E-Cat Technology? - Energy Assessment

[bsteadman]

Tests find Rossi's E-Cat has an energy density at least 10 times higher than any conventional energy source

Phys.org
Lisa Zyga
5/23/2013

View the complete article at:

http://phys.org/news/2013-05-rossi-e...ty-higher.html

[bsteadman]

Free Republic is running a thread titled, 'Tests: E-Cat has an energy density 10 times higher than other energy source', which was started 8/21/2013 by 'citizen'

The thread references a 5/23/2013 article on Phys.org written by Lisa Zyga - http://phys.org/news/2013-05-rossi-e...ty-higher.html

View the complete Free Republic thread at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3056993/posts

Excerpt:

Full title: Tests find Rossi's E-Cat has an energy density at least 10 times higher than any conventional energy source

(Phys.org) —In the ongoing saga of Andrea Rossi's energy catalyzer (E-Cat) that promises clean, cheap power for the world, the latest events continue to bring as many questions as answers. Several scientists have performed supposedly independent tests of two E-Cat prototypes under controlled conditions and using high-precision instrumentation. In a paper posted at arXiv.org, the researchers write that, even by the most conservative of measurements, the E-Cat produces excess heat with a resulting energy density that is at least 1 order of magnitude—and possibly several—higher than any other conventional energy source, including gasoline.

Of the seven scientists who authored the paper, two are from Italy (Giuseppe Levi at Bologna University and Evelyn Foschi of Bologna, Italy) and five are from Sweden (Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegnér at Uppsala University; and Hanno Essén at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm).

Essén, who submitted the paper, is an associate professor of theoretical physics at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and former chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society.

"I have followed the Rossi E-Cats for a couple of years now and participated in two experiments (including the present one) and read, and heard, about several other more or less independent ones," Essén told Phys.org. "My overall impression is that there must be something there, but scientists must always be cautious until everything has been checked and rechecked."

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To: Mr. K

"....is he too stupid to file a patent?"

He has a European patent, but not (yet) a US one. Whether that is due to the fact that the US patent office has (wrongully) in the past treated cold fusion like perpetual motion, I don't know. Several other researchers and agencies have very recently received US patents for CF approaches. The secret of US success seems to be to NOT call it "cold fusion", but some other terminology. - (bold and color emphasis added)

19 posted on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 9:22:58 AM by Wonder Warthog

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To: Georgia Girl 2

That’s a good question. The thing is the technology isn’t really at that point yet. An E-Cat device in its current form is only a heat generating device.

What has people excited about the E-Cat concept is that these devices are producing large amounts of heat with virtually no fuel being consumed. At least, that is the claim being made.

Non-nuclear power plants burn enormous quantities of coal or natural gas to boil water to generate high-pressure steam. This steam then powers turbines that generate electricity.

So the scientists are working to perfect these devices to generate sufficient heat to replace the coal and natural gas now used in power plants.

If these things actually work, you might eventually see a lot of city/town/neighborhood sized power stations built where they are needed instead of the having today’s huge power plants where the electricity must be sent here and there all across the country.

The other avenue is simply using the E-cat process to heat water for home, buisness and industrial uses.

28 posted on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 2:00:25 PM by citizen (We get the government we choose. America either voted for Obama or handed it to him by not voting.)

[bsteadman]

Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline

ExtremeTech
Sebastian Anthony
10/9/2014

Excerpt:

Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat — the device that purports to use cold fusion to generate massive amounts of cheap, green energy – has been verified by third-party researchers, according to a new 54-page report. The researchers observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, or “far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume.” The researchers were also allowed to analyze the fuel before and after the 32-day run, noting that the isotopes in the spent fuel could only have been obtained by “nuclear reactions” — a conclusion that boggles the researchers: “… It is of course very hard to comprehend how these fusion processes can take place in the fuel compound at low energies.”

This new report [PDF] on the E-Cat was carried out by six (reputable) researchers from Italy and Sweden. While the new E-Cat looks very different from previous iterations, the researchers say that it uses the same “hydrogen-loaded nickel” and additives (most notably lithium) as a fuel. The device’s inventor, Andrea Rossi, claims that the E-Cat uses cold fusion — low-energy nuclear reactions, LENR — to fuse nickel and hydrogen atoms into copper, releasing oodles of energy. The researchers, analyzing the fuel before and after the 32-day burn, note that there is an isotope shift from a “natural” mix of Nickel-58/Nickel-60 to almost entirely Nickel-62 — a reaction that, the researchers say, cannot occur without nuclear reactions (i.e. fusion). The researchers say there is just 1 gram of fuel inside the E-Cat. For more info about the science/chemistry behind LENR, read our previous story about Rossi’s E-Cat.

The researchers are very careful about not actually saying that cold fusion/LENR is the source of the E-Cat’s energy, instead merely saying that an “unknown reaction” is at work. In serious scientific circles, LENR is still a bit of a joke/taboo topic. The paper is actually somewhat comical in this regard: The researchers really try to work out how the E-Cat produces so much darn energy — and they conclude that fusion is the only answer — but then they reel it all back in by adding: “The reaction speculation above should only be considered as an example of reasoning and not a serious conjecture.”

Anyway, now that we’ve got the necessary cynicism/scrutiny out of the way, let’s get down to what everyone’s really interested in: The utterly insane amounts of energy produced by the E-Cat. In the table below you can see some figures from the 32-day test. The most important figures are on the right hand side: a COP (coefficient of performance) of up to 3.74, and net power production of 2,373 watts. Remember that this is a small device that produced these kinds of figures for 32 days straight. Total energy obtained over 32 days was 1.5 MWh.

To put this into perspective, the E-Cat tested by the researchers has an energy density of 1.6×109 Wh/kg and power density of 2.1×106 W/kg. This is orders (plural) of magnitude higher than anything else ever tested — somewhere in the region of 100 times more power than the best supercapacitors, and maybe a million times more energy than gasoline. In the words of the researchers, “These values place the E-Cat beyond any other known conventional source of energy.”

Obviously, if these third-party findings are to be believed — if the E-Cat really is performing cold fusion — then this is rather exciting. We are talking about an extremely cheap, green, and dense power source that could quite literally change the world.
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View the complete article, including photos and link, at:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...ty-of-gasoline

[bsteadman]

Energy Quote of the Day: ‘These Values Place the E-Cat Beyond Any Other Known Conventional Source of Energy’

Breaking Energy
Jared Anderson
10/10/2014

Excerpt:

It’s far too soon to proclaim the cold fusion age has arrived, but a new experiment appears to have generated considerable volumes of energy using a process that may have involved low-energy nuclear reactions. The researcher Andrea Rossi claims his E-Cat device uses cold fusion to fuse nickel and hydrogen atoms into copper, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process.

Possibly containing a million times more energy than gasoline, the technology is exciting, but still highly speculative.

In the words of the researchers, “These values place the E-Cat beyond any other known conventional source of energy.” – Extreme Tech

The findings have reportedly been verified by third-party researchers and submitted for scientific journal publication. Suspiciously, a 2013 third-party analysis of the E-Cat was quickly debunked by the scientific community. While the new report is geared to address previous shortcomings, it will certainly undergo rigorous peer review before definitive proof of cold fusion can be officially celebrated.

Skepticism prevails for the moment, but this is certainly a development worth watching, as affordable cold fusion technology would entirely disrupt today’s global energy systems.

View the complete article, including photo, at:

http://breakingenergy.com/2014/10/10...rce-of-energy/

[bsteadman]

Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel

Giuseppe Levi, Bologna University, Bologna, Italy
Evelyn Foschi, Bologna, Italy
Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegnér Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Hanno Essén, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

View the complete pdf file of the report at:

http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/...portSubmit.pdf

[bsteadman]

The Cold Fusion Race Just Heated Up

Wired.CO.UK
David Hambling
1/30/2015

Excerpts:

The E-Cat, or Energy Catalyser, is an alleged cold fusion reactor invented by Andrea Rossi. While many researchers claim to have produced small quantities of excess heat using nickel and hydrogen, Rossi claims he can produce kilowatts and his technology is ready for industry. Rossi's claims are far-fetched, but the E-Cat refuses to go away. Now it appears to have been not only verified, but replicated. Should we start taking Rossi seriously?

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The Lugano Report details how, for the length of a 32-day continuous run, a 900-watt electrical input produced 2,800 watts of heat from the reactor. The 20-cm long E-Cat was run for an extended period to prove that the energy could not be produced by hidden batteries or other sources:

"The total net energy obtained during the 32 days run was about 1.5 MWh. This amount of energy is far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume."

Further, the isotopic composition of the nickel powder had changed:

"The isotope composition in Lithium and Nickel was found to agree with the natural composition before the run, while after the run it was found to have changed substantially. Nuclear reactions are therefore indicated to be present in the run process".

The report was promptly savaged by sceptics, pointing out that Rossi was present for the test and questioning how independent it was. Steven B. Krivit, editor of New Energy Times, headlined his account "Rossi Handles Samples in Alleged Independent Test of His Device".

The arguments about the Lugano Report continue, meanwhile there has been an even more surprising development. Prof Alexander Parkhomov of Lomonosov Moscow State University has published a paper describing his successful replication of the E-Cat, based on the available information about it. The paper is in Russian; there is a link and commentary and video in English on E-Cat World. Parkhomov's results are more modest, but the energy output of his cloned E-Cat claimed to be up to 2.74 times as great as the input.

Parkhomov presented his results earlier this week at a cold fusion seminar at the Research Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Operation in Moscow. - (bold emphasis added)

View the complete article at:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...-advances-2015