I allowed Ric Werme to post a couple of entries on the E-Cat “power reactor” by Andrea Rossi in the past, mainly to spur debate on whether this idea had any merit at all. I shut down comments on the last E Cat thread because it was getting out of hand. I expressed my doubts then that this was a viable energy source.
I think even less of the invention now after reading this essay over at Luboš Motl The Reference Frame. Follow the Joules. Excerpt:
So what Andrea Rossi has achieved was to use the electricity from the power outlet to heat the water right beneath the boiling point at a 75 percent efficiency; something that a good housewife should be able to do in the kitchen at least twice a day. If Mr Rossi has a genuine reactor, a simple way to disprove this description of the details of his stupidity (or his naive magic) is heat the water/steam to 110 °C instead of 100.1 °C using the same gadget. 😉 This is not too much to ask for: typical steam generators in nuclear power plants are pressurized at 60-160 atmospheres and the temperature of water and steam is 220-315 °C.
Maybe the E-Cat might be useful to Starbucks, but as for net positive power generation, it doesn’t seem even remotely plausible. Maybe Mythbusters will take it on for entertainment.
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Then there is this view of why Rossi hasn’t taken the time to do a full demostration:
http://landshape.org/enm/cold-fusion-in-walmart-soon/
Personally I object to calling it cold fusion, but, that’s a nit pick.
But the water used by the genius Andrea Rossi was homeopathic and retains the ‘memory’ of all the energy created by the Big Bang.
A bigger problem are the X-rays and the lead lining. There are two other alternatives, one being developed by a company involving Eric Lerner, involving plasma, and the other, Black Power. that involves Randell Mills. It is worth bearing in mind that it would be commercial suicide if Rossi described the process in full – but the consensus opinion appears to doubt the Rossi claims
@Anthony,
Not sure Mythbusters would be good to employ for this, somehow they’d find a good CAGW spin to put on the failed project. Yes, even Mythbusters is tied up in the scam, as revealed in the climategag email dump.
See text #1724 (http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1674) from Dan Tapster, executive producer of Mythbusters, to Hulme:
“Dear Dr Hulme,
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me this morning. As discussed, I’m sending you the
latest copy of the script for this programme. It would be great for me if you could read
it and let me know your thoughts.
……”
I would also add that Lubos and others are making their claims based on earlier tests. Here is the report from the October 28th test:
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article3303693.ece/BINARY/Report+Ecat+Oct28+%28pdf%29
from here:
http://ecatreport.com/e-cat/andrea-rossis-1mw-plant-in-bologna-test-a-huge-success
I think Starbucks, if they knew about this, might want to purchase units for their chain!! 8>)
Carol Smith,
The CONSENSUS opinion? After hundreds of years of the consensus getting it WRONG, haven’t we learned to ignore the CONSENSUS yet and look for actual FACTS!
Re: carol smith
The consensus opinion doesn’t mean anything.
Rossi is claiming he is producing steam at a temperature of 100.1C. Luboš Motl is claiming that at 100.1C it was still water due to an elevated atmospheric pressure.
If Rossi is correct then it generates more energy than it uses, if Luboš is correct then it is a kettle.
I can’t find any fault with Luboš’s reasoning so I think I’ll have a cup of tea.
I did an article on Rossi recently which has a couple of video links which may help people decide whether it’s a hoax or not.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/andrea-rossi-e-cat-megawatt-cold-fusion-device-passes-the-test/
At the Oct 28th demonstration Rossi’s device was measured to output 470Kw for a number of hours. This was measured by measuring the amount it raised the temperature of the water by. Clearly a full steam generation rig will take a lot more development but the main interest is surely in the reaction at this stage.
I’m undecided, but interested, and hopeful.
Might want to look into this: http://freeenergydocs.com/cold-fusion-lenr/specifics-of-andrea-rossi-energy-catalyzer-test/
Until Rossi makes public his design and data; and allows independent verification, his claims are of no more value than Mike Mann’s.
carol smith says:
November 27, 2011 at 12:48 pm
“A bigger problem are the X-rays and the lead lining.”
Why? If Lubos is correct, a coffee pot does not need a lead lining, because there are no X-rays….
Please; the consensus position is the ‘safe’ opinion. It doesn’t rock the boat or ruffle any feathers. It doesn’t require revision of presently held beliefs or threaten present technical research program funding. Only a ‘revolutionary’ sees any merit in seeking the truth on a matter … therefore we must go with … consensus.
Unless you have a plan by which I could make a bazillion bucks off commercializing the implementation of the concept, in which case I’m with you …
.
According to Rossi, the input energy helps keep the reaction stable, but the output is considerably greater than the input. The ‘test’ Lubos reports on doesn’t seem to live up to those claims however.
The Oct 28 test was on a much larger device. If the measured ouput of ~470Kw is kosher, I doubt he’d have been able to suck that much juice from the local grid without making some lights go dim in the local area…
The UK Department Of Energy And Climate Change (DECC) Confirms It Is Monitoring The Situation With Andrea Rossi’s eCat Cold Fusion Technology.
http://freeenergytruth.blogspot.com/2011/11/ecat-exclusive-uks-decc-to-maintain.html
I,m with Tallbloke on this one. At worst Rossi’s claim is a harmless scam. His three demonstrations of the e-Cat where conducted in the presence of scientists. They all came out perplexed and some of them have gone into a sort of alignment withRossi. Lubos Motl, whose blog is one I visit frequently, seeking good science, may get the surprise of his life. LENR’s have been detected by various scientists since Fleischmann and Pons. Give rossi some space.
Maybe it’s a device for greenwashing electricity; put dirty electricity in, get green energy out, and get some subsidies… In that case it would be economically viable in the EU even without getting more energy out than you input.
As readers might expect, I consider this to be one of the more disappointing posts on WUWT.
I was hoping to get my desk clean today (and muck with some music library software for my HP Touchpad), so I’m not going to spend too much time on comments.
I’m not certain Luboš wrote this essay, there’s a line at the end “Via Thomas Larsson.” It does read like Luboš though.
Mostly off the top of my head:
Luboš: The “reactor” needs some energy from the grid. This point itself is rather bizarre: if it were a real reactor, why would it need any inflow of energy at all?
Had Luboš been a nuclear engineer, he might have pointed out that conventional atomic power plants run off electricity. It’s used for running instrumentation, moving heat (water pumps and air fans), and process feedback (moving control rods).
Rossi’s device needs electricity for running instrumentation, moving heat (water pumps and air fans), and process feedback (temperature control of the nickel/catalyst/hydrogen modules). Rossi uses resistive heat for that, so the gain of the system Krivit saw is lower than that for a typical electrical power plant.
Note also that Rossi is producing low grade heat, apparently the modules can’t handle higher temperatures yet. For an initial product, that fine. I really wish people would stop trying to compare Rossi’s device to a power plant. It’s not, it’s a low grade heat source. It doesn’t produce electricity. Electricity is convenient for running instrumentation, pumps, fans, and control systems. Luboš is just grandstanding.
BTW, one of the challenges after a wide scale power failure is getting enough power to restart boilers. I vaguely recall reading about how Boston managed to bootstrap itself with power from a small power plant at MIT that was used to bring one of the big utility systems back online.
Luboš: He is taking 3.4 Amperes at 220 Volts ie. 748 Joules per second (or 2.7 MJ per hour: multiplied by 3,600) from the grid. Every hour, he claims to convert 7 kilograms of water (from 26.5 °C) to steam (at 100.1 °C).
Luboš is talking about a setup that Rossi demonstrated to Krivit. This was neither the test from the January demonstration nor the October 1 MW system. The January test convinced enough people that energy out was far in excess of energy in. Jed Rothwell (the one person I respect the most in this field had a report I used in my first post, see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/22/cold-fusion-going-commercial/ . An excerpt of the excerpt:
Jed was not there, but some people were satisfied that dry steam (i.e. all the water boiled) was produced. Others were not, and in a second demonstration (Oct 6, I think) Rossi ran things through a heat exchanger and kept the output liquid. In the October 1 MW demonstration steam temperature was recorded as 104.5°C (link in Kuhnkat’s comment above).
So, the point of all this is that there is evidence that Rossi is converting water to steam, not just tea ingredients. Even Krivit admits there was steam, just not enough.
I’m going to completely skip Luboš’ analysis of pressure and steam temperature. We have plenty of readers hear who will talk about the difficulties of measuring 0.1° All Rossi wanted to do was create heat from nickel + hydrogen. His second demonstration was in part to address that, the October 28 run did that too.
The October 28th test did not produce the advertised 1 MW. Apparently Rossi was having some trouble (I think too much heat in an early stage) and offered to run it either at 1 MW configured for resistive heating or self-powered (I think by feeding back hot water) at a lower output and the customer opted for the latter. The external power plant kept running to provide power for pumps and fans.
Luboš (or Larsson) is not an engineer and most definitely not an industrialist. Rossi says he’s interested in creating a profit making corporation that sells stuff. Luboš is interested in how things work. (And also interested in protecting science as currently understood – a fine stand, but refuses to think there might be something odd to be discovered.) Rossi appears to think he has something that works, and I can’t get too bent out of shape when outsiders make demands to see tests that Rossi did to his satisfaction years ago. Perhaps if Rossi worked for some gov’t agency or received tax proceeds then he would have a responsibility to report and share experimental results. As a private business with trade secrets to protect and too few hours in the day, I think Rossi has been remarkably open.
If academicians can’t accept that, well, that’s nothing new.
Of course, none of that is proof that the Rossi device works or doesn’t work. The best metric will be satisfied customers by additional systems.
However, thanks to Anthony for providing a new forum. I’ve been meaning to summarize happenings from Rossi’s blog one of these weeks. It’s nice that Luboš is spending more time on this than I have lately.
-Ric
Luboš Motl got it right, Rossi’s cold fusion is a hoax. Simple thermodynamics 🙂
“Of course, none of that is proof that the Rossi device works or doesn’t work. The best metric will be satisfied customers by additional systems.”
Plenty of people buy things that don’t work, and patents exist to protect new inventions.
I don’t really have an opinion either way on this thing, but ‘secret’ devices that magically create energy until someone proves they do nothing of the kind have been so common in the past that taking it seriously requires more than just a couple of demonstrations.
DirkH says:
November 27, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Rossi appears not to be looking for subsidies nor outside investors. Stupid way to run a scam, if you ask me, but I admit I don’t have all the facts.
There’s a decent chance his customers will be looking for subsidies, but I imagine that would require additional legislation to include nuclear energy. (Or even just fusion energy, either way, the hydropower folks would point out their renewable energy deserves subsidies too.)
MarkG says:
November 27, 2011 at 2:24 pm
I don’t really have an opinion either way on this thing, but ‘secret’ devices that magically create energy until someone proves they do nothing of the kind have been so common in the past that taking it seriously requires more than just a couple of demonstrations.
According to Rossi, he already has customer owned systems which have been providing enough heat for their premises for quite a while now. I’d love to hear the testimonials. Anyway, as Ric says, the proof of the pudding will be more and bigger customers in the coming months, so I suggest we keep a sceptical attitude with an open mind and await further developments.
Libertas A. Letum says:
November 27, 2011 at 2:17 pm (Edit)
Luboš Motl got it right, Rossi’s cold fusion is a hoax. Simple thermodynamics 🙂
Simple thermodynamics doesn’t cover the energy released in the transmutation of elements.
There’s a lot of energy locked up in atoms, as Oppenheimer demonstrated.
kuhnkat says:
November 27, 2011 at 12:59 pm The CONSENSUS opinion? After hundreds of years of the consensus getting it WRONG, haven’t we learned to ignore the CONSENSUS yet and look for actual FACTS!
What is a consensus except collected opinion? Would it surprise you to find that most things you believe are really CONSENSUS opinions? Did you really check the FACTS for everything you believe? Before you say yes, you will need to account for the time involved to be believable as I doubt you’ve lived long enough to check EVERYTHING. If at any time you rely or have relied upon the analysis of anyone other than yourself then you are on your way toward CONSENSUS opinion by giving weight to what another says.
And so what if some commonly accepted truths have been proven wrong? Does that mean one should assume EVERY commonly held truth is wrong lacking contrary evidence? Get real.
kuhnkat said:
November 27, 2011 at 12:28 pm
…
Personally I object to calling it cold fusion, but, that’s a nit pick.
——————————————————————————–
How about luke warm fusion? 🙂
There are many different papers and results (none involving Rossi) which show anomalous heat in Nickel Hydrogen experiments. The guy who wrote this blog has not done his homework with regards to LENR.