by Sterling D. Allan with Hank Mills
Pure Energy Systems News

October 28, 2011

from PESN Website

 

 

 

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 479 kW of continuous power

for 5.5 hours during the self-sustained mode.

 



 

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.
 

 

Here I am with Andrea Rossi

after the test of the 1 MW E-Cat plant in the background.

 


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 479 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 [Paolo] Soglia 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 difficulties connected with the basic engineering to make something that... You know, to go in self sustain mode and make 400 [actually 479] 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 [coefficient of performance] 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:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links

 

 

What You Can Do

  1. Pass this on to your friends and favorite news sources.

  2. Join the H-Ni_Fusion technical discussion group to explore the details of the technology.

  3. Once available, purchase a unit and/or encourage others who are able, to do so.

  4. Let professionals in the renewable energy sector know about the promise of this technology. 

  5. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay abreast of the latest, greatest developments in the free energy sector.

  6. Consider investing in Rossi's group once they open to that in October.

  7. Help us manage the PESWiki feature page on Rossi's technology.

 

 

 

PESN Coverage of E-Cat

(Source)

 

 


1 MW unit tested on October 28, 2011.
Photo by Sterling Allan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interview with Andrea Rossi About...

1 MW E-Cat Plant Delivery

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News
May 5, 2013

from PESN Website

 

 

 

We discussed the latest E-Cat plant status;

the initial military customer plant status;

the glowing-hot-cat, and safety considerations at this early stage,

and their postponing of domestic product roll-out;

the Hot-Cat research and work toward electricity generation;

the Hot-Cat 3rd party test conditions and status...

 



Today, Frank Acland of E-CatWorld and I conducted a 1.5-hour interview with Andrea Rossi regarding developments in his E-Cat technology which is poised to revolutionize the energy sector by providing cheap and clean heat and electricity using a variation of the "cold fusion" technology called "LENR" for Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, where "low" refers to the input temperature required to initiate the nuclear reaction in comparison to the hundreds of millions of degrees required on the sun to initiate fusion.

The live interview was hosted by Gary Hendershot on his SmartScarecrow service, with a chat room where people could post questions, several of which were presented to Rossi during the show.

 

At its peak, there were just over 1000 people listening to the live broadcast, which began at 4:30 pm Eastern time (GMT-5), with nearly 200 people in the live chat. 

Rossi didn't have a webcam or headset, and his internet wasn't that great, so his connection cut out several times. Frank didn't have a webcam either. To conserve on bandwidth, I cut my video feed.

 

Though none of us could be seen live, Gary displayed our photos/names while we talked; and he displayed some of the images being referred to in our discussion, such as the red-hot, glowing Hot-Cat; and the 1 MW (heat) plant being shipped.

Here is a video of the interview:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While from a roll-out speed point of view, things have been progressing with this technology more slowly than we had hoped; from a legitimacy point of view, I came away from the interview even more convinced that the E-Cat technology is real and poised to eventually revolutionize the energy scene, not to mention science and the economy, while helping to clean up the planet.

 

Early in the interview, Rossi explained that the 1 MW plant that I saw demonstrated on October 28, 2011 was not delivered to the confidential military customer.

 

There were many glitches that needed to be worked through first:

"hydraulics, distribution, common rail distribution, choice of coolant; didn't have well-balanced distribution of 100+ of reactors."

In contrast, he said:

"The plant as of now is very mature."

A separate unit was built for the military customer then shipped, and Rossi said that it has now logged "many thousands of hours" of run time. He said the data from this plant easily corroborates the guaranteed coefficient of performance of 6 (six times more energy out than what is put in to make it run).

The plant that is now on its way to the U.S. customer is an upgraded version of the unit that was demonstrated on October 28, 2011. He just recently (April 30 - May 1, 2013) finished a 24-hour test of the unit before preparing it for shipping; and now, it is somewhere en route.

 

Rossi estimates that it will take about 20 days to transport, and it could be a month before that unit is operational at the customer's facility, where the customer "will be selling heat made by the plant."

 

 

 


Testing the unit prior to shipping.

 

 


See E-CatWorld for more photos of the shipping process.

 

 

We had thought that this customer was going to be publicly announced, and that the unveiling of this unit would be public. However, at this time, it turns out that the customer wishes to remain confidential.

"This is not a theatre."

This brings to two the number of 1 MW units that have been completed. He said other plants are under construction.

 

 


Safety Considerations

Rossi explained a reasonable logistical purpose for not allowing public viewing and access to this technology at this phase of its development.

 

He explained that foremost, there are safety considerations. While limited numbers of people with adequate safety training and precautions can access the technology, allowing non-trained public to approach the technology presents safety issues.

That is the primary reason why the home or domestic E-Cat is presently on hold. The certification and safety agencies that need to sign off on something like this require extensive testing before they will approve of it to be made available to the general public.

By taking the approach of first rolling this product out as a 1 MW industrial unit, each of which contains 106 individual modules, those installations will accumulate the safety record that can be referred to for the next stage, which would be introducing the technology to the general public. The 1 MW units only run at temperatures of 102 - 130ēC.

Rossi said that these plants consume only 1 gram of Nickel for every 23 gigamegawatt-hours of heat they produce (that's 23,000,000,000 Watt-hours of power). 

 

 

 

 

Also, we asked Rossi about the red-hot-glowing Hot-Cat image that Daniel Passarini posted this past week. Rossi said that this photo had been leaked, notwithstanding NDA terms that prohibited it, and that it was a unit being purposely tested to destruction, from which they learned much about the process.

 

They put it in self-loop mode and turned off the regulation. It is not at all intended to be representative of normal operation.

 

 


Electricity Production

Rossi said that the Hot-Cat runs at 350ēC and is "very stable."

 

At this temperature, he said that creating electricity will be easy, and that they are making progress on building such embodiments.

Later in the interview, in response to a question:

"Is Andrea Rossi still working with Siemens to generate electricity?" he replied to the affirmative, but said that the conditions were under NDA and he was not at liberty to elaborate.

Frank asked Rossi to comment on a statement he made one time to the effect that he had observed the creation of electricity directly from one of the reactors (without going through a turbine or other thermal-electric converter).

 

At first, Rossi shied away from the question, but then said that they had observed some,

"strange phenomenon, found by serendipity - a sensation that we produced direct current." But he said: "We are far from being at the point to say we have direct production of electricity from this process."

 



Third-Party Testing of Hot-Cat

Regarding the 3rd-party testing of the Hot-Cat design, Rossi gave the following information.

  • Testing was conducted from March 18-23

  • Included 120 hours of continuous running, with no interruptions

  • Included four professors from different parts of the world (names are confidential for now)

  • Was very expensive

  • The tests were run in the absence of Rossi, though he was available if they had any questions

  • Tests were done with their instrumentation; they controlled the cabling

  • Rossi still doesn't know the exact results but said they were "smiling" and indicated that it was "very good"

  • The report will be published in a peer-reviewed journal, which takes some time


 

 

The Team

I asked Rossi to elaborate on who "we" entails when it comes to his team. He replied:

  • 2 specialists working on electronics for the control systems. They have made enormous progress in the last 7-8 months. They also work on any kind of thing connected with electricity.

  • 3 specialists working on thermal technical problems: thermal dynamics, upgrade heat exchange; upgrade the energy density.

  • 2 specialists working on design, both external aesthetics as well as functionality and space utilization for energy density optimization.

  • Team that makes tests of plants, to run plants; to invent new things that improve efficiency.

  • Manufacturing team.

  • Another team working on prototype design in the U.S. (for 1 MW plants)

He said that most of the R&D will stay in Italy, but that the rest of the operations are taking place in the U.S. (Florida).

 

However, later, he talked about the friendliness of Sweden to his company, due to their need for heat and their environmental consciousness. They are in process of developing manufacturing capability there as well.

He also talked about the reason why they are developing robotics for their manufacturing. "There are 106 modules in one 1 MW plant. To build 1000 one-megawatt plants would involved 106,000 reactors.

As to how Rossi screens his potential customers, he said that a major criteria he looks for is whether or not the customer presently uses some kind of heat-generating mechanism.

 

If they have real needs, it diminished the possibility that they just want to get the unit to harvest the intellectual property.

 

 


Cat and Mouse

Hank Mills, who was listening to the show via our Skype connection, chimed in with a couple of technical questions, one of them being to have Rossi describe what he means by "cat and mouse."

Rossi explained that each module has essentially two apparatuses inside: and activator and the reactor. He calls the resistive heater element the "mouse" and the reactor the "cat".

 

It takes a little tease from the mouse getting in front of the cat's nose for the cat to go off running. He compares this to the little amount of energy required to get the reaction going, using outside electricity to bring the resistive heater up to a temperature that the reaction takes place.

 

Of the two components, the reactor is only "the size of a glass of whiskey".

 

 


Patent

The other question from Hank had to do with a discussion of Ni62 in the patent.

"This is because I have seen isotopes of 62 and 64 work properly in our process," Rossi responded.

He said that the Italian patent granted in 2009 gives them priority on the technology; and that they have a lot of applications they are working on filings for.

 

 


Licensing

While he appreciated the question,

"Many people are likely to want to adapt this technology to products they make - can they license it?" he said that such questions were premature, given how early they are in the technology development.

They are focusing on the modules that go into the 1 MW plants for now.

"Specific applications will come later on."

 

 


Lead Time

As for how long people could expect to get delivery of a 1 MW plant, Rossi said it would be "around four months." We didn't ask him about price, but a of a couple of years ago, it was $1.5 million USD.

 

 


Thanks to JONP Comments

Since before he announced the press conference for the 5 kW E-Cat demo on January 14, 2011, Rossi has been running a discussion forum: Journal of Nuclear Physics. In response to the question: "What are some of the most important things you have learned from JONP readers?" Rossi said he liked that question. "If you go to the Journal, you will see 14,000 comments. They provide tremendous information. I read all the comments with much attention. I have learned many things."

He even said that two of the people he hired for his team were people who commented in the forum.

Regarding a question about how the industrial world in general  has responded, he said that most of the responses have been coming from young people, who see opportunities for a better future.

 

 

 


Realizing Tesla's Dream?

Rossi said he has had a dream of realizing Nikola Tesla's dream, which to him entails "making big energy with small components."

 

 

 

 

What You Can Do

  1. Consider purchasing a 1 MW (heat) E-Cat plant.

  2. See Suggestions for How to Get Involved with the Roll-out of Exotic Free Energy 

  3. Pass this on to your friends and favorite news sources.

  4. Click to Tweet: http://clicktotweet.com/bXUoI 

  5. Subscribe to our E-Cat newsletter.

  6. Let professionals in the renewable energy sector know about the promise of this technology. 

  7. Subscribe to our general newsletter to stay abreast of the latest, greatest developments in the free energy sector.