Andrea Rossi and partner Professor Sergio Focardi recently announced to the world that they have created a cold fusion device which produces more energy than it consumes. As you can imagine this has drawn a great deal of interest from the scientific community as well as a huge number of skeptics.
One way to prove your sceptics wrong is to actually do what you say you are going to do. Once the deed is done in a public and undeniable way, there is nothing left for the sceptics to say.
On October 7th, 2011, Italian scientific journalist Maurizio Melis of Il Sole 24 Ore, who witnessed the test in Bologna of the previous day, wrote:
"In the coming weeks Rossi aims to activate a 1MW plant, which is now almost ready, and we had the opportunity to inspect it during the demonstration of yesterday. If the plant starts up then it will be very difficult to affirm that it is a hoax. Instead, we will be projected suddenly into a new energetic era."
-- SilverThunder 05:52, 8 October 2011 (PDT) _Peswiki
But it may not be quite that simple. It seems that Rossi has not yet finalised the design for his ultimate E-cat reactor. How can he build a 1 MW plant if the basic reactor design is not yet completed?
Rossi is apparently struggling to come up with a satisfactory design for a small E-Cat. Today on his web site he issued this appeal:
"The E-Cat basic module "for the People", that we will put in commerce within months, will be 40 cm long, 40 cm large, 40 cm high, will weight 60 kg, the shape of a cube. I need a design cheap ( I want to put it in commerce at a price of 500 euros per kW) but nice, very nice. I will buy the design which I will choose and everybody has my honour word that I will not use designs not paid. I need it within two months...
...Rossi's business plans are still a mystery, and he's surely taking an unconventional approach by looking for help at this point from the general public - but that is his style. No one can accuse Rossi of being conventional! Perhaps this little square box will be Rossi's equivalent of the Model T - a cheap and simple machine that will be able to provide heat (perhaps in time electricity) to the general population. Maybe the idea is that just like with his 1 MW plant, you will be able to connect multiple boxes together to ramp up power capabilities. _via_Peswiki
Peswiki
Hank Mills at Pure Energy Systems (publisher of Peswiki) claims that Rossi's LENR concept has been confirmed by the most recent test. Mills goes on to describe the type of tests on the E-cat which he would like to see, in order to probe the full ability of the reactor.
Mills is not the only one who wants to see extensive testing of the concept and the design. If the "excessive heat" claim is proven, nuclear physicists will need to examine the design and come up with a testable explanation for the unexplained energy.
It is well and good for Rossi to take a sledge hammer to his sceptics by way of a working 1 MW steam plant. But the rest of us want to know what kind of potential this approach may offer in providing a brand new source of cheap and abundant energy. We also want to know if an entire new branch of physics is about to be opened, with all the possibilities for new scientific knowledge and technology which that might mean.
By. Al Fin
Al Fin runs a number of very successful blogs that cover, energy, technology, news and politics. More
Comments
But the reality is that, however interesting the physics may be, there is nothing to show that this will ever stand any chance of producing energy at industrially useable levels.
There's no such thing as a free lunch in nature... or indeed in Physics... so let's not kid ourselves. The "free lunch" of fossil fuels is just dumb old mankind cashing in on a short-term advantage... buring in a couple of hundred years most of the fossil fuel which fusion (sunshine) laid down for us on earth over the past few billion ! (Not something with much of a future I'm thinking)...
But there is a real hope for the future... IF we can get over all the greed, delusions and empire building associated with the energy game... We need governments to get together and make fusion work... my money's on laser fusion (inertial confinement fusion)as the most likely to crack harnessing fusion with gain first... IF the funding can be maintained.
Right now, we are too busy worrying about fat-cat bankers and oil-men however. Our grandchildren are unlikely to thank us for the current trend of sticking our fingers in our ears and our heads in the sand ! The energy challenge is right here and right now... and so is the environmental challenge. I guess its embarrassing on this web site to point out that even the cleanest gas makes CO2... and a few other nasties besides. Let's get real... we need a new way and we need it really soon ! When are the energy sector going to get serious about fusion ? My guess on that (sadly) is that they will ONLY get serious about fusion when they can be ABSOLUTELY SURE they can make a quick buck out of it ! What a sad epitaph for humanity ! We have fusion energy within reach, but nobody will go that extra mile to make it possible !
If you mean that a traditional combustion engine produces more energy than it consumes (like, turning your car key takes less energy than moving the car) then OK. Otherwise no, a cold fusion such as the e-cat (if proved to work) would NOT produces more energy than it consumes.
Although NASA does not confirm Andrea Rossi work as they have not tested it they claim they can replicate the experiments somewhat themselves.
Here is the NASA video:
http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html
http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html