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LENR keeps drawing investors

Second investment firm sinks money in Rossi's LENR-concept

Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, such as in regular peer reviewed scientific journals or conferences, there seems to be no lack of funding for developing the technology of Andrea Rossi's eCAT.

Since they have bought the technology, Cherokee Investment Partners has put $10 million in Rossi's and other LENR technology according its CEO Tom Darden. They operate under the firm Industrial Heat LLC. More recently, a major British investment fund brought in even more money to commercialize the technology.

This investment came shortly after Rossi was granted US Patent No. 9,115,913 on August 25, 2015, for what is described as an apparatus for heating fluids. Rossi has tried to obtain patents before but had never succeeded.

Interestingly however, if you read between the lines in a recent interview in Fortune Magazine with Tom Darden, he is not entirely convinced that LENR is real. 

He admitted the idea of cold fusion seems to violate the laws of fusion but he thinks there is enough evidence to verify LENR. Yet in the interview we read he has the hope that there are other, unknown phenomena that play a role in enabling nuclear transmutation at relatively low temperatures around 1000 degrees centrigrade.

Against the odds

Given Rossi's track record as convicted white-collar criminal with a string of failed energy ventures, one would think investors would at least be suspicious... Adding up to that are recent reports of 15 properties in the Miami area (not the worst locations one can choose for living...) that are now owned by Andrea Rossi and his partners, all purchased after Industrial Heat LLC raised $11.5M with a SEC filing.

While the odds are clearly against LENR and Rossi to actually make a breakthrough in reality (despite years of claims and reports, there is still no hard evidence), it remains interesting to see how they keep attracting media attention and how successful they have been in obtaining financing of unproven technologies.

Their current plan is to finish testing of the device by February 2016, and if the testing is successful, start mass production. We will therefore revisit this tale once more, in Feb 2016.