A post on the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project’s website gives an interesting account of how Francesco Piantelli first became involved in nickel-hydrogen LENR research. Piantelli has explained to the MFMP how on August of 1989 he was working at the University of Siena (next to the Piazza del Campo where the Annual Palio di Siena horse race was taking place) on an experiment to understand how a brain cell reacts when it is starved of oxygen.
The experimental setup involved using a nickel rod, hydrogen, and electrodes along with the brain cells being tested.
In order to freeze the state of a dying braincell instantly on its substrate of Nickel, the sample was dunked in liquid Helium which can be as cool as -269 °C (about 4 K or −452.2 °F), the coldest fluid known to man.
Only, on August the 16th, 1989, it did not freeze, it just kept on boiling away the liquid helium, this tiny fragment of nickel was fighting around 250W of cryogenic cooling to keep warm, it was a phenomenon that had no precedent . . . [Piantelli] started to wonder if it could be in the same family of nuclear derived energy as had been recently reported from Utah by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann.
The post also explains that along with his scientific research, Piantelli is also a winemaker. Martin Fleischmann, who became a friend of Piantelli, would enjoy his wine. In 1992 Piantelli and Sergio Focardi celebrated a Nickel-Hydrogen replication success by drinking five liters of Piantelli’s Chianti.
Now, as a fundraiser to support the MFMP’s Project Fedora, Piantelli is making available some bottles (which he will sign) of his 1989 vintage. Here are the details:
We ask that people submit their closed pledges for these by the 30th December 2014 to [email protected] stating pledge value and contact details.
Successful participants will be informed on 31st December 2014 and will need to make good on their pledge by the 3rd January 2015.
The top 5 pledges will be invited to come to the MFMP accommodation in Italy, if they can, and share the wine. If Piantelli is well enough, he suggested that he would like to decant it, as a purist, he says that wine of this maturity is best consumed shortly after it is moved. Depending on shipping location, there will be an appropriate amount for packaging and shipping requested.
Piantelli is apparently seeing Project Fedora with a great deal of urgency. The MFMP says he agreed to the offering of his wine as part of the fundraiser “in order to help raise money for a strong *independent* team to urgently go
and work with him.”
I am sure that the MFMP will do all they can to ensure that any experiments and tests they run will be independent and transparent, and one advantage that we will have in Project Fedora, in comparison to the independent testing of the E-Cat, is that the testing will be live, and the testers will be able to quickly respond to questions and suggestions from outside observer.