A community group will gather to discuss the work of an Italian inventor who claims to have developed a machine that can produce large amounts of energy from almost nothing.

The Byron New Energy Charitable Trust, founded by a local retiree, Sol Millin, is hoping to convince prospective investors of the technology's merit. The mastermind behind the invention, physicist Andrea Rossi, will appear via Skype.

The entrepreneur Dick Smith has sent a consulting aerospace engineer, Ian Bryce, who has a science background, to assess the machine on his behalf.

If Mr Bryce, who as a member of the Australian Skeptics has experience testing the scientific veracity of all sorts of weird and wacky things, gives the technology the thumbs-up, Dick Smith will give the group $200,000.

Dr Rossi, who works for the US based Leonardo Corporation, claims his E-cat machine can take a small amount of energy and drive a reaction between atoms of hydrogen and nickel which can, through an unknown process, produce a large amount of energy, far exceeding the initial energy input.

Cold fusion, or a low-energy nuclear reaction, is the seemingly impossible process by which a light element and a heavy element are fused, releasing vast amounts of energy at room temperature.

If the process works, not only can it produce energy, but it can be done without the heat required by nuclear fusion, a process harnessed by the sun, and without the dangerous radiation produced by nuclear fission.

So far, Mr Rossi's invention has been greeted with much cynicism by the scientific community.

Mr Bryce is sceptical too, but says the machine has the support of six physicists, including two Swedish professors.

''I'll need to see some more evidence before committing the money,'' he said.

Mr Millin, who first heard about the E-cat last year, believes a healthy dose of scepticism is a good thing.

Nevertheless, he is convinced the machine is the single device that could save the world.

''[It is] far more efficient than coal. It's absolutely clean, no radiation and no bad waste,'' he said.