(PhysOrg.com) — It’s been seven months since Italian physicists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi publicly demonstrated a device that they claimed could generate large amounts of excess heat through some kind of low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR). (Previous descriptions of the process as “cold fusion” are incorrect; although the process is not completely understood, it is likely a weak interaction involving neutrons, without fusion.) The physicists call this device the Energy Catalyzer, or E-Cat. Due to the major potential impact such a device could have for energy production, the scientists have received visits and inquiries from all over the world, but so far the claims seem to be lacking credibility.

One of the visitors to Rossi’s lab was Steven Krivit, editor of the online magazine New Energy Times. Krivit has been following LENR news for more than 10 years, and recently published a 200-page issue devoted exclusively to examining the Rossi claim. Based on his investigation, Krivit has concluded that the Rossi group’s energy claim of extraordinarily large amounts of excess heat has no scientific support, and that he “can’t help but wonder whether Rossi is pulling a scam.” Some highlights of his comprehensive report, which is freely available here, are highlighted below.

Steam or water

Rossi based his assertions of excess heat on the nearly complete vaporization of room-temperature water (26.5 °C [79.7 °F]) into dry steam (100.1 °C [212.2 °F]). Rossi assumed that all of the water that enters the device leaves the device as dry steam. If this were true, the device would produce lots of energy since a large amount of energy is required to vaporize water into dry steam. (In his 2010 paper, Rossi originally claimed to produce 213 times more energy going out of the device than the energy coming in. Since then he has lowered his estimates several times, and now claims a maximum energy gain of 6 times.)

However, if the steam contains any liquid water droplets – even tiny ones – it would significantly reduce the amount of heat being produced. During his visit, Krivit found that Rossi did not check for complete vaporization. The hose through which the output steam flows was inserted into a sink drain, and there was no way to know if liquid water is going down the drain. According to Krivit, Rossi did not use any valid devices that were capable of measuring the steam quality.

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