Jeane Manning, author of Breakthrough Power, has published an article in Atlantic Rising on her visit to Defkalion Green Technologies new office in Vancouver, Canada where she viewed a live demonstration of their Hyperion thermal generator.
Beyond LENR (aka ‘cold fusion’) to Useful Energy [.pdf] is available for free on Manning’s Changing Power website and describes a generator capable of producing 5 kilowatts of thermal power, with “several times” energy output.
A planned 45 kilowatt generator will be comprised of nine units in parallel. A test generator in Greece is claimed to run continuously for six months producing power at 45 kilowatts. Preferring to call the reaction Heat Energy Nuclei Interactions (HENI), the thermal energy was generated on just 3 grams of nickel powder and 2 liters of hydrogen.
The company moved to Vancouver “after their government failed to help the start-up company.” Canada “offered a stable environment for research-and-development companies, with a support network and fiscal incentives.” Additional labs in Athens, Milan, Italy as well as Brazil will be developing applications with multiple business partners.
Initially a partner with Andrea Rossi, Defkalion and Rossi split after differences arose over contractual issues. Deciding to develop a generator on their own, the company began with the premise that only after achieving stability and control would they scale up to high heat output.
The article quotes Peter Gluck, a chemist and longtime low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) researcher. “Cold fusion came before its time. It is too complex, too new, too unexpected, too messy, too multifaceted, too dynamic, too non-linear and too weird to be really understood and controlled at the time of its discovery.”
Defkalion’s Chief Technical Officer John Hadjichristos responded “Science is one, and we have to keep it that way if we want to keep on talking with Mother Nature …We cannot see or listen and understand her stories if we stop talking to and hearing each other.”
Sterling Allan of the Pure Energy Systems network follows multiple types of new energy technologies, including cold fusion.
Last year he traveled to Greece to check on the progress of Defkalion Green TechnologiesHyperion steam-generator, a prototype commercial product based on low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) that utilizes nickel and light hydrogen.
Recently, Allan interviewed Defkalion‘s CEO Alex Xanthoulis and Director of Communication and Business Development Symeon Tsalikoglou on developments since moving their headquarters to Vancouver, B.C.
While the Hyperion domestic unit has been “put on the back burner”, Defkalion has been approached by hundreds of companies wanting to license their technology for various products. The company has narrowed those proposals down to 20 which they will pursue.
“They let the professionals in the industry work out the details of fitting the technology to the myriad of applications out there,” writes Allan.
One of the applications cited is shipping. “A large cargo ship (18,000 to 20,000 tons) can go through $20,000 worth of fuel each day, but with Defkalion’s technology, those costs would go down to $500/day — a 40-fold reduction in price.”
Savings on fuel costs, weight, space, and time (since ships won’t have to stop and refuel as often) are all benefits of this technology. No fossil fuels on board mean no nasty spills either.
Another high-priority project is replacing the dirty and dangerous radioactive fuel rods in today’s nuclear power plants with clean cold fusion steam generators. “The price for a retrofitted nuclear plant will be 12 times lower than what they presently operate at,” producing power at $0.35 per kilowatt-hour.
Eventually, home units will be available, and the energy cost for this off-grid technology “is expected to be less than $300 for six months, for a 550 square meter (6000 ft2) home” with the charge lasting six months.
All licensees for applications are required to test the technology on their own.
A mass spectrometer surrounds Hyperion reactor.Allan writes, “One US Company tested the Defkalion technology for about six months and reported that there was no harmful radiation emitted whatsoever (they thoroughly tested the full spectrum), and that only some gamma rays are emitted during the reaction — but no more than you get from a household toaster — well within safety limits. And sometimes, it doesn’t even emit any harmless gamma radiation while it is operating — puzzling the scientists who haven’t yet figured that one out, who think that with every transmutation event there should be a gamma emission.”
Currently, their demonstration model generates 5 kilowatts of thermal energy and it is claimed that one unit has been operating for 8 months.
Last August, a Technical Characteristics and Performance report [.pdf] was released at ICCF-17, the International Conference on Cold Fusion where Defkalion presented.
Details of the unit given to Allan recently were:
Excess heat graph from Defkalion nickel-hydrogen system.“Most of the input energy is up front when it is brought up to 180 C, then the input is tapered off until it is just a quick pulse from a spark plug every 10-15 seconds. It takes about 1-2 hours to stabilize. So in the first 24 hours, the COP is 1:5 (five times more energy out than what is put in). But over time it gets so good that Alex doesn’t like to say what it is because it comes across as unbelievable.”
“The output temperatures range from between 350 and 500 degrees Celsius. It once went up to 860 C in just 30 seconds, but that was an accident, and caused damage because the materials are not designed for that, so they cap it at 500 C.”
Seven regional labs around the globe are working on next-generation models, with each lab developing a particular application. The core team is currently engineering R5, a reactor designed specifically for controlling while the next reactor R6 will be for “pure performance”.
One avenue which won’t be pursued is military contracts. Apparently, current business agreements have a clause that says the technology “won’t be used for military purposes”, good news for civilians around the planet. However, the company realizes that after release, these generators will be copied and they won’t have control over it’s purpose.
Defkalion plans a public demonstration of their work at NIWeek 2013 this August at National Instruments in Austin, Texas. Till then, as a business entity, they will follow Alexander the Great’s model, attempting to be first to market. Alexander had “45,000 soldiers compared to the foes 500,000 that were superior in knowledge and skill. He won by being first.”
Several months ago, I posted an article asking the question Can Defkalion Survive the Greek Crisis? To summarize, I explored the obstacles that Defkalion Green Technologies faced starting a commercial enterprise in a country in the midst of economic turmoil and rising social unrest. This would certainly be problematic for any new enterprise, but especially so for a company seeking to commercialize an entirely new technology. Aside from the technical and logistical challenges, I also raised the question of whether Defkalion would be able to attract sufficient investment in a chaotic economic, social and political environment. If investors are fond anything, aside from making a profit, it is stability. Investment involves enough risk in and of itself, and this risk need not be exacerbated by economic and social turmoil.
Apparently this line of thought was also contemplated by Defkalion management, as on July 18, 2012 company representative George Xanthoula sent out an e-mail outlining Defkalion’s plans to leave Greece and set up operations elsewhere. The reasons given for this move were very similar to those mentioned above. Australia, Canada and Switzerland were mentioned as possible sites of relocation.
At the National Instruments-sponsored NIWeek in August, Defkalion CEO Alexander Xanthoulis announced that there would be offices in both Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Zurich, Switzerland, with the Vancouver office serving as the primary base of operations. It was not made clear why Canada was chosen as Defkalion’s new base of operations, but Mr. Xanthoulis is described in company literature as being a Greek-Canadian, so his roots in that country may have been a factor. In August, a company representative stated the Vancouver office would be open this month, although no specific date was given.
While waiting for official commencement of operations in Canada, Defkalion has continued to do testing in Greece on their Hyperion cold fusion reactor. In a message on the Defkalion discussion forum, the company announced it had conducted two official test runs on its reactor from September 5th to September 14th. These tests were reportedly conducted in Greece on its R5 prototype, and testing is scheduled to begin soon on its R6 pre-industrial reactor at the Vancouver facility. In that same message, a Defkalion represented wrote: “An official announcement from our company within the next weeks will inform you of the peer-reviewed journals where the results of all these tests so far will be published by the independent testers.”
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
If indeed Defkalion testing has been submitted for peer-review, and these results will soon appear in peer-reviewed journals, this would be a very positive development. Failure to release independent testing results, after public announcements in February of this year raised expectation of such, led many to question the validity of Defkalion claims about its Hyperion reactor. However, reports that have filtered out about the testing results have served to buoy confidence in the Hyperion in some quarters. Those who are privy to information that most of us are not, have much less doubt about the Hyperion and Defkalion’s claims regarding it. Although, even among this group, there remain some questions regarding the device’s stability. The company gave presentations at both NIWeek and ICCF-17 but they did not provide any new information, save for the location where their base of operations was being moved. Hopefully, the coming weeks and publication of independent testing results in peer-reviewed literature will answer many lingering questions.
Yet, as Defkalion settles into its new surroundings, they have more to be concerned about than providing definitive proof to the faithful and silencing critics and detractors. Certainly they have escaped the chaos in Greece but Canada has its own native dangers with witch company officials need to contend. First of all, Western Canada is home to one of the fiercest predators in the wild, the grizzly bear. Company employees would be advised to keep trash can lids firmly secured and their facilities locked at night. Vancouver may be a bustling metropolis, but it is an oasis in the midst of a vast wilderness. Grizzly bears do not respect no trespassing signs or city limits. There is a reason the city named its NBA basketball team after them.
Grizzly Bear
The second resident of Western Canada that Defkalion must concern itself with is the powerful and influential Canadian oil industry. Canada is the sixth largest oil producing country in the world, and is the primary source of oil imports into the United States. The bulk of Canadian oil exploration and production is in the Western Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.
Defkalion may also soon have to contend with Chinese oil interests. CNNOC, a state-owned Chinese oil company, is currently in negotiations with the Canadian government to buy the Canadian oil company Nexen for a reported price of $15.1 billion. If approved by the government, this purchase would be the largest purchase of a Canadian energy asset by a Chinese company, and the largest single purchase by a Chinese company of a foreign asset. This deal is expected to be approved by the Canadian government, despite concerns amongst some Canadians in regard to allowing a state-owned Chinese enterprise to own such a large stake in their domestic oil industry.
A cold fusion optimist might conclude that some in the Canadian government are aware of the arrival of Defkalion on their soil and the promise the Hyperion offers for the future of energy. As a result, officials may be obliged to allow the Chinese to spend billions of dollars on an asset whose value may be greatly diminished in the not too distant future. Many others may simply conclude that this deal is about oil, cold hard cash and maybe even political influence, but not related to cold fusion or Defkalion in any way.
Defkalion may have flown into Canada under the radar because the results of independent testing of the Hyperion have not yet been made public. Perhaps that was part of the rationale for delaying publication. Jed Rothwell, cold fusion historian and administrator of the lenr-canr.org cold fusion library, wrote several months ago that the results of independent testing were being kept under wraps “for good reason.” I think avoiding the scrutiny of the oil industry in Canada, at least for a time, would qualify as a good reason.
If the independent verification of Defkalion claims are soon published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Defkalion’s warm Vancouver welcome may turn as cold as a Canadian winter. By the same token, if Defkalion continues to make bold claims without the appropriate corroborating evidence, the Canadian government may scrutinize Defkalion a little more closely then the Greek government did while the company was in Greece.
When Defkalion broke with Andrea Rossi in August of last year, they publicly warned Rossi about the perils of “going it alone.” Ironically, a year later, they may be seen as doing just that. They are in a new country, with new laws, sharing a province with a powerful and prosperous industry that could be made irrelevant by their technology. Yet, Defkalion management has already proven adept at navigating difficult waters in the last year. They managed to engineer their own cold fusion cell after their abrupt break with Andrea Rossi left them without the core technology, the loss of their chief scientist as a result of that break, and escape from an imploding nation…and those are just the difficulties that have been made public. If one adds to the above that the Hyperion is reportedly the most robust cold fusion reactor currently being developed, this company has a lot working in its favor…I mean our favor.
I look forward to independent confirmation of Hyperion performance being made available to the public.
Note: This article has been updated several times. Apologies to all. It is an effect of the digital environment that nothing can be known (Jean Baudrillard and Bob).
A second commercial product based on cold fusion technology is planned for release next year.
Yesterday Praxen-Defkalion Green Technologies released a Technical Specifications Sheet detailing elements of the Hyperion thermal energy generator that creates heat using a nickel-hydrogen exothermic reaction Ni-H, the same technology that the Energy CatalyzerE-Cat generates.
Marketed for industrial and agriculture uses, the Hyperion will come in two models. A larger model will produce a thermal output power ranging from 10-45 kiloWatts and require at most 310 W electrical input power to run. That’s an energy return between 32-145 times the energy input.
The smaller model is a 5-11 kiloWatt output of steam power and requires an input of at most 200 W input of electrical power, giving an energy return ranging from 25-32 times the energy input.
The 5 kW unit has a reactor of dimensions 12 cm x 12 cm x 12 cm (12 cm = 4.7 in).
Internal view of Hyperion thermal energy generator. Photo Praxis-Defkalion Press Release Nov. 14A 2 liter bottle of hydrogen fuel and the nickel powder that hosts the reaction will need to be recharged approximately every 6 months for the 5 kW model.
The 45 kW unit can last up to one year on a hydrogen fuel charge and almost 3 years for the nickel powder.
More than 98% of the material weight of the Hyperion is made from recycled materials, and the nickel is recyclable when spent.
According to their website, the Praxen company is located in Cyprus and holds “full rights to its own technologies and will sell exclusive rights globally for the production of its proprietary products (Hyperion).” Defkalion Green Technologies is based in Greece and will license the product.
They also claim the Hyperion patent is pending, as are most patents in this area of new-energy research. The lack of patents granted in this field has stifled development of a technology that promises ultra-clean energy for a fraction of the cost of fossil fuels.
Private investment has eschewed the mostly small, independent companies developing cold fusion energy generators because the intellectual property has not been secured. Inventors, engineers, and scientists working in this area have been largely self-funded and forced to operate in an environment of secrecy.
There is speculation that the Hyperion is based on Andrea A. Rossi’sE-Cat invention, even to the extent of improperly procuring technology without his consent. Defkalion was associated with Mr. Rossi earlier this year and had a distribution contract for the E-Cat before their partnership dissolved over the summer.
Mats Lewan of NYTeknik has been regularly reporting on the E-Cat and recently wrote of an August telephone conversation with Alexandros Xanthoulis, a Defkalion representative who said, “I know what he’s got in the reactor, I know everything. It was a spectroscopy made by the University of Siena Padua.”
Spectroscopy of the interior of an E-Cat would reveal the elements within, thereby exposing the “secret catalyst” that made the E-Cat generate such high levels of thermal energy.
If true, litigation may be the news for 2012, and the years to come.
Praxen-Defkalion is one of the larger groups to enter this fast-developing area of new-energy technology. The specifications released yesterday show an advanced proto-type generator and that they are well positioned to deliver strong research and development. They admit “an incomplete proof of theories” to describe the reaction, nevertheless, Defkalion engineers have been very busy determining the conditions to keep the generator strong and stable.
Combined with access and support from the Greek government and European business community, they will be a formidable competitor in this still wide-open market for new energy technology.
Where their technology originated remains a question.
What is clear is they are serious about the Hyperion as a commercial product, hoping Greece can become “the global centre for R&D on LENR technologies.”
