Last week, Andrea Rossi made a visit to Sweden, and apart from meeting with the team of professors in Uppsala, with me and other persons, he made a trip from Stockholm to the south of Sweden to have look at a 10,000 square meter factory building for sale. The day after, assisted by his Northern Europe partner and licensee Hydrofusion, Rossi made an offer on the building in the order of USD 3 to 5 million. Negotiations are now ongoing.

Obviously, making an offer is not the same as buying, but Rossi made it clear to me that he intended to buy the factory building, aiming at starting manufacturing of the third generation E-Cat reactor, called the Quark X, hopefully this year, otherwise in 2017, with an estimated production volume of 500,000 items a year, using a robot line provided by ABB.

Rossi said he had no other funding than the 11.5M he already received from his licensee Industrial Heat, according to their license agreement, which is now subject to a lawsuit. He said that he estimated the costs for the lawsuit to amount to 1M.

Even buying a factory building is no proof that production will start. Critics, accusing Rossi for being a fraudster, will assume that it could be a way to attract investors, but I honestly wouldn’t expect a fraudster to make use of such expensive schemes. Especially not since it would be quite fine just getting away with 11.5M without further trouble.

I would take this as a strong indication that the modular Quark X, supposedly big as a pen, producing heat, light and direct electricity at variable proportions at a total power of about 100W, based on the E-Cat LENR technology with hydrogen, lithium, aluminium and nickel in the fuel, is real. Rossi, however, said that there’s still R&D to be done to get the Quark X ready for production. He also said that the ‘X’ had no other meaning than being a substitute for a final name.

After my meeting with Rossi (first time for me since September 2012), I have a few other updates.

Claiming that everything he said could be proven with documents (or that he otherwise would be lying), Rossi told me regarding the one-year 1MW test that:

• All the instruments for measurements were installed, under observation of IH and Rossi, by the ERV (Expert Responsible for Validation) Fabio Penon, who had been communicating also with Darden, receiving technical suggestions from him on this matter. All communications with the ERV were made with both Darden and Rossi in copy.
• The flow meter was mounted according to all standard requirements, for example at the lowest point in the system.
• The MW plant was placed on blocks, 33 cm above the ground, to make sure that leaking water or any hidden connections would become visible.
• The two IH representatives present at the test were Barry West and Fulvio Fabiani (who worked for Rossi from January 2012 until August 2013, when the MW plant was delivered to IH in North Carolina, after which he was paid by IH as an expert who would make the technology transition from Rossi to IH easier). West and Fabiani reported to JT Vaughn every day on the phone.
• Three interim reports, about every three months, with basically the same results as in the final report, were provided by the ERV during the test.
• During summer 2015, IH offered Rossi to back out from the test and cancel it, with a significant sum of money as compensation. Rossi’s counter offer was to give back the already paid 11.5M and cancel the license agreement, but IH didn’t accept.
• The unidentified customer (‘JM Products’) using the thermal energy from the MW plant, had its equipment at the official address—7861, 46th Street, Doral, Fl. The total surface of the premises was 1,000 square meters, of which the MW plant used 400 and the customer 600.
• The equipment of the customer measured 20 x 3 x 3 meters, and the process was running 24/7.
• The thermal energy was transfered to the customer with heat exchangers and the heat that was not consumed was vented out as hot air through the roof.
• The water heated by the MW plant was circulating in a closed loop, and since the return temperature was varying, due to different load in the process of the customer, Rossi insisted that the energy corresponding to heating the inflowing cooled water (at about 60˚C) to boiling temperature would not be taken into account for calculating the thermal power produced by the MW plant. The ERV accepted. (This was conservative, decreasing the calculated thermal power. The main part of the calculated thermal power, however, derives from the water being evaporated when boiling).
• He also insisted that an arbitrary chosen 10 percent should be subtracted in the power calculation, with no other reason than to be conservative. The ERV accepted.
• IH never had access to the customer’s area. At the end of the test, an expert hired by IH, insisted that it was important to know where the water came from and where it was used. The ERV explained that this had no importance.
• The average flow of water was 36 cubic meters per day.
• At the end of the test, the ERV dismounted all the instruments by himself, in the presence of Rossi and IH, packed them and brought everything to DHL for transportation to the instrument manufacturers who would recalibrate the instruments and certify that they were not manipulated.
• After the test, IH wanted to remove the MW plant from the premises in Florida, but Rossi would not accept until the remaining $89M were paid according to the license agreement. Rossi’s and IH’s attorneys then agreed that both parties should lock the plant with their own padlocks (as opposed to the claim by Dewey Weaver—a person apparently connected to IH, but yet not clear in what way—that ‘IH decided to padlock the 1MW container after observing and documenting many disappointing actions and facts’).

I should also add that I have been in contact with people with insight into the MW report, that hopefully will get public this summer as part of the lawsuit, and they told me that based on the contents, the only way for IH to claim a COP about 1 (that no heat was produced—COP, Coefficient of Performance, is Output Energy/Input Energy) would be to accuse Penon of having produced a fake report in collaboration with Rossi. Nothing in the report itself seems to give any opportunity for large mistakes, invalidating the claim of a high COP (as opposed to claims by people having talked about the report with persons connected to IH).

As for hints on the ERV Penon being incompetent, based partly on the HotCat report from August 2012, I would like to point out:

• Fabio Penon has a degree in Nuclear Engineering, from Bologna University, with rating 100 of 100 and honors.
• He worked for several years in the nuclear industry with thermo mechanics.
• When the nuclear industry was put on hold in Italy, he turned to work as expert on product certification, collaborating with entities such as Bureau Veritas, Vertiquality and Det Norske Veritas.
• The HotCat report from August 2012, signed by Penon, containing a few notable errors, was not written by Penon. Penon assisted at a test on August 7, 2012, repeating an experiment made on July 16, 2012. The report was written on the July test, and Penon was only confirming that similar results were obtained on the August test. Penon told me this in an interview in September, 2012. You could of course accuse Penon of not having studied the original report sufficiently before signing it, but the errors were not a result of Penon’s work.

Two further remarks regarding earlier E-Cat tests:

• I had a new look at the calculations of the October 6, 2011, test, which was recently disputed. A total of about 31 MJ of electric energy was input. At 0,9 g/s, a total of about 26 kg of water was input during the test from 11 am until 7 pm. Heating this water from 25 to 116 degrees centigrade requires about 10 MJ. During the last 5 hours, 16 kg of this water was also evaporated, which required about 36 MJ. An estimated 100W was radiated from the E-Cat for at least 5h, making about 2MJ. The E-Cat was leaking a significant amount of hot water during large parts of the test. Even without taking this lost thermal energy into account, about 48MJ was released and 31MJ input, which gives a rough COP of 1.5.
  (Boiling at 116˚C assumes an internal pressure of about 1.7 bars—lower pressure would mean lower boiling point and longer period of boiling, with more energy released—116˚C was the final temperature, when the water was still boiling, before interrupting the test).
• I have contacted several experts to get a third party evaluation of the Lugano test report and the contesting papers by Thomas Clarke and Bob Higgins. Until I receive these evaluations I only note that the original result is contested, but that no conclusive result is agreed upon. The isotopic shifts remain unexplained, unless you assume fraud.

§

Now, all this makes me conclude that the E-Cat is most probably valid and that the 1MW test was indeed successful. What remains to be explained is why IH in that case didn’t pay Rossi the final $89M and continued to partner with him to develop and market such a disruptive, world changing technology.

After looking at it for some time, I tend to be skeptic about the conspiracy hypothesis, involving large financial and political interests being threatened by such a technology, even though I find it remarkable that IH has involved APCO Worldwide and Jones Day.

I then ask myself if it’s really possible that it all comes down to money. That IH/Cherokee, as has been suggested, has a track record of putting up companies based on emerging technologies or remediation projects, collecting public and private funding (or also this link), making the funds disappear and then closing down the companies with reasonable explanations for unsuccessful development of the technology or of the project.

Admittedly, this could be a defendable strategy in some cases where results could be obtained. Still, if the E-Cat is really working as claimed, why wouldn’t they then take the chance to build it into a prospering money machine? Taking care of the magic hen that lays golden eggs instead of roasting it after having collected the first egg, as some would put it. I cannot figure it out.

Clearly, such an endeavour would require investing a lot of money and work, spending large parts, if not all of the funding IH collected while boasting about the successful MW test, and also taking a market risk that it might not play out as expected. But wouldn’t it be worth it? Becoming remembered for introducing a technology that could change and literally save the planet, from the climate crisis and from fossil fuel pollution? Rather than being forever remembered as those who only saw the money, and didn’t want to get involved in the technology project? I just cannot understand.

§

Finally—I will continue having the comments on this blog closed. The main reason is that few new facts have been presented, whereas unmanageable amounts of opinions have been posted.

I would like to apologise if I have hinted at Thomas Clarke’s having an agenda with his impressive number of comments. I want to assume that Clarke is perfectly honest in the significant work he has laid down on analysing the Lugano report and on commenting what, according to him, is probable or not. But I would also like to note that producing for some periods up to 34 posts per day hints at a position which I’m not sure if it should be called balanced. This, combined with obvious spin from a few people, apparently having an agenda in criticising some individuals, adds to my decision to keep the comments closed.

However, please share the post if you think t’s relevant, and feel free to email me if you have facts that you think I should be aware of.