Andrea Rossi, founder, leader, and technology driver at Leonardo Corporation has opened the ECAT LENR device's web site where pre-orders can be made. For those concerned about the risks, there isn't a provision for funding, entering personal financial details or entering other revealing personal details. One simply gets a place on the list. It's kind of like "take a number" at a retail establishment.
For now the pre-order will only move to an order on the process heat 1 mega watt unit. That would be due to the commercial nature, the ability to control liability, involve more high temperature experienced personnel, and get rolling sooner. The home sized unit is some ways off, more in a moment.
ECAT 1 MW Plant at Low Resolution. Click this link to go to the Leonardo Corp page for larger versions of the photographs. Image Credit: Graphics.se.
The 1 MW unit contains 106 smaller ECAT units mounted in a shipping container. A valve for topping off the hydrogen is on the front of each unit, together with an electrical connection to the immersion heater used to start the reaction. Each ECAT 1 MW unit is constructed inside an international standardized 20 foot container that can easily be moved using different modes of transportation as with ships, air cargo, trains and trucks.
Related article: What Could be Bigger than Shale -- How about LENR?
Each 1 MW unit consists of small parallel modules. Each reactor module contains three cores and consumes small amounts of treated nickel powder and hydrogen gas running under a pressure of approximately 15 bar. The plant is to be recharged by specially trained and certified personnel.
Of note, Mr. Rossi is still being quite careful. Potential customers must comply with several criteria set by Leonardo Corporation in order to qualify for a purchase of an ECAT 1MW plant. Don't think you'll be sneaking up on anything either, as pre-orders will be subjected to a routine due-diligence process.
The ECAT for homes is also a heat unit, not an electrical supplier. An ECAT would provide hot water and space heating plus other heat needs like swimming pools, hot tubs and even driveway clearing. More uses are sure to come up when heat gets really low cost.
The home sized model is being rigidly tested for certification and regulation procedures. Just where that process began and where it might lead and finally end is very much an unknown. Cold Fusion, or LENR or ECAT: all are new and for many a frightening idea. One can be certain that every bureaucracy at every level is going to bedevil the progress.
On the plus side Mr. Rossi has set up an inquiry field on the home unit page that will load your contact information. Interestingly, the first entry is a choice of buyer, investment, reseller, online affiliate, technology license, third party application, press and other. There is a lot of room here, perhaps even some career opportunity.
The first impression of your humble writer is Mr. Rossi has raised his level of professionalism for the market. No money allowed, it looks as if both sides of a deal will get full assurances and an opportunity for due diligence. Before long one would expect one or more running units for inspections. For all the miss steps early in the public domain, Andrea Rossi has admirably stepped up his game. Congratulations on that are in order with a bit of thanks as well.
Related article: Following Rossi's E-Cat, Another Cold Fusion Device Attracts Commercial Interest
That makes for quite a Thanksgiving Day. Should all the barriers to come in regulations, permitting and government interference be overcome, and Mr. Rossi make a commitment to start at an achievable price point both for the company's growth as well as mass consumer acceptance this week is a historical milestone.
For now the conclusive "It Works!" hasn't been heard, and that cry may not be an 'event' in the coming months. So for today let's give thanks for the ingenuity of mankind, the foresight and persistence of one and the promise of great hope for an energized future available to almost everyone.
Your humble writer thanks you and everyone else who stopped by over the past year.
Have a great day today.
By. Brian Westenhaus
Brian is the editor of the popular energy technology site New Energy and Fuel. The site’s mission is to inform, stimulate, amuse and abuse the… More
Comments
Why don't you ask Rossi who his partner is and why it needs to be secret? Why not ask him for the name of just ONE customer? He has never named a single one. Why don't you ask him who the mysterious and anonymous "certificators" are who are holding up the home ecat? Why don't you ask him how he enriches nickel isotopes cheaply? And most of all, why there has never been a single test of the ecat which was truly independent of Rossi and his close friend and associate Levi?
Deja Vu.......
His device converts electricity into heat. He has never demonstrated the ability to generate heat without having an electrical connection.
In the future, you should either ignore Mr. Rossi, and actually do some journalism and validate his claims...which are just claims until he proves them to a large audience of skeptical scientists who are allowed to experiment with the system when he and others are not in the room.
There is evidence throughout the past 100 years, accidental and otherwise proving that this is possible.
Three aspects most people don't realize is:
1. It is generating heat not electricity, it is therefore useless insofar for most energy needs.
2. It consumes more energy than reported since in addition to the electricity consumed to operate the reactor, nickel powder, which is treated for use in the system, is seemingly being consumed to generate the "excess" heat (energy).
3. There is a fair cost for the nickel fuel a good portion of which transmutates into copper, which is relatively half the value of nickel.