An added wrinkle here, reported by Wired:
(http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/29/rossi-success )
"The customer's controller, one Domenico Fioravanti, apparently reports to a man whose title is "Colonel". This suggests that the mystery customer might be DARPA, the Pentagon's extreme science wing which, as Wired.co.uk has previously noted, has expressed interestin Rossi's work -- but which might not be quite ready to explain to its political masters why it spent millions on a cold fusion device."
I think that goes a long way to explain a lot of the secrecy that the customer engaged in. Rather than being a scam it may actually be the visible tip of a military project. Remember, you can run cars on electricity and trucks on natural gas, but when you run out of oil your army comes to a stop. They have a lot of motivation to find an alternative.
As I understand it the process did not achieve 1MW because it got too hot and they had to cool it down. Per Rossi, if it gets over the melting temperature of nickle the reaction stops. But it ran in self-sustaining mode putting out enough power to satisfy the men in uniforms that it works so now they take it back to the USA and tinker with it themselves.
Hilarious! First time I've seen this and I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face. I think it was figure 1 "check this shit out" that made me really lose it. Got some odd looks on the train.
I think that goes a long way to explain a lot of the secrecy that the customer engaged in. Rather than being a scam it may actually be the visible tip of a military project. Remember, you can run cars on electricity and trucks on natural gas, but when you run out of oil your army comes to a stop. They have a lot of motivation to find an alternative.
As I understand it the process did not achieve 1MW because it got too hot and they had to cool it down. Per Rossi, if it gets over the melting temperature of nickle the reaction stops. But it ran in self-sustaining mode putting out enough power to satisfy the men in uniforms that it works so now they take it back to the USA and tinker with it themselves.