Posted on 05/03/2011 5:24:25 AM PDT by Normandy
While there are no fully functioning power plants running on Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat technology to provide conclusive proof of the veracity of Mr. Rossi’s claims, I believe that he has put enough evidence now in the public domain to conclude that we may well have been presented with a new source of power that is more efficient, cheaper and cleaner than any energy source currently in existence.
(Excerpt) Read more at e-catworld.com ...
I’m watching with interest. A lot of people seem quick to view this as a scam, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. As far as I can tell, the guy is a researcher and he may have made a breakthrough. People are looking at it and one way or another we will know.
>> A lot of people seem quick to view this as a scam
You can put me in with that group if you like.
Why excerpt this source?
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While there are no fully functioning power plants running on Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat technology to provide conclusive proof of the veracity of Mr. Rossi’s claims, I believe that he has put enough evidence now in the public domain to conclude that we may well have been presented with a new source of power that is more efficient, cheaper and cleaner than any energy source currently in existence.
The implications of a working E-Cat technology for the world are tremendous. Energy problems seem to be at the root of so many of the economic, environmental, and political difficulties we are facing at the moment, and it appears that Mr. Rossi’s invention could provide very useful solutions for many of them. Following are some areas where might see some important and dramatic changes in the not-too-distant future.
Energy Production
There is scarcely a person on the planet who is not affected in some way by problems associated with energy. As technologies develop and economies modernize we are increasingly dependent on energy for just the basics necessities of life.
One of the attractions of th E-Cat technology is that it appears to be ready for prime time almost out of the box. Most power plants produce electricity using steam-driven turbines. The means of producing steam differs — conventional plants burn fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil, while nuclear fission creates the heat that is used in nuclear plants. It would be a relatively simple engineering process for power station operators to replace their existing sources of steam production with E-Cats — which also produce steam. E-Cat technology is perfectly designed to fit into the existing electrical grid, and thus rapid adoption of this technology is very feasible.
The Environment
An overriding concern connected with energy production these days is the emission of greenhouse gases and nuclear waste — and apparently none are produced from the E-Cat. The environmental implications of this technology would be tremendous. Not only would it allow for much cheaper power, but it would also do so cleanly. This technology could be the kind of clean energy that environmentalists have been seeking for for a long time.
The Economy
Andrea Rossi has said that initially the E-Cat would provide electricity at the cost of 1 cent per kW hr — roughly 10 per cent of what electricity currently costs. Such cheap power would provide a huge boost to consumers of power worldwide — individuals and businesses alike. It would make the cost of producing goods much lower and provide vast savings on people’s utility bills — much cheaper heating, electricity and air conditioning.
Energy intensive industries would be much more feasible — for example desalination of seawater which currently is very expensive because of the large amount of electricity needed would become viable with cheap power, allowing for the expansion of agriculture in arid parts of the world.
Transportation would likewise be affected. E-Cats providing cheap electricity would encourage auto makers to increase the development and production of electric vehicles. Who would not want an electric vehicle if you could fuel up at home on cheap electricity?
Living off the Grid
Andrea Rossi has said that home-based E-Cats would eventually be possible — although his first applications will be in industry. A home based power station would be highly desirable and would open up the benefits of power to people where there is no current electrical infrastructure. Three billion people are currently without electricity in their homes and E-Cat technology could accelerate the pace of modernization in the developing world like nothing we have yet seen.
Science and Engineering
If Andrea Rossi has indeed discovered a way to produce a safe way to produce a controlled low energy nuclear reaction (cold fusion) that is reliable and repeatable, a whole new field of exploration for scientists and engineering will open up. Cold fusion research has been abandoned by all but a few dedicated researchers. A working E-Cat will open the doors for researchers to try and understand the mechanism by which the nuclear reaction occurs, and how this technology can be refined, improved and adapted.
Negative Impacts
While positive results are fairly easy to envision, an all-new source of cheap and clean energy would also have a highly disruptive effect on the current energy-industrial complex. There are national economies that are based on oil production, and E-Cat technology could put a large dent in oil prices which could create new and challenging geopolitical tensions.
The alternative energy industry could become largely obsolete in the face of a much more efficient alternative, and it’s likely that investments in all kinds of energy technologies could be severely affected.
These are just some of the potential consequences that could come about if E-Cat technology works as advertised and is deployed on a wide scale. As with any brand new technology it is impossible to see all the possible implications and effects. We should also remember that the first iteration of any important new technology is primitive and likely to be improved upon – think cars, plane and computers. The E-Cat power plant that Andrea Rossi is now construction could be just the first breakthrough in a new energy era that may transform the civilized world.
Here’s an interesting excerpt from worldmysteries.com:
‘...Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion
The announcement of cold fusion in March 1989 at the University of Utah was greeted with worldwide hysteria. Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons had claimed that an electrochemical cell with heavy water electrolyte and a palladium cathode put out so much excess energy that the mysterious phenomenon had to be nuclear, and was probably a process related to nuclear fusion. Newspapers and magazines said it might be a major scientific discovery with the potential to end the energy crisis and revolutionize society. For a few heady weeks the public took it seriously and waited anxiously for laboratories to replicate the results. Many scientists quickly took sides for or against cold fusion – mostly against. Then, by the end of the summer of 1989 the official word came, in an authoritative report written by a select panel of experts under the auspices of the Department of Energy: cold fusion was a bust. It did not exist. It was an experimental error. It could not be reproduced. Nearly every scientific journal, magazine and newspaper on earth reported this, and cold fusion abruptly dropped out of the headlines. The story, it seemed, was over. Actually, it had barely begun. Only a few thousand electrochemists in the world were qualified to do the experiments, and most of them were too busy or not interested in trying. In that autumn as public interest faded and the U.S. Department of Energy pronounced a death sentence, a small number of experienced scientists prepared serious, full-scale experiments. One of them was Tadahiko Mizuno, an assistant professor who had been doing similar electrochemical experiments for more than twenty years.
Mizuno wrote this short book about his work and personal experiences. It is the best informal account yet written about the daily life of a cold fusion researcher. It gives you a sense of what the job feels like. It is not intended to be technical. For technical details, the reader is invited to examine Mizuno’s numerous scientific papers, some of which are listed in the references.
One event described here which is not described in the technical literature is an extraordinary 10-day long heat-after-death incident that occurred in 1991. News of this appeared in the popular press, but a formal description was never published in a scientific paper. Mizuno says this is because he does not have carefully established calorimetric data to prove the event occurred, but I think he does not need it. The cell went out of control. Mizuno cooled it over 10 days by placing it in a large bucket of water. During this period, more than 37 liters of water evaporated from the bucket, which means the cell produced more than 84 megajoules of energy during this period alone, and 114 megajoules during the entire experiment. The only active material in the cell was 100 grams of palladium. It produced 27 times more energy than an equivalent mass of the best chemical fuel, gasoline, can produce. I think the 36 liters of evaporated water constitute better scientific evidence than the most carefully calibrated high precision instrument could produce. This is first-principle proof of heat. A bucket left by itself for 10 days in a university laboratory will not lose any measurable level of water to evaporation. First principle experiments are not fashionable. Many scientists nowadays will not look at a simple experiment in which 36 liters of water evaporate, but high tech instruments and computers are not used. They will dismiss this as “anecdotal evidence.”’
Very interesting, indeed; hadn’t heard of this before. Thanks for the post. The implications are pretty staggering.
From Wikipedia:
Bologna, March 2011 tests
On March 29, 2011 two Swedish physicists, Hanno Essen, associate professor of theoretical physics and a lecturer at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, and former chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, and Sven Kullander, Professor Emeritus at Uppsalla University and also chairman of the Royal Swedish Acadamy of Sciences’ Energy Committee, participated as observers in a test of a smaller version of the Energy Catalyzer. The test ran for six hours and the calculated energy produced was about 25 kWh.
In their report they write, “Any chemical process should be ruled out for producing 25 kWh from whatever is in a 50 cubic centimeter container. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production.”
According to Mats Lewan of the Swedish technology magazine, Ny Teknik, they were given a sample of the nickel powder used in the unit as well as some Rossi says have been used for 2.5 months; analysis showed the unused powder was pure nickel while the used powder contained 10 percent copper and 11 percent iron, although iron production is not mentioned anywhere in the patent.
They prefaced their discussion in the report with a disclaimer: “Since we do not have access to the internal design of the central fuel container and no information on the external lead shielding and the cooling water system we can only make very general comments.”
I've not seen any smoking gun or explanation of how they could be faking things with the E-cat demonstrations, but it is not impossible that it is a well-planned scam either. So I'm hopeful, but still waiting for the demonstration reactor in Greece or for fully independent lab verification (or a teardown of a unit after seeing it function), to really jump on the bandwagon.
It sounds great but I wonder why there aren't dozens of these things being tested out in the field.
Yeah. I’m no expert either, but apparently the nickel is picking up a proton by fusing with hydrogen, thus becoming copper. And necessarily releasing huge amounts of energy while doing so.
Here are some final conclusions as formulated by a U.S. Navy researcher at the end of a four year study in 1996:
1. The choice of cathode material is crucial to the outcome of the experiment. Table 10 shows that some sources of palladium nearly always produce excess, and some never work.
2. The fact that helium is correlated with the excess heat has been confirmed many ways, but perhaps most dramatically with a simple true/false statistical test. “The odds are . . . approximately one in a million that our complete set of 33 heat and helium results could be obtained from random experimental errors in our calorimetry and helium measurements. A more rigorous treatment in Appendix C gives the probability as one out of 750,000 for our set of 33 heat and helium results.”
3. This research area has the potential to provide the human race with a nearly unlimited new source of energy. We hope that other scientists will continue to investigate this difficult research area until the challenging problems impeding progress are solved.
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
This holds true in physics as well.
All I have seen about this invention is marketing hype. I would like to read some of the technical material as to exactly how this thing works before commenting further.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Once you are set up for them, couldn’t wind or solar energy be considered “free”? Kinda the same thing.
Apparently there are 97 of these being tested out in the field:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2712829/posts
“All I have seen about this invention is marketing hype. I would like to read some of the technical material as to exactly how this thing works before commenting further. “
It all boils down to this though... If it works you don’t need to know why.
“Once you are set up for them, couldn’t wind or solar energy be considered “free”? Kinda the same thing.”
Both wind and solar do indeed have nuclear fusion as their source of energy. (the sun)
While I really do hope this is real, it still comes across as snake oil and I have yet to see ANY verifiable evidence that it is legitimate. For any product to “change the world”, it first has to WORK. WE don’t need another energy scam. We can’t afford it.
This is probably false. Fuel costs account for around 25% of a coal power plant's operating expenses. If you are able to get that to effectively zero, you still have capital costs (high pressure boilers, turbines, generators, etc are expensive) and operational costs. Then again, a large portion of capital and operational costs are for EPA-mandated anti-pollution gear which would not be needed for an e-cat based system.
Of course, this all assumes that this is for real, and that he can get it to work reliably. I'm waiting for his first small scale installation to start up (the 1MW-thermal plant in Greece) before I get even slightly excited. A 1MW operation starts being very hard to fake.
I won't start being very excited until they get a 100MW electric plant up and running.
The total cost of an energy source is roughly composed of the capital costs, the operation/maintenance costs, and the fuel costs. Even with fuel cost being zero, you have capital costs (which are very high for solar/wind) and maintenance/operation costs (solar panels don't work well unless kept clean, wind generators have moving parts that need to be looked after)
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