Posted on 10/28/2011 10:59:24 PM PDT by Kevmo
Success for Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion system, but mysteries remain
Against all the odds, Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion power plant passed its biggest test yesterday, producing an average of 470 kilowatts for more than five hours. (A technical glitch prevented it from achieving a megawatt as originally planned). The demonstration was monitored closely by engineers from Rossi's mysterious US customer, which was evidently satisfied and paid up.The energy was output in the form of heat, measured by the quantity of water boiled off. The results are reported in NyTeknik and Pure Energy Systems News, who both had reporters present for the test. Associated Press also sent a correspondent who should be filing a story in the next few days (one suspects his editors might have some questions).
But this does not mean we can crack open the champagne and celebrate the end of fossil fuels quite yet. Skeptics have plenty of grounds to doubt whether the new test really takes us any further forwards.
....[more at link]
Okay. That’s nice.
Now put the thing in a car and have it power electric motors propelling the car and drive it around the track for five or ten hours at high speed.
Then we’ll know we have something.
You are mixing capital costs vs operating costs.
A new coal plant will be $2000 per KW, to build, but depending on the price of coal can produce power at 3 cents per KW or $30 per MWhr.
This Focardi-Baloney machine will cost $2000 per kw to build but have .0000001 cent per KWhr oprating costs. Too cheap to meter, and too cheap to pay attention.
1KW-hr/hr=1KW
Assuming it can run for a year with minimal operating cost over the install cost (big assumption, yes I know), it would generate (24 * 365 =) 8760 kWh(thermal) per kW of installed capacity. This means that the first plants will generate heat at a cost of $2000/8760 = 23 cents per kWh, which is not terribly exciting. If he can really get installed cost down to $100/kWh, then it becomes one cent per kWh, which is a hell of a lot more exciting.
A payback period of under one year would make this technology VERY viable. Again, lots of assumptions, including that it really works.
NyTeknik did discover one possible clue to their identity. The customer's controller, one Domenico Fioravanti, apparently reports to a man whose title is "Colonel". This suggests that the mystery customer might be DARPA, the Pentagon's extreme science wing which, as Wired.co.uk has previously noted, has expressed interest in Rossi's work -- but which might not be quite ready to explain to its political masters why it spent millions on a cold fusion device.
So the only detail left to conquer is that nKW output ECat requires nKW input power for the generator pumps?
A lot would depend on how much of a hassle it will be to replace the nickel cartridges (every 6 months, and the tested unit had 300 reactor chambers), and how much the replacements will cost. If we're talking about needing a complete teardown/rebuild every 6 months, then the maintenance costs may be high.
Well, it looks like a bunch of FReepers already responded to your post. Eventually the agreed facts will be there for everyone to proceed from.
I can’t remember who posted it once, but it was clever. They said something to the effect that a new time unit would be generated, which is how fast Obama will take credit for this if it turned out to be real. Not a millisecond, nor a nanosecond, nor even a femtosecond, but an Obamasecond. Something like that.
The usual loose ends that Rossi leaves lying around for skeptics to chew on. The guy changes the world and gets his customer to sign off on buying the first LENR plant, but there’s all this accompanying baggage that he doesn’t address. Maybe he does it on purpose.
If his paying client is a million dollar company,
***Perhaps you meant $Billion company?
So while skepticism is justified, sarcasm isn’t.
***One of the reasons why I started calling them seagulls.
Maybe no worse than old fashioned TV sets, but people will be skittish about having one sit just anywhere.
***I used to be skittish about the microwave oven. Now I feel like I couldn’t function properly without having one.
This hamster runs on something as ubiquitous as weeds and only needs to be fed twice a year, a few grams of weeds.
Thanks. If there’s a quick trick to that, I might be willing to try. But then you would need some other way to bump the thread with something useful, right?
I guess you missed this part:
"Andrea Rossi demonstrated his 1 megawatt E-Cat system to his first customer, who had engineers/scientists on hand to test/validate its performance."
I do understand however that you have a lot of time and effort invested in shouting down Rossi. No amount of evidence will ever change your mind so, why do you keep stalking these posts?
Doesn’t anyone see this a at least slightly suspicious?
***Sure. But wouldn’t the customer have to be incredibly stupid to sign off on Rossi’s device? If you were the customer, wouldn’t you focus on that?
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