Cold fusion competition heats up as a rival to Andrea Rossi emerges



It's been an exciting few weeks since Andrea Rossi demonstrated his one-megawatt E-Cat power plant with apparent success. Critics still believe that the test was a sham, the mystery customer is a fake, and there is no concrete evidence the technology works. Rossi has been busy since then, and the E-Cat bandwagon is rolling onwards. But now he has rivals in the cold fusion business. Is this evidence that the technology is real and can be replicated? Or just that someone else wants a piece of a possible scam of the decade?

Cold fusion, otherwise known as "low energy nuclear reaction" (LENR) technology has yet to gain any scientific respectability. This hasn't stopped Greek company Defkalion Green Technologies launching its own range of cold fusion power plants, rivals to Rossi's E-Cat. In a press release (.pdf), the company announced they would be selling a range of units under the name Hyperion, from small domestic boilers to industrial power plants.

They have a detailed specification document for its product (.pdf) and say the launch is due early 2012. Unlike Rossi, it invites independent third parties to test its products and report the findings "under agreed protocol." Its customers will not be bound by non-disclosure agreements, whereas Rossi's dealings have been highly secretive.

Defkalion used to have a close working relationship with Rossi. Originally the company was to produce thousands of E-Cats a year from a factory on Xanthi using Rossi's design under licence. The relationship broke up in August, for reasons which have never been fully disclosed. The company has persevered with a cold fusion device of its own, which it insists has been developed independently and also that Hyperion is more stable than Rossi's E-Cat.

Like the E-Cat, Hyperion will initially be used for producing heat only, with electricity generation following. The first will be a one-megawatt device, the same scale as the one in Rossi's demonstration in October.

Curiously, Rossi does not accuse Defkalion of stealing intellectual property. Instead, he insists that it has never known the details how the E-Cat works. He says it cannot make its device operate without his secret catalyst, which it was hoping to acquire. "There are clowns saying they have a technology copied from us, actually they have just a moke up (sic), waiting for the piece of info they need to make a real copy," Rossi wrote in his Journal of Nuclear Physics blog, congratulating himself for outwitting them.

However, Defkalion spokesman Alexandros Xanthoulis told Swedish science magazine NyTeknik that they know exactly what the catalyst is. In a piece of subterfuge, a spectroscopic examination was carried out on an E-Cat being while it was being tested without Rossi's knowledge. However, to maintain "fair play", Defkalion's scientists say they developed their technology without using this information.

The lack of a patent means that (if this is not a hoax) the secret is potentially worth billions. Hence Rossi does not want anyone to repeat his results or see the kernel of the E-Cat. So long as he has paying customers he is happy for the rest of the world to dismiss the technology as not worth investigating.

Rossi's E-Cat now has a slick official website, ECAT.com where you can place an order for a one-megawatt industrial unit, or register interest (at no cost) in a domestic heater for delivery in 2012 to 2013. The idea is that the 10-kilowatt home unit will be available for 4,000 Euros, and the makers want to see how great demand is at this stage. ECAT.com's operators are taking every measure to avoid any suggestion of fraud: industrial customers will test their units before purchasing. Payments will be made through an escrow account will a full refund if the products do not perform as described.

ECAT.com is being run by Swedish company Hydro Fusion and it clearly has faith in Rossi, not having been able to independently test an E-Cat itself.

As Magnus Holm, CEO of Hydro Fusion puts it in an interview with NyTeknik: "It's Rossi's responsibility that the product works. We only act as agents."

Rossi has recently returned from the US, where he was visiting the Massachusetts State House at the invitation of State Senator Bruce Tarr. He met government officials and scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts and Northeastern University to discuss in general terms the prospects for setting up E-Cat manufacturing in the region.

In a carefully-worded entry on his blog, Tarr noted that: "Mr. Rossi's reactor, if successfully proven and developed, has the potential to change the way the world deals with energy, and I'm pleased that he's willing to discuss basing its production in Massachusetts."

In a British development, a Freedom of Information request by the Free Energy Truth website revealed that the Department Of Energy And Climate Change is following developments, and even met with Swedish physicist Sven Kullander, one of the few to study the E-Cat in detail. However, they are waiting for peer-reviewed publication of experimental results before committing themselves.

Meanwhile, cold fusion made a surprise appearance in the US presidential race.

"I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it," candidate Mitt Romney said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can't figure out how to duplicate it."

The comment elicited laughter, but raises the question of why Romney would mention it. He is not strong on science, and it seems likely that someone has mentioned cold fusion to him in a recent briefing. Like everyone else, he may just be waiting to see if there's something in it. The prospect of an industrial boom based on cold fusion would give a major boost to the candidate who managed to capitalise on it while others dithered -- but would it would be political suicide if it turns out to be a damp squib.

Competition from Defkalion will raise the stakes and speed us towards a resolution, one way or another. The cold fusion bandwagon is rolling, with many tentatively putting one foot on it. Will it keep gaining momentum from here on until it changes the world?

Or will the wheels come off very soon?

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