Andrea Rossi is a scammer. You can search the full story of his previous scam on Google ( searching Petroldragon ). It should, however, spend a few more words to talk about his academic qualifications: Andrea Rossi graduated in PHILOSOPHY and has also acquired a fake degree in chemical engineering from the "Kensington University," a university-scam that was closed by court order years ago. In this fake university has…
What I find amusing about this is the fact there willing to turn these things on in an unshielded environment demonstrates they know it will fail. 1MW of the cleanest fusion we know about would still kill everyone in a large room before you could blink. PS: If it's enough power to heat a cup of coffee you needed serious shielding.
Considering it doesn't emit that much radiation, and the one it does is shielded by lead (afaik) it's ok. I've been reading about the Ecat for quite some time...at first I had my doubts...but after being peer reviewed, several tests and running in self-sustain for around 6 months... it is safe to assume it is going to work.
You can't easily block neutrons with lead. It takes some material with high content of light atoms such as hydrogen or helium. For example, polyethylene works well. And it has to be thick. Not box-sized, not even room-sized.