generally.


    In restrospect, knowing that Rossi has nothing, it is easy to criticise. However you have to work out an alternate IH strategy that satisfies their duties given the uncertainty they had at the time. They were more tolerant of Rossi deceit than you might be - because they knew when they went on board that Rossi had a shady past and was capable of behaving deceitfully over his e-cat tests.

    Quote

    Real skeptics love that genuine research is taking place. Pseudoskeptics consider it a waste of money and time, total stupidity. Somehow they overlook that both U.S. DoE reviews recommended this research.


    Just for the record. I think it highly unlikely that LENR exists except as some (chemical) anomalies in metal-H or metal-D systems and a load of experimental anomalies of disparate types. Nevertheless I welcome research that will scrutinise matters deeply and produce definite positive or negative results. The only research I don't like is that which is conducted in a way likely not to generate definite results - for example excess heat measurements with insufficient controls. That seems both a waste of money and distraction.


    Whether that makes me skeptic or pseudo-skeptic as those things are defined here I could not say. Opinion seems divided.

    @THHuxley


    IH know that high-COP LENR+ works. They have invested in multiple companies that have it. They have a high-COP "IH-Cat" version of their own. There is evidence for this. They "improved" upon Rossi's e-Cat and from then on likely had no intentions of ever paying the third installment.


    It is all laid out in the open in this thread (one of the more classic lenr-forum exchanges):


    Industrial Heat Amends Answer to Rossi’s Complaint on Aug 11th

    • Official Post
    Quote from STDM

    For the first payment(10million) of the contract Penon was the ERV. IH made Penon AGAIN the ERV for the second test of 89 millions. Which shows that they didn't doubt the first test. If they had doubts about the first test, you think they would hire him for the second?



    STDM,


    In IH's counter claim they clearly indicate a distrust of Rossi even before the VT began. Understandable as Rossi had already evoked Italian law to reduce the agreed upon 30 unit configuration to 18, and then raised a huge red flag by refusing to allow IH have "one of the big testing companies work alongside Penon"...which Rossi claimed: "would create big problems for him".

    Perhaps Rossi detected their suspicions, because when IH showed up at the VT testing site (I assume they mean't before it started) Rossi provided them with a sneak peek at Levi's "Ferrara report". That seemed to have done the trick, as Penon started the VT, and IH later felt assured enough to pay the $10 million.


    Unlikely their doubts ended there though. These guys are seasoned VC types. That is their nature, and it is clear also they were very aware of Rossi's prior history. I am sure their having their first Ampenergo arranged meeting with him in his Miami condo, instead of an office, or warehouse, piqued their concerns also.


    Nonetheless, your main point about IH going on to allow Penon to do the 1 year test is interesting. Not really enough info to know why, but I tend to agree with Abd, that IH went along with it because they did not know their $89 million was on the line. They thought -as Rossi had sold the idea to them in his email, that it would be conducted for commercial, R/D, and attaining the required certificate reasons. Just simply no way, if they knew in no uncertain terms, that this would be THE GPT, would they go along with Penon being the sole arbiter.


    On another matter, one thing that does confuse me in re-reading the counter complaint, is IH's emphasis on the VT lasting only 23 1/2 hours, instead of the 24 hours written into the contract. Maybe 1/2 hour is significant under contract law, or it could be that there was something happening towards the end of the testing, that if allowed to continue another 1/2 hour would have had some bearing on the tests "success"?

    Quote

    Whether that makes me skeptic or pseudo-skeptic as those things are defined here I could not say.


    Perhaps it makes you a quasiskeptic or maybe a paraskeptic, depending, of course, on your sincerity.


    Quote

    The KWh/h is used to distinguish instantaneous power. Otherwise, everyone would just use the standard KW notation for power. Calling KWh/h a "unit" of power doesn't sit well with me, because it is an average.


    Complete and inconsequential nonsense. kWh/h by simple dimensional analysis (look it up) is identical to kW. It is not an average. It is a misuse. A mistake. An ignorant error.


    You can't redefine standard units to your taste. An average has the same units as the quantity which is being averaged thus average power is still simply kW. So is peak power, instantaneous power (whatever that is), maximum power, minimum power, mean, median and mode power... as well as unicorn power... all simply kilowatts. Except that unicorn power is pink kilowatts (pkW).

    Quote

    MY,What is your opinion on the Texas Tech (possible, but seemingly likely) finding that Bill Gates is the investor with Dr. Duncan's group? You have already stated that Dr. Duncan was "incompetent" and not reliable. (I believe that is the gist of your statements, please correct me if I am wrong on that) So if it does indeed turn out that Bill Gates is funding Dr. Duncan, are you putting Gates in the same category as IH? While Dr. Duncan has not been accused of fraud, you have stated that he has spent (millions?) over the year(s) at Missouri U with nothing to show for it. So does this fall into the same category... Bill Gates would be negligent and incompetent.Or do you simply feel that he is not involved at all and this "seemingly proposed" connection is a dreamers dream? In your opinion, can any one invest into LENR research and not be foolish?Thanks.


    I have no opinion on Duncan except that he has had plenty of time and plenty of money to prove that LENR is real and he has not done so in any published and replicated works I am aware of. I never said he was incompetent. I have no way to know whether he is or not.


    If Gates is funding Duncan, which is far from proven, it does not suggest incompetence. If Gates were to believe without proper testing and evidence that say, Rossi, produced high power from LENR, that would be negligent and incompetent but there is nothing to suggest that he does. However, that is exactly what Darden and IH (and by connection, Woodford) did. I have no idea whether Gates invested in Duncan or any other LENR-related work. He can certainly afford to do so and if he chose to use his own money to do it, why would I complain? I am all for showing once and for all whether there is such a thing as LENR... at any level of power and energy. However, if Gates ever asked me if he should invest in high power cold fusion, I'd recommend that he conduct a series of very specific and very demanding tests before doing so -- just as I recommended to Dick Smith about his proposed million dollar investment in Defkalion around 2012. Of course, Defkalion refused the tests, Smith did not invest and we all know where Defkalion is-- in the trash bin of history.

    • Official Post

    Document 54 is up now on the Rosi suit. Again, thanks to Eric for providing.


    To put it simply, Rossi is telling the judge that IH needs to provide "specific" proof they were misled into believing JMP fronted for another company from the United Kingdom. He notes that the one "email" IH provided is not enough for a charge of fraud. I think this is the email Rossi is referring to:


    "in August 2014 Johnson on behalf of JMP even warranted in writing that JMP “[was] owned by an entity formed in the United Kingdom, and none of Leonardo, Dr. Andrea Rossi, Henry W. Johnson nor any of their respective subsidiaries, directors, officers, agents, employees, affiliates, significant others, or relatives by blood or marriage [had] any ownership interest” in JMP. See Compl. Ex. B. (last page of Plaintiffs’ Exhibit)."


    In otherwords, he is saying this quote from Johnson is not enough to prove fraud. That IH should have to show more than that, or their motion struck. All I can say is wow, because that seems enough for me. Your lawyer puts something in writing, and it turns out to be totally wrong and misleading, but that is not fraud/deceit? Hmmm.


    It sure is looking as if Rossi is tacitly admitting that yes, he was JMP, therefore his own customer, and will probably deny he lied to IH about it. Maybe say that he told Darden personally that JMP was the customer, so Darden knew all along, and only now when the $89 mil is due he gets amnesia. Set it up as he said/she said, and hope the judge, or jury buys it, and conveniently forgets that damning email.

    Zeus, you wouldn't know evidence if it bit you. And it makes no difference at all whether or not Gates invested in Duncan just as it made no difference whatever that Darden believed Rossi and got roundly bamboozled by him.

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    Zeus, you wouldn't know evidence if it bit you


    Well, I can recognise both Bill Gates' signature and peoples' sarcasm...


    Quote from Oystla

    May be we are observing atmospheric LENR in action?


    Yugo: "The evidence you cite is just as good for unicorns or fluorescent ghost wildebeests".


    So I'm at least two steps in front of you.


    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea…y-way-catch-dementia.html

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    just as it made no difference whatever that Darden believed Rossi and got roundly bamboozled by him.


    So why are you wasting your time writing endless posts on the subject?


    Well, from your contributions I read you as a genuine skeptic.
    Pseudoskepticism, however, is very common and we all may be pseudoskeptical to some extent.


    There are two general kinds of experiments, exploration and confirmation or controlled investigation. The first is not really designed to generate "definite results." The second properly is.


    I specified heat/helium as a "reliable, reproducible cold fusion experiment" because it does not depend on ordinary "reliability," but sidesteps that issue. In some of this work, the total experimental series was reported. File-drawer effect not likely. There are manuy existing confirmation of the general result. (strong correlation of heat and helium, ratio close enough to the theoretical value to be of high interest even when the helium results were order-of-magnitude. When the measurements were tightened up, the ratio settled to maybe 60% or so of the theoretical value, with the difference being "explainable" by helium retention, and in two experiments, anodic reversal was used, which apparently releases all the helium -- it takes off a layer of palladium --, and those results were within experimental error of the theoretical value (10% for SRI M4 and about 20% for ENEA, Apicella et al Laser-3.)


    Because this is already confirmed work, the probability of useful results for a confirmation effort is high, if the work is done with skill. The results would have a double value: heat/helium is direct evidence for the reality of cold fusion as a nuclear effect. If the results are correlated -- as has been confirmed, this confirms both the heat and the helium measurements. The "missing ash" was a major factor in the rejection cascade. And then the actual value of the ratio has major theoretical implications.


    The CMNS community was by no means united around this suggestion of mine. I spent some years flogging it. The negative for the CMNS community was mostly that "we already know this," and "this isn't going to help us get what we need, which is More Heat, More Reliability. But it will. Just not directly. It will do that by breaking up the funding logjam, demolishing the "unreality cascade." It is therefore necessary that this work be done in as bulletproof a manner as possible. This should be publishable in a major journal.


    There are still elements in the community that are not on board heat/helium. Swartz won't really talk about it. He believes that cold fusion is a bulk reaction, it seems. The helium evidence strongly indicates it is a surface or very-near surface reaction. Others have other theories that suggest different ratios. Widom-Larsen theory is ad hoc and reaction chains are made up to explain results. Larsen has one that indicates about 30 MeV/4He.


    I really don't care what the exact result is. It is also possible that it will be variable from conditions. A finding of no correlation, at this point, is extremely unlikely. One of the investigations of interest might be PdCe cathodes, which are the only real outlier in the Miles heat/helium work. Heat. No helium! WTF? Suspicion: the cerium traps the helium. Not difficult to test with anodic reversal, probably, and this work is likely to include, at least in part, whole-cathode analysis.


    To me, the point of the heat/helium investigation is to "crush the tests." It's time we stop arguing about vague results and vague objections. If CF is not real, it's an extended waste of time for many people. And if it's real, even if "not practical yet," it stands as a scientific mystery that could seriously advance our knowledge of the solid state. And if it could be made practical .... this is worth a trillion dollars a year.


    Texas Tech has McKubre as a consultant, funded, and ENEA has Violante, both with extensive experience. Duncan is the lead investigator. Gravitas. They said that they are looking for another research group, for a third indpendent confirmation. SKINR wrote, last year, that helium measurement was one of the experiments they would like to do, but I heard on the grapevine that they were not interested. Maybe that's wrong, but I suspect they will find a third. I hope to visit Texas before the end of the year, we will see how that works.


    I do not expect skeptics to fall over from the evidence that exists. My personal conclusion is that the preponderance of the evidence has become clear, but to become familiar with that evidence can take years. The field is full of red herrings.


    Jed knows a great deal, and has been dealing with skeptics for too long, he tends to jump into how stupid they are. Nobody was ever convinced by being called stupid. What I encourage skeptics to do is to take their time and avoid jumping to conclusions. Consider a skeptic who was interested in Rossi. Rossi looks fake right now. Therefore LENR is fake?


    There are "believers" who believe without apparently adequate evidence. Therefore LENR has inadequate evidence?


    I don't think so. In any case, THH, thanks for your inquiries and contributions, they are appreciated.

    Quote from THHuxley

    Just for the record. I think it highly unlikely that LENR exists except as some (chemical) anomalies in metal-H or metal-D systems and a load of experimental anomalies of disparate types.


    I suggest you read the papers by McKubre, Fleischmann, Miles and Storms. You will see that experimental anomalies are ruled out. These people use methods of calorimetry that were well established by 1840 (or 1900 in McKubre's case), and that have been used in hundreds of thousands of experiments over the last 200 years, starting in 1780. They are used, for example, to measure the heat content of food, and the heat of formation of thousands of different chemicals. I think there is no chance these instruments and techniques could be wrong. If there were hidden problems with them, the whole of 19th and 20th century chemistry and physics would go out the window. It would be like discovering that Ohm's law is wrong, or that magnets have 3 poles instead of 2.


    Of course, individual researchers can make mistakes, but cold fusion excess heat has been confirmed by experts in 180 major laboratories, using standard, uncontroversial instruments, measuring heat at levels that J. P. Joule himself could measure with ease in 1840. If such a large number of experts could make such drastic mistakes, the scientific method itself would not work, and we would still be living in caves.


    I am confident that if you read the major research papers by the authors I listed, you will find no errors. If you cannot point to an error, then your statement cannot be tested or falsified, so it does not count. It isn't science. People who question an experimental result must be held to the same standards of rigor as those who publish the result. A negative opinion has to be justified as much as a positive one. You don't get a free pass by saying, "I suppose there must be a problem somewhere." You have to say where. You don't get a free pass for saying, "I don't think it works." (This is something Mary Yugo and other skeptics fail to understand.)

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