Can Andrea Rossi's Infinite-Energy Black Box Power The World--Or Just Scam It?
Andrea Rossi's Black Box Photograph By James WorrellRossi--a lone Italian inventor with no real credentials and a history as a convicted scam artist--has convinced a small army of researchers that his box can harness a new type of nuclear reaction. What if they're right? On January 14, 2011, a 61-year-old Italian inventor named Andrea Rossi staged a spectacular demonstration. In a warehouse in Bologna, he switched on a strange contraption that looked like a leg of lamb wrapped in aluminum foil. He called it the "E-Cat," short for "energy catalyzer." It contained a pinch of powdered nickel, a puff of hydrogen gas, and a dash of a secret catalyst. When the mixture was heated with an electrical current, a mysterious reaction occurred, generating large amounts of excess heat-far more than any known chemical reaction could produce. The heat boiled water into steam. The steam could be used to spin a turbine...