Industrial Heat Plans Commercial Ecat Test Natural Gas Fired Ecat Explained
Industrial Heat LLC is conducting a one year test of Andrea Rossi’s ecat low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) technology. The test is apparently designed to test ecat’s utility as a commercially viable energy source.
Natural Gas could be the energy source for Ecat
North Carolina based Industrial Heat is the Cherokee Partners Funded venture that paid $11 million for the rights to ecat in January 2014. If successful the test could be the most important demonstration of LENR yet. Unfortunately Rossi gave no verification of these claims. Rossi announced the test on his blog in the following post:
Andrea Rossi
November 16th, 2014 at 11:54 AM
Dr Joseph Fine:
We will publish a report of the 1 MW plant used by the Customer of IH for his industrial purposes after 1 year of regular operation, when we will be able to give evidence ( if so) of the real profitability of the technology, Beyond the laboratory tests: this is the obvious next step of our evolution.
I do not know what the Professors of the ITP will make, because they are totally independent from us.
Warm Regards,
Rossi did not say where the test will take place but his remarks indicate that the physics professors who conducted the last two rounds of ecat testing in Lucerne, Switzerland, could be involved in the this test. Presumably the test will take place in North Carolina where Industrial Heat is based.
The last Ecat test involved 32 days of monitoring so this sounds like the most ambitious demonstration yet. Rossi did not say whether the ecat in the test would be generate electricity or not. Nor did say whether it would be the electric or gas fired version of the device.
Rossi also revealed a few details about the ecat and his gas fired device to a correspondent named Pekka Janhunen. He noted that his team is experimenting with natural gas in an attempt to reduce costs.
It currently takes around three kilowatt hours (kHw) of electricity to make megawatt of heat with the ecat, Rossi noted. A kilowatt hour is equivalent to 1,000 watt hours or 3.6 megajoules of electricity. He pointed to the falling price of natural gas the main reason for investigating the possibility of a natural gas fired device.
The industrial price of 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas fell from $6.35 in March 2014 to $4.88 according to the US Energy Information Agency. Natural gas prices in the United States have collapsed in recent years because of fracking.
One hopes that Rossi will present some actual proof of these tests and allow any scientist that wants to examine the Industrial Heat ecat. If he does not all he’ll do is create more doubts.
Continue reading here: LENR/Cold Fusion Year in Review
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