Andrea Rossi has started commercializing ECAT nuclear fusion devices

http://ecat.com/ecat-products/ecat-1-mw

by adnam • 13 years ago

29 62 13 years ago

ecat.com

cjg_• 13 years ago

Is there conclusive evidence that this device actually work yet?

voidlogic• 13 years ago

Kickstart buying one an trying it out? j/k :)

pdelbarba• 13 years ago

Ummm... No.

busterarm4• 13 years ago

$2/MWhr to run? That seems unbelievably cheap. I hope those figures aren't overly optimistic.

rs232• 13 years ago

From a guy selling cold fusion? Nah, it's legit.

zokier2• 13 years ago

If it actually produces 1MW of power from a shipping container, even if all other claims were false, I'd think this would be useful in emergency/disaster zones.

kzrdude• 13 years ago

You just need a 200 kW power outlet in the disaster zone (According to their technical data sheet).

dublinben2• 13 years ago

A 200kW generator can fit on a small trailer. It's pretty common in the electrical generation field to use smaller generators to kick-start successively larger generators. That's how conventional hydro and nuclear plants must be started.

http://www.kohlerpower.com/rental/detail.htm?sectionNumber=2...

darky30412• 13 years ago

Thermal power only, though. Not 1MW of electricity

lutusp14• 13 years ago

Because of the ready availability of efficient thermoelectric converters, this is a distinction without a difference.

donquichotte• 13 years ago

Nice. Now the question whether Andrea Rossi is a conman will be settled once and for all. I'm looking forward to the first reviews.

bglazer2• 13 years ago

Judging by the extremely unfavorable picture portrayed by his Wikipedia articles [1][2], that question has already been answered.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%29

mlamat• 13 years ago

I have a bridge to sell you.

tosiabunio• 13 years ago

Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device

http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3913

deletes• 13 years ago

Paper describes two experiment conducted on ecat prototypes. It should be read by anyone interested in the subject.

lutusp14• 13 years ago

The ECAT 1MW plant contains 106 smaller ECAT units mounted in a shipping container. Valve for filling the Hydrogen is on the front of each unit, together with electrical connection to the immersion heater used to start the reaction.

Not mentioned in the article is that the "immersion heater" required power -- to sustain the cold fusion reaction, of course -- totals just over 1 MW continuous.

Current delivery time is estimated to four months.

That should be enough time to sign up an adequate number of perfect fools.

zokier2• 13 years ago

Not mentioned in the article is that the "immersion heater" required power

The tech data page specifies 200kW input power

lutusp14• 13 years ago

> Not mentioned in the article is that the "immersion heater" required power
The tech data page specifies 200kW input power

Yes, but you see, that is a marketing claim, not a physical one. If it were true, Rossi would be sequestered with a team of crack lawyers attempting to secure patent protection for his breakthrough, rather than trying to sign people up to buy his unprotected, yet-to-be-built device.

Also, why doesn't Rossi use 200 KW of the claimed 1 MW output power to sustain the reaction, thus removing the input power requirement? This "fact sheet" reads very differently to someone who actually understands physics.

pavlov• 13 years ago

The first shipping generators will have an unfortunate bug that caps the output at approximately one-fifth of maximum capacity. The company will promise that, as soon as the bug is fixed and some new parts are installed, the machines will deliver the promised 1 MW.

stox• 13 years ago

If it needs a heater, wouldn't it be warm fusion then?

Yetanfou• 13 years ago

If this thing produces 1 MW in heat output for a 200 KW power input, it is no more efficient than a good heat pump (with a COP of 5, not unusual in large-size installations)...

andyjohnson0• 13 years ago

Source?

lutusp14• 13 years ago

Common sense, unless that term is no longer applicable to modern times. If this were something real, we would be hearing about Rossi's valiant efforts to secure patent protection, not customers.

orenbarzilai• 13 years ago

He should produce a sexy video & start a kick starter campaign...

matponta• 13 years ago

Well, it's drawing 200kW form the input, and the other 800kW from harvesting radiowaves and alien probes, I guess.

makerops• 13 years ago

On the one hand, I just can not believe that someone would be audacious enough to try such a scam, when there is such a relatively huge amount of people with their eyes on this. On the other hand history has shown us that this happens A LOT. Human nature is a funny thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Lustig

AKifer2• 13 years ago

You're right, saddly the law of nature made that there will always be people who will buy such an ideas. With one customer, he would pay the cost of web design, content creation, web hosting, domain name and 3D stuffs. With 2 customers, it would be profitable.

AKifer2• 13 years ago

"ECAT 1 MW Plant produces energy through a so-called cold fusion process. No combustion takes place; instead Nickel and Hydrogen merge to produce Copper. Per unit of weight, this process is at least 100,000 more efficient than any known combustion process" Seriously, even a monkey would see it's impossible.

astrodust2• 13 years ago

I don't know why they don't hype up how a by-product of this process is super valuable copper.

Next up: Machine that turns lead into gold and Bitcoins.

gus_massa2• 13 years ago

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon

A thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds (1,100 kg) can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons (1.1 million tonnes) of TNT

The energy/mass of this atomic bomb is 4.2 10^12 J/Kg=m^2/s^2 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1200000+tons+of+TNT+%28...

The energy/mass of gasoline is 4.5 10^7 J/Kg=m^2/s^2 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=specific+combustion+hea...

So the atomic bomb is 100000 more “efficient” than gasoline.

In spite of this, I’m sure this device will “mysteriously” not work.

fauxscot• 13 years ago

Wow. This is a scam on a truly impressive scale.

Note that they are looking for a beta site customer... lower right corner... next to the impressive list of folks who have validated cold fusion, which would be zero by my count. At least from places that don't feature folks with funny hats made of foil.

100,000 times more efficient?

Wow. Just wow.

lafar65023• 13 years ago

As stated in technical parameters: the water pump output is 30-1500 liters/hour, it means max 0.4 liter per second. Assuming it raises the temperature of water by 40 degrees K, the energy output per second is 4200J/kgK 0.5kg * 40K = 84000 Joules/sec = 84 kW. Assuming it draws 167kW, it's much worse than any electric water heater.

lafar65023• 13 years ago

And nowhere near the claimed 1MW... Am I wrong or they didn't even bother to do the math properly?

gus_massa2• 13 years ago

Nice finding!

But let’s be optimistic! If we pick the maximum range in the technical specification [1] and suppose that the temperature difference were 120°C then it would only generate 0.21MW [2]. Just in case, I checked and at 4Bar, the boiling point of water is 144°C [3], so the device is not producing vapor, only hot water.

[1] http://ecat.com/ecat-products/ecat-1-mw/ecat-1mw-technical-d...

[2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1500+kg%2Fhr+*+1+cal%2F...

[3] http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/boiling-point-water-d_926....

Andrea Rossi has started commercializing ECAT nuclear fusion devices

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