Interesting Crowd Funding E-Cat Test Proposal

Thanks to all who have made intelligent comments on yesterday’s thread about a crowd funding approach to E-Cat testing. It seems there is some interest in the idea, but also plenty of reticence. A recent post by Elias Freitas caught my attention and seemed worthy of featuring in a new post as it sums up the case for a crowd funding approach which I will call “The People’s E-Cat Test”.

It’ so simple:

– Create an “International Association of Cold Fusion Researchers”, based on the USA or UK.

– Allow people from every country of the world to be a member

– Members should donate 50 dollars to have membership. 100 thousand members would provide the association with 5 million dollars.

– If the association doesn’t reach the goal of buying and testing an E-Cat, return the money to the members.

I’m ready to give 50 dollars to this association. If the association buys the E-Cat, and the E-Cat doesn’t work as promissed by Rossi, that will be not a problem to me. At least, my money was well used to reveal a scam, and totally demoralize the scammer. I don’t mind if Rossi will be a few million dollars richer. If it’s a fraud, at least this subject will be “case closed”.

Can we reach 100 thousand members?

The interesting thing about this proposal is that it serves the purpose of the enthusiasts and the skeptics. It would either vindicate or condemn Rossi — and if done well — with the right publicity and online distribution (anyone remember the 24/7 webcam idea?), and of course credible testers, it could do so in a very public way.

The idea is indeed simple, but would not be easy to execute. You’d need a credible person or organization to champion the approach and get it organized. And the fundraising itself might be challenging. There would be legal and organizational hurdles to overcome to get the plan in motion.

As far as making Rossi richer if he is a scammer, my understanding is that he does not get any funds from customers unless the E-Cat plant is demonstrated to perform at the contracted rate (a COP of 6 is guaranteed).

One of the stronger arguments against this People’s Test idea of the E-Cat is that sooner or later we will find out one way or another from one of his customers — or another LENR company (perhaps DGT) — will allow public testing by qualified professional, and that we should therefore just be patient and wait for the natural course of events in the marketplace to give a thumbs up or thumbs down. I think it’s a good point.

On the other hand, however, we don’t know if or when such a customer will step forwards, and what kind of access they would give to testers. Rossi’s point about customers not wanting to have the press, bloggers, enthusiasts, skeptics, etc. inundate them with emails, calls and visits is a good one — although some might be happy for the publicity. And customers might not allow the amount of testing that might be warranted.

So an interesting proposal — we’ll see if it goes anywhere.