1 MW E-Cat Cold Fusion Device Test Successful

Pure Energy Systems ^ | October 28, 2011 | Hank Mills

[Kevmo]

Talk to us after
***The customer seems to have signed on the dotted line, that’s all that matters to Rossi. When these things are running months at a time, there won’t be any seagulls left to poop on these threads.

[dangerdoc]

“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.

[Johnny B.]

"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.

[Lurkus Maximus]

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.

[Razzz42]

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...

[Kevmo]

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?

[count-your-change]

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.

[PapaBear3625]

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.

[babygene]

“I believe that 1 megawatt of electrical output is more valuable than 10 megawatts of low quality heat output.”

This is correct of course... However, that said, it’s still worth zillions of dollars if it works. And remember it’s still in it’s first generation. And again if it works as claimed, there will be hundreds of thousands of engineers working to improve it shortly.

[Kevmo]

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.

[Johnny B.]

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.

[babygene]

“Not only that, but customers would often need to buy two so that while one is down for maintenance, the other is supplying power.”

Is that kind of like buying two cars so that when one is in for service the other can be used? I have two generators on my motor home... /S

[Kevmo]

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.

[sam_paine]

But then you would need some other way to bump the thread with something useful, right?

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's not meant as the snarky insult it reads as.

[muawiyah]

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?

[Moonman62]

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.

[Erasmus]

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.

[Johnny B.]

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!"

[Erasmus]

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.

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? 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.

[Kevmo]

So he claims.
***As well as a bunch of others who were there at the demo. Your position requires them to be in on such a conspiracy theory. Dozens of people involved, all working in coordination and no one breaking rank. Eventually such a theory falls like the house of cards it is.