December 13, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-fires-warning-shots-turkish-ship-aegean-sea/

Russia fires warning shots at Turkish ship in Aegean Sea
CBS/AP
December 13, 2015

Photograph -- A picture taken on July 31, 2011, shows the Moskva guided missile cruiser participating in a Russian military Navy Day parade near the Ukrainian town of Sevastopol. VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Play VIDEO -- Russia wants Turkey to apologize for downing warplane


MOSCOW - Russia's Defense Ministry said Sunday a Russian destroyer fired warning shots at a Turkish ship to prevent a collision in the Aegean Sea.

Moscow claims their boat only used small arms fire to ward off what was described as a Turkish fishing ship.

A ministry statement says the guided missile destroyer Smetlivy was unable to establish radio contact Sunday with the approaching Turkish seiner, which also failed to respond to visual signals and flares. So when the ship was 660 yards away, the destroyer fired and the Turkish vessel quickly changed course, passing within 540 yards.

The Defense Ministry said it summoned the Turkish military attache in Moscow over the incident.

The incident follows Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane near the Syrian border last week, which has set off an angry spat between the two nations that had developed close economic ties.

Tensions between Moscow and Ankara have been heightened since then, with Russia even imposing some economic penalties on their one-time ally. Moscow even went so far recently as to accuse the Turkish president and his family of personally benefiting from the illegal oil trade with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants.

Turkey insists the Russian plane violated its airspace despite numerous warnings it issued to the Russian pilots and has said it won't apologize for the downing, which killed a Russian pilot. A Russian marine also died trying to retrieve a second pilot.

Russia claims Turkey shot down its plane to protect what President Vladimir Putin has described as Turkish profiteering from the ISIS oil trade. Russia has imposed sanctions against Turkish products in retaliation for the downing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the Turkish action as a "treacherous stab in the back," and insisted that the plane was downed over Syrian territory in violation of international law.

Earlier this month, Turkey complained to Russia after a Russian sailor was allegedly photographed holding a rocket launcher as his ship passed through Istanbul.

Turkey and Russia originally found themselves at odds over the Syria conflict, with Ankara backing the U.S. coalition seeking to oust President Bashar Assad, and Moscow continuing its long tradition of supporting the Assad regime.



“Russia's Defense Ministry said Sunday a Russian destroyer fired warning shots at a Turkish ship to prevent a collision in the Aegean Sea. Moscow claims their boat only used small arms fire to ward off what was described as a Turkish fishing ship. A ministry statement says the guided missile destroyer Smetlivy was unable to establish radio contact Sunday with the approaching Turkish seiner, which also failed to respond to visual signals and flares. So when the ship was 660 yards away, the destroyer fired and the Turkish vessel quickly changed course, passing within 540 yards. …. Turkey and Russia originally found themselves at odds over the Syria conflict, with Ankara backing the U.S. coalition seeking to oust President Bashar Assad, and Moscow continuing its long tradition of supporting the Assad regime.”


Hostile moves -- the Russian vessel fired and the Turkish fishing ship veered away just in time. This was probably an accidental incursion by the Turkish fishing boat, which surely would not challenge a Russian destroyer. It certainly could, however, be part of a power play. Skirmishing like this occurs frequently. Turkey has been one of the big boys in the Middle East, and now Russia has moved in. Their shooting down of the Russian plane was because of weeks of Russian carelessness, or harassment, by flying over the Turkish border numerous times, according to Turkey’s explanation. It appears that they got tired of it and finally shot one down. Russia has been much more aggressive since the Ukraine matter. They’re not exactly good neighbors.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-brief-troubled-life-of-laquan-mcdonald/

The brief, troubled life of Laquan McDonald
By DEAN REYNOLDS CBS NEWS
December 12, 2015

Photograph -- Laquan McDonald WBBM
Play VIDEO -- Despite apology, calls for Chicago mayor's resignation grow
Play VIDEO -- Feds launch investigation into Chicago PD
Photograph -- The Rev. Marvin Hunter, center, the great-uncle of Laquan McDonald, accompanied by other family members and supporters, speaks at a news conference Dec. 11, 2015, in Chicago. AP PHOTO/TERESA CRAWFORD


CHICAGO -- For months now, the details of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald's death at the hands of a Chicago police officer have been subject to scrutiny and outrage. Less attention has been paid to the details of his life before that fateful night.

McDonald's extended family remembered him fondly at a news conference.

"When he saw you, he greeted you with a hug. He tried to make you laugh," said the Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald's great-uncle. "He was a jokester, that's who he was."

McDonald was shot 16 times last year by a Chicago cop who is now charged with his murder. Demonstrations against Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police have proceeded almost daily since the incendiary dashcam videos were released last month.

But while there is mourning for him now in death, his record shows he received little attention -- much less love -- in the 17 mostly difficult years he lived.

According to his file from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, his troubles began at the age of 3. In December of 2000, social workers removed him from his mother's custody because of neglect.

He returned to his mother in 2002 but was removed again when workers saw that her boyfriend had beaten him up. Laquan was 5 at the time.

After that, he lived with various relatives, including his great-grandmother. But when she died in 2013, his life further unraveled to the point that on the night of his death he was classified a ward of the state.

"Laquan McDonald represents thousands of Laquan McDonalds -- same black skin, same poverty, same social and economic injustice that are put upon them," Hunter said.

His mother was not at Friday's news conference. Relatives said she is still grieving her son's death.




"When he saw you, he greeted you with a hug. He tried to make you laugh," said the Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald's great-uncle. "He was a jokester, that's who he was." …. But while there is mourning for him now in death, his record shows he received little attention -- much less love -- in the 17 mostly difficult years he lived. According to his file from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, his troubles began at the age of 3. In December of 2000, social workers removed him from his mother's custody because of neglect. He returned to his mother in 2002 but was removed again when workers saw that her boyfriend had beaten him up. Laquan was 5 at the time. …. After that, he lived with various relatives, including his great-grandmother. But when she died in 2013, his life further unraveled to the point that on the night of his death he was classified a ward of the state.”


Laquan was clearly a kid who had little chance in life – taken away from his mother over neglect, “beaten up” at the age of five, lived with “various” relatives. Neglect and instability all his life, except perhaps for his great-grandmother who died just two years ago, left him a ward of the state. It’s not surprising that he “acted out” in a way that ended in his being shot by a policeman. It’s very possible that when he walked in the road in a dangerous way, he was actually suicidal and hoping to be killed. The video shows that he did not in fact menace the police officer, but was interfering with the traffic flow.

Several of the killings of the last year involved people walking in the roadway. There was a white homeless woman somewhere, I can’t remember where, who was beaten severely for doing the same thing. Cops, when they encounter mentally disturbed people too frequently act without empathy and do not “protect” them. The same has happened with deaf people. Failure to obey a policeman’s order is grounds for shooting. We really do need to change our laws so that a misdemeanor, no matter how irritating, doesn’t get the death penalty. We need to stop giving police the right to do anything they please without punishment or restraint.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-wielding-machete-shot-dead-in-pennsylvania-walmart/

Man wielding machete shot dead at Pennsylvania Walmart
Crimesider AP
December 13, 2015


EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. - Authorities say a man with a weapon threatening customers at a northeastern Pennsylvania Walmart has been shot and killed by police.

Pennsylvania State Police say Sunday that 20-year-old Andrew Joseph Todd, of Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania, was shot when he refused officers' orders to drop his weapon inside the Walmart late Saturday.

Police were dispatched to the store shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday on reports of an armed man threatening and pointing a weapon at customers. Officials say about 100 people were in the store at the time.

State police say officers ordered Todd to drop his weapon. He refused and continued to point it at officers. Police then fired at Todd, striking him in the upper chest. Todd was transported to Pocono Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by the Monroe County coroner.

State police say no customers or officers were injured.

The Pocono Record reports Todd was carrying two guns and a machete.



“Police were dispatched to the store shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday on reports of an armed man threatening and pointing a weapon at customers. Officials say about 100 people were in the store at the time. State police say officers ordered Todd to drop his weapon. He refused and continued to point it at officers. Police then fired at Todd, striking him in the upper chest. Todd was transported to Pocono Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by the Monroe County coroner. State police say no customers or officers were injured. The Pocono Record reports Todd was carrying two guns and a machete.”


Now this is a case in which I do think shooting him was justified. Approaching him with a taser would be foolish and he was clearly dangerous. One of my ex-housemates years ago kept a machete in the kitchen drawer and the blade looked to be a foot long. He didn’t call it a machete, but a Gurkha knife, which was used in the Caribbean for cutting cane. It was unquestionably lethal. In addition, Todd had two guns on his person. He had come there to kill.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/special-prosecutors-investigate-fatal-nypd-shooting-of-unarmed-man-in-weschester-woods/

Special prosecutors probe NYPD fatal shooting of unarmed man
By CRIMESIDER STAFF AP
December 11, 2015

Photograph -- Miguel Espinal CBS NEW YORK
Photograph -- espinal2.jpg, Scene of crash after a police pursuit on the Saw Mill River Parkway in Yonkers, N.Y., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015; driver of the car was fatally shot by police after he ran into the woods. CBS NEW YORK


YONKERS, N.Y. -- Special state prosecutors tasked with investigating police killings of unarmed civilians have taken over the investigation of a fatal confrontation between a New York City officer and a man who was shot following a high-speed chase on a suburban parkway.

The unit, led by Executive Deputy Attorney General Alvin Bragg, begins its inquiry as questions remain about what prompted the shooting, which happened Tuesday afternoon in Yonkers in wooded parkland.

New York Police Department officials said the fleeing suspect, Miguel Espinal, was shot once in the chest following a struggle in which an officer's gun discharged.

Espinal appears to have been unarmed. No weapon was found at the scene, police said.

A day after the shooting, police officials had yet to explain what happened after two uniformed police officers, identified by a law enforcement official as Garthlette James and Romeo Francis, pursued Espinal into a wooded area along the Saw Mill River Parkway.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn't permitted to publically discuss the case.

James, who has just under four years on the job, was the officer whose weapon fired, the official said. Officials haven't said whether the shooting was intentional or accidental.

Espinal, 36, was driving through the Bronx just before noon Tuesday when James and Francis tried to pull him over for speeding and reckless driving, police said. Instead of stopping, Espinal led them on a wild chase northbound, slipping into neighboring Westchester County, then driving the wrong way on the busy parkway before crashing into a median and several cars.

Espinal then climbed out of the car's window, police said, and ran into the woods. He had been arrested in New York 14 times and twice served time in state prison for burglary and robbery, records show.

He was wanted in Florida on car theft and burglary charges, the official said.

James and Francis have been placed on administrative duty, which is standard procedure in such cases, police said. A man that was in the car with Espinal at the time of the chase and subsequent crash, Akeem Smith, 25, was released after questioning without charges, Westchester County police spokesman Kieran O'Leary told The Journal News on Wednesday.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman created a special unit in July to investigate police shootings. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a one-year executive order mandating that all such slayings be examined when either the person killed is unarmed or there are questions about the person's dangerousness.

The decision to create the unit came amid criticisms that local prosecutors work too closely with the police to effectively and independently investigate them in such cases.

The unit, which has 15 prosecutors and 20 investigators, has also been investigating the death of 42-year-old Raynette Turner, who died in July in a Mount Vernon police holding cell.




“Special state prosecutors tasked with investigating police killings of unarmed civilians have taken over the investigation of a fatal confrontation between a New York City officer and a man who was shot following a high-speed chase on a suburban parkway. The unit, led by Executive Deputy Attorney General Alvin Bragg, begins its inquiry as questions remain about what prompted the shooting …. the fleeing suspect, Miguel Espinal, was shot once in the chest following a struggle in which an officer's gun discharged. …. Instead of stopping, Espinal led them on a wild chase northbound, slipping into neighboring Westchester County, then driving the wrong way on the busy parkway before crashing into a median and several cars. Espinal then climbed out of the car's window, police said, and ran into the woods. He had been arrested in New York 14 times and twice served time in state prison for burglary and robbery, records show. …. A man that was in the car with Espinal at the time of the chase and subsequent crash, Akeem Smith, 25, was released after questioning without charges, …. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a one-year executive order mandating that all such slayings be examined when either the person killed is unarmed or there are questions about the person's dangerousness.”


Investigations should be automatic in all police shootings. Normally it is done by a special group within the police force rather than prosecutors, I thought. Of course that piece of information comes from watching police procedurals on TV. I agree with the criticism above that local prosecutors “work too closely with the police” to be unbiased. Still, it’s good that an effort to examine these shootings, which often do not involve a weapon, and may as in this case have to do with anger and irritation on the part of the police. Usually it’s “failure to comply” or one of these car chases. Driving wildly down the wrong way on a busy street certainly is dangerous and foolish, but in the old mysteries the cops would simply shoot holes in the car’s tires. That, of course, may take too much accuracy with the weapon to be practical in the heat of the moment. Of course they were heroes in blue in those days rather than street warriors. TV is an art and not a science in most cases.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stranger-allegedly-threw-liquid-on-man-at-pennsylvania-bus-stop/

Stranger allegedly threw liquid on man at Pa. bus stop
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS NEWS
December 11, 2015

Photograph -- Bryan Tann sits at a bus stop north of Pittsburgh where he says he was attacked by a man who threw a burning liquid in his face on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015. CBS PITTSBURGH


PITTSBURGH -- Police are investigating a man's claim that a stranger temporarily blinded him by throwing a yellow liquid in his face as he was waiting for a bus north of Pittsburgh, CBS Pittsburgh reports.

Bryan Tann said he was at the bus stop by himself, playing a game on his smartphone and listening to music when a man threw the unknown liquid in his face and eyes around 6 p.m. Tuesday.

"All I heard was, 'Hey, what's up?,'" Tann said, according to the station. "Then, I see this glass jar with this yellow liquid, and [he] just throws it right in my face."

He said he stood up and put his hands up "and of course, I couldn't see."

Tann said he stumbled back and then walked to a nearby business to ask for a towel to wipe off his face. That's when he realized that his jacket had been melted by the liquid, according to the station.

He called Scott Township Police and a report was filed, CBS Pittsburgh confirmed. Tann was taken to a hospital for treatment of his burning eyes.

Officers said they were trying to figure out if surveillance video from nearby businesses may have captured footage of the incident.



I suppose people will think this was an Islamic attack, but in my opinion it was more likely random rage being expressed by an ordinary insane person. In chem lab years and years ago I remember seeing a rather thick yellow liquid that was either hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. I have forgotten which. Either can blind an unsuspecting person who had no chance to defend himself. I hope this attacker is caught and examined by a psychiatrist, then if he is deemed sane, put in prison for five years or so.



SAUDI ARABIA -- WOMAN WINS SEAT


http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/13/459554429/saudi-arabia-elects-its-first-woman-to-municipal-council

Saudi Arabia Elects Its First Woman To Municipal Council
Eyder Peralta
December 13, 2015

Photograph -- Women walk out of a polling station after casting their votes for municipal elections in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday.
Wang Bo /Xinhua /Landov


It has been a season for firsts in Saudi Arabia: During the run-up to the country's third-ever elections, the absolute monarchy decided to to give women the vote and to also allow them the right to seek positions on the country's municipal councils.

Today, the government announced that one of the 979 women who ran had been elected to the council representing Madrakah, a small village just north of Mecca.

According to the BBC, Salema bint Hizab al-Otaibi, who just became the first woman to win an election in Saudi Arabia, was running against seven men and two women.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"Only 130,000 women registered to vote, compared with 1.36 million men. Several women blamed the cumbersome registration process for the low numbers. Many others said they simply didn't care.

"But in an ultraconservative country where women are deprived of many basic rights—such as the ability to drive or to travel abroad without the permission of a male relative—many female voters see their inclusion in the election process as a turning point.

"'I have goosebumps,' said Ghada Ghazzawi, a businesswoman, as she entered a polling station in Jeddah on Saturday. 'We have been waiting for this day for a long time.'"
NPR's Rachel Martin is in Riyadh to cover the elections. She says that during her time there, she has heard a wide range of opinions.

"One woman told me that being able to vote was the equivalent of being given a cashmere sweater when she needs a place to live. She just doesn't see how this vote will affect her daily life," Rachel said. "Other women told me that being allowed to run for public office and vote for the candidate of their choice may not move the needle on big women's issues but it's a powerful symbol - and change they say has to start somewhere."



Yesterday, the miracle was that the King had given women the right to vote and run for office, but today al-Otaibi actually won! I am so happy! She couldn’t have won without some men voting for her, I don’t think. One woman speaking about the election said that though it was a gesture; it wasn’t as much as women actually need, but others called it a turning point. To me, that is exactly what it is. It’s one step on a journey, but up to now the women had no legs, so it's progress.



http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/12/11/458740466/the-wind-and-the-sun-come-to-the-rescue-in-power-short-south-africa

Wind And Sun Come To The Rescue In Power-Short South Africa
DON BOROUGHS
Updated December 11, 2015

Photograph -- Wind turbines outside Caledon in Cape Town, South Africa. Solar and wind farms are filling in the gaps during power shortages.
Nardus Engelbrecht/Gallo Images/Getty Images


Is renewable energy worth the cost? This question is central to the debates in Paris over how to address climate change. Though the conundrum has no simple answer, in South Africa the verdict is in.

Renewable energy arrived in South Africa as a green luxury. But this year, wind and solar farms turned out to be economy-saving necessities.

From November of last year until August, the nation was beset with rolling blackouts that crippled businesses and left homeowners scrambling for candles and matches. These scheduled power cuts shut down parts of the country on 82 days during the first half of the year.

The crisis was the culmination of years of foot-dragging in power-plant construction and a major coal-silo collapse at a generating station late last year.

Few South Africans realized at the time that their days would have been even darker if not for renewable energy.

New solar and wind farms partially bailed out the South African grid, says Tobias Bischoff-Niemz, who heads the Energy Center that's part of South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The power they supplied reduced the duration or extent of the scheduled blackouts on 15 days in the first half of the year. On four of those days, renewables prevented power cuts entirely. "They are almost our emergency generators," says Bischoff-Niemz.

In the midst of the North West Province platinum belt, Mark Maynard sits at his desk and counts 35 red lines on a graph of electricity supplies. Thirty-five times this year the national utility, Eskom, declared a power emergency in the region.

Each time, Maynard, as the head of engineering for Lonmin Platinum, had to order the shutdown of mills where ore is crushed and concentrated for smelting. "It created quite a squeeze for us," says Maynard.

A few miles down the road, the RustMo1 solar farm is working to keep South Africa open for business. Through the open door of his office, Patrick Mbengwa can see the first of 105 rows of gleaming, indigo photovoltaic solar panels. But he keeps his focus on a laptop, watching his own graph — of ever-rising megawatt hours and revenues.

Even on a cloudy day, the solar panels have generated nearly 15 megawatt hours by 3 p.m., enough to power a large neighborhood for a day.

RustMo1 was one of the first solar farms built under an innovative South African effort to improve its carbon footprint by adding renewables to its coal-dominated energy mix.

In other countries, government agencies set the price utilities must pay for every kilowatt hour of renewable energy solar farms and wind farms feed into the grid. South Africa lets the private sector set the tariff in competitive bidding. Companies submit bids offering to finance, build and run solar and wind facilities for 20-year contracts, promising to pay them a set price — or feed-in tariff — per kilowatt hour they produce. A committee of experts reviews the bids.

In each annual round of bidding, the qualifying solar- and wind-farm design projects offering to sell renewable energy for the most attractive prices are given contracts that guarantee that their power will be purchased. This has helped bring down costs, but until this year's crisis, no one had imagined that green electricity would actually save the country money in the short term.

Power cuts have hobbled the South African economy. President Jacob Zuma has said that rolling blackouts reduced economic growth by about 1 percent — an estimated $3.5 billion — this year. The CSIR estimates that by reducing power cuts, wind and solar spared the economy $386 million in further damages in the first half of 2015, more than the $361 million paid to renewable suppliers in tariffs.

That is just the beginning of the savings. Unable to supply enough cheap electricity from coal-fired stations, Eskom has been routinely running costly diesel turbines that were meant for occasional use. On many days, every megawatt hour of wind or solar energy saved the utility 85 gallons (320 liters) of diesel, adding up to fuel savings of $300 million from January to June.

The CSIR's results surprised everyone, especially because wind and solar supply only 2 percent of South Africa's electricity.

"A small amount of additional generation in this situation makes a very significant contribution," says electrical engineer and publisher Chris Yelland.

The financial return on renewables might be even larger in some other African countries, burdened with electricity crises that make South Africa's shortfalls seem minor. Many economies on the continent depend heavily on hydroelectric power, which has been sharply curtailed by drought. Zambia, for example, used to rely on a single dam at Lake Kariba for most of its electricity, now sharply reduced by low water levels.

"The situation is that Kariba is empty," Zambian Energy Minister Dora Siliya recently said. "We are dealing with an emergency."

Zambia is currently paying for power from a generating ship moored off neighboring Mozambique.

This week in Nigeria — a country with chronic electricity supply problems — the International Finance Corporation and a consortium led by solar developer Alten signed an agreement to build one of the largest photovoltaic solar farms on the continent.

South Africa is enjoying a four-month respite from power cuts at the end of this year as the supply from coal stations has improved and demand has slowed. But Bischoff-Niemz expects the economic benefits of renewables to keep flowing.

"We have somehow missed the silent revolution that has happened in the last five years that solar and wind are now completely cost-competitive to any alternative we have," he says.

Renewable energy "certainly is one of the good-news stories of the energy sector in South Africa, and there are lots of bad-news stories," says Yelland.

Wikus van Niekerk, director of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at Stellenbosch University, points to another advantage of solar and wind farms: They can be built more quickly than traditional power plants.

RustMo1, for example, connected to the grid ahead of schedule and within budget less than two years after its bid was accepted. Eskom's latest coal-fired station, Medupi, is already 3 years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

To completely replace South Africa's dirty coal with clean energy, however, will require technological leaps of the sort proposed by Bill Gates last week in Paris. He announced a two-fold push for research and development that will open the doors to a zero-carbon future.

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition is made up of 28 private investors, including Gates, who agreed to aggressively fund energy research and development. This is complemented by a commitment from 20 nations to double their energy R&D in the next five years.

As for South Africa, van Niekerk says that poor planning and an aging fleet of coal-fired stations will lead to tight electricity supplies for decades to come.

"They've painted themselves into corner, so that the only technologies to get South Africa out of this going forward are gas and renewables," he explains. "The fact that they are clean and low in carbon-dioxide emissions is the cream on the top."



A very interesting news article a year or so ago was on an unusual complaint. A house with solar panels on the roof was making so much electricity that it needed to be sent back through the city grid, and the power company was unable to figure out how to bill the homeowner. Apparently the house was in an agreement with the power plant that they would share the burden of electricity.

When I first began watching solar power some 30 years ago folks who didn’t want to subsidize that technology because it competes with the coal industry said it was “too expensive.” They also vowed that solar panels wouldn’t make enough electricity to be useful, and that it’s impossible to “store” solar electricity. My, how times have changed! When scientists are turned loose on a new project they certainly can make strides in many cases. Cold fusion is one much touted process that has yet to succeed, but the scientists are still trying. It was predicted to be totally clean and unlimited in quantity – the solution to eliminating greenhouse gasses from the energy producing process. I still have hopes for it. We’ll see. Have a look at the www.wired article below.



http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-01/30/cold-fusion-energy-advances-2015

THE COLD FUSION RACE JUST HEATED UP
COLD FUSION by DAVID HAMBLING
30 JANUARY 15

The E-Cat, or Energy Catalyser, is an alleged cold fusion reactor invented by Andrea Rossi. While many researchers claim to have produced small quantities of excess heat using nickel and hydrogen, Rossi claims he can produce kilowatts and his technology is ready for industry. Rossi's claims are far-fetched, but the E-Cat refuses to go away. Now it appears to have been not only verified, but replicated. Should we start taking Rossi seriously?

Rossi's style is striptease: punters are led on with big promises, followed by obsessive secrecy and occasional fleeting glimpses. He addresses the world only via statements in idiosyncratic English in the comments section of his web page, the grandly and misleadingly-titled Journal of Nuclear Physics. Scientists have never been allowed to examine the E-Cat, details of the supposed physics have never been revealed, and even the identities of his US business partners were only discovered by online sleuthing.

Given his keep-'em-waiting approach, few believed Rossi's repeated assertions over the years that an independent scientific study of the E-Cat really was on the way. Amazingly enough, in October a report appeared authored by, among others, researchers from the University of Uppsala and University of Bologna. Even more astoundingly, it was completely positive.

The Lugano Report details how, for the length of a 32-day continuous run, a 900-watt electrical input produced 2,800 watts of heat from the reactor. The 20-cm long E-Cat was run for an extended period to prove that the energy could not be produced by hidden batteries or other sources:

"The total net energy obtained during the 32 days run was about 1.5 MWh. This amount of energy is far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume."

Further, the isotopic composition of the nickel powder had changed:

"The isotope composition in Lithium and Nickel was found to agree with the natural composition before the run, while after the run it was found to have changed substantially. Nuclear reactions are therefore indicated to be present in the run process".

The report was promptly savaged by sceptics, pointing out that Rossi was present for the test and questioning how independent it was. Steven B. Krivit, editor of New Energy Times, headlined his account, "Rossi Handles Samples in Alleged Independent Test of His Device".

The arguments about the Lugano Report continue, meanwhile there has been an even more surprising development. Prof Alexander Parkhomov of Lomonosov Moscow State University has published a paper describing his successful replication of the E-Cat, based on the available information about it. The paper is in Russian; there is a link and commentary and video in English on E-Cat World. Parkhomov's results are more modest, but the energy output of his cloned E-Cat claimed to be up to 2.74 times as great as the input.


Parkhomov presented his results earlier this week at a cold fusion seminar at the Research Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Operation in Moscow.