Andrea Rossi : Sinner or Saint?
Is Andrea Rossi the world's greatest inventor since Nikola Telsa and the savior of mankind, or is he one of the worst scoundrels of the year? It's very difficult to say at this time, but the question really is that basic. There are those who would like to tread some middle ground on the topic, but there is no middle ground; it's either one way or the other. The mystery remains, and we have no way of knowing for sure which is the truth. The good news is that, given a little bit of time and patience, the answer to this question will be clear. Meanwhile this is indeed such an incredibly fun and interesting story to watch unfold.
For those of you who don't know, Andrea Rossi is an Italian inventor and entrepreneur who claims that he has been able to solve the mystery of 'cold fusion' (now more accurately termed LENR). The stakes are very high if what he claims is true. It means nothing less than the complete transformation of the world economy, raising the standard of living of everyone on the planet, and putting an end to the environmental devastation fossil fuels wreak on this planet.
If Rossi is committing fraud, then this is little more than a sad and sordid tale which will have the primary effect of setting legitimate LENR research back on its heels as it tries to recover from backlash that will occur when this deception unravels.
Which is it? There is really no way for sure to tell. However, when you think about what Rossi has been doing over the past year and pose the hypothetical scenario that everything he has said is true it does, indeed, paint a picture of a savior of mankind; one deserving of every accolade a thankful world could possibly bestow.
Even this point of view itself is a bit controversial. There are many who feel that if Rossi has accomplished what he claims to have done, then he is going about it in completely the wrong way. Upon further reflection, however, this might not be the case.
Let's review what Rossi has done and the claims that he has made. He claims that over the course of many years, working with reputable scientists, he went through an iterative process, and was able to achieve commercially viable and replicable energy production using LENR. This process is not one so much of basic science but rather optimization and engineering. He made no announcements until, after long and deliberate work, he was able to demonstrate a working device.
Having accomplished this, rather than publishing his results in peer reviewed scientific journals, he chose to treat it as intellectual property and pursue a commercial venture to develop, market, and distribute an actual product to the world. Even his harshest critics would have to admit that he is entirely in his right to do so.
But, take it a step further. The argument can be made that commercializing the technology is, in fact, the best thing he could ever have done. A very small subset of the scientific community has been pursuing LENR research over the past twenty years; research done largely without funding and relegated to the fringe. This work is not accepted in the mainstream and, to date, even the Wikipedia article online and thousands of other sites, consider LENR to be bogus science. The specific statement in the Wikipedia article refers to ‘cold fusion’ as ‘pathological science’.
This is what twenty plus years of using the scientific method has produced; virtually nothing in the arena of public opinion and, of course, certainly nowhere near close to a commercial product.
So, for those who believe Rossi should have published his work in peer reviewed scientific literature, relinquishing all hopes of achieving financial gain for his work, the question is for what purpose and to what ends? First of all, Rossi isn't a scientist affiliated with a University. He is primarily an inventor and entrepreneur, and it’s quite doubtful anything he might attempt to publish would even get past peer review. One of his friends and colleagues might be able to publish, in one of the fringe journals which will even accept LENR research, but to what benefit for Rossi himself?
There is quite literally no benefit to Rossi in any way, shape, or form to publish his work in the public domain. Moreover, what would that really accomplish? Very little. The argument can be made that the absolute best course of action is exactly what he has done over this past year and claims to be doing now.
Once Rossi believed he had a commercially viable process in place he presented it a number of times during 2011. Through an iterative process of refinement, over the course of 2011, he claims to have improved his device to the point that he was able to sell a large scale commercial product by the end of October. (It is important to note that there is absolutely no proof of any of this. The customer is unknown and in all cases Rossi has controlled the testing and demonstration environment for his devices.)
LENR at Risk
The promise of the technology behind LENR is profound. It is nothing less than the global transformation of the planet. It would free the world from fossil fuels. It would go a long way towards saving the environment. It would raise the standard of living for everyone on the planet. It would end the global recession almost immediately due to the massive amount of economic activity that would be generated by the transformation of the worldwide energy infrastructure.
But, LENR is at risk. As wonderful as all of this sounds, there are powerful interests which do not want this scenario to unfold. In the scientific arena the resistance arises from those who have invested over 40 years of research into hot-fusion and have received billions of dollars in funding for that effort. All of these people would be put out of business literally over night; as would solar, wind, and every other form of alternative energy that has received funding over the past decades. There would be no point in continuing the development of these forms of alternative energy once LENR were proven, as it is clearly a dramatically superior alternative.
This gives a lot of very powerful people very strong reasons to make sure that LENR does not see the light of day. And, this isn’t just a hypothetical question. The suppression of LENR (formally known as ‘cold fusion’) has been remarkably successful. The scathing article by Dr. Eugene Mallove entitled ‘MIT and Cold Fusion : A Special Report’ is a devastating critique of how hot fusion proponents have suppressed legitimate research into this technology.
For over twenty years the scientific establishment has very thoroughly suppressed research into this field. You have to wonder, as we are now learning that LENR is a legitimate phenomenon with great promise, how much environmental devastation could have been avoided had this not occurred?
Had the entire scientific and engineering community devoted themselves to LENR research and, most importantly, received just a tiny fraction of the funding made available for hot-fusion, the world might well have seen a breakthrough decades ago. We may have achieved results in time, perhaps, even to have avoided some of the worst environmental disasters in history.
One also has to wonder, as LENR enters the mainstream, will there be any penalty against those who actively suppressed research into this phenomenon? The peer review process, a central tenant of the scientific method, has a dark side. On the face of it, it works great; before an article can be published, a group of peer scientists review a paper and determine if it seems legitimate or is flawed. The peer review panel can give feedback and suggestions to the authors or can reject it entirely.
However, the dark side of peer review is that when an entire field of research is somewhat arbitrarily deemed ‘unscientific’ then the ability to perform and publish scientific research is closed off. This is what happened in the case of LENR and researchers who kept the flame alive were relegated to publishing in non-mainstream journals which are easily ignored and rejected by the rest of the scientific community.
The biggest threat to LENR is not just those researchers who make their living promoting alternative sources of energy; the biggest threat is from the multi-trillion dollar petro-chemical industry.
As pointed out before LENR, even if commercially viable tomorrow, is not going to change the world over night. It will take decades to transform the global energy infrastructure. But, make no mistake, in the long run that industry will be destroyed. No longer will we mine coal, frak gas, or drill for oil. And simply the news that this technology exists will affect the global markets immediately.
Just what might the forces behind these industries do to stop LENR? They can (and most likely will) demonize the technology, claim that it is dangerous, and will try to regulate it out of existence. They will do their own research into the field and build a war chest of patents, not to spread this technology to the world but rather, just the opposite, to lock it up and make sure that no one else can market a product without being sued out of existence.
These are not crazy conspiracy theories; this is just simple common sense. If an industry has trillions of dollars at risk due to the introduction of a new and disruptive technology it is going to do everything in its means to protect itself. Optimistically this might mean these industries simply invest in LENR technology themselves but that may be a bit too hopeful. Since LENR can be a decentralized energy source it threatens the existing power structure to its very core.
When you consider these risks, suppression from the scientific community and demonization and/or regulation from the petro-chemical industry, it now makes sense that what Rossi is doing is the smartest move possible.
Rossi is moving so rapidly with his product development, while at the same time is largely considered to be a flake and a fraud, that he just may be the only person able to get away with this. By the time the petro-chemical industry realizes what is happening, it will be too late. By then Rossi will already be delivering small, portable, and decentralized power systems to the consumer market.
Rossi has been 100% consistent on a key point since day one. He has always stated that he will ‘prove’ his technology, not in scientific journals, but by selling working products. Honestly, there could be no better or more powerful proof than that.
Imagine the irony of the idea that within a year’s time there could be a million homes getting their heat from a Rossi LENR device while, at the very same time, the entire scientific community continues to consider LENR a ‘pathological science’ and the people he is competing with think he is a fraud. What delicious irony that would be.
The Fraud Hypothesis
Of course, a lot of people believe that Andrea Rossi is committing fraud. There are plenty of reasons to think that. He is secretive. He has not allowed his devices to be independently tested or confirmed. He has not received a patent that sufficiently describes how his device operates. He has not published his work in scientific journals. Not a single person has independently replicated his technology. He has had legal troubles in his past with regards to an energy company. He carefully controls all demonstrations and test results.
This is indeed a long laundry list of reasons to assume he is committing a fraud, and there are many more to add to that list if you care to Google search any of the websites devoted to exposing him.
However, there is just one tiny fly in the ointment. When someone is committing fraud, it is important to understand their motive. Why would you commit fraud unless you were expecting to get something out of it? This is the problem we have when we try to apply the fraud hypothesis to Andrea Rossi. There is nothing in Rossi’s business model or approach which could in any way imaginable benefit him were he conducting a fraud. You can’t commit fraud by selling products that do not work! (Maybe if you sell just one for a trillion dollars and run off and hide, but a million units for a few hundred dollars each? Not likely.)
If Andrea Rossi is committing fraud, just exactly how does anyone expect him to ‘make off with the money’? And, more importantly, what money! Rossi, for all intents and purposes, appears dedicated to creating physical products for sale. Even those people who don’t believe his devices work, they have to admit that he has, in fact, been actually producing physical devices!
Just how many of these devices does he expect to sell if they do not work? Maybe a few, but not many. Are all of his actions to date, dedicating years of his life to this research and his personal wealth investing in a business to produce products designed to deliver energy to customers, just so he can sell a few non-working units and run off with the cash? Just how exactly is that supposed to work?
This is not how these kinds of frauds operate. There is a perfect recent example in history of a company which made millions and millions of dollars while failing to deliver a working energy product. The name of that company is STEORN. The parallels to Rossi are valuable both when we see how they are alike, and how they are different.
STEORN is a company that claimed to have discovered a phenomenon which produced an inexhaustible supply of environmentally safe free energy. Sound familiar yet? Their dubious claim was that they had discovered a way to produce free electricity using a complex interaction of rotating magnetic fields.
However, other than this basic claim of discovering a new energy technology, everything STEORN has done is in clear contrast to the actions of Andrea Rossi. STEORN raised many millions of dollars in investment capital. Their business plan never involved creating or producing a product. Instead, they were supposed to make money by licensing the technology. There was no scientific model to explain their claimed phenomenon. And, in the end, they failed, and the investors lost all of their money. And where did all of those millions of dollars in investment money go? Into the pockets of the employees and principals who ran this company for the past six years. Now this is the ‘typical’ scenario of reaping financial rewards from dubious claims; the principals milk investors until they will give milk no more.
In contrast, Rossi’s claim is not in violation of any scientific principles. While LENR remains controversial it is clearly gaining more and more mainstream acceptance. Since the publication of the Widom / Larsen theory for LENR there is a clear scientific model to explain the phenomenon without violating any known laws of physics and, in fact, using well understood and accepted scientific principles.
Few of those who are critics of Rossi are also critics of LENR. Just the opposite, they are usually supporters of LENR who believe that Rossi is committing fraud and, therefore, damaging the future legitimate research into this technology.
The only thing Rossi is claiming is that he has engineered a solution that can reproduce LENR commercially. That, in and of itself, is a natural progression from the work laid down by LENR researchers over the past twenty years.
Next, there is currently no evidence that Rossi has ripped off investors for millions and millions of dollars. There is no record of tens of millions of dollars of venture capital having been lined up so that Rossi could pay himself a rich salary while spending as many years as possible in a laboratory avoiding shipping an actual product. No, just the contrary. Rossi appears to have invested his own money and his rushing forward to deliver actual working products at a dizzying pace!
This is a critical point. The way a fraud normally operates is that you raise as much capital as possible and milk it for as long as you can while avoiding delivering any actual product. Rossi has, instead, invested his own capital and is producing physical products as fast as humanly possible. In fact, the speed at which he has moved into production over the past year has been staggering to behold and his current claims of planning to manufacture and distribute a million units in 2012 is almost impossible to believe.
Once again, this is not how a fraud is perpetuated. Just how many non-working devices can Rossi deliver and cash the checks before he ends up in jail? What is his motivation? What is his end game?
Maybe, just maybe, he is doing exactly what he claims he is? Maybe he actually does have a working LENR device and, maybe, he really plans to deliver millions of units at a ridiculously low cost to the general consumer before he can be shut down by powerful forces who have a lot to fear from such a disruptive technology? Maybe, we can only hope.
NASA on LENR
One of the most surreal developments in recent weeks has been the release of an LENR video from NASA and the immediate public response from its author. The video itself is remarkable. NASA produced a video for the general public which states absolutely unequivocally that (A) LENR is real and (B) it has the power to transform the energy infrastructure of the planet.
This is an absolutely astounding statement! Mind boggling in fact. However, NASA issued no press release, held no news conference, and, to date, there has been absolutely no mainstream news coverage about it. It is truly astonishing when you think about it. NASA, a government agency, announces that ‘cold fusion’ is real and can transform the energy infrastructure of the planet but somehow that, apparently, is not ‘news’!?
What was even more astounding was the response by the scientist featured in the video, Dr. Zawodny. The reason NASA created the video, and featured Dr. Zawodny, was in support of a patent application submitted by the scientist. The patent, ‘Method for Enhancement of Surface Plasmon Polaritons to Initiate & Sustain LENR’, describes a technique designed to make LENR commercially viable. So, let’s be clear here, Dr. Zawodny files a patent which describes a technique designed to make LENR commercially viable and easily replicable. He appears in the NASA video in which he makes clear LENR is a real phenomenon and that it holds promise to transform the energy infrastructure of the planet.
He then makes a post on his own blog debunking his own patent and his own video! He claims that there is no evidence whatsoever that LENR is commercially viable and, moreover, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence but, apparently, that doesn’t apply to himself? It truly boggles the mind to read a scientist debunking his own work. To be clear, this is a man who has applied for a patent for a technique which can reliably reproduce and sustain an LENR reaction and then, on his own blog post, states there is no evidence that anyone has achieved this!? He also refused to respond to emails, inquiries, or even allow comments to his highly contradictory statements.
So, let’s take this step by step. Dr. Zawodny believes LENR is a real phenomenon, that it holds the promise to transform the energy infrastructure of the planet, and that he has discovered a technique and is applying for a patent which will allow LENR to be replicable and ultimately commercially viable. He claims that now that the basic science for LENR is in place what remains is optimization and engineering.
However, he then continues by debunking Andrea Rossi using the old canard that ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’. But, you see, following this logic Rossi is not making an extraordinary claim! His claim is quite ordinary. He is claiming that he has optimized and engineered a process to reliably produce LENR results. This isn’t an extraordinary claim, it’s the natural progression of where engineering and invention meet. He has repeatedly demonstrated his device to knowledgeable and intelligent people in the past year. His supporters include very reputable scientists. He has produced and demonstrated physical devices including a very large system. He is now engaged in setting up manufacturing and distribution of these devices and is working with large and reputable companies in this effort.
Time Will Tell
In less than a year we will definitively know whether or not Andrea Rossi is a sinner or a saint. If he accomplishes what he claims, by delivering large numbers of working LENR devices to consumers, then not only is he a Saint, he may well be credited as the man who managed to save us from ourselves; perhaps literally the savior of the planet. In anyone else’s hands LENR would have continued to be suppressed, locked up, regulated, or kept centralized and out of the hands of individuals where it can create truly profound change.
If Andrea Rossi accomplishes his stated goal, then he deserves the Nobel peace prize, the Nobel Prize in physics, the Medal of Honor, a Knighthood, an atta boy, and any other form of thanks that a grateful world can bestow on him.
And, if it turns out that he has been conducting an elaborate fraud, then may the sinner pay for his sins with a long slow sit in jail contemplating his hubris.
Yet, somehow, it seems doubtful that this is the outcome he is working towards.
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