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.
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.
“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.”
Same here. According to Forbes, the demonstration device was connected to a 500kW generator and the customer is unnamed and unknown:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/30/believing-in-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/2/
Perhaps it’s just me, but when a nuclear power generation device is producing 470kW while apparently connected to a 500kW generator, I have to keep my skeptic hat on.
Shhhhhhh!
There are some of us who like to work the arbitrage between published (popular press) ‘fact’ and actual true, demonstrable, behind-the-scenes fact.
Like the way Tesla read about technical developments in Europe (he being multi-lingual with contacts over there) and ‘worked’/sold those ideas on this continent …
.
Some of these people just want to believe SO BADLY! I’ll repeat my initial reaction posted here. Absolutely nothing has changed except that now the man actually DOES connect “a source of ‘Y'”:
The following is in response to those who questioned my “usual warning signs” statement:
Initial Claim: I have a “black box” that produces “X” without consuming “Y”
Skeptic: Show me.
Response: Here’s the box making “X” with no external sources of “Y”
Skeptic: I can think of a dozen ways to do that. The box is of sufficient size to have stored enough “Y” to have produced the limited amount of “X” you have shown me. I notice it quit making “X” after a short time.
Response: That’s because the Aardvark interferes with the Jimjam. We’re working on that.
Skeptic: Show me what’s inside the box.
Response: Can’t do that. You might steal my invention.
Skeptic: That’s what patents are for.
Response: Garbled
Subsequent Claim: We’ve stopped the Aardvark from interfering with the Jimjam. The box now makes lots and lots of “X”.
Skeptic: Let’s do a controlled test with independent, expert observers.
Response: Don’t have the time. I’m busy building a bigger box, raising investor funds and taking orders. Trust me. You don’t want to miss out on this exciting opportunity!
Lubos’s analysis of what is going on might be fine for the situation covered in the video, but, in subsequent videos, the mains power is turned OFF and the thing apparently continues to work . . .
Please God. Don’t let Lisa Jackson or Sec. Chu read about this. They will demand every automobile be run by one by the year 2014.
“the mains power is turned OFF and the thing apparently continues to work . . .”
And who actually verified that?
“Maybe Mythbusters will take it on for entertainment.”
Yeah, they can make water heaters fly:
Anyone who’s been curious enough to do a little reading knows that there are many other researchers/inventors following closely behind Rossi. I no longer have any doubt as to the cold fusion effect, and don’t think it should be that hard to replicate knowing what is known now. The only question that remains is whether Anthony will apologize to Ric Werme after Anothony installs a Rossi E-Cat (or a Chinese made knockoff) in his home a few years from now — and apologoze with as much gusto as he just derided Werme’s reading and reasoning abilities.
Let’s see, Rossi a convicted fellon for fraud and tax evasion later makes unsubstantiated claims of great advances in conversion of thermal energy to electricity funded by U.S. DOE but when the research is unable to be replicated by the lab mysteriously burns down.
Now he promotes his ECat. Why would anyone be skeptical? I wonder why he uses black tubing for the steam outlet? Could it be he is hidding something? Watch his hands. He uses a gamma meter to show no radiation escaping the shielding. Why wouldn’t he place a detector inside the shielding? Could it be there is none?
I know I’m repeating myself, but, there are other working fluids for turbines aside from water. See http://www.infinityturbine.com/ORC/ORC_Waste_Heat_Turbine.html for a turbine that will allegedly work at 80C and a circulation pump. So, it’s still looking like a bogus claim if nobody bothered to hook up a turbine and become self-sustaining, even though they could.
However, tallbloke makes a powerful argument that in Rossi’s larger demonstration, 470 kW is too much to extract from a 220V grid (under normal circumstances). So, was Rossi tapping into a high voltage line for his larger demonstration instead of a 220V?
I agree with your comment and your logic.
This post was completely unnecessary as it doesn’t strengthen any argument or conclusion, for the reasons stated. Like the locked e-mails, we have to just wait and see. Can’t we just be interested observers? GK
MarkG says:
November 27, 2011 at 2:56 pm
According to Rossi:
Yes, the customer is unnamed and unknown, last I heard. The next should be more public.
According to YouTube (yeah, I know…) via http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/28/test-of-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-fusion-system-apparently-successful/#comment-781318
Thanks for the FUD; as a sometimes-trader I appreciate how ‘negative press’ moves markets in a desired direction depending on one’s portfolio holdings.
.
I am not a supporter of Rossi’s claim and strongly feel that there is an error of interpretation somewhere, but I do not understand Motl’s (Larsson’s?) argument. Water will boil at its boiling point of roughly 100 C and not say 110 C. The extra energy goes into the latent heat of evaporation. Whether this point is 100.1 or 100.5 C seems to be beside the point. It will depend on where the temperature is measured, the purity of the water, and the atmospheric pressure as explained in the article. However, it will still require excess energy to evaporate the water (latent heat) whether you are at the boiling point or not. Of course, superheating can occur that will allow the water to rise considerably above its boiling point, until such time as violent boiling occurs followed by a rapid return of the liquid to its normal boiling temperature. This is a most dangerous condition which is why chemists use boiling chips. In any case, observation of the reactor chambers should be sufficient to observe boiling. The fact that they are covered with black tape in the video is very revealing, or should I say not revealing. The temperature of the steam produced by boiling can be considerably above 100 C, which it usually is in any practical system. If it was very hot Rossi would not be waving the rubber tube around his face as show in the video. The video claims that the thermocouple measurement is of the steam, but I do not believe this. The value of 100.1 C is just too convenient. He may be producing fog not steam much the same way a humidifier does, the cold flow kind. The more I think of this the more sense this makes; he has built a humidifier that mixes hot vapour and fog. This could explain the energy balance in much the way given by Motl. It would also explain why Rossi goes to such lengths to claim that the “steam” is almost invisible when it clearly is not. Maybe his friend with the black T-shirt accidently gave the game away.
Anthony,
Lubos Motl is 100% correct. I do not understand why this seems to be debatable to so many. If all the water boiled, he would have been producing more power than he used. Since it didn’t, he was producing less power than he used, or, apparently, producing zero power.
Live steam at atmospheric pressure is very exciting stuff, and the volume he claimed would have produce clouds of steam, filled the room, made everyone jump back. Live steam at atmospheric pressure is invisible, as you can see watching the steam appear an inch or so outside of your teakettle. As it cools by contacting air, it condenses, makes a mess out of everything around it, and heats everything by releasing the heat of vaporization. None of those things happened in the video.
The fact that the same guy, Rossi, was previously involved in a failed effort to develop a biofuel guarantees that this is a scam. Chemical guys don’t go nuclear, and vice versa, two different fields, never the twain shall meet……
“The 350 power generator (not 500) has continued to work to give power to the heat dissipators and to the water pumps, which, of course, had to work also during the self-sustained mode ”
“A youtube commentor suggested the generator model is a IVECO GSC400EA
Output 400kW. ”
So which one is right? Either it’s 350kW or it’s 400kW or it’s something else. They can’t both be right.
I think you need to look at this from the viewpoint of someone who isn’t a true believer; if this turns out to be real I think we’ll be holding a party to celebrate the arrival of a new, cheap method of generating power which makes the whole ‘climate change’ argument moot. But the only ‘proof’ on offer is a demonstration that would be easy to fake.
So you shouldn’t be surprised if most of us are skeptical until there’s either a demonstration that can’t be faked, or it’s reproduced by an independent third party.
[ An overheard conversation ]
That is one ugly espresso machine – YOU ARE NOT BRINGING THAT INTO MY KITCHEN!
JDN says:
November 27, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Note the “Waste_Heat_Turbine” in the URL. At the temperature Rossi’s device runs at now, the absolute thermodynamic efficiency is quite low. If there’s a market for a pure heat source, then it makes sense to go after that market. Space heating, grain drying, wood pellet drying, process heat, antarctic fuel oil furnace replacement, etc. Even snow melting (there are systems in New York City, various airports and maybe elsewhere that are just big melters – pay loader dumps in snow, propane burner melts it, drain pipe dumps down storm sewer).
Have you ever been involved with a product roll-out? There’s lots of things that could be done, some things that would be nice to do, and some things you just don’t have time for. Rossi made the sale without the low temp turbine/generator.
RE: the generator: As I understand, Rossi’s device generated a total of 475 KW over 5 hours – would only need a 100KW generator to do this, or am I missing something?
I sincerely hope that Rossi is not a scammer or a fool, but that he’s on to something – but if this is a scam, I do have an idea about what he might be doing:
In one demonstration, he showed that the apparatus was putting out power for a certain period of time, and then after that time, weighed the device and showed that it had in fact actually gained weight (Rossi claimed the gained weight was due to condensation, and that the fact that it did not lose weight proved that it was not some chemical reaction).
I started thinking about this: What if the inside of the device is simply full of fuel, and he’s skimming water off the supply amd collecting it to make it look like there is no chemical reaction, when in reality he is merely doing one of any number of chemical reactions (burning gasoline to generate heat, for example). For example, If he burned one gallon of gasoline over say 5 hours, then was replacing the gas with water so the device appears not to have burned anything?
I am throughly enjoying the show though – I thought for sure that after Oct 28th, we’d all know if Rossi was a fake or not, because of his first customer. What he managed to do was deliver on his promises (to deliver the first unit), without actually removing doubt. Supposedly, the next customer or two will actually start talking about what ownership is like, and then we can finally all put this to bed, or start saving up the money to buy one.
One more point – if Rossi is actually delivering LENR (cold fusion, whatever), then large scale transmutation of elements is going on. Besides the energy angle, this would be a game changer – because at some point, somebody is going to figure out how to modify what’s happening here to happen to other elements. Changing nickel into copper isn’t good for much more than a party trick – both are relatively cheap and abundant – but at some point wouldn’t people start looking into changing other elements – even if the process is endothemic?
MarkG says:
November 27, 2011 at 3:57 pm
So which one is right? Either it’s 350kW or it’s 400kW or it’s something else. They can’t both be right.
Did you ever buy an electro-mechanical item which performed to it’s max rated output? Maybe Rossi was quoting what the thing actually produces rather than what the manufacturers claim it produces.
I shut down comments on the last E Cat thread because it was getting out of hand.
Well technically the comments are still open, I just checked, they will auto-close eventually. But your Update that was highly skeptical of Rossi with the conditional prohibition on further E-cat posts appears to have quieted things down a bit.
WallyPalo says:
November 27, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Anthony need not apologize to anybody for being a skeptic (nor Lobos either) in this. Extraordinary claims require rigorous and repeated proof and cold (or luke warm) fusion is extraordinary bordering on ludicrous. Cold fusion seems to be the successor to perpetual motion. Mankind would dearly appreciate a limitless source of cheap energy as much as we like our protagonists to live happily ever after but real life has taught us that nature is just not that kind and generous to humanity. Nature favours a short hard and cruel existence over easy street. So Rick Werme, don’t set yourself up for disappointment.
If this proves true, buy stock in a nickel mine.
Paging Scrooge McDuck!
Or has he merely re-invented the Jon-E handwarmer?
I think you’re missing something. Over 5 hours, 475 kW would result in 2375 kW-hr, or about 8.6 GJ. Watts is power, watt-hours is energy.
re post by: Ric Werme says: November 27, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Of course, the primary reason a nuclear power plant is connected to the grid has nothing to do with electrical needs of the plant, but with the absolute necessity to have somewhere for the massive amounts of electricity produced to go. The load must be balanced. That’s why if offsite power is lost, the plant will automatically shut down – because you can’t keep producing huge amounts of electricity when there is no circuit for it to flow thru, nowhere for it to go. Most nuclear power plants have a backup safety system (one of several) that allows key instrumentation, pumps, control rods, etc., to be operated by electricity produced by the decay heat of the reactor itself running a small turbine. Cold startup is another issue, however, and does require power because at that point, of course, the reactor isn’t producing any to speak of.
Rossi’s contraption, since it doesn’t produce electricity, would reasonably be expected to need some offsite power. The issue, however, seems to be a question of whether it really produces more energy than it takes in, including considerations of conventional chemical reactions which could account for the heated water rather than any new method of generating heat. I wouldn’t expect Rossi to provide exact details of inner workings at this point – but what seems problematic is whether the actual input and output of the contraption is being accurately measured, and whether it actually operated long enough to be beyond the point of a simple chemical reaction. It seems that those issues ought to be pretty easily measured, actually measured – and this seems to be lacking in all of the accounts I’ve read. I’d sure love it if this thing panned out – but am awfully skeptical, especially considering Rossi’s apparent history of fraud or scams.
Mr. Rossi could just for a few seconds remove some shielding to show the presence of “thermal gamma rays.” He won’t.
Another reason to doubt his credibility, Rossi’s engineering degree is from Kennsington, a defunct California diploma mill.
Following Jed Rothwell (hopeful-critical)
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/index.html#53789
and Steven Krivit (doubtful-critical)
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/
For a while now inclines me to Krivit’s explanation of the Rossi saga.
I wonder if LENR and climate research have both been negatively skewed by politics. I wonder if CAGW and Rossi aren’t two sides of the same debased coin – bureaucratic and conformist – individualistic and reckless.
NASA et al consider LENR the most promising of all new energy research and I want WUWT to keep me informed of any developments. It would be a shame though if its reputation were maligned by Rossi’s overconfidence that publicity and its money can turn the seeming into the demonstrable. Perhaps in the way CAGW researchers view their work.
I hope I am wrong about Rossi.
If he did that, and demonstrated gamma, his device would be classified as a gamma source. The device would from that point onward, require strict and uncompromising license. I think he wants to get a little farther in development, before engaging that Hydra monster. GK
Here’s the other thing that keeps nagging at me – where is the nuclear regulatory agency? If they felt there was any chance this was actually a fusion device, they’d be all over it, and Rossi would be jumping thru many many hoops in terms of licensing, permitting, safety regulations, dosimetry, etc., etc.
If, by some miracle considering todays concerns about terrorism etc., the agency responsible has just ‘missed’ this, then Rossi risks massive legal problems for not following the appropriate laws and protective measures for both employee’s and anyone who goes to watch one of his demonstrations. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that this has just been overlooked by the applicable agency…
Look at what happened to the guy who was supposedly trying to do cold fusion experiments in his kitchen – was that in Norway? Anyhow, the police swooped in and promptly scooped him up, as they would in pretty much any developed nation. But Rossi can go around promoting his device, holding quazi public displays with bystanders, and there’s nothing, no response or presence? It doesn’t make much sense. This would seem to imply that they’ve looked into it and don’t believe there is any radioactivity or nuclear reaction of any sort occurring.
The flip side of course is if regulatory agencies know or are pretty sure it’s not what’s claimed, then why aren’t they going after him for fraud? It’s a conundrum.
Mr. Karst, Mr. Rossi already claims the reactor of his device generates gamma rays internally but like most of his claims offers no proof that it does. I don’t know about the regulations in EU but in most states he already would be subject to laws around radiation sources if what he claims is true.
Of course, it is already known that Rossi spent time in jail for previous law breaking (fraud and tax evasion). Perhaps you know more about the lab that mysteriously burned down?
Rossi is a convicted felon with an engineering degree from a diploma mill. He makes a great claim of a “new energy source” but offers no more than amateurish “measurements” as proof.
re post by: G. Karst says: November 27, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Simply not demonstrating the presence of radiation doesn’t get him out from under a mountain of legal requirements for handling and dealing with anything that produces or contains radiation. He’s claiming that its a fusion reactor – e.g., clearly has knowledge of it’s radioactive/nuclear aspects, and should therefore be bound by everything he would just as if he had demonstrated actual gamma ray production.
I hadn’t reloaded the page and seen G. Karst’s November 27, 2011 at 7:23 pm post when I wrote my November 27, 2011 at 7:38 pm post – but clearly we were thinking somewhat along the same lines albeit with a different take on the issue.
Give me a break.
If the gizmo were producing gamma radiation, that would be confirmation that actual fusion was occurring, and Rossi would be announcing it with gusto.
Far from shying away from the licensing process, it would be proof of the reaction.
And, if you believe it is doing what Rossi claims, you would assume that the gamma rays were indeed being produced. Denying their existence to avoid regulatory interference seems odd to me.
Are you telling us the whole story, or only part of the story, or only that part of the story that paints a particular individual in the worst light you at this moment can imagine or conjure up for public consumption (this assumes you are not following ‘talking points’ issued by your handlers or ‘masters’ and are capable of some level of independent thinking or rationality)?
a) Yes or No: 1973, Rossi graduated in Philosophy of Science and Engineering at the University of Milan with a dissertation on Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and its interrelationship with Husserl’s Phenomenology (Honors Degree).
b) Yes or No: 1979, Rossi was awarded a degree in Chemical Engineering from Kensington University, California (USA), thanks to the numerous professional credits earned there for the many registered patents he acquired since the first years of his professional career.
.
R. Shearer.
Whether Rossi measures the supposed gamma radiation inside his flimsy “shielding” or outside it will make no practical difference because the gamma rays produced by Nickel-Hydrogen fusion peak at around 8 MeV.
Without the shielding, a uniform 10 kW gamma source delivers 100 W of gamma radiation (1 Sievert/second or 100 REM/second) to someone standing 2 meters away. The LD50 dose (50% chance of death) would be delivered in 5-10 seconds depending on how much of the radiation passes through.
At 8 MeV, lead shielding reduces the radiation by a factor of ten for each additional 2″ (Tenth Value Layer at normal incidence = ~2″). Even if the gamma radiation is by some miracle converted to a lower energy it does not help much. The TVL is roughly 1″ for 2 MeV gammas.
If Rossi was a “Radiation Worker” subject to US regulations he would be limited to 5.7 micro-Sieverts/hour (5.7 mREM/hour). The shielding required would therefore be 1/5.7 times 3,600,000 or roughly 6 TVLs. Somewhere between 6″ and 12″ of lead. If I was standing where he was in the Bologna videos I would want 2 feet of lead shielding as a minimum.
From the start Rossi has behaved like a scam artist. Lubos Motl is too kind when he suggests that he may be self deluded. It can hardly have escaped Rossi’s notice that his device works just the same whether the hydrogen cylinder is full or empty.
Coffee makers don’t need hydrogen gas.
P.S. My calculations are “back of the envelope” based on an admittedly fallible memory. I hope someone out there with the latest computer codes will take the time to check my numbers.
Forget about Rossi!
Give the device a chance. There are serious people working on this from various angles. Such work is undertaken over very serious people’s objections. They have the same worries as FOIA leaker has about losing control. GK
Oooops! It is way past my bed time. 5.7 micro-Sieverts/hour is 0.57 mREM/hour so add another TVL to the shielding making it 7″ to 14″ thick. Mea Culpa! I usually err on the safe side.
All of this discussion hinges largely on whether or not LENR works; whether it even exists. To clear up the confusion, a Dr. Ahern* has announced that on December 7th he will be presenting details on nano-magnetism that will explain the “mystery” behind LENR.
http://citi5.org/launch/?p=1826
*Brian Ahern received his PhD in material science from MIT, holds 26 patents and was a senior scientist for 17 years in research and development at USAF Rome Lab at Hanscom Air Force Base. Ahern was the U.S. Air Force’s expert on nano-materials. Ahern has discovered the LENR phenomenon is occurring on the nanoscale and involves a formerly misunderstood and rarely explored attribute of nano-magnetism.
But it looks like this whole subject is way beyond Lubos Motl–if he’s looking for X-Rays it doesn’t discredit Rossi; it simply demonstrates Lubos knows nothing about the subject of LENR.
And as blowback to most of the rest of you deniers (I wouldn’t dream of using the far more elevated term “skeptic”), I suggest you stick to weather, climate, hockeysticks–you know, things we’ll still be arguing about even after your grandkids have taken over your keyboards and they’ve released the 40th Climategate, and leave the heavy lifting to those realists willing to…well, you know… do the heavy lifting.
Where are the neutrons? If indeed there are fusion reactions, there will be neutrons. The mention of looking for x-rays is a tip-off that they should tighten up their radiation protection program. X-rays are a product of high voltage electronic discharge in a vacuum. Gamma rays are a product of nuclear reactions and radioactive decay. Neutron shielding would require low atomic number materials like polyethylene, not lead.
carol smith says: November 27, 2011 at 12:48 pm
and the other, Black Power. that involves Randell Mills. ”
I think you mean Black Light Power. http://www.blacklightpower.com/
As to if this works I am leaning towards it being real if somewhat wrongly labeled as cold fusion. If this is a scam it is the worst run one in history and has taken in more qualified people than I would have thought possible. It still could be but the results from BLP at university testing show our understanding of interactions at that level are not complete. I’m not sure I agree with Dr Mills hydrino theory either but it is very interesting reading.
Time will tell.
Mr Watts and Mr Werme need to be thanked for this. It is Mr Watts’ blog and he can post what he likes. It makes for stimulating discussion like some of the points Mr Werme raised and others both pro and con.
I do find that as blogs become more generalized they lose effectiveness. That is why I support Mr Watts curtailment of OT stuff like LENR, HAARP, 9/11 & chemtrails even though I find those topics fascinating. There are lots of other sites covering those topics in a lot more depth than could be done here.
Stay focused but not close minded to possibilities.
Getting to be quite the fashion:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/11/defkalion-claims-to-have-what-they-call.html
Ric Werme said “I’m going to completely skip Luboš’ analysis of pressure and steam temperature. ”
Well, there goes the scientific method.
R. Shearer:
Rational Debate:
None of the materials used to construct this device are prescribed nuclear materials. There is nothing to license. It only emit gamma if it works and that is only rumored to be true – so far.
I may claim that my tin foil hat emits gamma, however the NRA is not going to demand I license my hat, on someone saying so. However, if you are qualified in gamma measurement and report a measured gamma contact rate of 80 millirem – they are going to be all over me like a fat kid on smarties.
So if I want to keep my tin foil hat, I cannot allow anyone near it with a gamma meter while operating. At least until I’m prepared for the license quagmire.
Also Rossi claims the catalyst can be identified by it’s gamma spectral analysis.
Don’t forget… As shown by apparent faster than light neutrinos, there are anomalies at this quantum level, which may be exploitable. GK
To those who are wondering about the power supply: the E-CAT isn’t hooked up to the mains power, it’s hooked up to a diesel generator. This much is apparent from the videos posted of the Oct 28th 1 MW test that only came out to 470 kW due to an unspecified glitch.
Happily enough, I was able to identify the generator from the video, or at least narrow it down to 2 very closely related possibilities. It’s either an IVECO 8281 SRi 27 in a “silenced” enclosure, or an IVECO 8281 SRi 26, also in a sound-reducing enclosure. At 50 Hz (which is what Italy uses) the SRi 27 is rated for 500 kW, while the SRi 26 is good for 400 kW.
If the generator is operating at 60 Hz (if you’re just running heating elements, then why not up the frequency?), then the ratings jump to 510 kW for the -27 and 495 kW for the -26, both at 1800 rpm.
I don’t think the SRi 26 is available in the particular enclosure shown; so if I had to guess I’d say it’s an SRi 27 that the E-CAT is hooked up to.
So basically I just wanted to point out that the generator that the E-CAT is hooked up to can only be one of two models, both of which are rated for more than the claimed 470 kW claimed by Rossi.
I can’t help but find that a bit suspicious. He certainly doesn’t need a 500 kW generator just to run some pumps, fans, and electronics.
There seems to be many errors here.
LENR are not understood, so don’t introduce pseudo-conditions, liker presence of neurons, gamma… it is like saying that to find a hot place on a new planet you have to find palm-trees and surfer…
anyway I won’t be surprised if the gamma are not so important, and maybe absent… Rossi is positively stone-head but not very rigorous… it is the kind of personality needed to do the job of heretic in todays world.
the most surprising is that many of the serious critics came from people working in the domain of LENR, having their own device under development.
If they are right, anyway LENR exist and works. if they lie, they simply are jealous competitors.
so the possibility of LENR not existing is very low (p=0.01).
if rossi is not lying, he have strong problem of industrialization, that seems to be being solved by partners (client, National Instrument).
Defkalion pretend to have solved them too…
if it is a scam, defkalion is a partner, and it is not possible if Defkalion GT is a real company.
my only credible option about E-cat being a scam, is that al is a big manipulation on Internet, with fake clients, fake Defkalion, manipulated journalists, manipulated scientists…
the 911 complot, or fake US Moon walk, is not less credible.
the only serious things that support the scam hypothesis is that the finance market does not react (killing solar companies, wind generator company, nuclear reactors companies)…
but stupidity is not to exclude. finance people feel they are smart. this fake-feeling is a symptom of cocaine and sociopath personality too. basically they anticipate mostly themselves.
We have a Quooker at home that stores water under pressure at 110C for instant boiling water for tea and coffee etc. I cannot get power out of it but it does need 1600W to sustain this water at the correct temperature. (Sarc off)
It is a good bit of kit and saves my wife putting the kettle on and going out to do some gardening. Kettle boils dry and process started again for that elusive cup of coffee. Now instant cup of coffee any time day or night.
MrV says:
October 29, 2011 at 2:57 am
A youtube commentor suggested the generator model is a IVECO GSC400EA
Output 400kW.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Generators are usually rated in KVA not KW. hence, the Iveco GSC400EA would have a real maximum output of 400KVA x 0.8 = 320KW.
Rossi claimed a power output of nearly 500KW thermal from the e-cat. Besides, electrical power was being dissipated by the water pumps and condensor cooling fans, besides the electrical heating (1/6th of the ecat’s designoutput of 1MW=166KW) required to kick off the e-cat.
Of course this is based on Rossi’s claims, but fact is that his arithmetic seems to add up.
It is my thinking that, if you ppl would ‘get out more’ and actually DO things ‘topics’ as you mention would not be such mysteries; it seems like it is only the adolescent, stuck in his mom’s basement in search of thrills and something outside themselves (validity for their existence?) that propels those subjects (for instance, the high school crowd that sourced the ‘movie’ about 9/**) …
So, to that end, get a ham license (practical application of EM theory and join some of us on-the-air!), get a degree in the physical sciences (learn physics, units of measure for force, the composition of the electron!), or at least spend an hour a day absorbing some of the scientific open coursework offered by MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Video learner?
MIT Physics lectures on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmJV8CHIqFc
.
Quasicrystals can’t possibly exist can they?
Just ask any Scientist.
That is why Dan Shechtman of the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel was awarded the Nobel prize for Chemistry, it is because they do exist.
The one thing everyone needs today is an open mind, cautious yes but “open”.
Scammers have peculiar thought processes to be sure, so applying logic to unravel their motivations may be, illogical. It could simply be that a scammer intends to continue on enjoying the money and celebrity until their death, at which point proof and personal integrity no longer matters.
History can be a useful guide, read the details about something that actually happened in the 19th century …
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/keely/keely.htm
Anthony, thank you. And be a little bit more careful next time. Your blog and your reputation is to important as to give time and room for scammers.
What’s all this then?
All I saw in the video was an electric boiler fitted with a pair of thermocouples (in a naïve attempt to do calorimetry). The Gamma-Scout radiation meter and the hydrogen gas (which was NOT connected!) are purely misdirection – stagecraft, if you will.
His gadget is drawing as much grid power as 12 60-watt light bulbs to boil about 2 gallons of water an hour.
Move along now, there’s nothing here to see.
Just curious, are you familiar with what Rossi has gone through in the past 40 or so years?
.
Asmilwho says:
November 27, 2011 at 11:17 pm
If you wish, I call it an engineering issue, not a spherical cow issue. One of my first climate related web pages is more than half a defense of the Scientific Method. My gripe is three fold and I think I mentioned them:
1) Luboš is agonizing over steam at 100.1° from a non-demonstration shown an interested party. He should look at the Oct 6 demonstration (heat measured from water in, water out), and the Oct 28 demonstration (steam at 104.5°C).
2) He completely ignores the difficulty in measuring 0.1°C. This is obvious to engineers, I guess it’s a temperature domain Luboš doesn’t work in.
3) The steam production and condensation is far more important and measurement errors (mainly eyeballed steam and water) far exceed the thermometer accuracy.
Steve Krivit is sort of Rossi’s Richard Muller – both expressed interest in the researcher’s work, both got access to it, both went off and drew conclusions from incomplete data.
Frankly, I’m amazed that Luboš has embraced Krivit’s claims. It’s a pity Sir Arthur C Clarke is dead, he’d be amused to see a retired scientist (Anna V) saying there’s a slight chance Rossi has something there versus the young upstart staunchly defending the physics as understood in his lifetime. (And also Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson is a staunch supporter of Rossi’s claims.)
EJ says:
November 28, 2011 at 1:23 am
Not unexplained, see above. However, the only statement about it comes from Rossi, but so does the 470kW claim. Please read the comments above.
And the resistive heaters to get things running. Please read the comments above. The earlier modules needed some 600 watts, the one in the Oct 28 product were smaller, I don’t know what they needed. There’s some 100 modules in the unit, so figure 60 kW startup energy consumption. Figure factor of 2 margin to make sure the generator can handle the load (he really didn’t want the demonstration to fail), rent/borrow the next size up. Yeah, it would be nice if he had used a smaller unit, but the customer left happy and the sale made.
re Blade.
Thanks for the great Keely link.
There seems to be a big difference between Keely and Rossi though, in that Rossi makes products, and prototypes for the buyer to evaluate and test before buying.
While Keely only experimented perpetually.
Dont trust mainstream media on this, many powerful men want Rossi and his e-cat to “go away”.
Oh, and I have a link, sorry I didnt post it right away:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3303682.ece
There is nothing wrong in covering interesting stories like this, if it is a scam it will be known and only through media interest can hoaxes be unveiled.
I too was disappointed with this post. I have been following this matter online for a year or so.and I am very sceptical of Mr Rossi’s claims, but Mr Rossi is not trying to scam money from investors. Quite the contrary he is investing his own money and trying to sell his technology to others. If it works they will buy and Mr Rossi will become rich. This is exactly how capitalism and science is supposed to work. Good luck to him.
And if I was him the only person who would have full knowledge of the process inside this private commercial device would be me and the file in my bank safe deposit box.
No Bjorn, it is a private commercial venture. If Mr Rossi is selling a product that doesn’t work the commercial world has it’s own method for ferreting out bad science. Mr Rossi put his own money in and he will go broke. If it works he will become rich. Capitalism is beautiful thing.
I want one for my Zamboni …
Some people seem to be under the impression that “cold” fusion is a myth or hoax.
Actually, it’s U.S. Patent 3,386,883 — 4 June 1968
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
If you believe that it doesn’t fuse nuclei, then you’ll be perfectly safe standing unprotected next to one while it’s operating, as hoax fusion throwing out imaginary neutrons will not harm you. Let me knows how that turns out.
What nobody has yet been able to achieve is “above break even” energy, i.e., you get net power – more comes out than you put in.
So the Farnsworth fusor, and similar devices, are useful only as neutron sources,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_source#Moderately-sized_devices
or as science projects to wow your teenage friends with.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/03/high_school_stu
If it is a scam, it worked already, because the people of ampenergo paid Rossi an undisclosed amount of $$$. see here.
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3179019.ece
If it is real, as a lot of seemingly honest people were led to believe, I’m looking forward for the next sunny day, when I’ll happily go for lunch in the closest Andrea Rossi Square, while lots of ITER people update their CVs.
In the meantime, to pump up a little suspense and tension into your emotional investments, a link from your neighbourly defkalion-men:
http://defkalion-energy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3939&sid=80b2d432c8c49091b27192dad15f7565#p3939
This is FUN! And only two days are left!
From the reports I’ve read from several sources, the output temperature of the steam was ~110 C for the October 28th test.
I think the information in this post is highly out of date; but there is a lot of “facts” flying around about this, which makes it a messy subject to try to disentangle and analyze.
Still, the “essay” mentioned in this post is by far the worst of any I’ve written, and not because of its slant.
“_Jim says: November 28, 2011 at 5:20 am
‘get out more’ and actually DO things ‘topics’ as you mention would not be such mysteries;”
No mystery to me. I just like to read things on dozens of topics to come to my own conclusions rather than having someone else do my thinking for me. Besides I’m married so that is already covered 🙂
I not only get out lots (love outdoor stuff), I do volunteer work and play chess960, study various subjects (curriki.org) and build things (some actually work).
Please try to become informed, over a 1000 scientific
papers have been published verifying the excess production
of heat in experiments similar to Adrea Rossi’s.
http://www.lenr-canr.org/
This does not prove that the E_Cat really works,
but to limit the discussion to the E-Cat is to be very
uninformed.
Some say it is “Cold Fusion”, a nuclear reaction
like that seen in our sun, but at room temperature.
Others say it is a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, and finally
some of the greatest scientists of all have said that
Zero Point Energy may be the solution.
Right now Brian Josephson, a Nobel laureate in quantum
physics, says that not only is Zero Point Energy real
but the E-Cat is real.
If you do nothing else at least watch this video
by Dr. Brian Josephson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8eIhth8Iw8
One hundred years ago
Einstein discovered Zero Point Energy,
So Einstein certainly thought Zero Point Energy was real.
One hundred years ago scientists thought that there was no
energy in a vacuum. When temperatures were reduced close to Absolute
Zero -459.67 °F. it was thought that all the energy would disappear.
Einstein said, “No, there is always something never nothing,
empty space is an illusion”.
His answer was the simple equation that at absolute zero
Energy E = hf/2; h – a constant (Plank’s constant) and f – frequency.
Zero Point Energy and Einstein’s discovery, see text link at end
Richard Feynman a Nobel Laureate, a quantum physicist,
one of the ten greatest scientists
of the last century,
said not only is Zero Point Energy Real, but it has 10^80
times as much energy density as there is in the atom.
So Richard Feynman certainly thought Zero Point Energy was real.
Zero Point Energy Video – click on the highlighted link:
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/31796-science-of-the-impossible-zero-point-energy-video.htm
So what this is saying is that
this energy is all around us, it is infinitely more powerful
than anything we have ever imagined and we do not have to dig deeper
and deeper into the earth, we do not have to go to the bottom
of the ocean or thousands miles into space. No, right in everyone’s
home or car or wherever they may be, the energy is there and it is enormous
and relatively free.
Therefore it would be nothing for the reaction in the E-Cat
power plant to tap into the Zero Point Energy field,
and pick up the necessary extra energy needed to invoke a nuclear reaction.
But at present this is just a theory, still, there are many other plausible
explanations for the extra-ordinary amount of heat being produced by the E-Cat,
so to dismiss the E-Cat outright, is to be very uninformed.
Even, if somehow Andrea Rossi proves to be a fraud, that does
not discount the hundreds of scientific labs around the world (MIT included),
which have combined to publish thousands of papers, where they have demonstrated
they are producing more heat than would be expected by the amount of electrical
current that they are inputting to start a reaction with simply hydrogen
and nickel or palladium etc..
More than 1,000 original scientific papers have been published.
http://www.lenr-canr.org/
We may not know the deep physics behind this process of excess heat
production, but “Nature” has given us at least one way and probably many more
ways to produce clean, green energy that is at least one hundredth the cost
of oil and gas and there may be solutions that are one trillionth the cost of oil and gas.
!!! Please forward this to as many people as you can,
because this energy solution revolution can save the planet.
The only thing that can stop it is if nobody knows about it.
!!! Einstein discovered ZERO POINT ENERGY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO
AND YET HARDLY ANYONE HAS HEARD OF IT. HAVE YOU HEARD OF
IT BEFORE.
!!! Please forward this to as many people as you can.
Additional information and links and videos:
Just this last week Brian Josephson, Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973,
highlights the UK energy department (DECC) interest in Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat
(letter)
Dear Andrea,
It appears that the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC),
unlike its US counterpart, has an open mind regarding your reactor,
http://www.focus.it/scienza/e-cat-and-cold-fusion-open-letter-to-andrea-rossi_C12.aspx
On the hand the various Defense Departments have said the following:
“legitimate experiments by reputable
researchers worldwide continue to demonstrate excess heat production“.
“Low energy nuclear reactions are showing some remarkable progress with respect to energy (excess heat)
While Department of Energy ignores the civilian applications of cold fusion,
military and DoD interest in cold fusion is strong.
Funding has come from at least the Naval Research Lab and DARPA,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Assessment reports
from DoD agencies are optimistic and recommend further research.
reference link;
http://coldfusionnow.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/reviewing-dod-interest-in-cold-fusion/
interview with Andres Rossi and the new e-cat song from Tom and Doug
http://tomanddoug.com/podcasts/TDShow331.mp3
60 minutes – longer more in depth video on the history of “Cold Fusion”
Animation explanation of cold fusion –
It is important to know that Deuterium is
the chemical name for a certain type of water.
Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen (h2O), but normal
hydrogen, the simplest element on earth,
is composed of one proton in the
center or nucleus and one electron surrounding
it. Deuterium is still water, h2o
and so it is composed of hydrogen and oxygen
but the hydrogen is composed one proton and
one electron and also one neutron. It is
the neutron which makes the water slightly
different. All water contains this
special type of water. There is one Deuterium
molecule H20 (extra neutron) in water for every 6000 normal
water molecules H2O (no neutron only proton and electron).
long in depth discussion about the E-Cat with various Italian Scientists
Dean Stockwell 8 minute clip excerpted from longer video starts with MIT FUDGE
OF DATA and then shows various research showing unexplained source of heat.
Andrea Rossi Talks eCat To Mass State House
November 22, 2011 | Author: admin
http://www.e-catworld.com/
Zero Point Energy and Einstein’s discovery, text link at end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
From John-X on November 28, 2011 at 9:14 am:
Which says:
Compare this to what is traditionally known and loved as cold fusion (Pons-Fleischmann type):
The Fusor is undoubtedly using hot fusion, the energy required for the fusion reactions is provided. Cold fusion, at least what they call that without definitive proof that any fusion is occurring, invariably involves a cheat, trying to achieve fusion without providing the needed energy for a fusion reaction, using “tricks” like packing palladium with hydrogen atoms so tightly that somehow the normal repulsive forces are overcome, or have a special catalyst where somehow a hydrogen atom nucleus (1 proton) can “slip into” a nickel nucleus (28 protons) to produce copper (29 protons) despite the incredible repulsive forces…
Thus the Fusor in no way should be thought of as “cold fusion.”
Dang, I may have missed things.
Excerpts from
http://bostonglobe.com/business/2011/11/28/hope-skepticism-for-cold-fusion/w7FgGyI9Zx432chxuD5BEL/story.html
Hope, skepticism for cold fusion
The Italian scientist who says he has developed the world’s first cold fusion reactor – a claim that has been hotly contested in scientific circles – visited the State House last week to explore the prospects for developing and manufacturing the device in Massachusetts.
Andrea Rossi made the trip at the invitation of the Senate’s minority leader, Bruce Tarr, a Republican from Gloucester, and met on Tuesday with representatives from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts.
Rossi, an engineer, has been trying to resurrect the idea. Last month, he conducted a test of a small cold fusion power plant in Bologna, Italy, for an unnamed customer, who he said was impressed enough to purchase the unit.
Rossi said he has received orders from 12 more customers.
Access to the demonstration by outside scientists and observers was severely restricted, which did little to allay the reservations of skeptics who say that room temperature nuclear fusion is a scientific impossibility.
Tarr, who is active in alternative energy legislation, said he invited Rossi to put the state in line for hosting any prospective development of cold fusion.
“My thought process was pretty simple: If it works, I want this technology to be developed and manufactured in Massachusetts,’’ Tarr said.
Robert Tamarin, dean of sciences at UMass Lowell, attended the meeting with Rossi.
“Knowing the reputation of cold fusion, I went in with a very healthy level of skepticism,’’ he said.
“It was a roomful of skeptical people. Senator Tarr was also skeptical, but if it does work, he wants Massachusetts to benefit. If it’s successful, no wants to have to say later that we walked away from it.’’
“Rossi said he was not ready for a full academic investigation of his technology because he doesn’t yet have full patent protection,’’ Tamarin said. “That’s consistent with it not working, but it’s also consistent with it working very well.’’
After the meeting, Rossi, who paid his own way to Massachusetts, was enthusiastic about a possible partnership with the state.
“Massachusetts has the density of technology and the customers we need,’’ he said. “Also, it does not have the bureaucracy that we have in Italy.’’
Rossi said he would also like to develop smaller household cold fusion power generators in Massachusetts.
“I’m already planning to come back soon,’’ he said. “We are all hoping to get something started in a matter of weeks, not months.’’
>>Blade
>>History can be a useful guide, read the details about something that
>>actually happened in the 19th century …
>> http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/keely/keely.htm
A nice story, of the fraudster Keely, and well worth reading.
It is interesting to note that the scientist sent to check out Keely, found him to be honest, and that Keely had discovered some new force. But this is only to be expected.
I think it was Randi who tested scientists, and the one thing that they could not detect, was fraud. They never suspected that someone would deliberately try to decieve them. But in the AGW fraud, we have a double imposibility – now scientists are having trouble believing that a fellow scientist is deliberately trying to defraud them. How will they ever uncover that one? Sorry, but it is down to the sceptics and the likes of James Randi to pull the fraudulent rug from under them.
.
The people behind “hot fusion” have bigger, nastier teeth, than the AGW team. We need to be positive that “hot fusion” is NOT actively suppressing LENR possibilities. We need to know that our current energy providers are NOT suppressing LENR possibilities. These are the things we need to know. How many can answer this without nagging doubt?? GK
From william wooten on November 28, 2011 at 11:33 am:
Do you understand what Zero Point Energy really is? It is a consequence of the physical laws, one of those things “that must exist.” When you remove all possible energy from a system, aka achieve Absolute Zero (which we can’t do), there must still be some remaining amount of energy.
This is akin to emptying out the contents of a Tupperware container, cleaning it to the plastic, declaring it empty… Then some physicist points out the container still contains air. Big whoop. You’re not going to be able to pull your lunch out of that air.
That energy has to be there, period, zero point energy is the energy that’s there when there’s no other energy. You’re not going to be able to extract that energy unless you can establish a gradient, a difference in potential energy where that energy can flow from a higher potential to a lower one. The boulder has rolled to the bottom of the hill, there’s no place lower that it can roll to. So now you have to find a hole you can drop the boulder into, maybe even dig one yourself. Can you find a state where there is less potential energy than having no potential energy available at all?
Ric,
You are a dupe. If the thing worked, Rossi could convincingly demonstrate it. After several alleged demos, it is still a mystery. Doesn’t that give you a clue?
Factoid you can impress your friends with (those that have an inkling with regard to what a Mega and a watt are)
The spent fuel pool at the OPPD nuclear plant just north of Omaha gives off 30 MW of heat,
continously, and it is all thrown away. It too is a low grade heat, and would be wonderful for heating homes, and a lot of them. Somewhere along the line it was decided that using nuclear anything to heat a home was a bad idea. I think the gas company came up with that theory.
Go figure.
Hey GallopingCamel! Good to ‘see’ you here. I haven’t been over to bravenewclimate to check for any Fukushima posts in ages… but I enjoyed your posts over there and our brief interchange, so I couldn’t resist a quick hello on seeing you here. Have you run across any sites that have good Fukushima technical information and updates by chance? (beyond the relatively simple jaif type updates, I mean)
Kind regards,
Rational Debate
Attn Rational Debate.
For full analysis of Fukushima try here:.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/24-hours-at-fukushima/0
Kindest Regards
re post by: G. Karst says: November 28, 2011 at 12:55 am
“Someone” isn’t claiming your tin foil hat emits gamma – you yourself are claiming it, and the regulatory bodies would be all over evaluating it, if it were possibly true. Besides, as I said before – if you knowingly operate a device that emits radiation, without proper licensing up front, you’ll likely be in a world of hurt with the regulatory agencies. That would be increased exponentially if you possibly exposed anyone else to radiation also. Just keeping anyone from detecting emitted radiation isn’t going to keep you out of trouble, not when there is plenty of evidence that you built the device fully expecting it to generate radiation (check), tried to avoid the licensing quagmire by keeping anyone from noticing you’re operating said radiation emitting device (check), and then proceeded to operate it repeatedly without any of the required safety precautions in place (check), potentially exposing yourself, workers, and members of the general public to radiation that you claim your device creates (check).
Do you really believe that facilities such as ITER or fusion research facilities manage to avoid all licensing and required radiation safety precautions just because they haven’t yet actually generated any radiation? That they only become subject to such requirements after they’ve created a pulse that someone happened to manage to be near with a meter at that moment and notice the radiation spike (even if the facility tried to exclude them to avoid regulation)?
‘Awe, gee, sorry we just killed a dozen people, but we hadn’t managed to produce any actual radiation before, so we weren’t subject to rad. safety regs….’ Er, I don’t think so.
The legitimacy or not of the Rossi E-Cat does not have to considered to note the criticisms too frequently amount to a strawman argument based upon gross misinformation about these types of experiments. A discussion of the topic is worthwhile if for no other reason than to dispel much of the misinformation about LENR (Low energy Nuclear Reaction), CANR (Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions), related types of research, and the science from which such experiments arose. In the wacky world of atomic scale and sub-atomic scale events, quantum mechanical effects can do some very surprising and previously unexpected things. LENR experiments have been curiously consistent in reporting some very interesting reactions involving Hydrogen and various metallic elements that are also known to involve quantum mechanical tunneling and electron captures by nuclei. The observed emissions from such events do not correspond with the above erroneous assumptions about Gamma Ray emissions. The reactions involved are not the same, so the emissions would not necessarily be the same either, which experimental observations seem to demonstrate. Everyone would be better served by putting preconceptions aside and allowing experiment and observation to inform the scientific debate, regardless of the events unfolding with the Rossi E-Cat. There is much to be learned and re-learned with respect to low energy nuclear reactions, quantum mechanical effects, and the mysteries of the sub-atomic domain.
Also, it needs to be noted that many of the LENR experiments require electrical power to energize the system just as any tunnel diode requires an electrical circuit to perform quantum mechanical tunneling through the Coulomb Barrier. The question to be answered is whether or not any energy released from the nuclear reaction is sufficient to produce more energy than it consumed to produce the nuclear reaction. High energy nuclear reactions in fission nuclear reactors can do so. Now we need to see if a low energy nuclear reactor can be invented and built to do so.
re post by: a jones says: November 28, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Thanks, I’ll take a look! It’ll be very interesting to see if what looks like a blow by blow of the first 24 hours has much new information compared to similar reports from a few months ago.
I know the sort of info I’m hoping to find may not even be available (yet), and I confess that I haven’t gone digging for this sort of info for a little bit now – but for example for awhile I was trying to find stuff like good evaluation/information on if, and how, the incore temp & pressure monitors might have failed (or survived), how likely the replacement of at least a few done “on the fly” both in terms of installation and calibration, was to provide meaningful data… I never was able to find out much in that regard. Or things such as greater/better detail on radioisotopes measured (e.g., NOT just Cs & I, or even Sr levels, but other isotopes, some of which have to be involved), particularly within the plant or within plant boundaries (liquid, soil, or air) – and what caused some of the obviously incorrect isotope detection reports initially, if the drywell CAMs are thought to have been accurate or failed (& hypothesized failure mode if thought to have failed), more details on discoveries of equipment that failed and why – or that was thought to have failed but turned out to be intact…. just all that sort of stuff – stuff that one might expect to see as after accident investigation reports or similar within the industry or in university departments teaching nuclear/radiological curriculum as overviews for those interested.
All information which, particularly considering this occurred in a foreign nation, just may not be put together into reports available for us yet, I know.
Learning about E-cat affairs generally means reading his blog and picking useful notes by Rossi.
Here’s what I’ve found for November.
November 1st, 2011 at 2:03 PM
We soon will reach 400-500 Celsius using diathermic oil as a primary fluid. We are studying this throughly with our Customer for his next needs.
[A diathermic oil is just oil used for moving heat, typically at higher than 100°C temps and at atmospheric pressure.]
November 2nd, 2011 at 9:32 PM
INFORMATION:
An imbecile is going around sending “confidential” letters saying that our plant tested on the 28th did not have safety valves. Of course everybody with a minimum of knowledge of the matter knows that it is not possible not to put safety valves in a steam generator , but let me confirm the obvious: the plant has 104 safety valves, one per every vessel, regulated to open at 3 bars. The imbecile who is expanding this and other falsities is not a puppett, he is a puppetteer. Before or later I will publish the story of our relationship with this guy, as well as tapes in which he and his fellows have been videotaped while trying to steal samples of powder in my factory during a visit, as well as a draft of a contract which was a fraud. Desperate of the fact that we started the manufacturing of our 1 MW plants the puppetteers are scratching the bottom of their bullshit barrells, and teaming up with other gangs of thieves too.
[Yeah, light on the science. I don’t think this is Steve Krivit, Rossi usually called him the snake.]
November 4th, 2011 at 4:01 AM
I know very well the Seebeck Effect, also did a patent in the nineties. The issue is that the efficiency drops very low when you industrialize. I got 20% efficiency when I made myself the directional fusion of the semiconductors, but when I needed to produce industrial quantities the efficiency dropped below 5%.
Of course if someone industrializes a thermocouple able to reach 20% of efficiency, that would be great. I worked for three years on that, but unsuccessfully at last.
[This refers to thermoelectric modules, one area where Rossi had a prototype he claimed worked well but couldn’t deliver to the customer (US Army). See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/28/test-of-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-fusion-system-apparently-successful/#comment-783297 ]
November 8th, 2011 at 5:15 AM
[In response to “How far are you on succesfully connect the e-cats in series?”]
We reached still stability up to series of three, so far, but we are resolving the problems to increase the serialization.
November 10th, 2011 at 5:10 PM
Today we have been attacked by a strong hacking action. Our informatic [IT guy] has won the battle in few hours. I heard that we will be attacked again, and also got rumors that I will be personally attacked strongly in the next days: I am very happy of this, first because I will fight back, and this is my natural attitude, second because the more the puppetteers get ballistic and keep frenzy their puppett-snakes, the more i get evidence that my job is well done.
November 13th, 2011 at 2:38 PM
Berke Durak
Dear Mr. Rossi,
Here is a hypothetical block diagram of your October 28th e-Cat demonstration.
http://i.imgur.com/GbZri.png
We have discussed it a bit on the Vortex mailing list and we’d like to know
if this diagram is accurate.
[Rossi published this but didn’t reply. One surprise (perhaps I had read a reference in the past) – there were two generators, I assume one was a standby.]
November 24th, 2011 at 9:27 AM
[Commentor: When will the experiment in Bologna and Uppsala university start?]
Soon, but remember that such R&D will be closed doors made and not public. I repeat: no more public tests will be made. We will make only closed doors R&D and tests for our Customers made along the test protocols agreed upon the purchasing contracts. No more information will be released until proper patent protection will be granted. Too many vultures fly around, ready to steal critic info. Look to what is going on around the Balcans: there are clowns saying they have a technology copied from us, actually they have just a moke up, waiting for the piece of info they need to make a real copy. They believed we would have been selling in October the small E-Cats, so announced they would have made a demo in october ( buying a model, disguising it as a copy made by them). But it was just a trap we made. Conclusion: from now on we will be more sealed than ever, and we will be open exclusively with our Customers.
To put for sale the small unts we need:
1- safety certification
2- granted patents
We are working on both the issues and I think they will be addressed within 1 to 2 years from now.
Oops – I forgot to include the link to Rossi’s blog. (And mods, my comment fell into spam purgatory, please rescue it.)
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=516&cpage=14#comments and earlier pages.
Inciteful (yes, inciteful) commentary; a sneeze short of being outright rude and derogatory; seeks to make a point using circular argument; also reveals commenter has not kept pace with continuing developments the last couples of years. Please stop by and play again …
.
Could not possibly be More Wrong.
I’ve played this card before on this subject, and I’ll play it again: Just because you know you’re weak in the area of calorimetry measurements (as would be used to measure the added heat-energy to a waterflow stream) and the measurement of irregular AC and DC waveforms (including pulsed DC, variable PWM DC or intermittent or non-cyclic AC) via RMS techniques for the purposes of accruing power-in ratioed against power-out plotted over time plus the measurement of the volume (or mass) of any particular gas being supplied – DO NOT assume the remainder of the world (including more than just a few EEs) are incapable of a) assembling the required instrumentation and b) performing these basic measurements …
Would like an itemized list of the equipment, manufacturer and model numbers required to perform these measurements?
Would you be surprised to learn that most of it can be purchased off eBay on any given day?
.
@ a jones & gallopingcamel
I just ran across this set of comments at another WUWT thread (http://tinyurl.com/7s5t65x), and couldn’t resist posting them here for you two and any others here who might also enjoy the levity. It began with:
kim2ooo says: November 27, 2011 at 9:00 am
Followed by the oh-so-utterly-appropriate reply by davidmhoffer says: November 27, 2011 at 9:40 am
@tallbloke and others
“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…”
It was not connected to the local grid. It was connected to a huge generator on site.
If electricity was used to heat water under pressure to 105 C and then continued to be heated by that same power, while at the same time depressurising it slowly, it gives the impression of generating more heat (mass of steam) than it is using. The water temp and pressure has to be observed, not just the steam temperature and mass. I wanna see it for myself.
All you need to do to scam people is to have a pressure gauge that is stuck or controllable. If the pressure was 2 bars to start with, and 1 at the end, there is a great deal of steam that can be produced as it slowly depressurises. Supplemented with additional heat, the experiment is extended.
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg42311.html reports the pressure inside the cell was 80 bars! And it was heated to 101 C. (Maybe it was heated to 200!) If you heat water up to 101 C and depressurise, you get the impression of 2257 J/g of steam while heating water at 4.186 J/g/Deg. It appears to be 335 Watts input and 2257 Watts output, a ratio of 6.73:1. Do a little math. If the pressure is dropped at a slow rate, how much over-unity can you pretend to have in a system with decreasing enthalpy?
Disconnect the heat source and it still works as long as the pressure is dropping and water is over 100. Keep the pressure gauge frozen so no one can see the drop and we are all wowed.
Just out:
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=510&cpage=35#comments
Andrea Rossi
November 28th, 2011 at 6:48 PM
Dear Herb Gills:
Today we sold in the USA a 1 MW plant which will go to a normal Customer. This installation will be visitable by the qualified public.
We wait to have completed the contractual procedure through the attorneys, then we will give communication. It will be in the North East of the USA, where I have been in these days.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Rossi is getting there bit by bit.
Followed this since the first announcement in January. So far we are still at the situation where everything is “Rossi says”.
I’d like to be proved otherwise, but it’s still the case everything on this subject is “Rossi says”.
Unfortunately that is not a good basis for science.
Hillarious really.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
November 28, 2011 at 10:46 pm
> http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg42311.html reports the pressure inside the cell was 80 bars!
That was the hydrogen side. Hydrogen, nickel. the undisclosed catalyst, and resistance heaters are in the core of the E-cat module, water flows around to take heat away. I assume the high pressure is to increase the density of hydrogen molecules (and atoms, according to some speculation of what the catalyst does) on nickel. I assume water on nickel doesn’t work. Note this is very different than something like the P&F cell where water was an essential part of the electrolytic loading of deuterium into palladium where D+D fusion took place.
The water side of the system has a number of atmospheric connections. The piece you cite is a speculative work on the potential fraudulent/self delusion explanations of the January demonstration (it was posted “05 Feb 2011”).
Accepting some of that implies that weighing the H2 tank before and after the run was falsified too. Also, at 80 bars, it wouldn’t take much of a crack to leak a lot of hydrogen.
You note:
[Crispin is referring to the October 28 demonstration.]
Steam wasn’t released – it was condensed in two radiators, I don’t recall if the water was recycled to the input, dumped, or saved and weighed. If you’re curious, I think the answer is on the Web, shouldn’t take you very long to find it.
MrV says:
November 29, 2011 at 2:24 am
Ever tried getting information from Apple about new products, shipping numbers, manufacturing locations (and pollution from suspected manufacturing locations), etc?
Rossi isn’t a scientist, he’s an industrialist.
In due time. It’s his schedule, and I remain surprised at how open he has been, though he said he’ll be quieter in the future.
I like to read what Luboš has to say about QM, QFT and String theory and I check frequently his blog, but in this case I am appalled by his illiterate comments.
So I just wonder whether or not we can expect some symmetry in his “food chain innovation” in the case if Rossi will be proven right?
“Ever tried getting information from Apple about new products, shipping numbers, manufacturing locations (and pollution from suspected manufacturing locations), etc?”
Apple have a long history of delivering products, and nothing they do involves new realms of physics. If they announce they’re going to release a new iPod, the world yawns because we’re all expecting that anyway. If they announced they were releasing a cold-fusion-powered iPod then ears would perk up but few people would doubt them because they have a long history of releasing what they say they’re going to release, and we assume that if they say something like that then they must mean it.
I worked in the electronics business for a while, and one thing I can guarantee you is that when we invited the media to a demo, we didn’t do it in such a way that they couldn’t verify anything. Typically if it was a PC add-on we’d have the top of the PC off so they could see our card working or if it was a self-contained device we’d have one dismantled and in a clear plastic case so they could see the internals while they used it.
Because we wanted them to know that we had what we said we had, and it worked the way we said it did. If they wanted to connect up a power meter and check that we really were playing HD video with only 1W of power or whatever we were claiming, sure, go ahead. We didn’t want them to have any doubts when they left the room, because we wanted them to tell their readers/viewers that there was a great new product coming their way.
We would have done private demos for large potential customers before that, but they were private demos with no-one else invited; none of those customers would have wanted the media there. By the time we were showing anything to the media, we were pretty much ready to ship it.
So to someone who’s actually been involved in various product launches, nothing about Rossi’s demos makes any sense.
“So I just wonder whether or not we can expect some symmetry in his “food chain innovation” in the case if Rossi will be proven right?”
Will all the true believers come back to admit they were wrong if it turns out his device doesn’t work?
With all these fringe science devices I routinely see the true believers puffing out their chest on web forums and saying ‘You’ll look so stupid when I turn out to be right! I bet you won’t come back here and admit you were wrong!’ And, surprisingly, when the true believers turn out to be wrong, I’ve never yet seen one of them go back to the forum and admit it.
Again, I really hope that Rossi’s device works. But I’ve seen no reason to believe it when all we appear to have is his word that it does; I’ve seen nothing on the web from any third party who’s actually been able to verify that. And if the linked article is correct that the water was never vaporised, then our earlier discussion about generators is pointless because it would have required far less power than even Rossi’s claimed generator output could provide.
http://pesn.com/2011/11/29/9601965_A_Week_of_E-Cat_News_Flurry/
….is the URL of Sterling Allen’s list of recent activity about the E-Cat. He expects to provide weekly updates. It won’t be long before the primary question is settled, according to current information. Then, if the Rossi (and similar claims) are indeed confirmed, the real fun starts.
There is an old remark about the Manhattan Project — the only secret was that the bomb worked. Right now, there is understandable doubt, so LENR is still a ‘sociological secret’ in that sense. IF the Rossi claims are supported by the next customer, etc, then there will be an explosion of activity and re-examination of many radical energy concepts.
The legacy systems will take a long time to replace, but it is highly entertaining to project the economic and political effects that would obtain. I suggest that, if Rossi is confirmed, WUWT could be a major site for such commentaries and speculations. Incidentally, the financial aspects would be important at the level of individual portfolios. Lots of web traffic for WUWT, but the end of AGW as a scare tactic by the left.
Guys might want to check out Dr. Brian Ahern (MIT, Ames National Lab, USAF) who is making an announcement about his patent and theory of the LENR phenomenon in NYC. I get confused why all these PhDs are delivering public lectures on the technology – if it is based on a “scam.” Unless these docs are all in on it…
http://citi5.org/launch/?page_id=1803
re: post by: Ric Werme says: November 29, 2011 at 6:04 am
The problem here is that the equation changes rapidly as soon as a sale is made and customers begin using the product. In Rossi’s case, as I understand it, he claims that his product has been and is being successfully used by several different clients already – and now that he’s supposedly made at least one new sale to a large customer. But I’ve yet to see any of these 3rd parties come forward raving about how the thing actually works.
Can you imagine if the very first smart phone were sold to several people, the media made aware of it (as is the case claimed by Rossi), but you hear zero feedback from those third parties, only more claims by Apple?
Reminds me of this guy a little… 🙂
OOpss…reminds me of this guy a little….:)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14403432
Which also reports:
“Not only did the mysterious client take delivery of Rossi’s first 1MW heat energy production system, but ordered a dozen more for use in cold, remote locations.”
But from following the links, it would appear that the only source for that claim is Rossi. As far as I can determine, no customer has said they’ve bought dozens of these things.
If I went to the phone store and the guy behind the counter said ‘no, you can’t look at our new phone, but a mysterious customer has bought a dozen of them so they must work great’, I wouldn’t be terribly impressed. Normal business just doesn’t work this way.
Hold… on you Climate Skeptics…
The reason I come to this site is that it purports to represent observed and critical thinking. You folks are brushing of ‘cold fusion’ based main stream religious bias… which you abhor from the likes of Al Gore and yet you would easily throw the same stones at cold fusion.
Now it is clear that Rossi is an unsavoury character but he is standing on the shoulders of other established researchers who are real.
I have personally observed Professor Arata’s demonstration at the U. of Osaka with Palladium and Hydrogen. I have followed carefully the McKrube (SRI) work and the Piantellie/Focardi work at the University of Bologna… and the Haegelstein work at MIT.
Google “Journal of Condensed Matter” it is real.
More could be said.
—
Now whether Rossi is real is still a good question.
Ric Werme: 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.
Not enough for what?
Assuming that the eCat works as described, it can power a Stirling engine, using a fluid other than water. The Stirling engine can power a generator. The electricity required for start-up can be supplied by a bank of batteries, which are recharged by the generator. Excess electricity can power some jaccuzies and hot-tubs for long periods of time. All the equipment (except the hot tubs) can be purchased at an auto parts store. The technical skill to put it all together can be provided by a high school science club, home hobbyist, or auto mechanic. For a single eCat, the work can be done in a few hours. For the 1MW device in a shipping container, a whole weekend would probably be required.
The ideas that this is (a) hard, (b) sophisticated or (c) time-consuming are absurd.
Septic,
You know what they say about ‘assume’.
As with all claims where we are barred from observing every step of the claimed process, I am a skeptic. Complete transparency is required by the scientific method, so others can replicate the experiment. Rossi can end the controversy in one day by inviting skeptical peers to investigate, and ask Rossi questions. Like the claim that CO2 causes climate change, Rossi is appealing to authority to convince the world that he can pull a rabbit out of a hat.
If it’s real, step aside and let others see what’s behind the curtain.
Ric Werme: Ever tried getting information from Apple about new products, shipping numbers, manufacturing locations (and pollution from suspected manufacturing locations), etc?
Apple does have a record of producing good products, and millions of satisfied customers. At present, Rossi only claims a few customers, who have not so far identified themselves or demonstrated their devices. I would say that your comparison is not informative of anything.
Robert Fulton put an inefficient steam engine on a paddle-wheel boat and ran it up and down the Hudson River. Rossi’s device is reportedly more powerful than that steam engine, and he has not yet used it to do anything as convincing as move a boat up and down a river. If the reports about the eCat are true, it would be a simple thing to accomplish. And it would not reveal any trade secrets. James Watt used an even less efficient steam engine to pump water. Inefficient steam engines powered early railroad trains, and somewhat more efficient steam engines powered automobiles. Steam engines powered factories, of all sizes. The only mystery, if it is a mystery, is why Rossi does all these complicated “tests” instead of doing any of the simple things that would demonstrate that his device works.
Smokey: You know what they say about ‘assume’.
I think you know why I wrote the sentence as I did. You seem to be in agreement with me.
Ric Werme: Here’s what I’ve found for November.
November 1st, 2011 at 2:03 PM
We soon will reach 400-500 Celsius using diathermic oil as a primary fluid. We are studying this throughly with our Customer for his next needs.
In that case, powering a ship, generating electricity, plowing fields, milling grain, machining metal parts, hauling freight and passengers cross county on rail or roads, or pumping oil or water should be straightforward. With the engineering and manufacturing capacity of the US, EU, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Japan. S. Korea, India, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Iran,Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and China, there is the opportunity for thousands of useful devices to be produced in 2012, and then millions mass-produced in 2013.
In that case, the suspense will soon be over.
From JDSmith – Toronto on November 29, 2011 at 5:40 pm:
Found it in the Wikipedia Cold fusion entry:
Note: Ref 102 URL points to first page of the particular reference, pg 183-189, although 185-189 are not available as that’s just a preview. The book is Undead Science: Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion by Bart Simon (2002). Available from Amazon in hardcover for $60 (Rutgers University Press, priced like a textbook) or as an e-book for $9.99. Both listings feature the same review, the only review, only 2 of 5 stars, here’s an excerpt:
Septic Matthew says:
November 30, 2011 at 10:39 am
Note: I try to stick to claims of what’s been achieved, not what’s promised. Comes from being in software development for my whole career. So, setting aside the oil coolant and its promise, and just sticking with low pressure steam…
Why is that so many people here and at Rossi’s blog say “just get a Stirling engine”? The only ones I know about are hobbyist demonstrator kits and some providing quiet drive power for nuclear submarines.
Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, home dialysis, and other stuff, produced a flurry of patents for Striling engines. The speculation was he wanted one to power his Segway. That just faded away, I think the manufacturing issues are still just too great.
Let me know which auto parts stores carry 10kW Stirling engines for cheap. http://newenergydirection.com/blog/2009/06/stirling-engine-generator/ refers to a 43 kW unit with generator for $1218/kW.
Just because Stirling engines are feasible, it doesn’t mean they can overcome the poor absolute energy conversion of a small delta-T between source and sink. Neither can low boiling point gas turbines.
Of course, the promise of the oil-based cooling changes the issue dramatically (except for the feasibility of using Stirling engines cost effectively). Turbines will continue to rule.
Until then, the market for low grade process heat and space heating can get the industry off the ground.
Patience….point
Darn, now arrives the discouraging news from NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Dennis Bushnell, that basically everything Signor Rossi claims is potentially TRUE. Arghhh. Which is why we don’t believe NASA about climate – because they tend to eggsagurate! But for what it’s worth, Doc Bushnell says Low Energy Nuclear Reaction technology will solve climate change and pollution problems to boot:
“In Short, LENR , depending upon the TBD performance, appears to be capable of Revolutionizing Aerospace across the board. No other single technology even comes close to the potential impacts of LENR upon Agency Missions.”
http://ecatnews.com/?p=1554
Go figger.
All this guff is just uninformed conjecture…..
until the box is opened only then will we know if the e-cat is dead or alive(schrodinger pun intended-sorry)
If it is proven to be bullshit im going to find mr rossi and punch his fucking lights out for wasting my time reading about this.
The truly sad thing is that in the face of, literally, discovering the holy grail of science- a potential end to all mankinds energy woes-
the only thing proven is the shocking propensity for personal greed amongst these “scientists”….to be honest i hope it doesnt fucking work …because if this is how humanity is going to deal with this zenith and peak of all human understanding of the natural world we actually deserve to fucking choke to death on our coal fumes…..
whichever way you look at it Mr.Rossi is 100% pure greedy cunt no matter if he is full of shit or not.
seemingly no-one has perfected this technology yet and all the greedy little cabals that want their pound of flesh can go fuck emselves because every minute wasted in not developing this tech and sharing the process openly in the spirit of science brings us closer to peak oil, environmental disaster and species suicide.
Even if this out there product proves to be real- the scientists involved are proving nothing but we flat out dont deserve it.