Stephen wrote: "In the latter case, one can assume there will be delays and unexpected problems with continuing to create the effect on demand a few months down the road..."
I think that is what happened with his grant with the DOD... perhap's Jones might know more about this, but I started reading the report which was the result of the DOD grant work. Apparently Rossi initially provided them with a 35% efficient thermoelectric device (TED) at the beginning, which is about 4 to 7 times more efficient that most TEDs (5%-10%), but they were unable to reproduce that level of efficiency in newly fabbed cells. There were problems with the place that was fabbing them, so they used a fab in Italy. Of the cells that they got from them, more than half were broken due to very poor packing, and the rest didn't perform any better than off the shelf units... Coincidence? Only Rossi knows.... If I might speculate a bit here... He was a man on a mission. He had already seen enough evidence that something unusual was happening and was finding very creative, albeit unscrupulous, ways to get the $ or materials to do the experiments that he needed to do to figure out enough to control the reaction. Why did he choose that company? Well, they already were using TEDs, and would be really interested in a 5x improvement, so he used them to get what he wanted... access to a lab and test equipment and a govt grant to fund his research. Not too mention a supply of Nickel -- turns out that Ni is one of the materials that has been used recently to make TEDs. The following from Wikipedia: "Recently, skutterudite materials have sparked the interest of researchers in search of new thermoelectrics[17]. These structures are of the form (Co,Ni,Fe)(P,Sb,As)3 and are cubic with space group Im3." Again, this is all speculation, but certainly plausible... Not the most upstanding way to develop your product, but perhaps in his mind, the ends justify the means. And if he HAS done what he claims, drastic times require drastic measures. What is cheap, clean energy worth to you??? to the planet??? -Mark
