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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