"Free" energy is a term in need of definition.
From an economic standpoint, anything you don't pay for is free. No one currently taxes wind, sunlight, waves, tides and the ionosphere ... so we can consider any energy derived from these to be free so long as we discount the capital investment needed to capture this energy (which might well make the final cost higher than simply buying fuel).
A nuclear power plant's output could be considered free since the cost of fuel is part of the original price tag and, most likely, the entire cost of the plant will be amortized before the core needs replacement. I guess the same thing is true if you build a coal burning power plant on top of a coal mine shaft or burn wood from your own private forest.
From a physics standpoint, there is no proven thing as free energy. That's where the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics actually kick in. Solar and wind are certainly not free energy, both derive from the sun; directly and indirectly in these respective instances. The same would be true of any nuclear reaction --- whether fission, fusion or aneutronic (keep in mind that the sun is a big gravitionally induced fusion reactor). The energy isn't free but instead is produced by destruction of matter according to Einstein's E=MC^2. Something is always lost when producing energy.
Anyhow, energy may be "free" in economic terms but never in terms of the First and Second Laws.
My interest in Rossi was that the Yahoo Cyclone site had endless discussion on the topic a year or so ago. It was alleged that further experimentation was to be forthcoming in the not-too-distant future and I wanted to see what evidence had, or had not, been provided. I couched the request for information neutrally in the hopes that some Rossi supporter would chime in and provide the latest poop straight from the horse's mouth. No joy, however.
Honestly, I can't say I bought a single sentence of the pro-Rossi discussion. Anyone claiming nuclear fusion of any variety can prove his point with a simple spectroanalysis of the gasses or liquids in the reaction vessel. Before light off there should be essentially no helium in the vessel and it should manifest its presence as hydrogen is fused. I can remember sending oil samples out for commercial spectroanalysis almost 40 years ago. If anything, it's even easier to get an analysis today.
Strangely enough, the evidence provided by Rossi seems sort of legit. If I were running a con job, I would show a constant projection of output running higher than input --- that's what all the big labs working on hot fusion are shooting for. Instead, the data I saw showed outputs running below input with temporary peaks in excess. It was argued that these peaks represented fusion. Since the cumulative input energy well exceeded the output, it struck me that claiming fusion was a bit presumptuous. Any number of processes and reactions exhibit the same characteristic without anyone even vaguely thinking they are exhibiting over-unity behavior. Stick a wire across the poles of a capacitor in a hot circuit....THERE'S a massive discharge well above the level of input at any given moment.
I guess part of my fascination is that I can't figure out if linking Rossi to Cyclone was a cynical ploy or if the folks in Florida actually fell for the LENR hype.
I'm not sure we can honestly say that Rossi found Cyclone to be a fraud because he wouldn't buy one of their engines ... what use does a guy without a boiler have for a steam engine? It's one of those things that works both ways...
