Why anyone would let the benefactor of $89 million take the water meter readings the money is ultimately based on is beyond me.
You are repeating a canard that is one of the talking points designed to introduce UD to the debate (UD is the Uncertainty and Doubt part of the FUD acronym). Note I am not accusing you of doing so deliberately; merely pointing it out since so you will be aware that this is what you are doing.
Yes it's true that Rossi took water readings. But ultimately Penon was able to cross-check the figures that Rossi was supplying against the total flow of the meter reading when he personally took possession of the meter at the end of the test. Plus, he made two site visits during the test (May and October) and checked the meter personally then in order to cross-check the data Rossi was feeding him. So, no, the overall COP calculation did not hinge on Rossi's measurements. Say what else you will about the test, and people have imagined all kinds of ways Rossi might have cheated the tests -- we don't need this canard. Can we please dispose of it?
And while I'm disposing of UD canards here, I might as well slay another one: everybody keeps saying that the Doral operation was not a test; that it was set up according to the term sheet and not according to the contract; the term sheet is not a contract. And so Darden et al. had no reason whatsoever to think it was some kind of test. And while I agree with the fact that the term sheet is not the contract, this line of reasoning completely ignores Penon's involvement. The term sheet says nothing whatsoever about anybody testing the heat production of the 1MW plant. But the contract does. So the very fact that IH agreed to Penon's test and even paid for half his salary indicates they did consider this to be the "the test" according to the contract, not the term sheet. On top of that, according to the e-mails in the court documents that I've seen, IH representatives referred to Penon as "the ERV." The e-mails between Rossi and Darden about Penon also indicate that they agreed to let him to be the ERV. Again, you will find no "ERV" in the term sheet. And do you honestly think it was "just a coincidence" that Penon's test lasted for the same amount of time that was specified in the contract (not the term sheet).
So if we once again try to cut through the fog, the issue here is very simple: Yes, IH did consider the Doral plant to be the test as outlined in the contract. I don't see how they can plausibly deny that. Of course they have to try to deny it, but their denials ring false, and I think the jury will see through them. The court case will really hinge around IH's argument that the test was bad and unreliable. And from what I've seen, I'd say they have the upper hand on that count.
But the question I keep coming back to that I simply cannot fathom is this: it's clear from Darden's deposition that they knew the test was garbage before it even started, so why did they allow it to go forward? Why did they continue to pay Penon and Fabiani and West? Why did they bring investors around to see the plant multiple times? I know people have answers to this, but I have not found them satisfying in the least.
THH says it's because early on they didn't know the customer was bogus, and so they were holding out hope that the COP would be validated through the customer's word. But they did at least know by that point that the customer they were dealing with directly was a shell company whose president was Rossi's lawyer (even if they allegedly thought it was actually fronting Johnson Matthey). So here we really need to ask ourselves how plausible it is to that Darden, this by all accounts savvy investor with decades of experience, would believe that, let alone gamble $89 million on that basis. It sounds far-fetched, to say the least. On top of that, according to the depositions, they were allegedly told that Johnson Matthey would step forward after 90 days if the results were positive. Yet we know they had investors coming around to visit the plant long after those 90 days had passed. I have heard no plausible explanation for that.
This raises another question, and perhaps somebody has an answer: at what point did Darden et al. realize that JM was not connected to Johnson Matthey in any way? That it was just Rossi and his lawyer? Did they realize after 90 days had passed that Johnson Matthey was not involved? If not, when did this "aha" moment allegedly come?
