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.
“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?