He’s young, brilliant, and the designer and engineer of a hot water boiler based on LENR technology in – Berkeley. His name is Robert E. Godes, the Chief Technical Officer at Brillouin Energy, a company he founded that’s now hosting visits from venture capital groups finally ready to partake in “the greatest investment opportunity of the 21rst century”.
In December 2006, Mr. Godes’ first test cell was an open beaker using palladium wire and ordinary distilled water, yet this simple system achieved an excess heat up to 45%.
The newest device began operating in October of last year and is a pressurized nickel-hydrogen system that has allowed superior calorimetry measurements. According to the Early Phase 2 Data Report, this cell generated excess heat output greater than 100% in February of this year. (You can read the Phase 1 and Phase 2 Data Report on the Brillouin Energy website).
With steady progress meeting each company milestone, the lab runs with a skeleton staff, including volunteers. Negative perceptions about the field of LENR research have discouraged potential investors. One possible private donor seeking a technical evaluation was informed by a National Science Foundation member (whose review entailed “a quick scan” of the Brillouin Energy website) that it was “quite possible they had created the ‘instant death’ version of cold fusion”.
Sigh.
The very much alive Mr. Godes does believe this is a nuclear reaction, but to quote Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger, whose 1991 A Progress Report paper you can down-load from the Brillouin Energy website, ”The circumstances of cold fusion are not those of hot fusion.”
The reaction is not only safe, but clean, and the fuel is abundant. According to Mr. Godes:
“Fusing the Hydrogen out of H2O results in 355,000 times more energy than is contained in the same volume of gasoline. The Hydrogen used in the fusion process is continually replaced by solar wind and interstellar space: the ultimate renewable energy source.”
Thanks to recent demonstrations of Andrea Rossi‘s Energy Catalyzer and the plans to commercialize this technology, venture capital has finally taken notice of the potential. Brillouin Energy is fielding calls from new investors and will now be working with Los Alamos National Lab LANL to replicate Brillouin’s work. First, a confirmation report from a nationally recognized lab, and then the funds.
We recently asked Mr. Godes a few questions about his boiler design and what’s next after funding.
Q&A with Robert E. Godes of Brillouin Energy
CFN How did you first get interested in this form of energy production?
REG I was talking with another engineer at work in 1992. He told me about Cold Fusion. When I asked him about the use of palladium for the cathode, he told me that they used palladium to filter hydrogen. Filter hydrogen? I asked. Helium will not pass though it? No!
CFN Which came first, your Hypothesis or the experiments?
REG I knew that the Hydrogen atom was almost twice the size of Helium (corrected!) atom. So when I herd that helium would not pass but hydrogen would, I formed my hypothesis almost instantly. At that point I started studying material science. Once the hypothesis was solid, it was used to drive the design of the control systems to run the experiments.
CFN You are also using nickel-hydrogen system for your reactor. How does your design and process differ from Andrea Rossi’s?
REG The IP [Intellectual Property] I filed in 1995 includes some aspects of what Rossi is doing, but there are problems in trying to move the technology he is developing into production. He may have trouble meeting his deadline for the 1MW reactor as it could be difficult transferring the technology to other licensees for production.
He had a smiler problem with a potentially great technology doing direct thermal to electrical conversion. The manpower needed to produce and tweak Rossi units will limit profit margins. He would have a much easier time doing small units consisting of single devices for consumers, but insurance companies will not allow home use due to safety issues. The safety issues with the Rossi device will not likely have to do with radiation. Brillouin Energy Corp. (BEC) technology will be more reliable making it the market winner. Safety issue #1: we use the hydrogen out of ordinary water (H2O) in the form of water.
The technology BEC is developing will be easier to manufacture and transfer to licensees for market penetration and get approval for commercial and consumer use. I have significant experience in moving products from engineering to production with involvement in some products being produced at more than 100K units / year.
We only started working with the pressurized unit in Q2 2010. However we have already identified a large number of the variables that need to be controlled and how to control them. When we start production I expect it will be a much smoother ramp up than what Rossi is facing right now.
CFN What has your experience with the Patent Office been like?
REG Our first patent was initially rejected just on the basis of being cold fusion. However after some back and forth they said it actually looks like 5 to 7 patents and what would you like to prosecute first. So the application is still in process. My guess is we will not be granted a patent until we produce lots of data at industrially useful levels.
CFN What’s the next step in developing this newest test cell?
REG We have identified several variables that need to be controlled and ways to control them. Once we have access to the capital, we will be able to automate the process refinement and have several units to run the development in parallel. Till then, we are still making progress and figuring out how to best leverage the equipment we have.
CFN We look forward to your progress. Good luck!
REG Thanks, Ruby. What we really need is clean, dense, always available source of energy.
Related Links
Brillouin Energy Corporation —company website
Brillouin Energy Technical Powerpoint with Audio —download.pps.
The Quantum Fusion Hypothesis Infinite Energy Magazine Vol 14 issue 82 —download .pdf
Infinite Energy Vol 14 issue 82 —Table of Contents
Brillouin Energy Video of early open beaker test —download .wmv (Windows Media)
New Energy Outreach – in the Mall! –Ruby Carat April 10, 2011
