# Lifestyles & Discussion > Science & Technology >  Italian Scientist Achieves Cold Fusion

## smartguy911

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-...r-latest-demo/

----------


## anaconda

10X energy return does not sound all that great yet. But I'm glad they are sticking with it and making some progress.

----------


## Aratus

again, another demo?

----------


## Xenophage

*cough* bull$#@! *cough, cough*

----------


## Kludge

Fox News floats rumors that the Navy was the customer who became the first customer and will purchase the first unit once it's inspected to ensure it functions as stated. The price comes to $2m per unit, $2k/killawatt. Let's assume a killawatt-hour costs ~$.14. Nearly two years to pay for itself, excluding whatever's required to maintain power output.

"...Sterling Allan, CEO of the alternative energy news agency Pure Energy Systems, told FoxNews.com he attended Rossi’s demonstration and the E-Cat is self sustaining.“ What Rossi demonstrated was 470 kilowatts of continuous output in self-sustain mode -- meaning the output was enough to keep the thing running on its own,” he told FoxNews.com.
Allan hinted on his blog that an unnamed “customer” of Rossi's device is a military organization that starts with an N. Rossi said this customer measured and verified the test -- and told FoxNews.com that Paul Swanson with the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems unit (SPAWAR) can vouch for the demonstration.

FoxNews.com spoke with a man at SPAWAR who identified himself as Swanson, and who said only that he was "not in a position to talk to the press." Several other sources within the Navy and the Pentagoneither declined to comment or did not return messages.

The Navy has long been interested in cold fusion research. At a 2009 meeting of the American Chemical Society, chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of SPAWAR revealed what she and colleagues claimed was the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) devices work.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/02/andrea-rossi-italian-cold-fusion-plant/#ixzz1d0lwU17d"

----------


## Kelly.

i wish they would build a 5k home type system.

----------


## Icymudpuppy

John Galt's Atmospheric engine?

----------


## fisharmor

You may want to update the thread title to indicate that this isn't the same thread as the last couple.

----------


## fisharmor

Ok, just found out why this is a non-starter.
E-Cat is supposed to be able to take Nickel and Hydrogen and fuse them into Copper and Iron.
Nickel spot price is > $8/lb.
Copper spot price is about $3.50/lb.
Iron price isn't worth mentioning.

I think we need to see some masses.  If they're transmuting more than a couple grams of nickel for every kWh, it really doesn't matter whether it works.

----------


## angelatc

Mamma mia! Just in time to save the economy!

----------


## libertyjam

> Ok, just found out why this is a non-starter.
> E-Cat is supposed to be able to take Nickel and Hydrogen and fuse them into Copper and Iron.
> Nickel spot price is > $8/lb.
> Copper spot price is about $3.50/lb.
> Iron price isn't worth mentioning.
> 
> I think we need to see some masses.  If they're transmuting more than a couple grams of nickel for every kWh, it really doesn't matter whether it works.


For some back of the envelope calculations, from http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=473 , it could be about on the order of .000116 g/kWhr.

----------


## libertyjam

> *cough* bull$#@! *cough, cough*


You may be eating those words:

http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=510
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=338
http://www.bookrags.com/research/cold-fusion-wop/
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-696792
http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html
http://ecatnews.com/?p=1144

----------


## BuddyRey

What are the practical applications of this?

Stupid question I guess, but not if you slept through nuclear physics in high school.

----------


## gerryb

> What are the practical applications of this?
> 
> Stupid question I guess, but not if you slept through nuclear physics in high school.


Local control of energy production(outside input would be Nickel).  With the calculation in the above post, it means you would get 8620 kwh from a gram of nickel.  8620 kwh has a value of $1,293 if valued at 15 cents per kwh.

Energy won't be valued at 15 cents per kwh any longer, it should be drastically reduced.  Which means productivity will drastically increase.  More machine power, less human muscle power.

Means we can use something other than oil to sustain ourselves.

----------


## BuddyRey

> Local control of energy production(outside input would be Nickel).  With the calculation in the above post, it means you would get 8620 kwh from a gram of nickel.  8620 kwh has a value of $1,293 if valued at 15 cents per kwh.
> 
> Energy won't be valued at 15 cents per kwh any longer, it should be drastically reduced.  Which means productivity will drastically increase.  More machine power, less human muscle power.
> 
> Means we can use something other than oil to sustain ourselves.


Thanks!  That does sound amazing!

----------


## Aratus

^! ~if~ !^

----------


## Kludge

Coal plant was recently put up (or may still be under construction?) in WI.

The coal plant produces 300MW for $1.1b upfront. E-Cat machines give 1MW for $2m upfront.

Don't need to find $/kWh, just multiply the $2m number by 300 to get the equivalent price for the amount of power the coal plant produces. E-Cat costs $600m to produce the same amount of electricity as a coal plant which costs $1.1b upfront.

Here're some excerpts from an electricity bill. $.1254/KWH is the total cost, but only $.079/KWH comes from actual electricity generation, the rest being mostly distribution charges (and the rest being BS charges like "consumer education charges," "smart meter charges," "solar requirements charge," etc).  So, I'd assume the E-Cat machine needs to be able to beat $.079/kWh including overhead fees for the power generation corporation.

Going off earlier posts in the thread, it takes one gram of nickel to produce 8,620kWh. Nickel price is terribly volatile, but let's assume $8.50/lb (1lb being ~453.6g). $/g nickel comes to $.01874. So that's $.01874/8620kWh, or $.000002174/kWh in material costs. Practically nothing. 30% of nickel is allegedly turned to copper after 6 months of operation, but that'll be negligible, too.

Add to that material cost $.0464 in non-generation charges and the unknown variable of how much labor costs are. You basically are still at $.0464/kWh + labor. I found a paper from Berkeley saying that in conventional power plants, labor is ~10% of total generation costs, and if we assume coal plants require the same amount of labor as E-Cat machines (even though we have no idea whether or not that's true -- 10%/gencosts of coal power is $.0079/kWh using generation costs I found earlier in this post), we get a rough guesstimate of $.0543/kWh using these E-Cat machines.

So, as long as these E-Cat machines don't require 10x or more labor than coal plants (which seems unlikely if they'll run for 6+ months without maintenance, which may be a misconception on my part), don't require a massive amount of nickel, and there's no situation where lobbyists shut down production and/or operation of the machines.... Looks like it may result in electricity prices halving, assuming this machine is legit.

----------


## John F Kennedy III

> John Galt's Atmospheric engine?


Who is John Galt?

----------


## gerryb

Kludge;
The electricity cost would more than halve.  Using these devices(as presented), instead of a 300MW plant, you could have 20MW or 1MW plants co-located with industry or neighborhoods that utilize the energy.  This cuts down transmission costs, or eliminates them.  Depending on what labor is required for maintenance this may or may not be feasible, but it sounds like it is from the reports.

Not sure where your "non generation" costs came from..

For me, I would get a 5kw machine for the $10k price they are advertising, and have entirely free energy after the 555 days(minus maintenance) it takes to pay it off at current energy prices.

If it looks to good to be true...

----------


## Kludge

> Kludge;
> The electricity cost would more than halve.  Using these devices(as presented), instead of a 300MW plant, you could have 20MW or 1MW plants co-located with industry or neighborhoods that utilize the energy.  This cuts down transmission costs, or eliminates them.  Depending on what labor is required for maintenance this may or may not be feasible, but it sounds like it is from the reports.
> 
> Not sure where your "non generation" costs came from..
> 
> For me, I would get a 5kw machine for the $10k price they are advertising, and have entirely free energy after the 555 days(minus maintenance) it takes to pay it off at current energy prices.
> 
> If it looks to good to be true...


Non-generation costs are coming from an electric bill. Bulk of non-generation costs are distribution charges. It'll be interesting to see how pricing works out. The $2k/kWh price may be subsidized to attract initial interest, and producing smaller machines would almost certainly bump up the upfront price/kWh. The 1MW machine is a prototype, and I'd imagine they're looking at producing much larger machines in the future, not tiny DIY kits. I don't imagine this becoming a situation where utility companies decide to put small versions of these in every town, but will stay large power plants as they have now, to reap the benefits of fewer upkeep costs by concentrating operations. You can bet politicians'll make it illegal to own or operate one without some type of certification. Having a bunch of home-owners messing around with kilowatts of current? No way. -- And this is all assuming the machine works as advertised.

Edit: This doesn't include the equipment you'd need to go along with the machine, too. We don't know what the voltage output is, how efficient it'd be to transform that power to standard home voltage & current @ 120v. You need a high-end power inverter, a custom-built circuit breaker or that's another potentially dangerous DIY project... a grid-tie system if you want to sell excess power to the electric company, a battery bank and associated equipment for when the generator needs to be maintained or if it stops functioning, as well as for times when you use over 5kW of electricity (this could be solved by having a connection to the grid, however)... Those could easily double the cost of a small set-up, and reason why this technology will probably be near-exclusively by corporations. All of these components will definitely reduce the efficiency, too.

----------


## gerryb

I think you're overestimating a lot of the complexity for the non fusion items.  Solar or wind has laid the groundwork for grid-tie and it isn't particularly difficult, costly, or unusual.  Inverters will add about $1k/kw.  Time due to permitting is the only pain in the ass with grid tie.

The unknown to me at this point is if their cost estimate includes the electrical generation or not.  Their technology breakthrough is for producing heat.  Generating electricity from heat is not difficult, but if that component is not included in the $2/watt estimate then it will add some expense.

They are advertising this as being small, rather than large gen.  This is the reason I am a skeptic.  They are doing the 1MW facility as "proof" so no one can deny the technology works, by connecting lots of the smaller modules in series.  They could easily prove the smaller system by demonstration and save the trouble, if it works and scales how they have advertised.

----------


## KCIndy

> Ok, just found out why this is a non-starter.
> E-Cat is supposed to be able to take Nickel and Hydrogen and fuse them into Copper and Iron.
> Nickel spot price is > $8/lb.



http://www.economist.com/node/2076774?story_id=2076774
_Nickel is a potential bonanza for Cuba. Exports of nickel and cobalt totalled $600m last year, more than sugar. The island is the world's sixth-biggest nickel producer and holds 30% of the world's reserves of the metal, used in stainless steel and other alloys. The United States is a big nickel-importer, and Cuba's natural market; but the trade embargo means that American firms can do no more than sniff around. So Europe takes three-quarters of Cuba's nickel._


Screw oil!  Time to go to war for NICKEL!!

Remember the Maine, boys, remember the Maine!!!!   



Oh, nuts.  If Nickel becomes the next oil, I can see what's coming next!

----------


## fisharmor

> The unknown to me at this point is if their cost estimate includes the electrical generation or not.  Their technology breakthrough is for producing heat.  Generating electricity from heat is not difficult, but if that component is not included in the $2/watt estimate then it will add some expense.


Yeah, I don't know if that part is really coming through: these machines don't produce electricity.
Generating electricity from heat isn't difficult, but it can be effin' expensive.

The method du jour is superheated steam run through a turbine.  Which has two problems - first, superheated steam is likely more dangerous than the fusion reaction (based on their claims, that is), and second, turbines aren't ubiquitous in the market for a very simple reason: cost.
I guarantee that the costs cited don't include steam turbine electricity generation.

The other thing that they could do is stirling engines, but stirlings require a temperature difference to work as well.  Meaning you're trying to cool the heat generated by a nuclear fusion (some of it is always going to be waste heat).

----------


## mczerone

I really hope this is legit, but my biggest fear comes from the evidence that the newly formed copper only comes in naturally occurring ratios of stable isotopes.

The normal creation/decay of copper nuclei predicts high radioactivity, yet none is seen from this reaction.

I hope some explanation can be made because the process involves some resonance frequency/quantum effects, but I'm not holding my breath.

----------


## squarepusher

this thread again?

----------


## stuntman stoll

cut the bs. Is this true or not?  
It's hard for me to believe being that $billions have, and currently are being spent on fusion reactors, and they are only getting close to producing a net positive power output.  Even then, there are so many neutrons being emitted that the machines themselves would rapidly break down if there was a constant reaction. (however that is with hydrogen, this is with nickel)

----------

