They’re promising 10-kilowatt residential units (heaters, not electrical generators) that will be leased, not sold.
Pons and Fleischmann also promised domestic water heaters powered by cold fusion, as has just about every other person/group who thinks they have a new take on “low energy nuclear reactions”. My deep skepticism, trailing into distainful indifference, will only be mollified once devices are actually being sold to the public.
Some kind of fusion of hydrogen and nickel to form copper. Can’t get much of a grip on the science from the report, though.
Rossi and Focardi have made it very clear they are not claiming “Cold Fusion”, but instead, neutron capture possibly via the Widom-Larsen effect. It is well within conventionally-accepted nuclear physics theory, but it’s just that the possibility of engineering such a capture for useful work is generally rejected by the science/engineering “community” as “impossible”. Yes, and the engineering of successful mechanized flight was “impossible” for five years or so after the Wright Brothers demonstrated their airplane. So said the great news media of the time.
Numerous mechanisms have been proposed to explain the functioning of Rossi’s device, some more serious than others. Rossi has published several of them on his “Journal of Nuclear Physics” website, including at least one explanation which proposes neutron capture as a possible mechanism, but the only explanation I am aware of that comes directly from Rossi and Focardi does indeed propose the fusion of protons and nickel nuclei as the mechanism. Last I heard, if I remember correctly, Rossi didn’t think the Widom-Larsen hypothesis had anything to do with the functioning of his device.
Numerous mechanisms have been proposed to explain the functioning of Rossi’s device
I think the real problem is we don’t really know that the device actually functions. Until there is solid independent confirmation from multiple sources that the device is producing more energy out than goes in, reproducibly, over long time frames, it seems premature to me to worry about theoretical details.
Yes, a lot has happened in the last month or so, including Defkalion Green Technologies’ press conference on June 23. To give a very brief summary:
DGT says it will start selling “Hyperion” units to the Balkan countries in Q4 2011. Other companies will be sold licenses to market the technology in other countries in the eastern hemisphere. A US company called AmpEnergo holds the license (directly from Andrea Rossi, not from DGT) to market the technology in the western hemisphere. AmpEnergo will not be selling household units, at least initially. Apart from that, little is known about AmpEnergo’s plans. DGT plans to market household units ranging from 5 kW to 30 kW in 5-kW increments. They will all cost €4000-5000 apiece, the only difference between them being the internal pressure. They will also market 20-foot container-sized units ranging from 1.15 MW to 3.45 MW. All units will be checked and refueled by technicians every six months. The refueling costs will be a few hundred euros a year. The units will be used for heating, but some kW-range units will be made compatible with third-party electrical generation technologies. Those are not included in the cost of the unit. All DGT units will be monitored via a GSM link. Because the usefulness of the device depends partly on a secret catalyst, according to Andrea Rossi, each unit will contain some sort of self-destruct mechanism that will be initiated if the unit is tampered with.
Even if I weren’t still on the fence about whether the technology actually works, there are many things about DGT’s plans that would dampen my enthusiasm. If it does work, I want to see some competitive alternatives soon.
The mere fact that we don’t even know if it works at this point, while Rossi et al. are to the point of selling rights and talking factories, seems extremely suspect to me. This is not the historical development path of any successful technology that I know of.
The mere fact that we don’t even know if it works at this point, while Rossi et al. are to the point of selling rights and talking factories, seems extremely suspect to me. This is not the historical development path of any successful technology that I know of.
... it does, however, remind me of the “historical development path” of Blacklight Power for some odd reason…
The mere fact that we don’t even know if it works at this point, while Rossi et al. are to the point of selling rights and talking factories, seems extremely suspect to me. This is not the historical development path of any successful technology that I know of.
No, it’s “not the historical development path of any successful technology that [you] (or I) know of”, but you’re rather comfortably forgetting, or possibly ignoring, something: Rossi, and perhaps Focardi, have been funding their E-Cat project entirely on their own, with no one else’s money. They made a point of stating they would take funds from no one until their device(s), installed in the customers’ premises, demonstrably work as claimed;check their statements on PESN. One couldn’t be more honest than that.
There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical on this matter. I’m skeptical too, until I see the device working as a self-sustaining machine under the conditions that you mentioned earlier. It’s just that I don’t preach my skepticism, or dwell on the “that’s impossible” bent, because there’s enough known in quantum physics to know there’s much we don’t know. We don’t know for sure that the Coulomb Barrier cannot be weakened, or even temporarily cancelled, during a quantum mechanical event.
As I see it, the proper attitude to science is that just as we cannot rightly say that something is a fact, unless there has been conclusive evidence that it is so, neither can we state that something is impossible unless we can prove with Euclidean-type logic that it is impossible. We can prove logically, for example, that the sum of 2 widgets and 3 widgets is 5 widgets, and that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, but we cannot prove that there is no such animal as a green crow,simply because no one has reported seeing a green crow. Though it is improbable, it is not impossible. So, my attitude now is to be “on the fence”, and to be encouraging to those who seem to be reporting the truth until such time that they are shown to have been stating falsehoods (Notice I didn’t say, “lying”).
... apparently Defkalion is not spme sort of an “independent” company but is actually a collection of Rossi investors.
$200 million euros already and selling licenses for a technology even the inventor says won’t be actually validated until next year… if ever…
... funny that you didn’t mention any of that.
Seems as if T-P has a dual personality… the posters can and have done quite credible work in deconstructing questionable scientific claims such as E-cat… as long as scientific subjects don’t touch on wingnut hot-button issues such as climate change
... apparently Defkalion is not spme sort of an “independent” company but is actually a collection of Rossi investors.
$200 million euros already and selling licenses for a technology even the inventor says won’t be actually validated until next year… if ever…
... funny that you didn’t mention any of that. .....
Well, if “have been funding their E-Cat project entirely on their own, with no one else’s money” is not the case, then Rossi, at least, has been lying to the public, which constitutes a fraud in most countries. On the other hand, the 200 mill. Euros and the sale of licenses may not have involved any actual payment of funds yet. Letters of understanding for licenses, can be done on a promise-to-pay basis. In such a case, if the devices don’t work as claimed, then payment is not made.
I don’t think it makes much sense to assume, just because Rossi said something a while back about funding E-Cat research on his own dime, that he isn’t expecting to make a profit out of this. If Defkalion makes any sort of a profit, Rossi is going to get his cut. AmpEnergo has already paid him for a license. Defkalion has received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments and is now soliciting licenses for tens of millions per licensee. I see no concrete evidence of a scam, but you can no longer say that it’s not a scam because money isn’t changing hands. That’s already happening and will probably continue to happen for several months at least.
... apparently Defkalion is not spme sort of an “independent” company but is actually a collection of Rossi investors.
$200 million euros already and selling licenses for a technology even the inventor says won’t be actually validated until next year… if ever…
... funny that you didn’t mention any of that.
Seems as if T-P has a dual personality… the posters can and have done quite credible work in deconstructing questionable scientific claims such as E-cat… as long as scientific subjects don’t touch on wingnut hot-button issues such as climate change
What Rossi has always said is completely consistent with the references in the above post, that Defkalion is building a factory to make new E-Cat reactors, and that they are therefore essentially investors in Rossi’s technology. He says they are not funding the initial megawatt combination of E-Cat reactors, instead they are paying for it to be used in their factory after it is delivered to them and it checks out in October or later. He also says that he has finished construction of the hundreds of E-Cat that go into the megawatt combination, and is currently testing them. Defkalion being E-Cat factory investors is not inconsistent with him doing all the work up to demonstrating the megawatt reactor using his own funds. Nor is it inconsistent for him to have other licensees lined up after Defkalion.
Obviously, it is questionable to consider Defkalion an independent evaluator of the megawatt E-Cat reactor, when Defkalion is being set up to manufacture E-Cat and is an investor in the technology. Not much independence there, especially considering that no other independent evaluations have been allowed. As I see it, we have no hard information on the E-Cat reactor one way or another, and it looks like we won’t until either we have one in our hands or the whole project falls apart. Personally, if I had 200 million euros, I think it would be a better bet to put it on F-F.
Focus Fusion Society 
