Rossi claims that the energy catalyzer is now stable at temperatures over 1,000C.
Rossi claims that the first non-military 1 Megawatt e-cat plant will be delivered and in operation within this year (2012 ? within 12 months of when he made the statement?).
In addition to using steam turbines to create electricity from E-Cat heat they are looking at methods for direct conversion to electricity.
Background
Andrea Rossi has been making many claims for the last 18 months that he and the companies he is working with have achieved breakthroughs which will enable commercialization of “cold fusion / low energy nuclear reactions” as an energy source.
He has claimed to have sold 1 megawatt (heat) reactors.
If these claims were true it would mean a radical transformation in energy technology. Costs could become ten times lower and it would enable a transformation of technology in general since energy is at the heart of our technological civilization. NASA has indicated that space access and technology would be transformed.
There have also been many who claim that Rossi is a fraud and the demonstrations of his systems have not looked technically competent. The demonstrations have not been convincing.
There are many others who are also making claims of significant improvement with cold fusion systems. The more solid technical demonstrations have been at vastly lower power levels. The better demonstrations had better data capture and have experiments that generated excess power for months (MIT demo). DARPA has a $34 million “cold fusion” project which has been claimed to have had excess heat for 2.5 days. DARPA was working the Italian energy department. NASA leadership (Bushnell, Zawodny) have indicated support and belief in evidence around the cold fusion area (but not direct support of Rossi’s work).
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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