Think of the Jury

I’ve never seen anything quite like the E-Cat story. Over the last few days  here there has been intense scrutiny of every last detail that can be gleaned from the recent reports and photos, and the discussion/debate shows no sign of dying down so far. I think I understand the reason why there is such intense interest among readers — we are dealing with a technology which, if real, could have a profound impact on the world.

However, at the moment, I think it takes a certain mindset to get excited about the E-Cat and LENR. It is an unproven technology/phenomenon, and from my own observations, the average person is not that interested in technologies that may or may not be real.  I think this is part of the reason why we have seen so little interest in this field among the mainstream media — the average media consumer really doesn’t care that much. Most people tend to get interested in technologies once they are proven and are available in the marketplace for use.

It all makeors ws me wonder what the judge is making of this story, and what the eventual jurors will think about it all. We are here because we want to be, but this is just another case assigned to Judge Altonaga, probably complegely unlike anything she has seen before. And think of the jurors who are selected from everyday life to find themselves dealing with a subject that has probably never crossed their mind before, being presented with all the details that we have been following over recent years. They are going to be subjected to reams of documents dealing with complex scientific topics with witnesses looking at things from totally different perspectives. And my understanding is that the trial will last two weeks, so they will be expected to be able to come to an informed decision in a very short time.

Rossi’s team contends that he deserves to be paid because Penon’s report states that the plant exceeds the requirements  of the agreement. IH’s team contends that the Penon report cannot be trusted because it is impossible for the plant to have worked as Penon certified.  If I was a juror, I am sure the main question on my mind would be, does the E-Cat work? Can it really produce substantially more energy than it consumes? If in the jury’s mind the answer is yes, Rossi’s side would probably prevail; if the answer is no, he would probably lose.

Probably the judge is wondering the same thing, too. If I were the judge, one way I might think of trying  to resolve this dilemma would be to ask for some kind of new E-Cat demonstration or test to be conducted. Based on what we have seen, at this point, it doesn’t sound like it is possible to go back and recreate the Doral plant test, but it should be possible to have Rossi conduct a new E-Cat test with another reactor. It doesn’t have to be 1 MW — just something that can show that in principle E-Cat technology is valid.

I don’t know if this is likely, or even legally possible given court rules, but to me it would be a common sense thing to do, and I think it would be very helpful to the jurors who might find all the scientific and forensic debates quite confusing.