Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / August 2011

THE FUSION REVOLUTION
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http://renewable.50webs.com/fusion.html
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    When the first human animal figured out how to make fire at will,
life on earth changed forever.  The fictional character Sherlock
Holmes once said that "When you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."  Using that
logic, I have come to the conclusion that fossil fuels will soon
become obsolete, and human history will again be dramatically
altered.  A total switchover to fusion power will take decades, but
basic economics tells us that fusion reactors will win in the
marketplace over their more costly competitors.  Imagine a clean new
world where oil and coal are only used to make chemicals, and where
every nation on earth has equal access to low cost energy.  Scientist
Andrea Rossi's "Energy Catalyzer" (E-Cat) pressure fusion reactor
promises to accomplish all of this and more.
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    What fuels the E-Cat?  Rossi states that he uses micrometer grain
sized nickel dust enriched to contain more of two useful isotopes,
N-62 and N-64.  The nickel is then processed to increase the number of
surface tubercles (protrusions) to provide greater area for heat
producing reactions with hydrogen gas under pressure.  A secret
catalyst is added to break apart the molecular hydrogen gas (H2) into
atomic hydrogen (H1).  Rossi states that the total cost of nickel
processing plus the catalyst adds just 10% to the total cost of the
fuel.  Heat is applied to the pressurized nickel-hydrogen mixture to
get the reaction started.  The ordinary resistive style heating
elements are quickly turned off as the low energy nuclear reactions
(LENR) become self-sustaining.  This energetic process drives the
nuclei of hydrogen atoms into the heart of nickel, turning small
amounts of nickel isotopes N-62 and N-64 into the copper isotopes
CU-63 and CU-65.  Every 6 months the fuel load is refreshed and the
old metallic fuel is sold as valuable scrap metal.
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    Rossi says E-Cat technology can produce electricity at a cost of
just one cent per kilowatt hour.  Even if we skeptically triple that
cost to 3 cents per kilowatt hour, the E-Cat is still a bargain.  We
currently pay at least 40 cents per kilowatt hour for intermittent
electricity produced from solar panels, 15 cents per kilowatt hour for
unpredictable wind power, and 8 cents per kilowatt hour for natural
gas.  Rossi states that one pound of nickel can unleash as much energy
as burning 517,000 pounds of oil, which is approximately 1,590 barrels
worth.  Fortunately, the earth has enough easily mineable nickel to
supply all of our energy needs for millions of years.
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    In 2007 Rossi asked Professor Sergio Focardi to help him test his
E-Cat prototype and verify that it did not emit dangerous radiation.
Conventional "hot" nuclear fusion using lasers to super-heat deuterium
and tritium creates so much radiation that it would be impossible to
shield in a small, portable device like the E-Cat.  Through extensive
testing the two scientists found no dangerous levels of radiation
escaping from the E-Cat’s lead lined fusion chamber.  No radioactive
materials are used in the reactor's construction, and the temporary
internal gamma ray radiation produced by pressure fusion stops when
the reactor is turned off, leaving behind no residual radioactive
elements and zero toxic waste.  After four years of studying the E-
Cat, Professor Sergio Focardi gleefully declared that "This is the
greatest discovery in human history," and went on to say that "The
results will be immense: clean energy at (almost) zero cost."
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The men behind the most important invention of the 21st century
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Andrea Rossi - Master of Science and Engineering from the Università
Degli Studi Di Milan.  His degree is also known as "Philosophy of
Science and Engineering,"but it is a broad science and engineering
degree, not a degree in classical philosophy.  Andrea Rossi has been
an accomplished engineer since age 22, starting and owning several
energy related businesses.
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Sergio Focardi - Professor Emeritus of Experimental Physics at the
Università di Bologna and author of numerous books and scientific
articles.  Focardi has a history of researching nickel-hydrogen fusion
even before teaming up with Andrea Rossi.
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Christos Stremmenos - Former physics professor at the Università di
Bologna and former Greek ambassador to Italy.  Stremmenos has many
social ties to the current Greek Government because of his history of
valiant political opposition to the military dictatorship in Greece
during in the 1960s.  Stremmenos researched nickel-hydrogen fusion
before meeting Andrea Rossi.
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    Sometime in the year 2010 Andrea Rossi contacted Dr. Joseph Levi,
a physics professor at the University of Bologna associated with the
Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).  After
conducting preliminary tests in private, Levi set up an historic
public demonstration on January 14, 2011, attended by 50 scientists
from the University of Bologna and the INFN.  The E-Cat produced 12.4
kilowatts of heat with an input of just 0.4 kilowatts, a gain of 31
times input power.  In a third test conducted by Levi, the E-Cat
produced a minimum of 15 kilowatts of heat continuously for 18 hours.
Levi stated that "Now that I have seen the device work for so many
hours, in my view all chemical energy sources are excluded.”  On
occasion, E-Cats have been powered up to produce over 130 kilowatts of
heat, but Rossi wants to sell his first generation E-Cats in a powered
down configuration to make sure they are completely safe.
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    On March 29th, 2011, two Swedish scientists participated in a
test of Rossi's new mini E-Cat which produced over 4.4 kilowatts of
heat from a volume of only 50 cubic centimeters (3.05 cubic inches),
just one twentieth the size of the original one liter E-Cat
prototype.  Hanno Essén is an associate professor of theoretical
physics at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, and ironically a
former chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society.  Essén stated that
"In some way a new kind of physics is taking place.  It’s enigmatic,
but probably no new laws of nature are involved.  We believe it is
possible to explain the process with known laws of nature.”  He went
on to say that "We checked everything that could be checked, and we
could walk around freely and have a look at most of the equipment."
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    Sven Kullander, a Professor at Uppsala University and chairman of
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Energy Committee, also
participated in the test.  Kullander stated that  "My belief that
there is an energy development far beyond what one would expect has
been strengthened significantly as I have had the opportunity to see
the process for myself and perform measurements."  Their group report
stated that "Any chemical process for producing 25 kWh from any fuel
in a 50 cm3 container can be ruled out.  The only alternative
explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives
rise to the measured energy production."
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    Sherlock Holmes would ask what are the odds that Rossi, Focardi,
Levi, Essén, Kullander, Christos Stremmenos, and a dozen other top
scientists could all go insane at the same time, deciding to throw
away their reputations, careers, and scientific legacies by endorsing
a fraudulent energy scheme.  How could a public test closely observed
by 50 scientists be faked?  The E-Cat produced so much energy that if
the power had come from the wall socket, the power cord would have
melted.  No tiny hidden battery could have possibly unleashed so much
energy, and the small amount of hydrogen gas consumed during the
reactor test was independently measured at less than 1 gram, thus
simple combustion is ruled out as an energy source.  Overall hydrogen
consumption for the E-Cat is estimated at 0.01 grams of hydrogen to
produce 10 kilowatt hours of heat.  The only reasonable explanation
for the excess energy produced is some form of low energy nuclear
reaction (LENR).  Thus, no matter how improbable it is that Rossi and
others have discovered a new field of physics, it must be true
according to the practical logic of Sherlock Holmes.
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    Unlike the notoriously flawed "cold fusion" experiments using
deuterium and palladium conducted by Stanley Pons and Martin
Fleischmann in 1989, Rossi’s invention is decidedly "hot" in that the
reactor yields generous amounts of reliable heat.  The reaction is so
powerful that even a first year engineering student could easily
measure the E-Cat’s healthy net energy gain.  We therefore know with
certainty that the E-Cat’s energy is real and not an illusion created
by measuring error, a possibility that haunted the work of Pons and
Fleischmann.  Current production line E-Cats require no energy input
after the nuclear reactions have been initiated, so there is no longer
any question of incorrectly measuring energy input vs. energy output,
a topic that has been hotly debated by skeptics.
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    Rossi’s initial scientific paper on the E-Cat was rejected by
established journals because even Rossi himself could not come up with
a sufficiently detailed explanation of how the E-Cat works.  Building
an E-Cat is easier than explaining what happens inside the E-Cat’s
reactor core.  Andrea Rossi's explanation below has been edited for
clarity, and is from a recent EV World interview.
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    "To make it simple, what happens is that nickel has a
particularity that protons spread from it's surface with extreme
efficiency very close to the nucleus, even if repelled by the so
called coulomb barrier forces.  When we inject protons of hydrogen at
high pressures and temperatures, they go pretty close to the nucleus
of the nickel.  At those points we have nuclear effects that produce
gamma rays which add more energy.  We increase the pressure leading to
extremely high pressures... similar to ones that happen inside White
Dwarf stars.  In that situation the so called Gamow Factor, which is a
probabilistic calculation of the coulomb repelling forces, is
overcome.  At that point enough energy is produced to make it worth
being recorded." - Andrea Rossi
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    Professor Christos Stremmenos has submitted his ideas on how the
E-Cat functions here [ http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=497
], and Purdue University Professor Yeong E. Kim's paper on how Bose-
Einstein theory may explain the E-Cat phenomena can be found here
[http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim/BECNF-Ni-
Hydrogen.pdf ].  Remember that scientists and engineers do not invent
the laws of nature and can only attempt to explain the functions of
nature within the limitations of our own mortal human abilities.
Andrea Rossi himself has paid the University of Bologna to test the E-
Cat and come up with their own theories on how it works in a year long
study program to begin in November of 2011.
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    Much experimentation will be needed before the full potential of
E-Cat technology is realized, and as always the original inventor’s
work will be greatly improved upon by other scientists from around the
world.  As pressure fusion is a completely new, inherently nontoxic
technology, there are no regulatory barriers to slow its rapid
technological advance.  The growth of E-Cat use may thus be as
exponential in progression as the use of personal computers in the
1990s.  E-Cats may end up being sold by large chain stores and
familiar online retailers.  No precious metals are used in the low
cost, easy to manufacture E-Cats, and any company with the
technological skills required to build an air conditioner can produce
them in large numbers on assembly lines.  That means even poor,
relatively undeveloped countries will be able to manufacture them.
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    Finding safe ways to scale up E-Cat technology to the giant
gigawatt size needed to replace major fossil fuel and fission nuclear
power plants will take a few years of research by big corporations.
Rossi plans to install a one megawatt, American made E-Cat power
station in a factory in Greece in October, 2011.  If E-Cats turn out
to be as economical as expected, they will eventually be used to power
cars, trucks, trains, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft.  Imagine a
luxury sedan you could drive for thousands of miles without refueling,
or a small aircraft you could fly from New York to Beijing nonstop at
low cost.
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    A Greek company named Defkalion Green Technologies, led by Greek
scientist Professor Christos Stremmenos, will manufacture E-Cats for
the European and Asian markets.  The Government of Greece itself
tested the E-Cat for 10 days in July, 2011, and their report will be
published soon.  The American based company, Ampenergo, will handle
sales and technology licensing contracts in North and South America.
Andrea Rossi has already had private meetings with officials from NASA
who are interested in using E-Cat technology to build LENR powered
rockets.
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    To most of the world the E-Cat is a mysterious unknown.  To the
growing number of scientists and engineers on two continents who have
been working on this new form of low energy nuclear reaction (LENR),
the E-Cat is as proven, reliable, and believable as a Honda Civic.  As
we replace fossil fuels with energy from nickel-hydrogen fusion,
global greenhouse gas emissions will be dramatically reduced.  There
will be no risk of radioactive pollution because E-Cats contain no
radioactive or fissile materials.  Fusion power will put an end to
biofuels and all the environmental damage and food price
hyperinflation they create.  E-Cats will raise our standard of living
by lowering the cost of food, shelter, clothing, consumer goods,
transportation…everything.
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Christopher Calder
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THE FUSION REVOLUTION - http://renewable.50webs.com/fusion.html
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THE RENEWABLE ENERGY DISASTER - http://renewable.50webs.com/