Guest post by Ric Werme
Today is the customer test of Andrea Rossi’s 1 MW fusion reactor in his facility in Bologna, Italy. While Rossi initially expected to provide streaming video of the test, the customer nixed that because they didn’t want their people on a public video. (The customer has still not been identified.) Rossi also promised hourly updates during the test, but that didn’t happen, nor did I expect it too. In any major customer attending test, you just don’t take time off for that – the customer is far more important today than is the rest of the world!
I did promise in Tips & Notes to create this post this evening to provide a discussion forum, and a few details have made it out to warrant this post.
Bottom line – the customer will buy the reactor. The only thing that looks like a data point is that it was producing 470kW with zero heating power in (self-sustain mode). Given that one metric for a successful test was to produce at least 6X the input power, it certainly passes that test!
Rossi did get one blog post up (edited to convert all-caps to proper-caps and fix an obvious typo):
Andrea Rossi
October <28th, 2011 at 10:37 AM
First information regarding the 1 MW plant test:
We started regularly the test this morning . Everything is going well so far. The 1 MW E-Cat is working in self sustaining.
Tonight I will publish the non secret report that the customer will release.
Warm regards, I have to return to the plant. Sorry, I cannot answer to the many comments I am receiving. I will publish them probably I will never find the time to answer.
Warmest regards to all,
Andrea Rossi
That’s pretty much all there is from Italy so far. I don’t know if people measured 1 MW in powered mode, I assume somewhat more information will be released later this evening.
The naysayers are going strong, with comments like suggesting the customers consultants are in on the scam, and many calls to denounce the secrecy behind this test. Hey guys, this is a sales test, not a public event.
Even Jed Rothwell is upset:
[Vo]:Dismaying rumors about October 28 test
Jed Rothwell Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:34:00 -0700
I have heard that observers of today’s tests are only being allowed to look at the equipment for a few minutes at a time, and they are not being introduced to the engineers who are taking the data. They are not being given a chance to establish the bona fides of these engineers, or to confirm that they are fully independent from Rossi.
If this is true then it goes without saying these results will have zero credibility.
If this is true then Rossi has once again taken a golden opportunity to convince the world his claims are true, and used it to make himself look like a crook.
I hope this is not true.
Whatever happens, I am sure we will get the full story. The reporters there can be relied upon to tell us the truth. If they are not allowed to interview the engineers and they cannot independently confirm the data, they will say so. I am sure Rossi knows they will tell the truth, so it seems unlikely he would impose such outrageous conditions. Unfortunately, he has often done outrageous things, such as telling people they are not allowed to measure the temperature with their own instruments.
– Jed
I’ll update this later tonight. In the meantime, discuss away, but please keep in mind this was not a science demonstration, not a public demonstration, but a step along the path to the first sale.
Also, keep in mind what this isn’t – it’s not an efficient electrical power system. The output is hot water or low pressure steam. While that can be turned into electricity, thermodynamics says it can’t be very efficient. There are plenty of applications for this sort of process heat, and that makes a fine initial target market.
Other sources of information include:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/News:October_28%2C_2011_Test_of_the_One_Megawatt_E-Cat
Sterling Allan from PES is on site.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/10/e-day-thread-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-plant-tested-by-first-customer/
One of the first independent blogs on the E-Cat.
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=516#comments
This is Rossi’s blog, where he expected to post hourly updates. He approves posts there, and he’s been too busy to do that.
Updates
Here are links to reports from two people who were observed the test:
Sterling D. Allan (who was present), with Hank Mills from Pure Energy Systems News reported:
It ran for 5.5 hours producing 470 kW, while in self-looped mode. That means no substantial external energy was required to make it run, because it kept itself running, even while producing an excess of nearly half a megawatt. Rossi explained the reasons for this in the presentation he gave, which I videotaped and will be posting later.
Early in the day with a glitch showing up, Rossi said that they had to make a decision about whether to go for 1 MW output, not in self-sustain mode, or with self-sustain mode at a lower power level. The customer opted to go for the self-sustain mode.
Mats Lewan of NyTeknik reported:
According to the customer’s controller, Domenico Fioravanti, the plant released 2,635 kWh during five and a half hours of self sustained mode, which is equivalent to an average power of 479 kilowatts – just under half the promised power of one megawatt.
Rossi explained this with the customer’s priority to achieve self sustained mode, which supposedly makes the process more difficult to control than when electrical power is supplied to support the reaction.
“We had to decrease the power during self sustained mode as the temperature rose too much”, Rossi said after the test.
UPDATE: I’ve allowed Ric Werme to post articles on this, with trepidation (as he noted in his first and second article on it), on the outside chance that there’s something of value here. I wrote in the first article:
Foreword: I gave Ric Werme permission to do this essay. I don’t have any doubt that the original Cold Fusion research was seriously flawed. That said, this recent new development using a different process is getting some interest, so let’s approach it skeptically to see what merit it has, if any. – Anthony
After learning of some background on the inventor (which I wasn’t aware of before today h/t to Lubos)I have very large doubts now. While Wikipedia isn’t the best reference, if there wasn’t some truth here in this reference, I expect it would be removed as libelous:
Petroldragon was an environmental technology company, which through the 90’s aimed to develop oil, coal, and gas from organic waste. It was founded by, and used patents of Andrea Rossi, and Sergio Focardi. In the late 90’s the company was found guilty of dumping environmental toxins, as well as tax fraud. Its assets were seized. [1]
News of the Rossi procedure, patented in Italy, was reported by major newspapers. Jimmy Carter showed his interest in the technology, and offered Rossi a permanent entry visa to the United States.[1] After ten months’ work and a financial investment of half a billion Lire, Petroldragon had a facility that produced twenty tons of fuel oil a day, transforming one hundred tons of organic waste.
In 1993, the company created the Petroldragon Formula 3 racing team – racecars powered by waste-derived fuel that were able to compete with cars powered by the most common petroleum products.
In the late 90’s the company was found guilty of dumping environmental toxins, as well as tax fraud. Its assets were seized, as well as Rossi’s personal assets, and Rossi was arrested and imprisoned.
The track record of the man (combined with the current cloak of secrecy) suggests that this may very well be a scam. Unless there’s some open access and independent documentation of success, I’m going to prohibit any further articles. As I’ve said in comments, we try out ideas here. Based on what I know now, I think this one needs to be put aside as unworkable, and very possibly a scam until such time it is proven. When/if it is proven as scam or factual, we’ll have another report. -Anthony
Update by Ric:
I told Anthony I’d pull some stuff together looking at the allegations in better detail. It appears the only decent source of information is from a web site Rossi created a couple years ago to address the Petroldragon saga. The events in question mostly occurred before the Internet, so there isn’t as much out there as I thought. If you believe Rossi stuck Italy with huge amount of abandoned waste, you won’t believe Rossi’s explanation. If any Italian readers can comment on the events from their memory, please do.
Rossi’s web site is http://ingandrearossi.com/ . While there is an English translation there, a better one is at Steve Krivit’s http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/RossiECat/RossiPetroldragonStory.shtml
A timeline seems to be the best way to summarize things:
1971 to 1996: Created Dragon, a division of his family’s business and
manufactured waste incineration and smoke purification plants.
1978: Awarded patent for a process to convert organic waste material to oil.
Started Petroldragon to commercialize it.
198?: US President Jimmy Carter offered Rossi a permanent entry visa to the
United States to develop the process in the US.
1990 (this year doesn’t make sense): Bought Omar Refinery to process oil from Petroldragon into products for
sale.
1987: Raw materials for Petroldragon had been considered “secondary refuse matter” They were reclassified “toxic waste” as were all products derived from them. “In a very short time, all equipment was sequestered. The government then determined that tanks used for storing incoming raw materials were illegal dumps of toxic waste.”
“What followed was Rossi’s arrest and imprisonment, without any possibility to save the companies. The massive media smear campaign was successful in suddenly wiping out companies whose brand value was estimated at 50 billion lire (around 30-35 million USD in 1987) and which employed 150 people.”
The saga continues on with references to infringing on petroleum based producers and crime organizations entering the waste management business.
He continues “In the past 17 years, Rossi has been in 56 trials, forcing him into deep debt because of the financial disaster, and it is still not completely paid off.
Of all 56 prosecutions, the ones which led to imprisonment ended with acquittals; only 5 of the prosecutions for tax crime ended with convictions (with some custody imprisonments). All of the other prosecutions ended with acquittal or for statute of limitation. The same Petroldragon and Omar customers, even those who suffered factory seizures or prosecutions because of involvement with Rossi’s companies, testified as witnesses in favor of the defendant.” (The customers had products derived from “toxic waste” and those without waste handling permits were now in violation of the 1987 law.)
2000: During a journey back to Italy from the U.S., when he landing at Rome airport, he was served an arrest warrant for bankruptcy of Omar company and immediately imprisoned.
2009: Went back to the U.S. permanently and he directed the development of a new energy source. (I don’t think this refers to the E-Cat.)
As for the gold trafficking, all I can find points to an ingandrearossi.com page that is only in Italian. The Google translation is as difficult to read as any, but Rossi says the gold was recovered in the Petroldragon effort and claims “And documents deemed illegal sales of gold? All regular! Documents for import and export of precious? All regular! Cash payments? The money laundering? No trace of irregularity, because all economic transactions were made with credit and non-transferable checks, never cash!
The prosecution of Ariano Irpino, even myself, and acquitted all defendants in the investigation, not even get to trial on the grounds that: ‘… lack the evidence necessary to sustain the allegations in a process …’.”
So, was Rossi imprisoned? Yes. Did he break the law? Yes, but mainly because the law changed out from under him. Was he convicted? Yes, on less than 10% of the charges, and they were tax law violations, not a confidence scheme. Is he an evil person out to pull off the scam of the century? Probably not, as he seems to have not run afoul of the law before 1987. Does all this mean we should throw up our hands and write off Rossi’s LENR invention. I don’t think so, though it certainly adds a red flag. How about all the other evidence supporting LENR? I don’t think so. Does Lubos Motl know more about LENR than any of us? Probably, but I’m not convinced he’s right. Is Rossi or LENR too controversial for WUWT? Possibly, but I think it should remain because there are too many experiments with interesting results to be able to dismiss it.
-Ric
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He’s been news on an Italian business radio. I’ll post a link later on for those familiar with the Beautiful Language.
This whole story is just… annoying.
From the way they’re going about it, it just screams “SCAM,” but they’re also not doing anything that you can point to and say, “GOTCHA!”
What if the guy somehow, some way, stumbled on something extremely clever? Or an effect that (while not what he claims) pulls that energy from some unconsidered loophole in physics?
I’ve seen it before – a number of years back, there was one of those multi-level marketing companies, selling vitamins and such. They had one particular minor product in their line that was unique – they were literally the only company in the world that knew how to extract and package that one particular extract. It turned out that it really WAS a very good supplement, and they had at least a year of monopoly in front of them before anyone else could put it into production. They had a huge discussion on whether to stay a MLM company, or use that product to “go legit.” They stayed an MLM – but they were right about the science.
There’s always that small, obscure chance…
Interesting. I’ll follow this story closely.
I’ve been watching this progress for several months, and have some, but not major concerns that he has developed a working “cold fusion” heat source. I am more concerned that his attempt at controlling development and production may be slowing down progress and providing ammunition for his nay sayers.
With engineering improvements and economies of scale cost reductions, this may completely change the energy equations for the world. Just waiting. Watching.
Thanks for the update. I have been following these kinds of developments for 5 years. Nothing ever comes of them. Happy to be proved wrong. In fact I will buy the pizza for the party to celebrate it. But I don’t have my hopes up.
###########################################################################
Andrea Rossi
October 28th, 2011 at 5:33 PM
HERE IS THE DRAFT OF REPORT OF THE 1 MW E-CAT TEST of October 28th
http://db.tt/wu4OLbgk
PLEASE EXCUSE US FOR THE EVIDENT TYPOS, BUT IT IS PARTIALLY HANDWRITTEN AFTER MIDNIGHT FROM VERY TIRED PERSONS.
WARM REGARDS,
ANDREA ROSSI
http://www.rossilivecat.com/
###########################################################################
Bedini’s system seems much more simple. I suppose I’m biased since I’ve seen one working though.
We criticize Micheal Mann for not being transparent and for frustrating attempts to reproduce his results. So its quite proper to criticize this whole thing. I’ll believe it if and only if its independently reproduced. Web cams and ‘audience testimonials’ won’t do it for me. I’m more skeptical of this than I am of AGW.
I am extremely skeptical about this device. Mainly about the way their patent applications are written. As far as I can tell they aren’t enabling and Rossi has even commented that there isn’t enough information in the applications to replicate the device, i.e. they knowingly submitted a unenforceable patent…why would you do that? Either keep it a trade secret or submit an enabling patent. It’s just suspicious.
In any event I hope it turns out to be a working device.
Sadly, that’s my gut feeling, too.
Thanks for keeping us updated. Exciting times. Maybe it’ll turn into someting.
Oh, and as for
don’t worry about it. Most everybody who’s been around is familiar with TELEX, RTTY, TWX, etc. messages (See typical National Weather Service message). The only people who complain about all-caps have too much time on their hands for complaining.
The output is hot water or low pressure steam. While that can be turned into electricity, thermodynamics says it can’t be very efficient.
It doesn’t have to be efficient in order to be a convincing demonstration; what it has to do is unambiguously put out more energy than it consumes. That could have been done months ago, and it was not done today (according to available accounts.)
As you note, it was a sales event. Everyone in the world wants to watch this thing work, but Rossi terminated the demonstration because a long run would be “boring”. There is nothing “boring” about watching a new device work for a long period of time.
I read the “report” (http://db.tt/wu4OLbgk). It does not show anything worthwhile.
I will say that, if it is a hoax, it is the most elaborate hoax I have ever read of.
I recommend an open mind at this time. We will know soon enough if this is a real energy solution or just a dream. pg
@ur momisugly DRE; I am a patented inventor, have read the Rossi patent application and papers. As a person trained in the “arts” I feel that I can duplicate a working device if nesessary from that information. pg
What i find intriguing is not Rossi but the attitude of Rossi’s critics.
Here we have one man who may have or maybe not have invented a significant new means of generating useable energy.
As the inventor he refuses to give open access to all and sundry, which hardly qualifies as a crime, and to all those hanger ons and would be experts who are demanding immediate access to his invention. For this he is pilloried and roundly criticised.
If the Rossi’s reactor works then the world will know sooner or later of his success. If it doesn’t then the world will just go on it’s way with barely a thought on what might have been.
Yet those same protesting and denigrating commenters who are demanding immediate and unrestricted access to Rossi’s personal property, his invention, are nowhere to be seen when public moneys are being spent by the US Navy on the Bussard invented Polywell reactor.
The US Navy is a bit big to take on and hang some ***** onto over non access by the public to another potential civilisation changing energy generator concept.
And the latest very brief report on the Polywell reactor;
“As of 2Q/2011, the WB-8 device has demonstrated excellent plasma confinement properties. EMC2 is conducting high power pulsed experiments on WB-8 to test the Wiffle-Ball plasma scaling law on plasma energy and confinement.”
Nor were those demands to see the inner workings of an experimental concept at all visible when the very large financial scamming outfit, Enron was spraying press releases around in bulk on how all it’s new financial instruments that nobody had ever used before were going to change the world.
Nope! There was far to much money to be made if you got aboard with Enron to question their motives or their untried products.
I just see gross hypocrisy in the comments from many observers of Rossi to give credence to their selfish demands for immediate access to his claimed invention..
Rossi may be onto something very significant or he could be a scammer but is it anybody else’s business or right to criticise him for his desire to keep his invention to himself, except for those who might invest in him and his invention?
Big companies retain research results as internal company secrets as a matter of course so why is Rossi expected to operate to different standards to those big companies?
mpaul
October 28, 2011 at 4:54 pm
If you can’t see the differnce between the two situations, then your opinion on the matter is worthless.
….”a step along the path to the first sale.”….
Ah, all bound to be tip top and above board in that case. And there was I feeling suspicious!
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/10/28/energy-catalzyer-extraordinary-scams-require-extraordinary-claims/
It is okay by me as long as I do not have to pay taxs to support it, I am Australian you see. If it does work the Green side of politics will be against it!
Looks like the jury is still out.
If the customer buys and sets up a commercial model then we will know for sure.
This is quite exciting, and seems less likely to be any kind of scam. Might be not what people think it might be, but I don’t see how he would scam anyone at this point. If it does heat water, it’s a huge game changer. It could be used to heat water and air in any building. I hope for the sake of all of us, that he is correct. One can dream…..
Very interesting, what’s being described is akin to a Muon catalyst nuclear reaction. What concerns me is the atomic mass of nickel and hydrogen (even heavy hydrogen) combined do not exceed the atomic mass of copper. The product copper could be an isotope with less atomic mass than the inputs, a requirement for the reaction to be an actual exothermic nuclear reaction. E=(delta)mC^2. If not, it’s just an exothermic chemical reaction, a trick.
One issue that was not addressed was that there is a cost to extracting the hydrogen and other components of the process. That takes energy and it doesn’t seem to be factored into the energy balance.
If he’s got a salable product and he’s not running off to someplace he can’t be extradited from, then he’s got something that actually works (whatever it is). Once the buyer has his own up and running then it will be obvious whether it really works or not. That’s assuming it’s not going to go into some black program somewhere.
@P.G. Sharrow
I have three patents, two of the three were licensed to start-up companies. I wrote the vast majority of the specifications on all three and wrote 90% of one.
Apparently according to Rossi there is a catalyst that is needed for the device to operate. The specifics of this catalyst aren’t included in the patent applications. Patents have to be enabling i.e. contain all the information needed to build a working device. So I don’t think the patent is enforceable.
This is extremely suspicious. But as I said I hope I’m wrong.
John West says:
October 28, 2011 at 6:01 pm
As a chemist myself, I have seen cases like this in the past that involve a chemical exothermic reaction, also. Like Zn or a similar finely divided alloy in alkali solution that produces heat and hydrogen. A sacrificial anode which is used up in the reaction would be my guess as to the source of the heat, were it to be a scam. That is also just a gut feeling based on experience—yet I hope there is something real here!
Alas, the INPUT POWER MEASURING is NOT well documented.
And the concept that the “Generators were on during the tests…”
Bad move. Fail. I’m very hopeful that this is correct. But Rossi must have a hole in his head if he thinks that this will prove anything, except (if it is true they had complete access) to the “customer”.