Cold Fusion getting hot with 10kw heater prepping for market

Italian inventor, Andrea Rossi, claims to have an industrial product ready to manufacture that produces large amounts of energy reliably, safely, and much cheaper than coal or natural gas power. It utilizes the fusion of hydrogen and the common element nickel at relatively low temperatures.

Last Friday, January 14, we reported about a press conference held in Bologna, Italy in which Professor Sergio Focardi and Eng. Andrea A. Rossi, both of the University of Bologna, announced to the world that they have a cold fusion device capable of producing more than 10 kilowatts of heat power, while only consuming a fraction of that. This is the first public demonstration of a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor capable of producing a few kilowatts of thermal energy. At its peak, it is capable of generating 15,000 watts with just 400 watts input required. On Saturday, a forum was opened allowing for questions online from around the world.

This recent public demonstration alone is is a huge development, but what's more, they also claim to be going into production, expecting to have these available for purchase commercially within a year. This would become the world's first commercially-ready "cold fusion" device. They claim to have contracts in the USA and in Europe. Mass production should escalate in 2-3 years.

We have passed already the phase to convince somebody. We are arrived to a product that is ready for the market. Our judge is the market. In this field the phase of the competition in the field of theories, hypothesis, conjectures etc etc is over. The competition is in the market. If somebody has a valid technology, he has not to convince people by chattering, he has to make a reactor that work and go to sell it, as we are doing.

Rossi estimates that the cost of energy made with this system will be below 1 cent/kWh, in case of electric power made by means of a Carnot cycle, and below 1 cent/4,000 M J in case of thermal power production for heating purposes. That is several times cheaper than energy from fossil fuel sources such as coal or natural gas.

According to Rossi, the demonstrated device shown last Friday is their industrial product that is claimed to be reliable and safe. In normal operation it would produce 8 units of output for every unit of input. Higher levels of output are possible, but can be dangerous. They will soon start serial production of their modules. Combining the modules in series and parallel arrays it is possible to reach every limit of power. The modules are designed to be connected in series and parallels.

Rossi also says that they have had one reactor that has run continually for two years, providing heat for a factory. Also, the reactors can self sustain by turning off the input, but they prefer to have an input. The device will be scheduled for maintenance every six months. You control it "just as you turn on and off your television set."

Here's a video excerpt of the demonstration in Italy last Friday. They allowed six people at a time to go into a smaller room where the equipment was located. The tac, tac, tac sound is made by the water pump, which is a precision dosator. You can see all three videos (in Italian) on the efagroup2010 YouTube channel.

According to Daniele Passerini who reported Friday's proceedings in his blog, the private invitation press conference was attended by around 50 people. Professors from the University of Bologna were on hand to verify that the experimental set-up was credible. Rossi explained that they were producing from the reactor about 10-12 kW, while the average energy input was 600-700W, which was also measured the dryness of the steam. The experiment was performed by the patent holders and professors from the University of Bologna unrelated to the project.

The amount of energy being produced was estimated based on how much water is vaporized per second. Also, to understand the source of the process of energy production, they sought to ensure that hydrogen was not being burned, by measuring the mass at the beginning and end of the experiment. A professor Levi used two sodium iodide scintillators to measure the radiation output.

According to a Rossi-Focardy paper (p. 4 of 9), similar results have been obtained in the factory of EON in Bondeno (Ferrara, Italy) in a test performed with ENEL spa on June, 25th 2009; as well as in tests made in Bedford, New Hampshire (USA) in a lab of LTI with the presence of the U.S. Department of Energy (November 19 2009) and of the U.S. Department of Defense (November 20 2009).

Some related research was published by New Energy Times in 2004. And even earlier in November 1998 at LENR-CANR.org In March of 1995 came a report titled "Italian cold fusion succeeded", stated that a 40-watt battery had been operated for four months continuous. So these guys have been at this for a long time.

Doing a lot of digging into Rossi's Journal of Nuclear Physics blog shows that scientists are posting and linking speculation that "hydrinos" (of Blacklight Power fame) or shrunken hydrogen atoms may be involved in this cold fusion and process and their formation may be the source of most of the energy released.

They received PCT patent number WO/2009/125444 on October 15, 2009, with an additional patent having been filed. Once the second patent is awarded, then the information about how they achieve their results will become public knowledge. Meanwhile, they are keeping that information proprietary.

Simply put, the effect involves pressurized dihydrogen gas (2 bars is the lowest mentioned in the patent and 80 bars is what was used in the demonstration) is placed in metal tube with nano powdered nickel and a heating element (resistor). Somehow the dihydrogen gas is split into atomic hydrogen. When heat is applied the atomic hydrogen reacts with the powdered nickel to produce energy up to 400 times the input energy. Undisclosed catalysts are used to increase the efficiency of the cell.

Andrea Rossi is listed as the inventor. He is also the primary operator of the http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/ website and forum, where the information about the technology is posted.

* Regular Ni is used even though other isotopes may provide better efficiency. They think all the isotopes work to produce the effect. * For some unknown reason, not all of the Ni in the cell reacts with the hydrogen to produce energy. The percentage of the Ni that reacts is very low. * Even though the percentage of the Ni that reacts with hydrogen is very low one kilogram of nickel powder should deliver 10 kW of energy for 10,000 hours. The consumption rate of hydrogen and nickel are 0.1 g of Ni and 0.01 g of H to produce 10 kWh/h. Note that for every picogram of nickel that is actually fused or reacts to the hydrogen, much more must be added. Not all the nickel added will react. So if you add 0.1g of Ni to produce 10kWh/h only a small fraction of that Ni will actually be utilized. When the device shuts off due to running out of fuel most of the .1g could be remaining. * Tungsten is in no way used. However, "other elements" are used. * Radiation is produced. However in the device demonstrated which is made for commercial use no radiation escapes due to lead shielding. The fact that radiation is produced is proof of a nuclear reaction. * In the demonstration device for every unit of input there was approximately 37 units of output. * A small percentage of the nickel is transmuted into copper. The amount of copper found in the cell is far greater than the impurities in the nickel powder. None of this copper is "unstable." * There is no radioactivity in the cell after it is turned off. No nuclear "waste." * All of the information needed to successfully replicate a self sustaining system is in the patent application (which is being held proprietary presently). * The power density for thermal energy only is 5 liters per kilowatt. * The hydrogen has to be all hydrogen with no deuterium or heavy hydrogen. Apparently, any heavy hydrogen stops the reaction. * This current system never goes below 6 times more energy out than in. During the test it produced 20 times more energy out than in. In the lab they have done similar tests and obtained 400 times more out than in, but it produced explosions. * (speculation, pending clarification) The fuelling of the system could probably be done via a relatively inexpensive fuel rod that would need to be replaced every few months.

You would think that something of this magnitude would be reported widely by the media -- at least the alternative media -- but as of Sunday evening, 9:00 pm MST, there have only been three hits in Google news, including our story from Friday.

Steven Krivit, who specializes in cold fusion reporting, wrote a couple of pieces at NewEnergyTimes.com (2), but both were critical. I wrote the following comment in response, which he posted.

I read your two stories at New Energy Times, and while I appreciate the points you brought up, I need to say that I’m not convinced that these discredit him substantially.

First, I looked through the http://ingandrearossi.com/ website (linked from the Wikipedia article), which describes the waste-to-energy and imprisonment from Rossi’s vantage point.

Given how corrupt the various governments of the world have become, it seems to me to be more of a case of suppression on their part than of an act of a serious moral breach on the part of Rossi. At worst, it was a violation of a law unknown to Rossi. We see that kind of thing regularly in the free energy world as outside-the-box inventors try to also run businesses, but don’t know how to do so and can get in trouble.

Second, regarding the Journal of Nuclear Physics; again I can relate to Rossi. In a world where academia has spurned cold fusion as a political hot potato, rejecting papers on political, not scientific grounds, I can see why someone would try to provide an alternative method of publishing material along these lines.

I agree that it does look a bit hokey, but I cut him a lot of slack for the above reason. I certainly wouldn’t call it a "scam" as a result.

It seems to me that rather than jumping to a stance of criticism, you should try to encourage and validate the amazing claim.

Meanwhile, I got a couple of emails from some other associates who apparently are in process of checking into the claims and the company with the possibility of striking up a business relationship.

The claims of Rossi are very bold to say the least. They claim to have an industrial product that produces large amounts of energy reliably and safely. This product is not claimed to be a prototype, but is said to be ready to manufacture. These claims deserve serious attention. Could the alternative energy solution we have all been hoping for finally have arrived?

Either this is legitimate (which is what we would hope) and is huge news, or this is a hoax or scam and those involved deserve to totally discredited for the rest of their lives and made an example of to discourage other frauds. Either way, it is important we pursue this rabidly.

“Cold Fusion” is in and of itself, a violation of the laws of physics. Heat is a byproduct of fusion. “Cold fusion” implies the absence of heart from fusion, which is a violation of Physics.

They also were unable to give the amount of heat “produced” in BTU terms. What the hell is “10KW” of heat? Watts are the measurement of units of power, not heat. This whole article reeks from consequential B.S.

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Cold fusion does exist, there is no violation of any physical laws. The “Cold” in the name refers to less than the thousands of degrees required to cause the fusion in traditional fusion reactions. The Cold Fusion reactions happen on a very small scale, only a few molecules at a time are actually fused. This group has been testing for about 4 years. Since they have the a huge European electrical company working with them I can only assume that someone sees something of value. If they have a 10KW heater out in a year that only requires 600W of input power then I would say they will be very successful. By the way I don’t know what you are talking about saying that the watt is not a measure of heat, 1 BTU equals 0.0002928 kilowatt-hours. and of course 1 watt = 3.412141633 BTU/Hr.

We have a tendency to think of watts as electricity but it was born in the days of steam engines prior to the wide distribution of electricity.

Since the press conference was attended by 30 physicists I am inclined to wait to make an adverse judgment and hope it is true. If it is I think Arabian Islam will die.

The telltale claim that this device gets 400 times more POWER out of it than is put in, is the most unadulterated crock of sh*t since Globull Warming. Not even the Sun can do that. It’s all about the laws of diminishing returns, unless you are a believer in perpetual motion. And in this case, you get 400 times more out of it than you put in!

OF COURSE, they NEED more “funding” to study this and perfect the process, which is not being made available to the rest of the science world. So, if they have this device so well developed, they why not produce it instead of begging for more money to study it some more?

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These people are not asking anybody for money. I looked for a way to invest, they don’t want investors.

They are not making any claim about free energy. They use fuel, they fuse hydrogen to nickel and make copper. They use up the Nickel and a little of the Hydrogen. The sun burns fuel in a similar way, at least that is the theory, there are a few disinters but that is what most scientists think.

How much energy do you get out of your car when you put a gallon of gas in it? I’ll guarantee you get more than 400 times the power of the spark that ignites the explosion in your cars engine on each cycle.

In the case of this particular mode of cold fusion (there are several others) the 400W of power is used to apply a charge to a plate and catalyst which causes the hydrogen atom to join with (fuse) with the Nickel. It is not complicated or even really questioned if it works, the only question is if it is really a fusion reaction or some chemical reaction that we are unfamiliar with.

If they were requesting funding I would fly to Italy today and sign up. I think this guy will likely be the first to market with his product since he seems to be able to have a stable output for 6 months at a time and since he has a huge Electric utility funding him. Many other labs have produced the energy outputs but not steadily.

Ok, so they claim they get 30,000 BTU out of 400 watts of power. Here again is a complete line of B.S. You failed to consider Resistance, Voltage and several other factors that determine the amount of heat electricity can produce. That always varies and is completely dependent on those other factors.

Your “math” is quite “fuzzy”!( At a ratio of 400 to 1.)

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You didn’t read the article well.

They put in 400 Watts (1360BTUs) and got out 51200BTU’s (15000W) out, almost 40 to 1. I don’t know what resistance, voltage other factors you are considering but they are talking about getting out heat not electricity.

Gamma rays are absorbed by atoms with large nuclei, such as lead. Neutrons just bounce right off of large nuclei.

However, small nuclei, such as the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water, absorb some of the energy from neutrons. Lots of water will thus slow a neutron down so that it can be captured before reaching human flesh. Likewise the small atoms in polymeric materials will slow neutrons down, but it requires an appreciable thickness of polymeric material to do this.

The neutrons released in a submarine reactor are mostly stopped by the cooling water arouind the fuel.

Gamma rays are absorbed by atoms with large nuclei, such as lead. Neutrons just bounce right off of large nuclei.

The neutrons released in a submarine reactor are mostly stopped by the cooling water around the fuel.

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Actually the neutrons in a submarine reactor are mostly only slowed down by the water which is a moderator. The slowing down of the neutrons actually enhances its ability to strike and split another atom. Neutrons that make it past the fuel and the water and the other moderator products like zirconium will reach the lead shield and almost always be stopped before reaching the poly shield. Depending on their energy level and whether or not they strike a glancing blow or head on they may strike several atoms of lead before they are stopped but each strike reduces the speed of the bullet of neutron until it finally comes to rest. The reason for the thickness is that the neutron may travel inches or even feet without ever striking anything. The total lead shield on the reactor vessel and compartment walls is substantial. The poly shield too is very substantial, measured in feet of thickness. While most of the usable heat from the process comes from the removal of heat by the moderator from the fuel cells or rods themselves, the water moderator in the process of slowing the neutrons helps convert the energy of the fast moving neutrons into heat and becomes part of the conversion process of uranium or other working fuel into usable heat energy.

The water does not stop many neutrons in comparison to slowing them. Neutrons are not the only by-products of fission. The larger particles that we are not normally so afraid of, Alpha and Beta also make it into the moderator and are carried by pumps to a variety of locations where they make valves and pumps “dirty” or “hot” as they decay.

I worked on these things, this is the way it is or so we were taught. These are the principles which allowed us to operate. US Patrick Henry SSBN 599N.

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