The most interesting and controversial is LENR, the better description for cold fusion that is showing no less than three attempts at commercial marketing.  Due to the oversight of the estimable Al Fin finding a UK Wired magazine article built up with some tidbits, takes us even further into some expectations.  The most striking observation Wired’s David Hambling makes is revisiting the news of Mr. Rossi’s visit to Massachusetts on a look at production facility sites for producing the E-Cat.

Rossi visited the Massachusetts State House at the invitation of State Senator Bruce Tarr. He met government officials and scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts and Northeastern University to discuss in general terms the prospects for setting up E-Cat manufacturing in the region.  The strike comes from history – MIT personnel were leading destructors of the eminent Fleischmann and Pons work.  A generation has passed, but the notice of such behavior and unprofessional conduct cannot be overlooked.

The State Senator’s interest has also come up in the Republican nomination chase with candidate Mitt Romney saying to the Washington Examiner,  “I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with – with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.”  Whoever briefed Romney blew it, but the matter is on the presidential race’s table.

Across the pond it seems the Brits are taking Rossi seriously as well.  The website FreeEnergyTruth filed a Freedom of Information request that showed the Department Of Energy And Climate Change is following developments, and even met with Swedish physicist Sven Kullander, one of the few to study the E-Cat.  The Department is sitting tight, waiting for peer-reviewed publication of experimental results before committing themselves.

On the marketing front the E-Cat has a well-designed official website, ECAT.com where orders for a one-megawatt industrial unit can be started and registrations of interest without cost, in a home heating heater for delivery in 2012 to 2013.  The proposed heat source is a 10-kilowatt home unit that will be available for €4,000, and the makers want to see how great demand is at this stage. ECAT.com’s operators are taking every measure to avoid any suggestion of fraud: industrial customers will test their units before purchasing. Payments will be made through an escrow account with a full refund if the products do not perform as described.  That’s pretty confidence inspiring.

Back in August the first E-Cat production deal blew up with the Greek company Defkalion Green Technologies.  Defkalion is launching its own range of cold fusion power plants in rivalry to Rossi’s E-Cat.  The Greeks are highly motivated to keep going, with Rossi or without and have gone ahead with a cold fusion device of its own, which it insists has been developed independently and also that their Hyperion named model is more stable than Rossi’s E-Cat.

In what has to be a duplicitous position, a Defkalion spokesman allowed that a spectroscopic examination was carried out on an operating E-Cat while it was being tested – without Rossi’s knowledge.  However, to maintain “fair play”, Defkalion’s scientists say they developed their technology without using this information.  Its reasonable to expect that without a patent issued, there will come a day of a “lawyer’s tax” on units to offset the competitive pricing advantage.

There is still Randall Mill’s BlackLight Power to keep in mind.  BlackLight is very deep into the research using Dr. Mill’s hydrino theory.  So far they are proposing three systems for energy release, one an electrochemical method ala a fuel cell and two thermal designs.  The progress of the past year is unknown, but the fuel cell differs in that water is the fuel rather than being the effluent.  The thermal designs are thought to be quietly signing new customers, some of which are utility grade.  Here the controversy isn’t being allowed to get any coverage – at all.

2012 may just be the year that LENR or the old cold fusion moniker gets real legs.  It looks like it won’t be possible to fail to deliver units and surely one customer or another will want the world to know it’s the most green company in history.  Stay tuned . . .

BlackLight CIHT Power System For Vehicles. Click image for the largest view.

Most striking is the Company’s spring paper of a system for vehicle propulsion.  It looks quite interesting, lightweight and could be something used for several generations of chassis or bodies for a very long life span.  But first:

Spring also saw another deal made to produce electricity with GEOENERGIE SpA,, the Energy Subsidiary of Geogreen for a non-exclusive license to produce up to 750 MW of continuous power.  That’s not a full nuclear plant amount or even a large coal installation rating, but it does offer a few natural gas fired or a large number of smaller generation units.

Late last month saw BlackLight announce the Catalyst-Induced-Hydrino-Transition (CIHT) technology; essentially a new design that was confirmed by the company’s favorite third party verifier, Rowan University.

Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Rowan said, “The chemicals used in CIHT technology are similar to those used in thermal and chemical cells that were separately, thoroughly and diligently validated over the past three years by a team at Rowan University that included myself.  Since the measurements on CIHT are electrical versus calorimetric, there can be no dispute over the power and the energy balance.  With further optimization, there is no doubt that this technology will present an economically viable and environmentally benign alternate to meet global energy needs.  If advanced to commercialization, it would be one of the most profound developments ever.”

Dr. Mills adds, “CIHT has a forecasted nominal cost per unit of power compared to that of thermal-based systems and produces electricity without requiring enormous thermally-driven mechanical generators.”  Which would downsize to vehicle size units.  We’ll look at that in a bit, but lets look at the vehicle idea.

In the BlackLight Motive Power paper its said, “The projected cost of the CIHT stack is a very competitive $4,600. Considering the cost of the control electronics, $1,800, electric motors, $1,400, and transmission, $2,000, the total cost of $9,800 is comparable to the cost of an internal combustion engine and its drive train without any fuel costs or pollution.”  Dr. Mills may be pretty close, as the numbers used come from a source noted in the paper’s footnotes that were part of a conference in 2009. (See page three of the paper.)

In the Business Presentation paper the calculation for the hydrogen converted to hydrinos and then used for electrical generation sourced from a liter (a bit more than a quart) of water comes to 1500 miles or nearly 6,000 miles for a gallon.  Distilled water on sale is under a dollar per gallon.

The Business Presentation also mentions that the size of a BlackLight power unit at a 200-liter dimension (100 two liter soda beverage containers) would output 200KW or 276 horsepower at half the weight of an internal combustion engine.  This writer finds the weight matter comprehensible but stuffing 200 liters in a vehicle chassis requires more imagination.

However the dimensions work out, BlackLight has thought through the electrical generation matter.  As well as directly powering the vehicle, charging batteries or capacitors, the unit can as well produce hydrogen and likely most interesting, hook on the grid and power the house when home, with the over production earning an income.

That’s a lot of promise.  And it all remains vapor, so far.  The grave disappointment is the Business Presentation that lacks indications of how the ideas will get to the billions of people who need the technology.  There are thoughts on what to try to sell and software types of license ideas with ‘lots a money’ potential. But no ‘what will the world see’.

This writer will indulge himself with a suggestion.  Run fast with the motive concept; sign up a few NASCAR car builders.  They already build one off vehicles and have the venue for millions to see the product in action in a safe and controlled presentation.  Once under way and de bugged, start offering the specialty car remanufactures who take factory new streetcars and modify them.  Build a few hundred Lincolns and Cadillacs. That’s when somebody Call Me!

This same specialty car companies can also build thousands of Mustang and Camaro road cars.  The base is then built with existing relationships in place for the major manufacturers to build hundreds of thousands of CIHT powered vehicles that should get to millions very quickly.

It about the only path that builds credibility as well as demonstration with exposure – and the whole crowd expects a period of debugging and re engineering to get it right.  Go with what works and works itself out.  A demonstration race series of a few car builders might even turn a profit from the advertising.  The lessons learned will trickle down into production volume.

One other thought – since this writer is indulging himself – lose the sales-based royalty idea.  All the industries that can use the technology are mature, they’re not at all positioned like the development of the computer industry, and a sales-based royalty on power generated devalues the company at step one.  So far no one has to have the technology and motivating alternatives from before the beginning works against adoption in a strong way.

Happy Holidays to Dr. Mills and his associates!  Lets see some beef next year!

These two life forms offer efficiency; they grow without using energy to make cellulose, the land plant’s answer to structure for gravity, wind and animal assaults.  For comparison algae are thought to produce 50% of the O2 while they’re less than 1% of the total plant biomass on Earth.  That said, adding seaweed or macro algae to the biomass for fuel effort would seem inevitable.

Joanna Schroeder at Scripps. Click image for more info.

Last week Al Fin spotted Joanna Schroeder’s article at domesticfuel.com. It seems Ms. Schroeder talked with B. Greg Mitchell at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD-SIO).  Mitchell’s perspective as reported by Schroeder is worth some review.

The Scripps Institute has been researching seaweed for more than 40 years.  It’s safe to assume that just as everyone else, the Scripps Institute seaweed to fuel research hasn’t been front and center for the whole 40 years.  But Mitchell, who as late as 2 years ago, was discussing micro algae in detail.

Schroeder reports Mitchell now believes the research into seaweed will be well rewarded in the benefits it would provide the country including offering solutions for energy security, hunger, water use, land use, biodiversity, and climate.

Seaweed has potential for very high yields and high oil production while thriving on non-arable land. Another benefit is that they grow well in salt water. Traditionally crops will not excel in salt water if they survive at all, and in some areas of the country valuable agricultural land has been taken out of production due to high concentrations of salt.

Saline or Salt Water Aquifers in US. Click image for the largest view.

But as all biology researchers know, not all macro algae strains are created equal. There are strains of seaweeds that hold great promise for bio-energy and others that hold great promise for producing other products such as high protein meals for replacing non-sustainable ocean-caught fishmeals in aquaculture and other animal diets.

For example, there are strains of seaweeds that UCSD-SIO has been studying that grow well inland and can be used to recycle artificial seawater and waste nutrients from chicken ranches or pig farms. Algae has also been used in farm fish operations from cleaning the ponds to providing feed.

Now to the key points.  Mitchell believes that the key to research lies in the lifecycle of the seaweed, especially its sexual phases, “The lifecycle including sexual phases are better known and more easily controlled for some seaweeds,” explained Mitchell. “That may make it easier to breed/hybridize using traditional Mendelian genetics. All companies are looking at how to use classical recombinant methods.”  Mendelian genetics focuses on natural recombination rather than human induced modification and since Mendelian genetics focuses on a natural process, the products created from the research will not have the regulatory issues that have hindered the development of algae products created by genetically modified strains.

Still, whether micro algae or macro algae there are the same problems to solve for commercialization.  Costs of production have to come way way down, the best strains of seaweed need to identified and optimized, and testing of the strains needs expanded.  Scale has to increase to hundreds of acres rather than small tests.  Water has to be removed and oil and useful products taken out. This is just a wee bit of the challenges.

But the results could be astonishing.  The area needed for micro algae production is much less than land plants and macro algae is even more productive.  The land issue isn’t in fact of much note, and saline water is available across wide tracts of the U.S in addition to ocean water.

Land Needed Comparison For Corn Soya Algae. Click image for the largest view.

Mitchell thinks the timeline will shorten up, with major developments in 10 years.  So far all the research is small lab work and needs taken to commercial scale.  “We need several hundred acre demos that would take three years to design, permit and build. Then we need at least two years to get data and improve design,” said Mitchell. “Then we’ll roll out commercial scale over the following five years. We can do all this now at pilot scale but its not yet economically viable. So I see 10 years for this to be turned to economic viability.”

Many first impressions of seaweed farming suggest a plot at sea, but seaweed is one species that should be able to grow inland with proper facilities and management.  As the maps above show the potential is huge and the needed area quite small.  It’s research well worth the effort.

The notation from the third page in the pdf is, “Validations and Technical Due Diligence – underway with National Labs, defense contractors, electronics manufacturers, large conglomerates, multi-national energy companies and others.”

That’s not much.  It does follow another low-key announcement on March 23rd 2010 of an agreement with Geoenergie SpA, Energy Subsidiary of Geogreen for a non-exclusive license to produce up to 750 MW of continuous power. This is a significant amount of power.

BlackLight Process Illustrated. Click image for a larger view.

These things are adding up to some questions.  First what comes to mind is the disclosure agreements.  BlackLight issues brief press releases but the companies, validators, labs and diligence firms are not.  This writer has called a few, the first was surprised there was any one noticing with no details to release or discuss and others who are larger have no one available to talk.  Its not suspicious, it is annoying, and understandable.  Cross company press releases would help with the overall credibility though.

The next question is about the validating process such as who exactly and the matters they raise as they try to get working models going.  Progress by validators, who have a wealth of information available, formed at an arm’s length distance, would be of significant value to distributing information.  One does understand that media, press and bloggers are pretty far down, if on any list at all.  But that cuts the connection to everyone – and the gems BlackLight might need in the future are going to be in the dark and start from suspicious point of view.  On the other hand “we” would be a significant burden and expense, plus offer lots of opportunity for detractors.  Maybe the situation is the best strategy.  But having built a track record in the open might be very useful soon.

The third question is about what has been sent to validate.  The material used, the apparatus, both?  Anything else?  Lets assume that some kind of kit is provided, everyone gets it working.  BlackLight makes history.  I for one would like to preplan for that for a multitude of reasons.  Again, circumspection on BlackLight’s part is the certain low risk path.  People, businesses and governments making decisions with impressions from BlackLight and the others could be a legal hellhole whether wondrous history or a disaster takes place.

With these thoughts a longer look at the pdf might be worthwhile.  But I forewarn, you’re going to need to up on your math and physics to make sense of it.  With that said those not trying to grasp the high technical aspects can understand this – BlackLight is pretty open with the fundamentals.  The materials used, how it works and the results are pretty much in the open.  Its clear BlackLight expects without any doubt that the materials molecular structure, which is reformed as it’s used, can be infinitely recycled back to the desired structure at low energy compared to output. See page 19 in the pdf.

The apparatus is still, understandably, pretty much under wraps.  Getting the materials to do the hydrino production and energy release reaction is the technological breakthrough after all.

The pdf also uses several pages to discuss the BlackLight subsidiary Milliscan that is endeavoring to make use of the hydrinos made as the energy is extracted.  Where this goes over time has no limitation on the potential.

That’s a really short synopsis.  It’s a long pdf at 169 pages and the talk that the pdf must have supported is absent.

Which leads to a suggestion for Dr. Mills and BlackLight.  Lets get some audio for the pdf on the BlackLight site as well.

All the party types noted in the pdf doing validation and due diligence are stated in the plural suggesting at least two of each making at least 10 or 12 reviews underway.  What is to be said and when is eagerly anticipated.

This is progress.

Over the past two years considerable progress has been made both in the development of “fuel” if the compound can be called such and the recruitment of customers.  On the customer front Dr. Randell Mills is reporting on December 1st, 2009 that six utilities have licensed for 8,000 MW of power production.  Stay cool, the report by Dr. Mills is available at a Wall Street Webcasting hosted by no less than FBR Capital Markets. FBR is in the top ten of international investment managers, so the due diligence if done, would be pretty good.  Most anyone in that market after the 2008 meltdown and the Madoff scam is surely tightened up the research and diligence to keep the existent facts in view.  Or one can hope.  Perhaps the doubters will get fully passed by next year when the validation prototype units are built.

Meanwhile – on the fuel front Dr. Mills is offering more insight on the inputs.  During the webcast he’s saying in effect that the fuel, or the media more appropriately, is combined with sodium to form sodium hydride (NaH) and other commercially available chemicals to make a solid fuel.  When heated to the range of boiling water a catalyst, with the implication that the catalyst makes up part of the solid fuel, reacts forming the hydrino.  This is said to release a substantial amount of energy in the form of heat.  The heat in its turn then can be used as any other heat source such as making steam, space heating or industrial process use.

BlackLight Catalyst System Diagram. Click image for the largest view.

The loads are the operational costs that Dr. Mills suggests would be a few percent and the hydrogen formation, another two percent or so.  The implication is that some 95% of the reaction’s energy can be put to work.  With the base raw material just water, and not a huge amount at that, the costs to generate power are going to be on the very low side.  Dr. Mills says that engineering firms are already looking into costs and construction details, and the thinking is that the plant capital costs are going to come in between the price of natural gas fired and coal fired – two of the very lowest capital investment choices utilities can make.

The waste material is hydrinos.  Just how much of that humanity chooses to allow into the atmosphere for getting swept off into space is yet to be asked.  Dr. Mills offers that hydrinos themselves will have economic use and barely implies that the hydrino state can be reversed.  Those two points need considered.  The effects of hydrinos in the air are not addressed at all, and the waste stream if problem free and allowed to be an atmospheric effluent would soon be swept away by the solar wind.  The process would over a long time “de mass” the planet.  It seems a shame to think the free hydrogen that’s being used to become a hydrino has no value.  The effluent premise can’t last for long.

The webcast runs some 24:30 with 21 slides that are on the page as well.  No queuing takes place, so you’ll need to sort of hop back and forth to keep things timed and perhaps use the change size button to get them legible.  It’s a worthwhile listen.  FBR is saying the webcast will stay up for 90 days, about until March 1st, 2010. Take note, a registration is required and you’ll need to find the link in the lower left of the chart of presentations.

Dr. Mills is making it very hard to deny, naysay, or doubt.  One doesn’t get the feeling its even some plot to fraud.  As FBR points out, the company is private – no one that isn’t deeply informed is on board. The risk seems to be the customers’ upfront fee, which Dr. Mills hints that for early adopters might be missing.  That kind of points to utilities and their ratepayers not in negotiations early getting a zinger later on.  But the license is priced at 1¢ ($0.01) per kilowatt-hour produced.  That plus the capital cost, the reality that the lost raw material is hydrogen from water spilt onsite and the plant to grid cost, BlackLight is going to be just about the lowest cost electrical power generation leader.

One has to admire Dr. Mills for his forethought in the pricing of licenses.  A very low per unit of production fee vastly speeds installations and inhibit competitors.  There might come a day when the BlackLight finance mind realizes that even the one cent rate could be cut in half again.  Cheap power is its own kind of “Stimulus Plan” that Dr. Mills can offer the world.  Once a unit is operating – the rush of demand could be massive.

Should the preliminary estimates work out on the technology a new low cost power generation floor would be set.  The potential is staggering as Dr. Mills points out in the webcast.  In addition a lot of infrastructure work would be unnecessary such as gas lines and rail spurs.  There seems to be no reason that facilities could not replace existing plants and be added in smaller sizes along the grid as needed saving huge amounts of grid investments for upgrading.

The world’s national economies need cheap energy and fuels to grow.  Anytime a cost rises, some other cost must be reduced to maintain prices, competitiveness and employment. Whether its fuels, electrical power, taxes or inflation – rising prices anchor an economy down, slowing or stopping progress.

Should Dr. Mills’ creativity, insight and innovation work out, he might be the most noteworthy person in decades.  Good luck, Doc.

Let’s offer a mighty nice hat tip to Brian Wang and his NextBigFuture blog for spotting the webcast.