1 MW E-Cat Cold Fusion Device Test Successful

1 MW E-Cat Cold Fusion Device Test Successful
On October 28, 2011, Andrea Rossi demonstrated his 1 megawatt E-Cat system to his first customer, who had engineers/scientists on hand to test/validate its performance. Due to a glitch, it provided 470 kW of continuous power for 5.5 hours during the self-sustained mode.
Here I am with Andrea Ross after the test of the 1 MW E-Cat plant in the background.

By Sterling D. Allan (who was present), with Hank Mills
Pure Energy Systems News
Well, the big day has come and gone. Andrea Rossi's one-megawatt-capable E-Cat cold fusion device has been tested in Bologna, Italy; and the unknown customer, who ran the test, is apparently happy.

There were some issues, so it couldn't be run at full power in self-looped mode, but what it did do was plenty impressive.

It ran for 5.5 hours producing 470 kW, while in self-looped mode. That means no substantial external energy was required to make it run, because it kept itself running, even while producing an excess of nearly half a megawatt. Rossi explained the reasons for this in the presentation he gave, which I videotaped and will be posting later.

That's half the rated capacity, but it is still a major accomplishment for the device that was completed earlier this week -- the first of its kind on the planet.

Early in the day with a glitch showing up, Rossi said that they had to make a decision about whether to go for 1 MW output, not in self-sustain mode, or with self-sustain mode at a lower power level. The customer opted to go for the self-sustain mode. Nothing was said about the prospects of a follow-up test, though I would imagine that the customer will be running many tests to understand this gadget they have purchased, and that information will be conveyed to Rossi.

When I asked him during the Q&A session if the customer was satisfied with the test, Rossi responded, "Yes, I think they are satisfied."

Here is a brief video excerpt highlight from Rossi during his 1-hour reading of the public report from the customer, followed by a question and answer session. I recorded the entire presentation, and we'll post that tomorrow, hopefully along with a transcription. Half the time was in Italian, as he would address each item in Italian as well as English.

In this excerpt, Rossi responds to the question, "So, is this a breakthrough?"

Here's a transcription of the excerpt video:
Mister Sonya has asked me if I think that the test of today is a breakthrough. I think yes, because I think today we have seen enough. No more small five or ten kilowatt units, but now we have overcame the [cannot understand].... disconnected. The basic engineering to make something that....

You know, to go in self sustain mode and make 400 [actually 470] kilowatt hours per hour... To understand that this is a breakthrough...

You can also think that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to try to have a COP of 1.1 with nuclear fusion. Today we have made a theoretically endless COP making 470 kilowatt hour per hour of completely free energy, free of fuel. Yes, I think this is a breakthrough.

Of course this is the first step, but it is a very important first step....
Early this year Andrea Rossi announced his plans to construct and test the world's first one megawatt cold fusion plant. The plant would utilize his E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) technology that utilizes tiny quantities of nickel powder and hydrogen gas as fuel, while producing large amounts of energy in the form of heat. Importantly, the energy is produced without emitting any pollution, utilizing any radioactive materials, or producing any nuclear waste. Simply put, the E-Cat offers the world a source of cheap, safe, and clean energy. Although the exact plans for the launch of the technology were adjusted a few times throughout the course of this year, October 28th, 2011 was settled on for the date of the official test of the one megawatt plant by the first customer.

These first plants will cost around $2,000 per kilowatt to build one at a time, but once they are mass produced, Rossi expects the price to drop to around $100 per kilowatt installed.

Attendance at this test was limited for several reasons. First, the customer does not wish to be known at this time, nor to have its test engineers/scientists identified. I did not inadvertently discover the customer's identify, nor did I try to find out. I gave that group their space and did not probe. Second, the device is a nuclear device, and the regulations for a public demonstration are extremely stringent; so by making the event private, and only bringing one or two at a time to see it was a way to get around the safety requirements.

Most of us (around 30 guests total) arrived between 9 and 10 am; and by around 11 am, Rossi began taking people back to see the device while it was in operation, in self-sustained mode. Here's a video I shot, with Rossi's permission, during my 2-3 minute chance to see the unit during operation:

A neighboring facility, coincidentally, is named "Rossi", which is a common name in Italy.

Here I am with Mats Lewan and other Swedish associates.

Here I am with Peter Svensson from the AP

Professor Levi, who was Rossi's right-hand man today, will be heading the Bologna research on the E-Cat. Power for start-up (resistive coils that provided heat to the reaction chambers) was provided by the large and loud genset (was making all the noise) you see that is nearly as large as the small shipping container in which the 1 MW E-Cat plant was arranged. Once the reaction chambers got up to temperature, they were maintained by the heat produced by the reaction. I'm not sure why they kept the generator running after that, but I would guess it was for back-up or safety. I'm sure the engineers testing the system made sure what the power levels were at all times.

There were 100 E-Cat modules, each with 3 reaction chambers in them, for a total of 300 reaction chambers. An additional 20 or so units had been installed on the top of the shipping container, compared to the earlier photos and videos we had seen. Steam was produced by the units and exited through the back in the bottom of the two pipes. The steam was not put to use to run a load but the heat was dumped via two radiators, distilled, and circulated back into the system. When looking inside the plant, I noticed that one of the E-Cat units had a little steam escaping from the front of it.

The top pipe in the back, which was closed, was for emergency cool-down, if needed.

Each unit was run independently through a computerized control. The input and output temperature readings were recorded by computer, and the data will be provided to us probably later this evening or tomorrow morning. When I went by there, I think the input was measuring 19 C, and the output was 109 C.

Radiation measurements were taken by Dr. Bianchini David, from the University of Bologna. He said no extraneous radiation was detected at any time emanating from the reaction chambers, or from the piping, or from the water tanks, or in the vicinity of the apparatus. Apparently, gamma radiation is produced during the reaction, which is shielded by water, iron, lead, and a final coating on the apparatus. David said that he has not measured gamma radiation from the device, because he has not had access to the reaction chamber while it has been unshielded.

None of the units were taken apart following this test, as was the one back on the October 6 test. I asked Rossi whether any radio frequencies were used in the test, and he said "no".

I would estimate that there were about 12 people assisting with the test arrangement, including: 3-4 security guards, 1 caterer, 2 receptionists who checked to make sure everyone was invited and wore the required badges, 3-4 engineers helping take measurements, Foccardi was helping take guests 1-2 at a time back to see the unit.

I especially enjoyed mingling with the other guests, including: Mats Lewan from NyTeknik; Irene Zreick from Focus.it; Peter Svensson, Technology Writer for the Associated Press, NY, who told me that the reason the mainstream press hasn't been covering this is because Rossi has been very picky about who he lets in; Enrico Billi, a nuclear physicist and friend of Rossi's, who is presently living in China and helping to open doors there for this technology; Professor Christos Stremmenos, from the University of Bologna, who told me all about his theory of how the technology works; Pierre Clauzon, nuclear engineering professor from France, who told me about several theoretical physicists trying to understand cold fusion in general and the E-Cat in particular; Uzikova Irina, a nuclear plant designer from Russia; Stefan Heglesson, representing a Swedish interest in the technology; Loris Ferrari, Associate Professor of Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Bologna, who will be one of the five professors to do the two year test of the E-Cat, which hopefully will be funded as a result of today's test. They will study both the "how" and the "why" of the technology.

Mats and I agreed to post our stories at the same time. Peter was going to go first, having been given an exclusive by Rossi, but it's going to be a few days before he gets the necessary info and editorial approvals before he's able to run a story in the Associated Press.

Probably the biggest opening for skeptics will be the continually running genset that is probably rated for 500 kW (my guess), and appears to have been connected by cables to the E-Cat. "Where's the mystery?" So knock yourselves out, skeptics. It's the customer who has to be happy, and apparently this one was satisfied that those cables were not contributing to the 470 kW output during self-sustaining mode.

Here's a video where Rossi talks to us briefly following the test, saying that a report will come shortly; and giving us the reason for why we couldn't go back during the test except 1-2 at a time.

And here's a video of a couple of 1 MW generators that were in the room where we were hanging out, which were from an earlier project Rossi was involved with, running on biofuel.

# # #
Links
News:October 28, 2011 Test of the One Megawatt E-Cat (Our index page at PESWiki)
http://db.tt/wu4OLbgk - a link to download a file which contains the report about the test
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3303682.ece - Mat Lewans' story

“Utterly, completely, totally false. Worse, such a statement is ignorant. It is like saying that 20 nickels makes ten dollars.”

Are you saying that wasn’t claimed here?

Or are you say that the people that claimed this are uttering false hoods?

Who are you saying is ignorant?

BTW, your example of a bad way to measure is actually the best way to measure. If the machine is able to take $1 of input and able to create $10 output, you have a pretty good business model. Making widgets or energy, that’s a good markup.

I believe that 1 megawatt of electrical output is more valuable than 10 megawatts of low quality heat output. If that is what the finished machine does, they do not have a good business model. There are too many ways to make low quality heat for less money.

"Andrea Rossi claimed to have demonstrated his 1 megawatt E-Cat system to his alleged first customer, who Rossi claimed had engineers/scientists on hand to test/validate its performance."

There, fixed it for you.

When you split out the parts that rely on Rossi's integrity and honesty, there really isn't much left.

Maybe this really is the breakthrough the fans think it is. But Rossi and his E-Cat look so much like many earlier scams that it's reasonable to remain skeptical. Earlier in this thread, I posted a couple of links to scams that look an awfully lot like this.

If and when we find out who this "secret customer" really is, we can begin to judge the significance of this. Of course, as my earlier post showed, even big, well-known companies have wasted millions of dollars on con artists.

I believe this past writeup from The Oil Drum stills stands. Excerpt: ...So, let's examine the situation of the E-Cat as it stands at present. No direct evidence for a nuclear reaction inside the device has been reported, as would be, for instance, the emission of gamma rays. The only evidence available is indirect and it comes from the large amount of excess heat that is claimed to be produced by the reactor. As the only basis of the claim of nuclear reactions taking place, the excess heat (if any) produced by the reactor should have been measured with extreme care and with all the necessary precautions necessary to insure that it is significant. Unfortunately it appears that this is not the case. The set up for the heat measurements looks inadequate and amateurish; the results are unclear and repeatability has not been demonstrated. It appears legitimate to think that the claim of "cold fusion" by Rossi and Focardi rests on poor evidence, or even or no evidence at all. A reasonably reliable calorimetric measurement of the heat produced by the E-Cat could be performed by cycling cooling water inside an insulated tank and measuring the temperature of the water. Knowing the amount of water, it would be possible to obtain a first estimate of the heat produced. That, in itself, would still not be enough. The heat measurement would have to be validated by replacing the E-Cat with a resistor and then measuring the power needed to heat the water at the same temperature as with the E-Cat in action. But the crucial test would be a "blank" one in which it would be shown that there is a significant difference in the heat generated by a functioning E-Cat and by a device where the "catalyser" is absent. It is clear, however, that the inventors of the E-cat did nothing of that sort. They didn't close the cooling cycle, they let the steam vent out and they estimated the amount of heat created by assuming that all the water passing through the E-Cat is vaporized. That's obviously a very poor set-up that guarantees large errors simply because there is no way to be sure that all the water is vaporized...

No direct evidence for a nuclear reaction inside the device has been reported, as would be, for instance, the emission of gamma rays.
***If the whole thing turned out to be a chemical reaction, then all the better. No NRC oversight.

So, 100 grams of Nickel and maybe 300 grams of hydrogen, generates 100 times more energy than a battery of its size, lasts 20 times longer. That’s a significant development. Who cares if it ain’t nuclear?

What customer? “The Customer” sounds like “the one armed man” from The Fugitive movie, except there really was a one armed man.

Rossie is clearly in charge of the operation, Rossie proclaims it a success and everyone can just take his word for it.

Like the suspension wires on an “anti gravity” machine no one is supposed to notice an electrical generator running and connected to the e-cat.

Comic opera.

Not only that, but customers would often need to buy two so that while one is down for maintenance, the other is supplying power. To prove self sustaining mode, they will need to show an E-Cat running continuously for months. Any less and its utility is lost.

It wouldn't be as bad as that. Ideally, the E-cat would run for at least 6 months before needing maintenance, and I would hope that it would be rechargeable in under a day of downtime. If you had a rig where you had a dozen units supplying steam, and where you could shut down one unit at a time for maintenance while leaving the rest running, it would be workable.

That’s kind of a lame example, citing from a fictional source to prove a factual point, and in the fiction it turned out to be true anyways.

If and when the customer is revealed, there won’t be any more seagulls to poop on these threads. Until then, it is going to be an exercise in inductive reasoning. And I’m thoroughly familiar with how inadequate the pathological skeptics are in that category.

So, 100 grams of Nickel and maybe 300 grams of hydrogen, generates 100 times more energy than a battery of its size, lasts 20 times longer. That’s a significant development. Who cares if it ain’t nuclear?

Except that the most optimistic estimate of the excess energy is 3-6 times (down from Rossi's original claim of ~250 times), and no dog & pony show lasting more than hours (down from Rossi's original claim of running it six months to heat his factory).

If it's actually generating excess energy in any amount, that would be a significant development. But Rossi has been carefully avoiding any test that would prove that beyond the possibility of fraud.

Rossi claims to be turning Nickel into Copper, which makes it nuclear. Of course, it's incredibly fortunate for all of us that his "Mr. Fusion" emits no harmful radiation or radioactive isotopes while it's running. Almost too good to be true.

If it’s actually generating excess energy in any amount, that would be a significant development. But Rossi has been carefully avoiding any test that would prove that beyond the possibility of fraud.
***Nahh, Rossi is just a sloppy engineer. He gets the device to go into “Heat After Death” mode for 4 hours or 5.5hours and he thinks that should be enough for anyone to see that he’s got something.

He’s got a customer. He claims his customer is gonna buy this first-of-its-kind plant. Soon enough he’ll have hundreds of customers. I remember reading that he already had a backlog of 5 years. After he sells his 20th device, there won’t be any more seagulls pooping on these threads and anyone who yells FRAUD at that time is going to be seen as a pasquinade.

So now the next phase of Operation Rossi begins. It’s like that old joke about a capitalist who has 2 cows, sells one and buys a bull.

If a communist has two cows, he gives both to the government, and the government sells him some of the milk.
If a Socialist has two cows, he gives both to the government, and the government gives him some of the milk.
If a Nazi has two cows, the government shoots him, and takes both cows.
If a Capitalist has two cows, he sells one and buys a bull.
If a New dealist has two cows, he kills one, milks the other, and throws away the milk.
If a Liberal has two cows, he sells them to the rich, then taxes them one cow and gives it to the poor.
If a Conservationist has two cows, he locks them up and charges people to look at them.
If a seagull troll has two cows, he doesn’t believe it.
If a Taoist has two cows, he lets them wander off.
If a Platonist has two cows, he looks for two others to milk.
If a Aristocrat has two cows, he sells them and buys one big one.
If a Pacifist has two cows, they stampede him.
If a government worker has two cows, he can’t sell them, fire them, or even label them as cows.
If a Hillary Clinton has two cows, she robs the ranches and gives everyone two cows. If she doesn’t have enough, she gives them bull.

Again, a review of the FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FORCES. The strong nuclear force can and does leave behind lots of radionuclide's ~ that doesn't mean the weak nuclear force needs to do so.

There is, so far, dispute over whether the phenomenon is the strong force at work an atom at a time, or the weak force at work using tunneling.

So, if your concern is this doesn't conform to your understanding of the strong force how is it that it doesn't conform to your understanding of the weak force?

What customer? “The Customer” sounds like “the one armed man” from The Fugitive movie, except there really was a one armed man.

Rossie is clearly in charge of the operation, Rossie proclaims it a success and everyone can just take his word for it.

It takes inductive reasoning, doncha know.

Apparently, inductive reasoning is needed to make marks fall for the con. No wonder skeptics are short of it.

Like any thermal reactor (be it a boiler or a nuclear reactor core), the heat has to be removed continually or the thing melts down or explodes.

And, of course, the whole point of the system is to take that circulating medium, make steam with it if it isn't already steam itself, and make it do work in a turbine to drive an electrical alternator of whatever scale is economical.

So at a minimum, they needed to circulate the cooling medium (water here, I presume) through the reactor, and that is done with electrically driven pumps. We can assume that these pumps were driven by the genset. In a practical system, power for the auxiliary systems like these would be on the negative side of the balance sheet for the facility's net power generation.

Now, why wouldn't the reactor be able to generate that power itself? First of all, this is a laboratory demonstration. Rossi, as far as I can tell, is content at this point merely to demonstrate the production of ~1MW of thermal energy.

Everyone is assuming that that 1MW thermal is going to be able to create a significant fraction of that amount in electrical power.

However, that depends on the temperature of the fluid medium that's getting its heat energy from the nuclear reaction. It has to be at least enough to boil water, anmd preferably much above its boiling point at atmospheric pressure. I'd say that 200 C would be an absolute minimum.

Perhaps someone here knows the exit temperature of the water in these demonstrations. It could be a significant limiting factor if the reactor can't be made to tolerate temperatures and pressures that will result in reasonable efficiency in the turbines that it will have to drive.

He’s got a customer.

So he claims.

The tipping point in any scam is when the scammer has to turn over the invention to his marks. The con man always finds some way to prevent that from actually happening, since once it leaves his hands, the fraud will become obvious.

When a legitimate outside party has unrestricted access to the device, then we'll find out whether it's real or not. That hasn't (based on all the public statements) happened yet. Yesterday was just another dog & pony show.

Since we don't know who is secret customer is (or even that he has a customer), it's premature to assume that this can't be a scam.

I remember reading that he already had a backlog of 5 years.

I hadn't heard that. What a wonderful environment in which to perpetrate a fraud, if one were inclined to do so: "Step right up! Pay your deposit fee NOW to get to the front of the waiting list!"

Like any thermal reactor (be it a boiler or a nuclear reactor core), the heat has to be removed continually or the thing melts down or explodes.

And the whole point of the system is to take that circulating medium, make steam with it if it isn't already steam itself, and make it do work in a turbine to drive an electrical alternator of whatever scale is economical.

Now, why wouldn't the reactor be able to generate that power itself? Well, this is a laboratory demonstration. Rossi, as far as I can tell, is content at this point merely to demonstrate the production of ~1MW of thermal energy.

Everyone is assuming that that 1MW thermal is going to be able to create a significant fraction of that amount in electrical power.

However, that depends on the temperature of the fluid medium that's getting its heat energy from the nuclear reaction. It has to be at least enough to boil water, and preferably much above its boiling point at atmospheric pressure. I'd say that 200 C would be an absolute minimum.

Perhaps someone here knows the exit temperature of the water in these demonstrations. It will be a fatal shorcoming if the reactor can't be made to tolerate temperatures and pressures that will result in reasonable efficiency in the turbines that it will have to drive.

One caveat on all that I have said above.

My comments presume that the main purpose of the E-Cat system is to generate electrical power, which in a sense is the highest form of usage for heat energy, and requires the highest temperatures.

For other purposes such as space heating, the temperatures don't even have to be close to the boiling point of water.

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