First commercial cold fusion reactor tested in Bologna

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The Energy Catalyzer technology, engineered by Andrea A. Rossi and based on the nickel-hydrogen exothermic reactions pioneered by physicist Francesco Piantelli, Sergio Focardi, and others since the 1990s, was tested in Bologna, Italy.

Around the world, scientists active in cold fusion research, along with new-energy enthusiasts, waited for word from the invitation-only demonstration participants. It was believed that scientists from several countries, including a European patent examiner would be attending the reactor run, taking measurements and disassembling the reactor to prove the design’s integrity

A regular attendant of the European events surrounding the E-Cat, blogger Daniele Passerini, muted his tweets so as not to ‘steal the thunder’ from the much anticipated report by science journalist Mats Lewan of NYTeknik expected on Friday. Mats Lewan has chronicled the E-Cat demonstrations almost exclusively throughout the many public demonstrations and generated several reports detailing scientific data that have been analyzed throughout the cold fusion community. See all Mats Lewan’s NYTeknik coverage here.

Continuous real-time updates can be found at the Pure Energy Systems special page dedicated to this demonstration.

While the bulk of the information and photos are scheduled for Friday release, 22Passi’s tweets describe an E-Cat running for about 4 hours in self-sustain mode, the condition where the E-Cat is not connected to any external source of power, and the reaction continues indefinitely. If true, and there is no reason to doubt the veracity of that report, this will be a huge victory for Mr. Rossi and his partners, and a successful show of the first cold fusion clean energy technology.

Self-sustain mode was ended purposefully in order to allow the device to cool down for disassembly. Allowing scientists to view the inner components of the E-Cat will prove, at least to those present, that there is no additional input power to the reactor other than the nickel-hydrogen reaction chamber itself.

Some as yet unconfirmed data compliments of Raymond Zreick’s tweets include “the steam was always kept above 110 degrees” and a cryptic “from 15 to 19 the difference in average temperature was 5 ° C (water inlet and outlet water), for 0.6 cubic meters / hour”. That sentence may mean from 15:00 hours to 19:00 hours the difference between the ambient temperature of the incoming water and the Energy-Catalyzed hot outgoing water was 5 degrees with a volumetric water flow of 0.6 cubic meters per hour. This is the data needed to compute the thermal energy generated by the E-Cat reactor and, if true, indicates a very good output of energy.

Multiplying the total mass of the water that went through the reactor in self-sustain mode with the specific heat of water and the change in temperature will give you the amount of energy used to perform that work in joules.

Change in temperature of $\Delta T = 5^\circ$ for $2400$ kilograms of water, using a specific heat of water of $4.2 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm}kJ/kg \hspace{0.7 mm}} \cdot \text{\hspace{0.7 mm}}^\circ C$ gives

$(5^\circ) (4.2) (2400 ) = 50,400 \text{\hspace{0.5 mm} kiloJoules of energy}$.

These preliminary numbers show an energy of 50.4 Megajoules of energy expended to heat the water. Dividing the energy above by the total time 4 hours = 14,400 seconds gives

$\frac{50.4 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} x \hspace{0.7 mm}} 10^6 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} Joules}}{14,400 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} seconds}} = 3500 \text{\hspace{0.5 mm} Watts}$

or, a power of 3.5 kiloWatts, where power is the energy delivered each second of operation. We look forward to confirmed details tomorrow from Mats Lewan.

Some of the media in attendance included Radio24’s Mauricio Melis, Irene Zreick and Raymond Zreick of Focus Magazine, and Radio Città del Capo who interviewed Greek scientist and former ambassador to Italy Christos Stremmenos also there to see the demonstration. Confindustria, an organization representing the manufacturing and service industries in Italy, and Enrico Billi was also reported in attendance.

Italian scientists Sergio Focardi, Giuseppe Levi and Loris Ferrari from the University of Bologna, where the event was held, were also joined by other unnamed physicists invited by Professor Focardi.

Corporate media in the US have ignored developments in cold fusion and there appears to be no coverage on Mr. Rossi’s E-Cat technology at all. However, Wired magazine published an article about today’s demonstration online at their UK site “Cold fusion rears its head as ‘E-Cat’ research promises to change the world“.

When one nickel in your pocket can generate E-Cat energy equivalent to 5 barrels of oil, you can be sure it will change the world.

Cold Fusion Now!

Specific Heat of Water from Engineering Toolbox

41 Replies to “First commercial cold fusion reactor tested in Bologna”

1. It looks like Andrea Rossi has succeeded. However, the data needs to be received before we can be certain.

He deserves a great deal of credit for what he has so far achieved.

However, as some of you are aware, this may ultimately prove not to be a nuclear reaction.

See CHEAP GREEN on my Aesop Institute website for an explanation of that comment.

1. Ruby Carat says:

Hey Mark! I think your picture is floating around as Francesco Piantelli!

1. bill says:

Rossi can scam all he wants, credit for the invention will go to Piantelli.
Aug. 16 1989 You can’t get a patent on an invention, that is more than a year from the first disclosure or offer fo sale. Rossi will only be around untill Piantelli’s work is replicated. This will happen very soon. All the real money know this, that is why they are not throwing money at Rossi. Nickle and other metal Hydrogen reations are real and if we had an honest man at the forefront, it would allready be so.

2. Penguin says:

I just did a quick calc and the figures used above would equal around 3.5 KW /hour of energy being required to heat the water by 5 degrees.

Thus in self sustain mode, the ecat produced about 14kw/h of heat energy over 4 hours.

1. Ruby Carat says:

Hey thanks Penguin, I just updated the post with the computation.

2. Harold says:

Wait I dont understand. I thought this was supposed to be a test of a 1 Megawatt generator. How does 3.5Kilowatts become 1 Megawatt?

1. Ruby Carat says:

Harold, The October 6 demonstration was of one small component, not the 1 MW plant. It appears this unit worked as it should have.

3. Stefan says:

Apparently US/NASA is looking to have a less personalized LENR option then Rossi’s e-cat. They’ve played a quite dirty game so far, hopefully more creditable Rossi gets fewer options US scientific establishment may have. In case of “Sputnik” they had no options but to be embarrassed, it was beeping above and they could do nothing about it; with Rossi case they so far were more successful to silence it up trying desperately to catch-up to safe the face….

1. Ruby Carat says:

NASA has many critics; as a bureaucracy they are by-definition slow-moving. We must keep the support for freely available commercial devices, and they’ll catch up.

4. It was a huge achievement from Andrea Rossi and the funny side of this situation is the most part of the people worldwide is not interested yet or simply don´t know about. We will see from next week an information runaway from journalists, scientists and common people talking about it and trying to understand why this fantastic improvement was not announced early, but we well know why.

Congratulations Rossi

1. Ruby Carat says:

Keep talking Caio! The world will know soon enough, and they’re going to need reasoned information about this technology. The propaganda machines will try to destroy, but there are more of us.

1. Thank you, It´s name is HannaH, by the way, your post was great !

2. Anton says:

What? would you need to run an internal combustion (gasoline) engine for 6 months to prove it worked? I see a double standard operating here.

1. steve says:

At least run it long enough to demonstrate it output several times more energy than is input…

5. Although given past successful demonstrations of the E-Cat it was entirely predictably that it would work as advertised, this is one more nail in the coffin of “skeptics’ arguments that Rossi is a fraud. I am particularly amused that Krivit was critical of the output pipe which he claims is too small to pass along the quantity of steam a one megawatt Rossi E-Cat ought to produce – turns out he was forgetting the heat exchanger!

By the way, thanks Ruby, great article! It is a true joy watching the world’s energy and environmental problems fade away:)

1. Ruby Carat says:

Brad, I sure hope the environmentalists JUMP on this. Most don’t know about it now; the few that do, don’t believe it, or confuse this technology with the conventional and dangerous nuclear processes.

I have tried to get the Green Party on top of this, and I continue to try…

1. Yeah, in particular protesters to new coal plants and the Oil-sands would be much more effective if they made an economic argument against new construction based upon cost of LENR vs coal or oil. It is a darn shame to waste time going onto site and protesting (for example Dr Hansen of NASA got arrested in Canada protesting Oil-sand) when a better more intelligent way to prevent more fossil fuel infrastructure from being built exists. No investor would gamble their money when a clean energy that is one tenth the cost exists and is about to emerge onto the market place.

1. Twodogs says:

That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Make it cost effective and the populace will dump fossil fuels like yesterday’s newspaper. That said, I sincerely hope that fusion power does not turn out to be the 21st century’s perpetual motion machine.

2. bill says:

S, Krivit has done his homework, Rossi is putting on a show. He has nothing new and cannot control the reation. 4 hours is a joke. If it would run for six months. It has been 8 months since the big demo in January. Show us something that has been runing for months not hours.

6. Casey says:

Please check and clarify the statement about the 5*C difference in the temperature.
One statement say that it is difference from average temperature.
Another sound like the calculations is taken, as the 5*C is a difference between input and output.
Since the steam temperature was 110*C, it sounds impossible that the water was heated up only 5*C.

1. Ruby Carat says:

Thanks Casey, it is somewhat confusing and more details continue to be released. Please note that the water temps for measuring energy come from “a secondary loop”. From Mats Lewan’s report: “Water temperature at the input and the output of the secondary loop was measured with thermocouples attached on the metal connections at the heat exchanger where the hoses were attached (see video) and the difference in temperature was used together with the valued of the water flow to calculate the output power.”

Download his report here for the most recent numbers, not far off from these initial values:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3284823.ece

7. Brian H says:

The US purchaser of the plant added “unacceptable conditions”, so it wasn’t shipped. Probably the conditions were that it actually work.

8. Ruby, Thanks for your kind comment about the Aesop Institute website!

Under CHEAP GREEN on that site, I just posted the following: Paul Story and Jed Rothwell, both of whom have been following this work very closely, are disappointed. Story is now more skeptical than convinced. Rothwell says: “He is a genius in many ways, but he is no good at demonstrating machines or convincing people of his claims.” He adds: “It is fortunate that Defkalion has also done these tests and they have used proper instruments and techniques. I hope that more information about their tests will soon be revealed but I have no assurance that will happen.”

9. John McManus says:

When these units are available and the buyer is happy he will certainly tell his friends etc.
This will push sales,particularly if coupled to a steam engine say generating electricity or other mechanical device.Like water pump.
The general public need to see this device doing somthing useful.
This will eliminate the non believers, surely.
Regards John M

10. tas grajo says:

Rossi’s reactor appears to have generated heat but probably not good enough to run an engine or power something that can be used on demand. But, what did we expect when the tansistor was announced? what did people expect when Madam Currie’s discovery came out?

for sure, Rossi’s machine will undergo more developments beyond what we have seen so far. That will be the time his efforts will be truly appreciated.

11. Mark Dansie says:

Once again inconclusive. 4 hours of power in and 31/2 hours of power out.
Until Rossi allows a proper test designed and run by professionals he is only blowing smoke(steam?). Main stream media and credible scientists will stay clear of this.
Its a shame as he probably has some gains (somewhere between 1 and 2 times) but we will never know for sure.
Anyway there are some other serious attempts at this technology, Rossi will soon be forgotten when these others make progress and come forward with real data. He only has himself to blame.

Mark

1. John McManus says:

OK, we We now have has some 8 months of talk,all sort of controversial testing & mis infomation ? etc.
Hook the boiler to a steam engine connected to an alternator let it run for some days. Load testing for this is easy. It does not require thermocouples & other exotic test equipement etc.
Or better still give me one & ill do this work. I am a retired electrical mech & have had lots time with small steam plants.

THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW ?!. STOP THE TALK & DO IT.
Kiwi .
Regards & keep up the good work. Johm@slingshot.co.nz.
John McManus

12. Stringer Bell says:

So during the “self sustain” test, am I right in thinking that power was still being fed to a device in the reactor that supposedly “produces frequencies”? Or were all wires going in removed?

Because if there was a wire, how do we know that’s not feeding the device power when it’s supposedly “self sustaining”?

1. Stringer Bell says:

From the NyTekNik report: ‘”Power to the resistance was set to zero. A device “producing frequencies” was switched on. Overall current 432 mA. Voltage 230 V. Current through resistance was zero, voltage also zero. From this moment the E-cat ran in self sustained mode.”‘

So *if* the measurements provided are correct, the “frequency producer” consumed 100W. But its presence means that there were definitely wires going in, which makes the whole demonstration seem pretty dubious:

13. Very good blog with interesting content!

14. David says:

To be honest I don’t much care if this is really “nuclear fusion” who gets the credit for it. By now it is fairly clear that there is a process that is not chemical in nature that is producing at least a small gain in power. It is clean and by all reports uses very very small amounts of resources. That fact alone is revolutionary in nature. In that kernal of truth means that this thing works!

The more this is tested and seen the more research will be done until a workable unit is developed. It won’t be to long before the world has its new energy source. Who gets the credit is irrelevent.

1. markgoldes says:

RIGHT ON!

See CHEAP GREEN on http://www.aesopinstitute.org for some support for this viewpoint.

MOVING BEYOND OIL on that site describes a few other Black Swans – highly improbable innovations with huge potential impact.

Avoiding the nuclear nightmare described on the same website can lead to acceleration of these and other urgently needed revolutionary technologies.

15. Bernd Graumann says:

Dear friends of the e-cat,

there is a lot of speculating how the e-cat will be distributed to the people –

I think that there ist NOTHING going to the market, cause Rossi wants to produce and distribute himself.

If he really wants to give it to the people, to our future, he needs to have big partners in the market, who guarantee the distribution AND the supportservice.

Rossi will have to let his baby go – otherwise it will be skipped, be shure !!!!!

I hope the best for him and the humanity.

1. Bernd Graumann says:

In addition, I want to remember on things, that happed to the inventors on the HHO-Scene and what happened to Troy Reed, who spend his whole live searching and building a magnet-motor-device.

A big depression is swapping over the US an Europe, and the economy really needs a new vision, and a new tecnology – but never the less, they only want to make fresh money, they don´t really care about the future of humanity.

So I really whish that Rossi is not only a brilliant scientist – that he also ist a wise economist.

The ” white-shoe-boy-club ” is dictating, what has to come to market, no one else.

16. Stasulos says:

Nickel is at the end of the “stellar staircase”. Its permutation into copper requires input of energy, unlike the reactions up until it, which release energy (like Fe into Ni).

17. Veikko Karimaki says:

I have a simple question to Mr. Rossi:

A moment before (max a couple hours before) the demonstrations, was the nickel sample activated in the Bologna neutron generator? Yes or no?

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