Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (cold fusion)

[Yazata]

Buyer beware, and the Navy tested it before they bought it, and have apparently ordered another 13 power plants. If it did not work why would the Navy buy more?

These claims are new. Which country's Navy is this supposed to be? How do we know this information, exactly? (It's from a crank website, I'd wager.)

The US Department of Defense announces all of the contracts that it signs (with some security exceptions I assume) and makes the information public. If this is the US Navy that you are talking about, and if you can provide us with the name of the company that the Navy purportedly signed a contract with, then we should be able to verify whether or not a contract was signed and if so, very roughly what it was for.

Dr. Andrea Rossi believed they had a finished product when they first demonstrated it in January. I would think scam scenarios might be more lucrative in several ways.

- He could have sold shares during the summer and probably have made millions. He could then say he was mistaken and walked away.

Selling shares on the open market to the public would entangle him in securities laws and with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission here in the States.

- He could have convinced an oil company he was putting them out of jobs and got a big buyout.

They would have had to have believed in it first.

Instead he is selling them.

Except that he doesn't seem to have sold a single one. He just keeps promising that sales of commercial versions are coming soon.

I don't know if he's an intentional con-artist or simply a crank. (Perhaps a bit of each.) My guess is that he's sweet-talking potential investors.

That's how new start-ups are initially funded here in Silicon Valley. People with tech or e-business schemes try to convince venture-capital investment firms to fund them in bringing the concept to market. In exchange, the investors get a stake in it and stand to make big bucks when it goes public and eventually sells shares.

It typically works well, but occasionally venture capital doesn't know what it's doing and funds 'pie in the sky' get-rich-quick schemes with little chance of ever being successful. That's where the skills of an accomplished con-artist can come in handy.

[billvon]

If it can heat water cheaply. most people would buy one.

Solar water heaters are about as cheap as it gets - a flat plate collector, a tank, some pipes and valves. And yet most people don't have one of them. I have a feeling that a hydrogen-fueled fusion reactor would be a little more expensive than a solar water heater.

[adoucette]

Solar water heaters are about as cheap as it gets - a flat plate collector, a tank, some pipes and valves.

Not for people who live where it get's below zero.

A system for my needs would be ~$3,000 installed.

http://www.dudadiesel.com/solar.php?...ng_id=17:17:US

It comes with a 5 year warranty.

It wouldn't come close to paying for itself in that amount of time.

Arthur

[Captain Kremmen]

@Billvon
Mmmh...........True. No good in winter though.
Another problem:
If it's going to make electricity by driving a steam turbine,
Steam engines are very noisy.
Imagine every house in the street with their own steam engine.

[billvon]

A system for my needs would be ~$3,000 installed.

I'd guess closer to $2000 (evacuated tube active system) but that's the right ballpark. Yes, for that 20% of the country that needs evacuated tube systems, it's pricey.

But keep in mind that you can use flat plate drainback systems anywhere in the country - you just can't use them in very cold areas when it's very cold. The rest of the year (fall, spring, summer) they work quite well.

[kwhilborn]

@ Yazata
Where could one check out Navy purchases? I'd have a go myself.
It was reported on fox news that the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems unit (SPAWAR) was possibly the first customer. Fox news did not confirm this, but speculated.
Andrea Rossi claimed that they got it correct, and that another 13 power plants have been ordered.
I have quoted facts and post 518 was all about convincing the skeptics showing many people behind this who have good education and have seen it work. I also showed that there are many people bringing this to market besides Rossi.
Defkalion - claims they have a model coming to market called the Hyperion.
Piantellis team claims they have a unit that has 200X energy gain.
plus Rossi.

How do we explain all that?
Anyways; I'd like to look at the Spawar expenditures, and see if it is true. How would I do that. Fox news apparently did not know how.

@ Billvon,
Solar panels cannot replace gasoline in cars as a fuel. If you spend $5000 dollars on fuel for your car during its lifespan then a $2000 ecat starts to look like a good idea. The price is high now, but if they stay too high people will start buying black market knock-offs for a few hundred dollars a pop. The reactors look a lot less complicated than a car motor for example and should be much cheaper once they are mass produced.

[billvon]

@ Billvon,
Solar panels cannot replace gasoline in cars as a fuel.

Sure they can. If you drive, say, 60 miles a day, that's about 25 kilowatt-hours of energy needed. That could come from a 5 kW array on your home (or place of work, or mall, or wherever your car is.) That's an array only 15 feet by 15 feet - less than the area of a swimming pool!

Once people can power their cars with free solar power they will drive their old gas guzzlers into the lake.

If you spend $5000 dollars on fuel for your car during its lifespan then a $2000 ecat starts to look like a good idea.

And free solar starts looking even better! No one is going to charge you any money for the sun.

The price is high now, but if they stay too high people will start buying black market knock-offs for a few hundred dollars a pop.

But again, compared to cheap solar panels at a few bucks a pop, it just can't compete.

[kwhilborn]

@ Adoucette,
A nuclear reactor does not produce electricity. A nuclear reactor is only a hot water heater. We take the steam from that hot water and spin a generator to make electricity.

@ Adoucette,
Burning coal does not create electricity. Burning coal is only to heat hot water. We take the steam from that hot water and make electricity.

@ Adoucette,
here is a lovely book on the subject.
http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-De.../dp/B001E5H864

@ Adoucette,
80% of the worlds energy comes from Hot water.

@ Adoucette,
These ecats are small enough to fit easily into a car. They will probably be no bigger than a coffee maker when they are mass produced. A generator is also very small, and even if you only used 1% of the ecats energy output (as opposed to your 30%) you would still save money.

1kg nickel ($40) = 200 000 barrels of oil ($8 800 000). Do the math.

This will be the car fuel very soon.


@ captain Kremmen,
Awesome!
Yes. I saw Defkalion had "The Hyperion" coming to market. I have been saying that we have different parties all trying to market the same thing and racing for patents.

@ Billvon,
You do make a good case for solar powered cars.

An ecat car could be the size of a motorhome and never need refueling. I am sure cars can be built with a lifetime of fuel inside them. Many electric cars are currently limited to smaller sizes to make up for battery life and recharging time.

I am sure you can see how the ecat could be more accepted than solar power.

But yes, you do make a good argument for solar power.

[billvon]

An ecat car could be the size of a motorhome and never need refueling. I am sure cars can be built with a lifetime of fuel inside them. Many electric cars are currently limited to smaller sizes to make up for battery life and recharging time.

Right - but that's for old batteries. New batteries are far more powerful and far cheaper than current batteries:

==========
Lower Cost Lithium-ion Batteries Ahead?
A new way to make advanced lithium-ion battery materials addresses one of their chief remaining problems: cost. Arumugam Manthiram, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, has demonstrated that a microwave-based method for making lithium iron phosphate takes less time and uses lower temperatures than conventional methods, which will translate into lower costs.
==========
New tech allows lithium batteries to charge faster, and hold charge longer

By Bryan Clark
November 20, 2011

Scientists have created a new type of lithium-ion battery that is said to hold a charge ten times longer, and recharge in one-tenth the time of existing li-ions.

. . .
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a week - or more - of battery life. If that doesn't bring a smile to your face, the next statement will: imagine your phone running for a week after charging for only 15 minutes.
====================

Imagine that! A cheap, long lasting battery that would give you an effective range of 1000 miles (ten times farther than a current BEV car.) It will have a far longer range than you will. And once you do have to stop to pee, it will recharge in 15 minutes, giving you just enough time to stretch your legs and get a soda before you continue on for the next 1000 miles.

Or perhaps you'll get an RV with these batteries. If you drive only 500 miles you'll have enough power left over to run your A/C for weeks with no noisy generator!

You'll drive your old gas guzzler into the lake! And if someone says "I have an expensive nuclear reactor that can give you even more range, but you'll have to retrofit your car with a steam engine" you'll laugh at him. Who needs to drive more than 14 hours straight?

I am sure you can see how the ecat could be more accepted than solar power.

I have a feeling people would go with free solar power over having a nuclear reactor (and a steam engine) in their car.

[Captain Kremmen]

An efficient low-cost low-weight battery.
That is the Holy Grail.

[kwhilborn]

@ Billvon,

I want a solar powered car now. The batteries sound awesome and almost necessary.

The ecat would not require a steam car. I do not know why people keep saying that. The ecats are small and generators are small. We all know how much electricity an alternator makes and it is very tiny.

If anything this ecat world will make your solar powered cars become more prevalent as cars will mostly be electrical motor driven from my guess. It will drive down many of the components you use.

Electric cars are already breaking into the market with soaring gas prices, and the trend will only expand. It did attempt to take hold in California years ago.

Have you ever seen the movie, "Who killed the electric car?"
How all the EV1's got pulled off the road. People fought tooth and nail to keep their cars and perfectly fine cars were towed away and destroyed. They even had celebrity owners like Tom hanks fighting for them.

So electric cars are coming, but I think an on board fuel source will be the best option, and I can see ecats being manufactred for less than $100 each. The price they choose to sell them for will have to drop when competition comes in form of black market items or legal routes.

[Billy T]

...The ecat would not require a steam car. I do not know why people keep saying that. The ecats are small and generators are small. ...

Currently the steam is released at atmospheric pressure and essentially useless for making power. It must be made at much higher pressure to be useful - that means a heavier reactor and high presure steam turbine (assuming of course the higher pressure does not "kill" the excess heat production, which seem likely it would not, but we don't know as don't understand why it exists, if it does.)

I am quite sure two normal men would not be able to lift a complete* unit that could make power for a car. Unit, with condensor to recover the H2O, probably will weigh more than most IC motors. Getting rid of the "waste heat" which will be larger than the useful energy produce in the power will be hard. The IC engine has the great advantage as it just dumps it in the exhaust gas.

That condensor will be huge - a lot of wind resistence at over 30mph.

-----------
* E-cat steam genertor, high pressure turbine, electric genertor (with ~100 Hp peak power for passing (or a fly wheel and lower power generator), and huge air cooled condensor -When all this is considered a moderately low-pressure big-piston steam engine with stops to refill water tanks more common thn stops for gasoline is probbly a better choice. BTW, that water must be very clean to prevent scale build up - distiled water probably.

[kwhilborn]

Well this car magazine is thinking they have a new fuel
for starters.
http://www.carsuk.net/cold-fusion-ha...ived-in-e-cat/

These ecats are small, but admittedly currently mostly made of lead for shielding against gamma rays. They are only going to get smaller, cheaper, and more powerful. All the research departments currently trying to make gas motors more efficient will have to look at a new fuel.

[billvon]

The ecat would not require a steam car.

Then how do you transform the energy from thermal to mechanical power?

So electric cars are coming, but I think an on board fuel source will be the best option, and I can see ecats being manufactred for less than $100 each. The price they choose to sell them for will have to drop when competition comes in form of black market items or legal routes.

If they can choose between a heavy $100 nuclear reactor and a lightweight $50 battery that will take them 1000 miles - I think they will go with the battery, myself.

[kwhilborn]

@ Billvon,
If they cost $150 for both then I'd take both.
Thermal to mechanical power would be in the form of one of 2 methods. You could convert the steam directly into the drive of the vehicle, or drive a generator.

@ Billy T,
You suggested that there is not enough pressure to do so, however one of the earliest methods of creating drive from steam was to let steam build up and then spray it with cool water. When the steam condensed quickly it created a vacuum that drove the equipment. That method required no steam pressure. These machines are going to be small hand held things in a short while.

However; The ecat is currently steaming 500+ litres of water per hour. This is obviously not the rate we would be using in a car.

The cost of using Nickel vs Oil is astronomical in more ways than just money. It will be nice to suck in a deep breath of air in another decade and not inhale smog.

@ Billvon,

You don't need to convince me. I'm ready to trade in driving for an ebike atm as it is, and plan on ebikes for the wife and I by spring. I'd be glad to look at solar paneling as well.

Your solar car sounds awesome. I am just trying to keep this ecat thread centered more or less on ecats though.

If your batteries become small enough and powerful enough "gas" stations could have a battery exchange like they do with propane tanks. Drop off an empty and pick up a charged one.

[kwhilborn]

Wow!

AMAZING NEW DEVELOPMENT.
although Captain Kremmen beat me to the punch. I thought I would post the quotes from Defkalion, as they are pretty sure of themselves.

Forget Andrea Rossi

Andrea Rossi insisted on funding himself, and is taking a slowpoke method to production. It is like inventing fire and then only allowing one person to buy it for the first year.

Defkalion has a lot of investors and cash and has had over 200 million dollars in capital to work with. They sound prepared to buy out Andrea Rossi.

http://translate.google.com/translat...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

read this article.

Listen to what they are saying. They say they are way ahead of Rossi, and have a independently tested superior model to what Rossi has, and they sound prepared to prove it.

Defkalion not only continued our [energy catalyzer] program but we are almost ready, with technology that is ahead of Rossi during a year. Specifically, within the next 15 days there will be announcements and initiated testing and certification by independent third parties. We will present the final product - not just a laboratory prototype - with all its subsystems to operate according to European safety standards. "

"And the catalyst? Isn't that supposed to be a Rossi secret ?"

All the technology used in devices Hyperion at the kilowatt level, and systems at 1 Megawatt to 5 megawatt are our own design. They different from those of Rossi" he replied. "As for the control, was already our own design and construction, and Mr. Rossi has signed acceptance certificate shows that it is ours. Even in the recent trial in October when he used some modules of our own design. However, the main and big difference in our device than that of Rossi is that our system is stable in performance, while that of Rossi or the last test failed to yield stable for more than five and a half hours. "

The technology that we will present the next few (fifteen they say above) days the world will be entirely our Greek. It will be our contribution overthrowing the existing energy market.

From the heat yield, the device could produce electricity cheaper than PPC by 90%. The annual cost for hydrogen and nickel - the "fuel" of a device 20 kilowatts capacity - were expected to be about 1,300 euros, when the value of the energy produced at current prices would exceed the 14,000 euros.

I feel like Santa Claus is coming down the chimney.

@ Billy T and anyone on the fence,
Watch how the process is explained in detail by Focardi here.
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...IWIb8mq4XH5u_Q

I'm dreaming of an ecat Christmas!

[billvon]

Thermal to mechanical power would be in the form of one of 2 methods. You could convert the steam directly into the drive of the vehicle, or drive a generator.

Well, your two choices are then:

1) a steam engine, then a transmission to the wheels
2) a steam engine driving a generator, then a control/storage system (i.e. ultracaps/batteries then a motor controller) then a drive motor to the wheels.

You can't really avoid the steam engine. Water is the working fluid.

Billy T suggested that there is not enough pressure to do so, however one of the earliest methods of creating drive from steam was to let steam build up and then spray it with cool water. When the steam condensed quickly it created a vacuum that drove the equipment. That method required no steam pressure.

Then you need a supply of steam and a supply of cool water. And a large chamber that you use for the vacuum, since vacuum has very little "power" overall. It is equivalent to about 14 PSI of steam pressure; a typical internal combustion engine generates about 800 PSI during the power stroke. Thus a "vacuum" engine would need about 60 times the displacement of an internal combustion engine. (Which is one reason, BTW, that steam engines have such big pistons.)

These machines are going to be small hand held things in a short while. Use some imagination.

You've got a lot of problems getting there. Even if this thing generates heat (which so far there is no hard evidence for) you have to convert thermal energy to mechanical or electrical energy, and if the working fluid is steam (specifically wet steam, which is what all the "demos" so far have suggested) then you are pretty constrained on the sort of machinery you can use. Turbines don't work very well with wet steam, so you're likely looking at displacement engines (i.e. classic steam engines.) And building classic steam engines at the powers required for highway travel is not at all trivial.

There are a great many other methods of converting thermal energy to mechanical energy - Stirling engines, thermovoltaics, thermophotovoltaics - but none can give you enough energy to run a vehicle in a reasonable (small) form factor at the lower temperatures of wet-steam systems. As an example, a 55kW Stirling engine (giving you about 70hp usable mechanical power) weighs about 3000 pounds - and that's without any reactor, boilers, transmission, suspension etc. It costs around $100,000 and is used primarily for stationary power applications. Dean Kamen has sunk about $50 million into trying to make them smaller, but so far has had no luck.

Would you pay $140,000 for a 70hp, 4000lb vehicle? Or would you drive it into the lake?

[kwhilborn]

@ Billvon,

Thought I was supporting you saying I like your solar car.
-All heat reactions used in energy use steam. Nuclear reactions boil water, coal boils water, and so does the ecat.

Read post 616, it sounds like Andrea Rossi is out of the picture now. A rival company (Defkalion) took 200 million dollars and put the Andrea Rossi idea on fasttrack. You can look at the size of their "Hyperion" product. It does not look like it weighs 4000lbs, and consists of 9 small reactors instead of Andrea Rossis 3 reactor unit.




Starting unit on left, and finished 45KW generator on the right, which is double what it would take for an electric car to go flat out. Even if you used a few of them it still would not stop it from being cheap and practical in a car. Look at that thing. Honestly tell me how much money does it look like it cost to build. More money will be in buying the license from the patent holders, when we buy.

They say they have finished products in production.... Hmmm..

Time to choose sides people.

Is this a rival scam, or can they produce what they say.. see post

They are promising independent testing within the next 15 days and they say. See post 616 to learn more.

@ Billvon..
I keep agreeing your solar panel idea is awesome. I would be happy to say so on a solar panel thread. ecats are very small, and can produce enough steam to drive a small turbine as we are now. Enough to power a car.
An ecat car would not cost $140000. It would probably be electric so speed is whatever we want, and the weight could easily be 4000lbs (a big car craze will happen again), but not because the ecat or generator was very heavy.

See post 616 all, and pick a side because it looks like we are going to start seeing some real results one way or the other.

If you are still a snake click here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3PmDeMHiuw
or especially
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu_iwdjf1gI (The e-cat song)
and doesn't Rossi know it is dumb to change Nickel into copper? He is losing about $4 a pound.
I'm in a good mood.

[Captain Kremmen]

Is this a rival scam, or can they produce what they say?

Good question.
Are there two scams,one scam, or no scams?

[kwhilborn]

Would need to be at least 3 scams because Francesco Piantellis team are also going patent office crazy.

Defkalion sounds like they had 200 million compared to Rossis few million, and they went ahead and bought their way into it. Throwing enough money in a certain direction can probably move a few wheels.

They claim their deal with Rossi was they would advance him 15 million dollars if he could show his e-cat working for 48 hours. They said Rossi could not make this happen at the time and they parted ways. They say the 3 reactor version Rossi now uses is of their design more than his.

Hmmmm.

They said the secrecy was to prevent discrediting a device they were trying to get positive publicity for.

They say they have something far superior to Rossis that is safe, reliable, and can be independently tested.

.....and finally they say that we will see all this within the next 15 days.

Wow!

I'm almost prepared for Piantellis team to say the same thing. They are claiming they are now 200X energy gain compared with their previous 3-4X energy gain.

Dont't forget this video. It is very convincing.
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...IWIb8mq4XH5u_Q
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...IWIb8mq4XH5u_Q
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...IWIb8mq4XH5u_Q
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...IWIb8mq4XH5u_Q


Viva la Revolution!