Mar
9
Updating the Rossi Focardi Cold Fusion Reactor
March 9, 2011 | 337 Comments
Andrea Rossi with Sergio Focardi consulting made news in January with a demonstration of the Rossi design of a nickel hydrogen fueled low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) reactor. The past month has been pretty quiet in much of the world where the noose of established science has no temperament for things not already successfully through its own peer review.
Rossi and Focardi at the Italy Demonstration January 2011
But outside of the science establishment lacking curiosity and vision the press has caught on – which leaves most of the news in foreign languages. Most notable is Italy, Rossi’s and Focardi’s native land is proudly reporting as well the Greek and Swedish press as well as across Europe, and there is a factory in Greece due to run a commercial demonstration later this year.
But for those of us where the science chooses to be blind and offers a nasty treatment for those willing to proceed, the progress comes as welcome news. That brings us to America’s most noteworthy scientist on cold fusion – Edmund Storms.
Dr. Edmund Storms was just back from Chennai, India where the International Conference on Cold Fusion 16 (ICCF-16) took place when James Martinez arranged an interview that played for his Cash-Flow listeners on March 1. The ICCF-16 is a conference where researchers in low-energy nuclear reactions share their most recent results. Mr. Martinez taped the interview in conjunction with 137 Films crew filming their documentary on cold fusion. To be released in late summer, it is expected to make the independent film festival rounds.
Now Dr. Storms is a long-time private researcher in cold fusion and author of “The Science of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions“. Storms obtained a Ph.D. in radiochemistry from Washington University (St. Louis) and is retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory after thirty-four years of service. His work at Los Alamos involved basic research in the field of high temperature chemistry as applied to materials used in nuclear power and propulsion reactors, including studies of the “cold fusion” effect. Seventy reviewed publications and monographs resulted from Storm’s work at Los Alamos as well as several books, all describing an assortment of material properties.
Storms own cold fusion work has resulted in fifteen presentations to various conferences including the American Chemical Society and American Physics Society. In addition, twenty-one papers have been published including four complete scientific reviews of the field, one published in 1991, another in 1996 and 1998, and the latest in 2000. A critical evaluation of the Pons-Fleischmann Effect was published in 2000. In May 1993, he was invited to testify before a congressional committee about the “cold fusion” effect. In 1998, Wired magazine honored him as one of the 25 people who is making a significant contribution to new ideas.
Dr. Storms is no lightweight, and hasn’t risen to the bait of the cold fusion deniers. Retired and happy to be curious, he must drive the establishment a bit nuts.
Martinez’ interview with Storms has been condensed in text at ColdFusionNow. The full audio podcast is this link running a bit under 24 minutes with a couple of minutes up front of music and introduction. For those interested in the highlights they are as follows:
Storms on the situation of the Rossi and Focardi reactor: “They [Rossi and Focardi] found a way of amplifying the effect to a level that makes it attractive as an industrial source of energy and people in the cold fusion field have been working towards that, but they had not achieved that level of heat production, and so this was both a bit of a surprise and a bit shock, but a bit of a kick to get people moving a little more rapidly now. And it looks like the phenomenon will actually have an application.”
His thoughts on the science status: “We’ve arrived. It’s interesting we’ve arrived in a different car than we thought we were. Cold fusion started out using deuterium and palladium, and then Rossi found that it worked quite well in nickel and light hydrogen.”
On Rossi’s path to discovery: “Rossi hit upon this somewhat by accident. He was using a nickel catalyst to explore ways of making a fuel by combining hydrogen and carbon monoxide and apparently, observed quite by accident, that his [apparatus] was making extra energy. So then he explored it from that point of view and, apparently, over a year or two, amplified the effect.”
“He’s exploring the gas loading area of the field. This is also a region, a method used in the heavy water, or the heavy hydrogen, system. But in this case, it was light hydrogen, ordinary hydrogen and nickel and what happens is quite amazing.”
“You create the right conditions in the nickel, and he has a secret method for doing that, and all you do is add hydrogen to it and it makes huge amounts of energy based upon a nuclear reaction.”
Storm’s thoughts on the secrecy: “Well, you really need a patent, you need to protect your intellectual property. You want to be able to gain some economic benefit from the discovery. So far, they have not gotten a patent, and that’s always been difficult in the cold fusion field because the patent examiners simply don’t believe that it’s real.”
“So, until they get a patent, they’re not revealing how they do it. Now, they’ve been upfront about what they can do and what they promise to do, and so far, they’ve fulfilled these promises. Once they get their patent, then they promise to reveal how they go about doing this.”
Storm’s thoughts about the coverage both where its well covered and not: On the covered side, “The Swedish newspapers, the Italian newspapers, the Greek newspapers, they showed an interest. The American newspapers showed none at all. It’s been on a number of blogs and talked about in a number of chat rooms, but no, it hasn’t reached a level of any serious importance to the American press.”
Not covered, “Mainly because, it is institutionally the belief that cold fusion is not real, or if it is real, it’s so trivial, it’d make no difference to anybody. That’s institutional. It’s the myth that’s in, we’ll call it, the intellectual structure of the United States, and a number of other countries.”
And Storm’s knowledge of national support, “There are a few countries where that’s not true, and Italy is one of them. The government there believes that it’s real, and they’re doing everything they can to develop it. The government in China believes it’s real and they’re doing everything they can to develop it.”
And lastly, Dr. Storms offers this bit of news: “Rossi . . . (has) . . . promised a demonstration in Florida that’s coming up in October. And there will be some people from the U.S. government there watching, and hopefully they will be convinced that it’s real and that will change the attitudes.”
Storms confirms what others have suggested, Rossi has business interests in the U.S. and will try to build at the Florida factory he owns a full one megawatt unit made up of one hundred cells similar to the single cell seen at the Italy demonstration.
For now the news has come in a bit distant and subjective form. While little is known about the technology, Rossi has built up a lot of street type credibility – and there is no motive in sight for some sort of financial or business misbehaving.
This writer isn’t doing a lot of thinking or imagining about the Rossi effort. But there is certainly a discernable feeling of satisfaction that the science so long denigrated has a foothold in the real world of business and industry.
When the orders fill and business reduces the grid demand some in established science are going to be much more busy with the “why weren’t we” while others will be looking for what other cold fusion ideas might go commercial. Not putting your pants down on purpose is lesson well worth repeating – again.
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It doesn’t matter in the least whether or not the device runs in “self-sustaining mode” so long as the output is so much greater than the input energy. It is funny to me to see all this squirming and speculating as to the nature of the process when I have already said that it is a version of my Lyne Atomic Hydrogen Furnace (see pages 102-103 of Occult Ether Physics published in 1997) http://asse.altervistaq.org/lahg.pdf which was published on the Internet about 2003. Pay attention to the drawing on pae 103 where it says “‘Activation Energy Device’ (spark plug, CATALYTIC METAL, etc)”. The catalytic metal is not essential for operation since the disociated atomic hydrogen reacts to recombine when it contacts any metal surface releasing great amounts of heat (@ c. 3500 degrees Kelvin). This is the 15-year-old plan. On page 102 substitute Primary Solar Rays (hence “PSRs”) in the place of “ZPR”.
Correction: The proper URL is http://asse.altervista.org/lahg.pdf .
I can read in the link:
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=2419105C-1A64-67EA-E4564591D0CF1371
that the experiment will be the October 28…
We will see. I hope they will have good results.
William Lyne, thanks for the link.
(I had a little trouble getting there. Clicking on it in Google chrome redirected elsewhere, but when I copied and pasted the link into the address bar, that worked.)
It is obviously written in Italian. As a .pdf it is somewhat difficult to get a google translation of it, but I am succeeding. Google doesn’t translate very well, is there a chance that you can translate it to English? Your post suggests that you are very comfortable with English.
I am curious, have you created one of your hydrogen generators? Has it worked? What kind of energy in, energy out relationships have you achieved?
BFast
What a suspicious mind you have!
“I am curious, have you created one of your hydrogen generators? Has it worked? What kind of energy in, energy out relationships have you achieved?”
If it was in pages 102 and 103 of “Occult Ether Physics” in 1997, what more evidence do you need?
Twelve days to go.
Craig,
Here’s the streamlined good news:
“Q&A just finished; reading of results; 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later”
Now Craig you remind me of speech contests back in my old high school days when one had to debate for and the other against irrespective of whether one was right or wrong: surely you won’t accept any of this but shouldn’t you get your Worcester sauce ready for that Glasgow bunnet of yours …
Rossi has to my knowledge only one bad precedent dating some 20 years ago. But that doesn’t mean he’s in the “habit of moving from one place to another when dissatisfied consumers come back”.
The Petroldragon affair was nothing to do with consumers.
Of course you’ll allow the man no free credit but aren’t you pushing it too far?
Assuming he was guilty he’s paid dearly for his mistakes (though I wouldn’t rule out he was framed by his waste management competitors).
Why the hell shouldn’t he be allowed a second chance?
A lot of people, scientists and laymen are quite happy with the test results but you’ll always raise the stakes won’t you?
As to my dream of Arabs’ bottoms on camels again, it’s ever moving closer ….
Mario the Very Optimistic Tuscan
Here’s the link to download:
– 3 page report signed by customer’s engineer
– Excel datasheet
http://db.tt/wu4OLbgk –
Difficult to play skeptical after all this.
Anybody still denying this is a major breakthrough?
Hard work and intelligence, not geographical accident and speculative finance, should play a role in world economy.
Saudis can start thinking of where to stuff their oil ….
Mario the Very Optimistic Tuscan
Mario
It won’t download. I need the name of the customer and confirmation of the alleged energy input. This is an obvious fraud, Mario. We were told there would be sales to the public, not a private deal with a “customer”.
This is obvious nonsense. See comments at http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=7713468#post7713468
See also Steve Krivit at http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/10/28/energy-catalzyer-extraordinary-scams-require-extraordinary-claims/
I despair of your credulity. How many more free energy scams will there be before people come to their senses?
Mario
Also, try not to be such a bigoted racist about Saudis stuffing their oil and Muslims mounting their camels, and that sort of thing. Rossi does hard work, but he works hard as a swindler, and he has intelligence enough to fool lots of people, and the role he plays in the world economy is enriching himself by taking money from the pockets of idiots.
Have you heard anything more about him having to sell his house, by the way? Now that he has a “customer”, maybe he can buy it back!
See also Forbes mag at http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/30/believing-in-cold-fusion-and-the-e-cat/2/
[…] who is Rossi and who is Focardi? You cannot guess wrong, trust your intuition mrb Sunday 30 October 2011 at 8:23 pm | ¶ | Default Used tags: […]
Hey Zorinaq, I’ve left a comment on your site. You have produced nothing new about the “science” of Rossi’s contraption. It’s still a mystery and, I’m pretty sure, a scam or delusion.
Craig, I noticed your link to the Forbes article where Mark Gibbs says:
“If an experiment that demonstrates cold fusion has really been replicated in the real world by real scientists then why would the scientific community ignore something so profound?”
This would appear to be the case that has raised Mr. Gibbs’ skepticism.
I challenge Mr. Gibbs with the following link:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/research.htm
Which says:
“Tests conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center in 1989 and elsewhere consistently showed evidence of anomalous heat … such effects are now published in peer-reviewed journals”.
Yet wikipedia describes LENR as “pathological science”. It would appear that Gibbs’ rhetorical question does not get the answer he expects.
BFast
Can’t find the quote there. Is it in one of the links in the NASA page? By the way, “evidence of anomalous heat” is a far cry from a machine that can allegedly churn out a megawatt of cold fusion power, while having to remain plugged into the public electricity supply for some mysterious reason.
As I understand it, hydrogen fusion involves the interaction of two hydrogen nuclei, protons. These two elementary particles have to be to all intents and purposes infinitely close befoere they “fuse”, releasing energy, and yielding deuterium, a further three stages of nuclear reactions take place before stable helium is produced. The size of the nucleus as compared with the size of the hydrogen atom is such that to contemplate nuclear reactions with the nuclei separated by such distances, with only trivial forces, is impossible to envisage. Having used nickel catalysts in high pressure hydogenation reaction some fifty years ago, I can readily believe that “spurious heat” may well be knocking about! Somewhere I suspect that money making is involved. Maskelyne and Devant did quite well””
Craig Binns, “Can’t find the quote there.” Page discusses “Novel Thin Film Sensors”. Quote exists near bottom of the page under heading, “Relevant Presentation:”
The point of the link is that Nasa, a respected organization in the scientific community has achieved effects from a ponds/Fleishmann style experiment, and Nasa reports that there are peer reviewed papers that show similar. In this light, wikipedia describes LENR as “pathological science”, and the US patent office rejects all LENR based applications.
Now, in light of this dicotomy, how do we interpret Mark Gibbs’ statement:
“If an experiment that demonstrates cold fusion has really been replicated in the real world by real scientists then why would the scientific community ignore something so profound?”
>> Experiments that demonstrate cold fusion have been replicated by real scientists.
>> The scientific community has ignored something so profound.
“As I understand it, hydrogen fusion involves the interaction of two hydrogen nuclei, protons.”
Rossi’s reaction appears to be a reaction between Nickel and hydrogen, producing Copper, not hydrogen + hydrogen producing helium.
Stars fuse hydrogen to produce helium, liberating energy. This process is very well understood. Hot fusionists are trying to replicate it by reproducing stellar conditions on earth. The only question is whether this can be achieved in practice, at an acceptable cost, within the limits of available technology.
But P&F were trying to achieve H+H fusion without replicating stellar conditions. It’s not known if this can be done. It was tried, and success was not demonstrated.
Getting nuclear energy out of nickel, on the other hand … Do you know of any process occurring in the natural world, by which this is achieved?
Do you know of any fusion process in nature involving nickel, which is exothermic?
I would like if someone would comment on the e-cath system compares with the development of active catalytic carbon the variant produced by Howard Philips at the Philips Company. Philips says that he has developed the worlds cheapest and most efficient catalyst for producing hydrogen. Samples can readily be obtained to verify his claims. This would give e-cath a great run for its money if it is true. I am pasting a link to this comment.
HYDROGEN Products News about Phillips Company Business Plans About Us Contact Us Home Registration
Hydrogen from H2O
at high flow rates
Using Catalytic Carbon
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/CT.pdf (Auto fuel test results)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/hhogames.pps (Presentation #1)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/DEMO.pps (Presentation #2)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/CCS.pdf (How CC works)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/MCC.pdf (How to obtain CC)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/FT.pdf (How to test CC)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/BMH.pdf (Business model)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/PRH.pdf (Press Release)
http://www.PhillipsCompany.4T.com/POD.pdf (Radio Broadcast)
Acknowledgment: The source of much of the information on this page is http://witcombe.sbc.edu/water/chemistryelectrolysis.html
That URL is a rich source of water chemistry information. The reader of the information below is encouraged to visit the witchombe.sbc.edu website for more information about basic water chemistry.
The theory of the reactor A.Rossi I know! Received a patent for a new energy method. This is steeper than that of A. Rossi. Method of multi-functional! And the chemical reactor and the reactor low-energy nuclear reactions, and the reactor is controlled cold fusion! Who would have bought the patent and know-how? For free, under the contract.
Теорию реактора А.Росси знаю я! Получен патент на новый энергетический способ. Это круче чем у А. Росси. Способ многофункциональный! И химический реактор, и реактор низкоэнергетической ядерной реакции, и реактор управляемого холодного термоядерного синтеза!!! Кто бы купил патент и ноу-хау? Отдам бесплатно, по контракту.
In both this and an earlier blog post, I’ve found nothing concrete at all. Concrete evidence seems to get lost – if it exists – in fatuous commentary that simply surrounds the controversy rather than resolves it.
Joe Shea,
There is nothing concrete re: Rossi. Whether it is because he can’t deliver, or because he chooses not to, he has not provided the world with concrete proof.
However
Of the phenomenon of Nickel + hydrogen LENR, there is a lot of concrete evidence. A single entry point to much of it can be found here: http://nickelpower.org/2011/12/30/replicators-as-if-december-30-2011/
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Ms Bonetto, your text is incomprehensible or totally misdirected.
Qualora fosse una traduzione automatica dall’italiano provi col testo originale.
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