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
Where did the expression a load of Baloney come from? Where does the E-Cat come from?
I’m in for $100 at 1000:1 odds against.
I was surprised that Ric was writing in the “Isn’t this a great thing” vein. Just based on the surface I was somewhat skeptical.\
Then looking into it, the convincing bit for me. The guy that walks around with the video camera, spends more time looking at junction boxes and traffic cones than at the actual reactor.
Spend 10X more time looking at the bog standard generator.
From the non technical side it just screams scam. Blair Witch project was more realistic. And “Un named customer” give me a break.
John B says:
October 29, 2011 at 11:12 am
In case you missed it, here’s an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNn_Z6wCIk
Septic Matthew says:
October 29, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Nor did I. I simply referenced that as confirmation of the process being nuclear fusion and not a chemical reaction. Rossi hasn’t divulged what he uses as the catalyst to leverage the reaction to achieve over unity.
RockyRoad says: October 29, 2011 at 8:56 am
Luboš Motl says:…
And when are you going to take the time to learn about LENR? Here, start with this, Lubos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNn_Z6wCIk …
This video is an excellent touchstone RockyRoad IMHO. Thanks.
Anyone seen this video and still thinks they can dismiss LENR? Still thinks they can dismiss P&F? Still thinks they can dismiss this topic as “unscientific” or “irresponsible”? Even if Rossi is dismissed as another fraudster, there’s more to LENR than this.
Tufty said: The easy way to disprove this would simply be to keep it running.
Rossi said that would be boring!
Blade,
I read about the Keely Motor Company. I had never heard of it. By that standard, this isn’t such a complicated hoax.
Like some others, I have been following the eCat story since early in the year. Each time Rossi has an opportunity to demonstrate that it works (while keeping the details secret), he doesn’t.
RockyRoad says:
October 29, 2011 at 5:43 am
Nobody who has tried has been able to get a net energy out of a Pons-Fleischman device. Lots of people have tried. Do you really think that the people who are investing in biofuels, coal-to liquid, solar and wind would not gladly back a company or inventor that could produce working Pons-Fleischman devices? Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Germans, Americans — no one has ever been able to get a net energy return from a Pons-Fleischman device.
You don’t attach an engine to a dynamometer and then proceed to idle it for five hours. What does that prove?
My BS gauge is red lined on this one.
Richard G says:
October 29, 2011 at 12:05 pm
“The skepticism we have is that LENR will make it to commercial production without intervention.
“After a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very little more of Edison and his electric lamp. Every claim he makes has been tested and proved impracticable.” New York Times, January16th, 1880”
That’s a wonderful quote! And goes straight into my archive! Thanks!
Septic Matthew says:
October 29, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“Each time Rossi has an opportunity to demonstrate that it works (while keeping the details secret), he doesn’t.”
Yes, that strikes me as well. Very dissapointing.
It would be easy to let it run in a small house for , say, a month.
With some 3’rd party monitor power in versus power out.
Noone needs to look into the house while it is running. (Since Rossi wants to keep the content secret)
But no, that isnt done. And that is quite telling…….
It means noone can be sure it is just using up the hydrogen, or not………
Making quicklime releases lots of heat,no electricity is needed!Place the bucket so it heats some water and HEY PRESTO!!! You’ve just invented a machine thats MORE reliable than ANY of the other so-called FREE ENERGY devices. Call it “THE QL CAT”….Can i get some money,please…p.s when you’ve made your quicklime then you can sell it to the plastering trade. win/win.
Send me £10 and i’ll tell you a secret.
re: DirkH says: October 29, 2011 at 4:30 am
In the USA at least, and I’m pretty sure most if not all other nations, if a device produces radiation it has to be liscensed. It doesn’t matter how well it’s shielded (that will be required anyhow as part of the safety requirements necessary to liscense), it doesn’t matter who you claim might be around it. Private, public, doesn’t matter. Safety levels will be different for occupational workers around it, compared to general public, and so on, but it would still require liscensing, inspections, yada yada. It would also require dosimetry to detect any exposure to occupational workers and any visitors. It also makes zero difference if visitors are willing to take complete responsibility – they’re not the ones expected to know and understand the risks, the liscensee is.
Now, maybe laws are different in Italy (I doubt it, not in any significant respect that is). Or perhaps he’s skirting the law by not applying for a liscense and so on – in which case he almost certainly risks arrest or at least consfication of the apparatus. Just like the guy in international news not so long ago from Norway or Denmark or something who was supposedly building a nuclear reactor in his kitchen. That was a ‘cold fusion’ experiment too.
Nations take these things very seriously now, particularly with all the concern about terrorism in general.
I was so hoping we’d get a follow up post related to Rossi’s effort and the notion of “Cold Fusion”.
I was exposed to the effort based on a Forbes article I read a week or so ago and of course came to WUWT to do a search for E-Cat and found the prior post and fascinating comments.
I got excited and took the time to read over the related material and discovered all the conflicting Science views, claims of fraud, and history of the “Cold Fusion” misnomer and related MIT testing debacle.
“Cold Fusion” is a misnomer because the term was created by the press to describe a poorly understood electro-chemical process that defies the understanding of Physics.
Additional reading implies, the Rossi “reactor” emits gamma rays and alters not only the nickel to copper and iron but the hydrogen atom as well. Yet, the nay-sayers contend the energy in is greater than the energy out and the design and pre-heating of the containment chamber results in the perception of a sustained reaction.
The process doesn’t require radioactive material and doesn’t produce any and even if the containment vessel is broken, it will simple emit a small amount of hydrogen and stop working. Talk about clean and safe energy?
Even if this is only a first step, what an amazing break-thru for Scientists who seek to dispel the old school status-quo in favor of observable fact and a new frontier.
I’m glad to see that Anthony has revised his somewhat skeptical position on Rossi to very skeptical (which is certainly appropriate given the facts). I weighed in up-thread that the device is likely not really working. I’m posting again because upon further reflection this can be a useful incident in reminding all of us that being an effective climate skeptic requires the mindset of a skeptic in general.
I’ve been a traditional skeptic since the days of fraudulent psychics bending spoons on TV and the endless charade of UFO-nappings and perpetual motion machines. There have been skeptic magazines, clubs and societies long before climate change was an issue. To me there is no difference in principle between being skeptical of spoon-benders and being skeptical of ‘climate benders’. Just because climate scientists have a Phd and are associated with a large institution doesn’t make them right. What’s fascinating is that the climate issue has divided the traditional skeptic community. Many of these “traditional skeptics” are believers in CAGW. I think they’ve primarily been deceived by their natural disposition to support “science” (since that is usually what stands in opposition to spoon-benders etc). That naturally extended to supporting climate scientists with no deep questioning. It did for me too, until I started looking into it.
Traditional skeptics HATE that climate skeptics call themselves skeptics at all. They think “climate skeptics” have misappropriated a term that belongs to “pure skeptics”. Unfortunately, these traditional skeptics have let “agree with scientists” (which is usually correct), take the place of “question everything”. I think the real reason they hate climate skepticism is that it makes them deeply uncomfortable because it highlights their double standard. They *should* be questioning and investigating the science. Unfortunately, they do so no farther than the IPCC and other appeals to authority.
I know of too many crackpot energy schemes to buy this pig in a poke. Wake me up when there’s solid evidence verified by disinterested experts.
“A well respected researcher is claiming that he has replicated some of the results that Andrea Rossi is getting from his e-cat cold fusion device. This could be an important development because it could verify Rossi’s claims and silence some of his many skeptics. Dr. George H. Miley a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Tsingua University in Beijing.” see here.
“George Miley is a far more respectable source and researcher than Rossi.”
Updated analysis of E-cat test October 6 by David Roberson, Oct 28, 2011 together with graph of Oct 28 output.
Cold Fusion Suppressed Technology
Bewitching witchcraft?
Happy Halloween!
Rational Debate – I wondered about that. This paper:
“Nuclear signatures to be expected from Rossi energy amplifier”
Jacques Dufour.
CNAM Laboratoire des sciences nucléaires, 2 rue Conté 75003 Paris France
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/files/Nuclear%20signatures%20-%20Jacques%20Dufour.pdf
concludes:
*****
9. Conclusion
Strong nuclear signatures are expected from the Rossi energy amplifier and it is hoped that this note can help evidence them.
It is of interest to note that in [3] a mechanism is proposed, that strongly suppresses the gamma emission during the run (it is the same mechanism that creates very low energy neutrons, subsequently captured by the nickel. This does not suppress the emission after shut-down, which should be observed, together with the transmutations described above.
*****
All,
The customer was perhaps unintentionally disclosed in one of the spreadsheets.
It appears to be: Manutencoop Facility Management.
Manutencoop Facility Management S.p.A. provides management services for real estate, building, and equipment. Its services include management and maintenance of heat conditioning, air conditioning and refrigerating systems, antifire systems, electric and lighting systems, buildings, real estate, and technological equipments. The company also provides cleaning and pest control, hospital laundry and sterilization, office support, accessorial, catering and canteen, security, and night watch services; and real estate property services.
It was in properties of the Test_28_10_11.xls spreadsheet.
From DirkH on October 29, 2011 at 4:30 am:
You have completely missed the point. It is stated to be a nuclear device. Were it not for the shielding it would be releasing some amount of gamma radiation. In the US that would mean the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be all over it, demanding whole forests be slaughtered to satisfy the paperwork requirements. And that’s before considering all the other federal, state, and local applicable public safety laws and regulations.
Plus I’m certain that somewhere there’s a bureaucrat who’s expecting some amount of fees and/or taxes to build and/or operate such a potentially dangerous nuclear device.
Could GE get away with building and test running a small nuclear reactor in a warehouse, let alone claiming they don’t have to worry about the multitudes of relevant laws and regulations to protect people and the environment because they only show it privately to a few people at a time, it’s not being shown publicly?
Also, note the most dangerous aspect of the E-cat, as demonstrated with this rig. They couldn’t run it at the full 1MW output in self-sustaining mode because they couldn’t control it, it made too much heat. What would have happened if the limiting controls had failed? How hot would the devices have gotten? What would happen when an E-cat device gets so hot that any water entering is instantly flashed into steam? How would a device fare when it looses the greater cooling power of circulating water and only has steam billowing through it?
Yes, there is the control of shutting off the incoming flow of hydrogen. At what temperature (and pressure?) will water dissociate, releasing hydrogen? Can the E-cat reach that condition? It does not matter much that the catalyst and the water are separated by design, as hydrogen is notoriously difficult to contain, and when the temperatures and pressures raise sufficiently then all bets are off. Plus there’s also the not-small potential of an overheated valve simply refusing to close completely if at all…
Now to propose a possible scenario, imagine a modified working E-cat in the trunk of car, just the catalyst part without any provisions for cooling, that has the hydrogen feed turned on, the reaction-initializing heaters turned on… With whomever started the device quickly achieving a safe distance, although it could be started remotely or by a timer…
And they are allowed to duck the regulations because it’s a “private” demonstration? If it works as they say, it is a nuclear device that generates heat and gamma radiation, that is demonstratively difficult to control at high output levels in self-sustaining mode… Not bloody likely.
Rational Debate says:
October 29, 2011 at 2:19 pm
“Just like the guy in international news not so long ago from Norway or Denmark or something who was supposedly building a nuclear reactor in his kitchen. That was a ‘cold fusion’ experiment too.”
Come on now. He was swedish. And he collected americum from ordinary ordinary smoke detectors.. …..
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf57.html
skeptical…no evidence no transparancy …
why all those experiments of cold fusion or so, or new way to produce energy are so popular???Hope?
Frankly, the more I think about it, the more skeptical I am, but the more strongly I feel that this story bears watching.
It seems to me that if Rossi is trying to pull off a hoax, he’s doing a very poor job of it. The whole thing does in fact smell like a hoax, and many of the things that raise the stench meters into the red zone could have been rather easily dealt with. If a hoax, why wouldn’t Rossi have taken the few moments required to, for example, hide those power cables from the gen set instead of leaving them in plain view? It seems to me that there are many possibilities as to what is actually going on, but two of them are more likely than the others:
1. Rossi has fooled himself.
2. Rossi has achieved a remarkable breakthrough.
Either way, worth watching to see how it comes out. Lucy’s comment regarding someone else having replicated the results suggests that the results Rossi claims are at least possible. I remain skeptical… but I’d hate to see WUWT fail to post stories on further developments simply because nothing is yet proven. For those who complain about the story not being worthy of this site…well, no one made you read it, did they? The scroll wheel was invented for a reason….