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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mpaul says:
October 28, 2011 at 4:54 pm
As I recall, Mann’s salary was at the taxpayer’s expense. Rossi has invested his personal fortune–even to the point of mortgaging his house to get to this point. Unless you believe private ownership is a bygone fad, I’d say you have not established any equivalency in your post. (And yes, we’ll all criticize M. Mann for not making all of his taypayer-subsidized information public–he wants to influence public policy in a big way, but not have to show how he came to his conclusions. I’d say Rossi has orders of magnitude more credability than Mann, yet even now Rossi’s invention has not absolutely been confirmed, especially the theory upon which it works which may take several more years to conclusively derive.)
Ho Hum.
Yet another perpetual motion machine.
Alan
Maybe, just maybe, he WANTS to convey that impression, to cool the interest of potential competitors until he’s lengthened his developmental lead.
He does come from the land of Machiavelli ….
Investing his fortune, and mortgaging his home, we have to take this at his word, I guess—but this could be bread cast on waters (this old expression comes from hunters, who cast bread to attract ducks to shoot). I am just a suspicious so-and-so, I reckon!
ROM says:
October 28, 2011 at 5:40 pm
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.
———————————————–
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There are few things more extraordinary than solving the world’s energy demands with a clean fusion process. We’ve been down this path before with Pons and Fleischmann. The community is justifiably skeptical as that makes good scientific as well as economic sense.
Personally I’m intrigued by Polywell and support the government support of its research, but I’ll remain just as skeptical of them until clear evidence of net power production has been demonstrated. More importantly, Polywell hasn’t claimed net power production so Rossi deserves and is receiving the proper level of scrutiny.
Alan Millar says:
October 28, 2011 at 6:43 pm
It is comments like this that stack unwarranted derision on Rossi and others working on LENR. Please avail yourself of the opportunity to investigate what’s on the Web regarding the aforementioned acronym before using disparaging descriptions that the inventors and other investigators in this field of science have never used and have never claimed.
Did you know MIT (yes, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) held a colloquium regarding the subject just this past June and that they do so on an annual basis? Check here for the latest results:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/LANR2011Colloq.pdf
And that’s just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”.
I too have followed this story (and many of the preceding ‘cold fusion’ stories) with a certain degree of professional interest. In this case it seems to me that one possible explanation that fits the facts as I gleaned them off their Internet site is that they first make a metal hydride (by charging it with hydrogen on a previous occasion) then decompose the hydride during the demo. The decomposition is likely to be exothermic, especially of the hydrogen is converted to water at the same time. But this is just storage and then discharge of chemical energy, not fusion.
But of course, I too will buy pizza all round if I am wrong….;.
Tsk Tsk says:
October 28, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Did you know Pons and Fleischmann were never refuted with science–they were the object of political refutation. Their breakthrough reaction (among those willing to do an unbiased investigation, such as the following investigation by CBS News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNn_Z6wCIk) has been replicated thousands of times by researchers in multiple countries (and P & F weren’t the first, by the way).
But I hope we aren’t going down the same path the powers that be used to discredit Pons and Fleishchmann–primarily those concerned their $billions in government grants for hot fusion research would be tossed aside if energy could be generated with a simple apparatus on a desktop (or more to the liking of the critics: fusion in a bottle).
Cold fusion is a reality.
Don’t trust me, however-find out for yourself.
THis device appears to be based on work by Randell Mills, long before BLP, for the Navy 20+ yrs ago which clearly did produce extra heat, exponentially so at elevated temps. Because the process is in the public domain it may be difficult for Rossi to get viable patents.
Remember, it doesn’t matter whether we believe (on faith?) this technology works or not or whether it is a scam, that is for the investors to determine, NOT us. If it is viable, and I believe there is a small probability based Mills’ early publication that it does, the human race is home free and the climate doomsters are going to have to find another bogey man to use in their quest for riches and world domination.
If it doesn’t; NEXT!
Roger Knights says:
October 28, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Maybe, just maybe, he WANTS to convey that impression…
Yeah of course, only the true Messiah denies his divinity. Riiiiiiiight
This is a scam but it has shown one interesting thing; that the majority of “sceptics” who post on WUWT aren’t in fact sceptics at all but in reality are credulous believers. This is a sad day for truth.
DesertYote says:
October 28, 2011 at 5:47 pm
==========
Rein that horse in, it’s a bit rank.
(Some horses pull hard and are head strong. They are difficult to gallop and to relax in a race. These horses are said to be rank. It is quite an art to try to settle a horse when galloping and breezing, but if they are truly rank its next to impossible).
Every time there is an opportunity for Rossi to clearly show the effectiveness of his device, it become an event of obfuscation and secrecy. This is what concerns me about the device he produced. It would be very simple for him to answer these basic questions without revealing anything in the “Black Box”. But, he does not, and berates those who question the results, he doesn’t supply. Any person who invents something this dramatic and possibly game changing should be tripping over themselves to get this out. I think of Edison, Tesla, Moore, and multiple advancements in technology that trumpet their ideas and results to the world. Rossi, hides his results, uses nonstandard measurement methods, and makes it very difficult to even evaluate his “Invention”. If you want investment then you should make it easy for everyone technically knowledgeable to understand and promote your product. Why make it so hard if it works as claimed? The most obvious conclusion is that it does not.
About as much credibility as Jim Hansen, I’d say. Anthony, how about some technical vetting and “peer review” before putting this dubious gobbledygook up?
REPLY: That’s what this blog does – we try out ideas. Some like Willis’ recent paper on extinction and my surfacetstations project make it to papers. If you don’t like it don’t read it. cheers, Anthony
mpaul says:
October 28, 2011 at 4:54 pm
We criticize Micheal Mann for not being transparent and for frustrating attempts to reproduce his results.
Mann was financed with public funds. Under law the public has a right to the data, methods and results. He is seeking to withhold from the public that which they paid for and have a legal right to.
No private inventor using private funds has any such obligation. They are well within their rights to defend their property from anyone that seeks access without permission.
For over 50 years, main stream science has claimed that given a few more billion dollars and a few more years they would provide useable energy from “Hot” plasma fusion. Now the claim is ,after hundreds of billions of dollars, they may reach energy breakeven with another few hundred billions and 10 or more years effort. I think that we should give these LENR crackpots that work for nothing but insults a little slack. In a few years we will know for sure just which group is running a scam. pg
Scam until proven otherwise. If it’s not, it will find me when they are willing to demonstrate publicly.
I’m extremely skeptical. Does that make me a cold fusion denier?
Ferd:
I have contracted some of my inventions with large and small companies several times over the years. I have one such arrangement ongoing. In all cases, these dealings are kept confidential, to the point of initializing confidentiality agreements before any intellectual property is swapped. This is SOP for inventor-client relationships. If no CDA exists, then both parties are either conflating, or are lousy businessmen.
Once the deal becomes public, the relationship becomes a public relationship. That only occurs with consent of both parties. This is why this does not pass the initial sniff test.
My logical conclusion, based on this public disclosure behavior alone, is that both parties are in collusion somehow, to cultivate a bigger “duck” somewhere, somehow. My Dad always told me to “follow the money trail”. Who is the client? What is their history? Who are the principals? Who is the ultimate fish they are looking at?
My first (total speculation, of course) is that the “duck” is a government or government agency or Quango.
ferd berple says:
October 28, 2011 at 7:35 pm
“They are well within their rights to defend their property from anyone…”
Of course he’s within his rights to defend his property but the fact that he hasn’t shows that he has nothing. If he had something he would have patented it. He hasn’t and therefore he hasn’t.
My understanding is that Rossi is trying to license marketing and production partners in various markets. He claims to have long running facility which heats a building, which I presume he shows these potential partners. These shorter term tests are to demonstrate independent operation of newer designs. He claims to have demonstrated this process many times for several years.
His low ball, shoe string approach appears to me an attempt to protect his device from piracy. He seems to know it works. It makes a difference with what, how long you make the confirmation tests, when a long working production system is already shown to potential partners.
But then my wife always claims I am too trusting. 🙂
If this device works, I’m curious about how it might be regulated and taxed.
Any thoughts on that?
RockyRoad says:
October 28, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Did you know Pons and Fleischmann were never refuted with science–they were the object of political refutation.
Pons and Fleischmann results have been recreated, at least in part. The problem is more one of reliability. Sometimes the device works, sometimes it doesn’t.
rpercifield says: October 28, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Every time there is an opportunity for Rossi to clearly show the effectiveness of his device, it become an event of obfuscation and secrecy. ……. Why make it so hard if it works as claimed? The most obvious conclusion is that it does not.
——————————————————————————
Another conclusion is that it is easy to replicate and AR knows the only way he can make any money is by keeping it secret. Working with early adopters would allow them to beat the competition to market. Selling it to big company makes it more likely they can keep it out of the public domain longer. This scenario also explains why Defkalion claims they can market a product without AR’s blessing.
If it works, I’ll be more than happy to help make him the wealthest man on earth. If not, it really does not matter. Wait and see.
LENR in general is an interesting, worthy and potentially fruitful area of research. However, I’ve been closely following first-hand reports of Rossi’s e-cat for the past 10 months or so and my opinion has turned from neutral to negative. It’s Rossi’s behavior that is the root of the problem. Initially I gave him the benefit of the doubt as perhaps eccentric and/or naive but it’s beyond that now. He’s being willfully obtuse and forgoing opportunities where he could easily win serious experts over to his side (which would help his business aspirations enormously).
Also, Rossi’s claims about other people are often inaccurate. Rossi claimed that NASA saw great potential in his device. When pressed for comment NASA said something to the effect, we saw nothing that would lead us to believe there is a working device. That’s a pretty big disparity.
When denying reasonable requests for modifications to the test protocol that would eliminate the opportunity for trickery, Rossi invariably implies that the skeptics are trying to steal his great secret. From what I’ve seen, every skeptic has been fine with testing the apparatus as a “black box”. No need to look inside. What’s needed is accurate measurement and verification of the external energy input and output. Why in the world would Rossi, who seems desperate for legitimacy, refuse reasonable requests to tighten up the very loose (or non-existent) controls on measurements that are entirely external to his “secret” machine?
Conceptually, measuring the energy input and output of a closed system is pretty easy. I’ve finally concluded that there’s too much “watch the pea under the shell” game going on. After every public demonstration Rossi’ does, skeptics have reviewed the photos (and video when available) and identified a clear place that the “pea” could be hiding (ie hiding extra energy input or masking lack of output). In the next demonstration, Rossi may have eliminated that method for potential cheating (or not) but a new hiding place for the “pea” is introduced to the rig and dutifully pointed out by skeptics. I’ve grown tired of it. I suggest ignoring this entire circus until Rossi allows a credible lab to test his device in their own facility, with their own measurement equipment and without Rossi being able to come near the apparatus. *If* Rossi actually has a working device, this independent test should happen very shortly (it should already have happened). If not, we’ll keep hearing about more uncontrolled, unverified “tests” which are meaningless.