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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David Wood says:
October 30, 2011 at 11:25 am
“…Unfortunately standard quantum physics doesn’t account for LENR reactions. It is 20th century physics in a 21st century world, if you will. Fortunately, the physics that will define 21st century science has already been developed by Frank Znidarsic…”
———————
Warp drive is 23rd century physics. And equally grounded in reality.
Rossi claims to use a thin sheet of lead for radiation shielding and demonstrates no leakage with a detector. Why not place a detector inside the shield to demonstrate radiation concurrent with energy generation?
Besides being a convicted fellon, his degree in chemical engineering is from Glendale, CA Kennsignton University, a diploma mill closed by legal action in 2003.
I’m astonished that Anthony Watts would let this post on to besmirch his site. I’m predicting that he’s going to repudiate it soon.
Robert David Graham,
Read the updates in the article:
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
Forbes has a pretty good summary of the situation.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/30/believing-in-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/
I pretty much concur with what he says.
a number of things based on the only picture i could download (the one from the -22 website).
first the equipment looks just like the large airhandler units used in High Volume Air Conditioning system in large buildings, even down to the chilled water supply and warm water return lines as well as the filter boxes on the down stream ducts.
second there is no instrumention in evidence except for that associated with HVAC installations.
third, there is no insulation (absolutely necessary for the efficiency that this thing needs to achieve his goal).
fourth, why are the people in the picture wearing winter coats if the equipment is operating and not insulated one would expect the room temerature in a prototype installation to be elevated…..
fifth, why isn’t there a large computer monitor in evidence to show the “readings” to the “customers” standing in front of the table and looking over at the “operating equipment”.
remember its the dumb little details……..
if he actually is showing an HVAC setup disguised as a xxxxxxx then he should be able to show any temperature he wants until about about sundown when the chilled water system will probably cut out at the main plant. if he is in an abondoned building then he probably needs the diesel for power for lights, motors (the HVAC will have some large ones) and various other sound effects.
C
One of the modern world’s greatest scams is hot fusion………
Superb!. You do realise this device will usher in a new Era, goodbye Nuclear, hello Steampunk!
Lucy Skywalker says (October 29, 2011 at 9:07 am): “Both books demonstrate academically-recognized (and academically-forgotten or -suppressed) knowledge that nuclear transmutation already takes place in biological systems, obviously at cool temperatures.”
Lucy left out another reference to nuclear transmutation in biological systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2t%C3%A9_de_Foie_Gras_(short_story)
Robert David Graham says:
October 30, 2011 at 12:42 pm
“I’m astonished that Anthony Watts would let this post on to besmirch his site. I’m predicting that he’s going to repudiate it soon.”
Ah, you’re coming from Skepticalscience and think all blogs operate like them.
RockyRoad says (October 28, 2011 at 7:17 pm): “Cold fusion is a reality.”
Well, color me skeptical, but cold fusion (the cheap net energy-producing kind) is only a reality when I can commute to work in my CF-powered flying car (or in my CF submarine or aircraft carrier; or connect my house to a CF electric grid). That’s not asking too much of “reality”, is it?
Septic Matthew says:
October 30, 2011 at 10:12 am (Edit)
There were a few issues with the P&F device:
1) It was difficult to reproduce. One suggestion was “Don’t keep things too clean” woke ancient memories of Polywater.
2) The power output was so small that it required state of the art calorimetry to demonstrate over unity power production. I think this is one reason why people are so demanding that Rossi produce better data than he has and question the reviews that conclude it can’t be chemical energy. (Yes, it would have been nice if they had shutdown the generator during the self-sustaining phase.)
3) There isn’t enough Palladium in the world to run to run the world with efficient P&F devices.
I just read most of http://andrea-rossi-bio.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=11
and I would say that Rossi has every reason to be paranoid. It sounds like a bigger competitor entered the market Rossi had developed based on no permits need ed for trash conversion, and was walloped when the competitor used its political ties to get permits and drive petrolDragon out of business and bankrupt Rossi.
Like I said earlier, he needs to tread a thin line to get patents before the obvious art is disclosed. Since the US Patent office has sworn hands-off on cold fusion, only Chu can help him!
As a footnote to watching these tests unfold I do not agree that nothing new is claimed ( note claimed) with this test: It goes up to half a megawatt and in addition it is within the time table announced six months ago or so.
I suppose the megawatt target was to silence those thinking outside sources are involved, ( do you know many half a megawatt generators for labs?) .
If it is a scam and not self delusion, time will show. In either case it must involve the measurements published. After unzipping, in the XL lfile there is a plot of the steam temperature versus time. Not hard to jiggle such stuff.
Again, time will show.
Anthony, I think that a proper distanced attitude is appropriate for your blog and the present presentation is measured enough. It is news and most science oriented readers want to be informed of such news.
“One more recent scam? delusion? was a high efficiency thermoelectric module that wound up either not working or worked no better than conventional modules. It would be nice to know more about it, but I’ve never seen more than what’s in the esowatch page.”
Not sure what you mean saying “nice to know more”. I doubt there’s more detailed information than what’s in the Army Report linked on esowatch:
http://dodfuelcell.cecer.army.mil/library_items/Thermo(2004).pdf
Not sure how Rossi got out of this one without jailtime. Maybe the DoD was just to embarassed to admit they’ve been ripped off and therefore cut Rossi some slack and believed the dog ate his homework? Anyway – with e-cat it could end equally strange. Dragging on for years and years of promises, missed schedules and unexplained, mysterious manufacturing problems until, finally, people lose interest and forget about it – while his fans will remain faithful throughout and never understand why we still use oil or build pointless windfarms when cold fusion “is here” already.
David Wood says:
The Physics Crackpot Index: http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
Anna V implies that there were previous similar fraud/failure in Rossi’s history. Dagobert provides a reference within it is this: “As part of a Department of Energy project titled, “Assessment of Efficiency Increases
and Economics of Application of Thermoelectric Apparatus in Fossil
Power Plants” (Task DE-AT01-98FE65489, TD No. 15), a small prototype TE Device
manufactured by Dr. Andre Rossi was tested at the University of New
Hampshire in 2000. This TE Device demonstrated significant power generation
(100 watts continuous) and a thermal to electrical conversion efficiency of 16 percent.
These results could not be duplicated during this effort. LTI is continuing
research and development work to achieve the TE Device level of operation demonstrated
in the Parsons study.”
Note the problem was not scientific, but in scaling for production. Small scales test showed promise, but when scaled up for real world production several manufacturing quality and physical constraints in current material technologies seemed to lower performance or cause complete failure.
Not a fraud, but bleeding edge technological failure.
“True Disbeliever” Typhoon says:
October 31, 2011 at 5:27 am
“The Physics Crackpot Index: http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html”
+1000 points for using the crackpot index in place of a thoughtful reply
This article inspired hundreds of interesting, informative comments laden with hard science, politics both good and bad that surroud science, greed surrounding science, and so forth. So basically it contains all the plot elements of the global warming hoax only on a much smaller scale. Given that the frequency of articles on this topic is maybe twice a year and many aspects of it parallel alarmist climate science I don’t believe it warrants exclusion.
What makes me suspicious is the “break even generation”.
I have a box in my kitchen – same size as a breadbox. It is in breakeven mode right now! It is powering itself! Oh wait, it is a breadbox.
The device needs to run a 20 hp motor, and they need to allow a team to to see if it is in isolation, and not having external batteries. You bring in a air sampler to look for emissions of any sorts. If they can run it for a month, then I would say its worth looking at. If not, scam. Right now I think its a scam, since this is a pretty simple test.
Tax fraud in corporations is usually accomplished by the CFO not the CEO. Rossi wasn’t CFO but unfortunately for him the buck stops with the CEO. At a small company I once worked for I mentioned to the CEO, who was a longtime friend of mine, the CFO here is a crook. The reply “Yes, but he’s OUR crook” which was meant to say he might be a thief but he was stealing FOR the company not FROM the company.
I wouldn’t judge Rossi’s integrity by a tax fraud conviction and even less by breaking environmental laws. Neither are related to confidence scams and Rossi may not have even known the law was being broken but, as the legal tenet goes, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
“Note the problem was not scientific, but in scaling for production.”
Sadly – no. The device tested at the University of New Hampshire was not tested BY the University but by Rossi himself allegedly using UNH equipment and personnel. The Army never tested the efficient version of Rossi’s TE device – or if they HAVE tested it, they chose not to refer to their own measurements but reported Rossi’s instead.
The Report notes:
“Testing TE Devices and wafer materials is a science of its own. Measuring the internal resistance of a TE Device or a single wafer pair proved challeng- ing. (The multimeter applied a current through the TE materials, inducing the Peltier effect, which caused errors in measurements.)”
Now what is more likely? That a) Rossi did in fact invent a TE Device much, much more efficient than anything on the market today but gave up in the middle of it all to pursue something else or b) he simply failed measuring his first prototype properly and could never provide his customer with anything coming close to claims resulting from that – including prototypes of any scale. Given the funny way in which he measures energy production from nuclear reactors, I really wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe that’s all there is to Rossi? No scam, no evil doing – just somebody who can’t ever be bothered checking his quantification methods. Not a con artist but a serial clutterer (I doubt it).
Dave Springer says:
October 31, 2011 at 6:56 am
Life is too short to debunk every crackpot.
Debunking Rossi’s scam was enough.
I’ve been waffling on this, because of my association, back in the ’90’s with the Patterson group (Clean Energy Technologies)…I personally set up a computer data system for the flow calorimetry on a desk top device in the 10 watt range, and the output was 5 to 1 or better on the input.
This was using an electrolysis system, thin Ni films and LiSO4 for the electrolyte.
Since Rossi’s work is a spin off of Piantelli’s 1990’s work (Boni-fide University professor, I believe materials science or the like) I gave it some credibility.
Now, I have one complaint, based on “second hand” information. It is alleged that Rossi’s device produces a low level gamma ray emission while working.
If this is a fact, then Rossi is either a fool, a knave, or a con-man. Here’s why: EVERYTHING can be put in black plastic bags. All the components. Any competent radiological survey group (local contamination testing firms, any of 200 nuclear plants in Europe) could bring simple pancake GM devices, and do a “survey” before the materials are assembled into a working device.
Insist that the assembly be done in a closed room, with the bags and pre-approved tools handed in.
Assemble the device, turn it on (via the start up protocol) and demonstate Gamma.
The accomplishment of “new physics”? CASE CLOSED.
No problem! The problem is, neither Jed Rothwell, nor Steve Krivit, nor Rossi have TOUCHED on this concept. Simple, transparent, and direct. Makes me doubt if any of the afformentioned should be driving a car or doing their own taxes.
One fascinating thing about this story is how the corporate news media is trying to kill it.
Apparently people from AP were there. One was Peter Svensson who is a technology reporter at AP.
peter svensson from AP
After looking at his twitter page it becomes clear at least for me that he was ordered from higher up to kill this story, at least for the time being.
http://twitter.com/#!/petersvensson
If not AP, Reuters or AFP writes about a story, then the story won’t be picked up by news media around the world and won’t be picked up by ordinary people.
Those who control AP, Reuters and AFP control the news. Those who control the news control the world.
You don’t need to be a conspiracy freak to realize that. You only need to look at the facts.
I think the story is newsworthy enough to go out on the news wire. Either it is a scam and in that case a very sophisticated scam. Or it is real and potentially the whole energy economy and consumption will be turned upside down and in this case this power source is going to be tremendously important.
But just to drop it, is to me amazing.
Compare this to all the AGW crap stories coming out of Seth Borenstein of AP, I mean it must be crap even for people who believe in dangerous human caused global warming.