E-Cat Plant Test Plan (Fabio Penon)

Quote from oldguy

yes, the agreement required the ERV to measure and take the data, not review data taken by Rossi.

Actually, it didn't. Allow me to explain how estoppel works. If the "test" that Penon described was the protocol followed, and if Darden approved that as the Guaranteed Performance Test, then Darden would likely be estopped from objecting later, once Rossi had committed and worked on the test, and Penon had issued his report.

Sure. It doesn't look like what would be done in a test to certify performance independently from Rossi! The contemplated GPT was to be at the IH facility in North Carolina, not in a warehouse in Florida under full Rossi control!

So: there are two obstacles Rossi faces:

1. Did Darden approve that document as a Guaranteed Performance Test procedure?
2. Did he approve it at all? Or did he merely not object until later?
3. Was there a specific approval of the start date of a Guaranteed Performance Test? The Second Amendment requires that such be signed by all parties. That would be someone signing for Industrial Heat, Ampenergo, Leonardo, and then Ross as himself. (There were two signatures missing on the Second Amendment. Rossi signed for himself but not for Leonardo. Nobody signed for Ampenergo, as far as we know (there could have been another copy signed by Ampenergo). This was all colossally sloppy of Rossi, and it looks like Annesser didn't notice the problems before filing, or he'd have alleged estoppel from the get-go.

Then there are issues about the test itself, the fake customer that then meant that customer "invoices" were meaningless, just more "Rossi says," the problem of heat dissipation, and a host of difficulties with the data Penon provided in the interim reports. (That was not the "ERV report," quoted in Exhibit 5, it was from the interim reports. IH did not have the final report at that time, they got it a few days later.)

Quote

Such a pity that a competent independent tester was not there making tests over an extended period to validate all this stuff then?

Indeed. Which is the basis for my earlier statements that Darden and Vaughn behaved in a negligent and incompetent manner in this case and should not be trusted with additional funds for energy research. And that's before we even get to the issue of why a one year test was allowed in the first place when no adequate and properly independent short term test had ever been done. It boggles the mind how Rossi fooled these people. That is my main interest in the Rossi story and has been since I realized he was a con man and that was after the so-called megawatt plant test in November 2011 and the fiasco with the "NATO colonel" who represent the mysterious and now clearly fictional "customer".

Quote from JedRothwell

Mary Yugo wrote:

I.H. was fully competent during the 1-year test. They understood the problems described in Exhibit 5. I heard about some of these problems from them during the test. They -- and I -- were hoping that Rossi would fix the problems, but unfortunately he did not.

Perhaps they were not competent during the run-up to the 1-year test. I have no knowledge of what they did, so I cannot judge.

I have Mary Yugo blocked because most comments are fundamentally useless. We know who Mary is, and the real person would be expected to be generally competent and is a professional, probably skilled in his field. Mary's position comes from a trust in his own competence even when he is outside his expertise. He sometimes has shown genuine skepticism and apparently investigated some scams. He picked scams which were so obviously and blatantly fraudulent that, of course, what he found could be predicted, easily. It's very safe. But there are fields where he is totally out of his element, and he has never shown high familiarity with LENR and the issues involved.

What IH did, I have come to think, was absolutely brilliant. It was expensive, they probably put about $20 million into it. However, as well as was possible, given the conditions, they nailed it. We can now generally disregard Rossi claims unless the leopard changes his spots and comes out with something that is independently verified. They have, at this point, a hedge against that possibility: the License. They may decide at some point to trade the License for something else of value. Maybe Planet Rossi will buy a sublicense and do what they want with it? What would they be willing to pay? They have been claiming that the IH promise to Rossi was too little. So what is it worth? If Rossi were to win his fundamental claims in Rossi v. Darden, he might bankrupt IH and might, as part of this, get the License back, though it might be auctioned to the highest bidder. Hey, then we would really find out what it is worth! Auctions are really cool that way.

He might also get a Court declaration of license revocation, though he did not ask for that. If so, the debt would probably be cancelled, at the least, and there might still be an equitable claim that IH has on what they paid. Planet Rossi has been claiming that he offered to buy the license back, for how much is not clear to me. IH paid $10 million for the License itself. Rossi has tended to offer people what they paid, even if they invested much more in the process, as IH obviously did.

From my point of view, IH spent that money with two goals in mind: first, to support development of the technology in case it was real. They saw that Rossi was not about to do this himself, being mired in his own weirdness. If the technology was real, it was worth far more than they paid, and even far more than the full price, if the $89 million were paid. This is all obvious, and game theory might suggest making such risky investments if one can afford the loss. If nothing else, fun!!!

The other goal was to be able to independently test the technology, which Rossi had always avoided. If they bought the technology, and Rossi had said he would sell his secret for $100 million, they could certainly test it to discover if Rossi had a transferable technology -- or at least if he would keep his word on a promise to fully transfer it. They accomplished this goal, and their behavior won the confidence of Woodford. Rossi has claimed that Woodford invested because of their witnessing of Doral. But we know what Doral looked like, and were I representing Woodford, i.e., if someone were making the decisions who knew LENR or was adequately informed by those who do know, as Woodford would be if they did the years of due diligence they have claimed, I would have had a very clear reaction:

"WTF??? The pipe goes into a wall and I can't see what is on the other side! This is suspicious as hell, couldn't be more so!"

If I had any technical smarts, I could immediate make up many ways that such a demonstration could be faked. No way would I invest $50 million on that basis. So I would ask IH about their own testing, and my guess is that they simply told Woodford the truth. Nope, they couldn't get it to work, but Rossi wanted to set up this demonstration, so we let him. Here, look at the reports we have gotten from Penon. And they would look at them and would think like Jed thinks.

That someone might invest in a probably fake technology is completely beyond Mary Yugo. It blows his fuses. That has to be the stupidest of actions! That there can be other considerations is utterly beyond him. It's fake and that's the end of the story.

Yet Industrial Heat, with their alleged stupidity, did raise another $50 million, substantially more than the $20 million I suspect they put in. So far, they won. And watch: in spite of common derision and laughter from Planet Rossi, I consider the outcome of Rossi v. Darden, as a matter of law, reasonably clear. Because the parties may settle and that could be very complicated, I do not predict the terms of a settlement. If this goes to trial, Rossi loses. I make one qualification to that. At this point, Rossi has submitted no additional evidence beyond what was in his Complaint, whereas IH has submitted a rather large pile of evidence. My conclusions are based on all the visible evidence, but I have mentioned what I call the Wabbit. If Rossi pulls a wabbit out of a hat, everything could shift.

What is cool is that this would have to happen fairly soon. Time is running out for Rossi to Answer the Counter-Complaint, and that is where he could supply more Exhibits. In the interrogatories we have seen, it looks like he is fishing for something to present and may not yet have it. (So he will predictably delay as long as he can, and such delay is normal, anyway. Sane attorneys do not rush to file.) So, far, as far as what we have seen -- with is not everything, for sure -- Darden has not providing Rossi with a Wabbit, and one cannot simply pull the Wabbit out at trial, the opposing counsel would immediately request a recess and the whole trial might be rescheduled.

had thought that the Penon correspondence might be his ticket to estoppel on the matter of "Guaranteed Performance Test." It was close, but no cigar. Simply not enough. If Darden answered in a way that clearly accepted the Test, as fulfilling the Second Amendment conditions, even if there were no signed document as required, Rossi might have a chance. But I doubt that this happened. It would have been really dumb, and that is something I do not expect from Darden.

On Planet Rossi and on Planet Pseudoskep, however, it's an easy opinion. They really are in agreement about it. What idiots they are!