The report I received on Jan. 17 from Francesco Celani, a physicist with the Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Frascati, Italy (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), gives me new confidence about the Rossi-Focardi device. If the data provided to Celani is correct and complete, the device is real and is demonstrating some excess heat – on demand, no less.
In the last year or so, Andrea Rossi created a Web site with a deceptive name, Journal of Nuclear Physics. In fact, the Web site appears to be exclusively about his work. He also told me the editor was a “team of scientists,’ but he acts on behalf of this team.
If confirmed, the Rossi-Focardi development would be a significant practical development for the LENR field. Despite my earlier misgivings about Rossi’s Web site promotion, I am upgrading my skepticism about the Rossi-Focardi device to cautious optimism.
What Is The Process?
Whatever the LENRs that are responsible for the device’s heat output, nickel-hydrogen reactions are not fusion, so this has nothing to do with the idea of “cold fusion.”
Researcher Jacques Dufour, retired from Shell and now a contractor with the French Laboratoire Des Sciences Nucléaires (CNAM), has speculated on neutron or proton capture on nickel to explain the mechanism. Unfortunately, proton capture requires astronomical forces to overcome the Coulomb barrier and is effectively invoking “cold fusion.”
Neutron capture, on the other hand, is different and theoretically feasible. In his conclusion, Dufour has cited the Widom-Larsen theory, published in the mainstream press by the European Physics Journal C, Pramana, and the American Chemical Society. The theory has also been cited by NASA, Johns Hopkins University and the Institute of Science in Society. (See New Energy Times Widom-Larsen Theory Portal for papers and references.)
“Strong nuclear signatures are expected from the Rossi energy amplifier,” Dufour writes. “It is of interest to note that in [Widom Larsen 'Theoretical Standard Model Rates of Proton to Neutron Conversions Near Metallic Hydride Surfaces'] a mechanism is proposed that strongly suppresses the gamma emission during the run (it is the same mechanism that creates very low energy neutrons, subsequently captured by the nickel).”
Despite the fact that the Widom-Larsen theory provides a viable explanation for the Rossi-Focardi work, a few cold fusion believers like radiochemist Edmund Storms (KivaLabs) and theorist Scott Chubb (Infinite Energy magazine) have suggested, in e-mails to their colleagues, that the Rossi-Focardi development validates “cold fusion.” The bad blood between Storms and Larsen goes back several years; Storms is a disgruntled ex-employee from Larsen’s company, Lattice Energy.
“The bottom line is that Rossi is initiating cold fusion and the reactions have all the characteristics observed when deuterium is used,” Storms wrote. “Nature has only one song but with different words.”
As a convenience to readers, the New Energy Times analysis of the characteristics of LENR is here.
The Storms analysis of the characteristics of “cold fusion” is here.
Chubb, knowing the improbability of proton-proton fusion at low energies, wrote that trace amounts of undetected deuterium in the hydrogen gas could explain the reaction as “cold fusion.” This assumes he can explain how D-D fusion occurs at low energies in the first place.
“How pure was the H2 gas?” Chubb wrote. “Magnetic effects and even a small amount of D2 could initiate the effect. The failure to monitor D2 in these experiments continues to be a question that has to be resolved.”
Chubb appears to be the only person who believes that not checking for trace quantities of D2 in the H2 is considered a failure and is a question that must be resolved.
Celani, who attended the demonstration, admonished his colleagues.
“Rossi-Focardi NEVER USED the words COLD FUSION energy/experiment,” Celani wrote. “They used the words “Energy Catalizer.”
Where Did the Idea Come From?
From what I know so far, the concept demonstrated on Jan. 14 by Rossi and his colleague Sergio Focardi, a retired physics professor from the University of Bologna, had been discovered by Francesco Piantelli, a retired professor of biophysics with the University of Siena.
In 2008, I chronicled the story of Piantelli’s discovery in two articles: “Deuterium and Palladium Not Required” and “Piantelli-Focardi Publication and Replication Path.”
Rossi and Focardi appear to have gone much further than Piantelli and taken the next steps toward development and practicality of their LENR device.
My confidence in the Rossi-Focardi work comes not only from Celani’s report but also, in large part, from my lab visits with Piantelli in 2007 and 2009 and my examination of his documentation. I remember that Piantelli let me take pictures of anything I wanted; he was not concerned that I might photograph anything proprietary. He explained to me that the proprietary aspects were the secret formulation of the nano-particle reactants and this was all in his head, he said, so there was no risk that I would reveal anything confidential.
As the expression goes, success has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. Many Italians, as well as Romanian Peter Gluck, who is also familiar with this history, have attested that the origin of this work comes from Piantelli. Rossi denies this.
“My process has nothing to do with the process of Piantelli,” Rossi wrote. “The proof is that I am making operating reactors; he is not.”
When I visited Piantelli, I began to understand some of the reasons that he had not moved his LENR work into commercialization. His real passion is to help heal people with cancer through his innovations in biophysics. He claims to have a very high success rate. I covered this in more detail in my 2008 article.
But why Piantelli has apparently neglected the development of this important energy technology or, alternatively, not freely released it to others is a partial mystery. Regardless of the personnel conflict, Rossi’s device appears to have far more to do with Piantelli’s process than Rossi is acknowledging.
I am relieved that Rossi and Focardi appear to have gone further than Piantelli and advanced this work. On the other hand, I am worried, because I know that what I have written here will likely bring predators to Rossi and Focardi as well as to Piantelli.
All three men have a right to stake their claims and withhold their intellectual property from the public. Does Rossi have clear title to this intellectual property? (Only his name is listed as inventor on the patent application.) If Rossi does, will he be able to keep the formulation a secret?
Assuming the validity of the work, Rossi now faces the challenge of making development agreements that are agreeable to him, as well as protect against industrial espionage. Piantelli will face potential industrial espionage, as well, because I have now revealed that he holds some of these secrets. I do not envy either of them.
Rossi has, to his credit, answered all of my questions. In order to preserve his words as closely as possible, we have not edited them for clarity or English grammar:
Q. What is your academic qualification?
A. I am a doctor in the Philosophy of Science and Engineering from the Universita’ Degli Studi Di Milano [University of Milan].
Q. What is your affiliation or relationship with the University of Bologna?
A. None.
Q. What was your objective to hold a public demonstration and seek media attention?
A. I had been requested from many sides to make this. I thought this could be useful. We are close to put in the market our product, and this has prepared the consequent necessary communication work.
Q. What has been the best total energy balance produced by your device?
A. I can say that in many tests, also made in the USA, where we manufacture our reactors, we turn off the resistance and the reactor is self-sustaining. In this case, the factor is very high. But it is dangerous, so we maintain the drive and stay below 10K for the reactors which have to be operated in the market.
Q. What has been the best power produced by your device?
A. Please see above.
Q. For how long did that power level sustain?
A. Until we maintained a proper hydrogen pressure.
Q. Can you please send me papers or documents providing the most scientific support and documentation of your device?
A. I will mail you the report of the Bologna test, which has been made rigorously by a third party. I didn’t know the three professors who made the test. They decided the circuit configuration. They certified the measurements instrumentation.
Q. Are you claiming this to be “cold fusion” or some new kind of low-energy nuclear reaction?
A. I think that the definition “cold fusion” is wrong in itself. What I claim is a weak nuclear reactions energy. As you already know, I think that there is still much work and study to do on the theoretical field to understand exactly why this reactor works. This path is difficult, because all physics can say to help you is that these reactions are impossible (thank you very much), while in the books, you can find nothing. Also, the more important books (for me, Greiner and Cooks) do not give solutions. We have to invent from the base also in the theoretical field.
As far as Rossi’s story of a self-sustaining reactor, I am inclined to believe it. It is very similar to a story that Piantelli told me. And I have seen the melted metal in Piantelli’s lab.
Here is an excerpt from my 2008 account:
*****************************************
Piantelli has an exciting story to tell of another experiment that, for few hours, was out of control. It was sometime around September 1993, before Piantelli-Focardi group’s first published paper on the subject. Around 7 in the evening, he looked at the monitor for the experiment. Something didn’t look right. The temperature was increasing rapidly. He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he kill the experiment, and if so, how would he stop it?
A rapidly increasing temperature in an enclosed steel container could be a big, big problem. He was afraid. He wondered whether he should leave the building. Instead he called Focardi in Milano—at 2 in the morning—and asked, “What should I do?” This was before Piantelli knew about the poisoning effect of deuterium. But Focardi came up with a workable idea: introduce nitrogen. And it worked. It stopped the uncontrolled temperature rise and killed the experiment.
Piantelli didn’t know how hot the experiment had gotten before he killed it because the monitor eventually blacked out. However, the metal thermocouples inside the cell melted. This told him that the temperature exceeded 1450 C. Understandably, he was angry because these experiments take a long time to run and he had to abandon it prematurely.
“It’s not good when they run too hot,” Piantelli said. “400 C is a much better range.”
*****************************************
William Collis, the founder of the International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, questions Rossi’s ethics in his failure to tell the public and the media about Piantelli’s prior work.
“I find it disturbing that nobody mentioned Piantelli’s pioneering work in this field,” Collis wrote. “Worse still, yesterday’s financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore (page 18), reporting on the seminar, referred erroneously to work done in Siena by Focardi & Rossi!!”
Teamwork, people.
Interesting developments, but not actual validation.
But I’ll upgrade from outright skepticism to cautious skepticism…
This article quotes one of the papers I wrote on the ‘Journal of Nuclear physics’ last May. Indeed, the expected radiations are not in line with the thermal effects observed. I wrote a second paper in the same journal (July) ‘Is the Rossi amplifier the first pico-chemical reactor.’ This paper describes an elegant way to explain the discrepancies observed. I shall give a detailed presentation on this concept in Chennai next month, with experimental results.
I’d feel a lot more confident about this if they would simply protect themselves with a patent and publish how it works for peer review, instead of acting like scam artists.
The technology is commonly viewed as to-good-to-be-true (I’ve done market research), so it naturally seems a scam. I mean how often does such a significant breakthrough occur? The future is usually like the past – until it isn’t. Did you read why the Italian government turned down their patent for this device – it was partially because the claim was outlandish (i.e. “free” energy). Don’t worry, there is too much money in this for it to go dead, even though the mainstream media appears resistant to reporting on it (even as an oddity).
I see too many scientist shouting and crying before testing ………
PROVE THE SCAM OR SIMPLY BE QUIET
“Success has many fathers…”
This process is exactly what Blacklighpower invented years ago. Nickiel metal + hydrogen gas + temperature + certain elements like K3+ gives energy gain.
The only different is energy gain explanation. By Blacklightpower it is lower energy states of hydrogen, so called Hydrino.
By italians- they claim Cold Fusion.
Cheers,
Wojciech
Thanks to Wojciech, who has identified an apparent inconcistency. It seems that at least Focardi – and who knows what Rossi had to do with this – claimed “cold fusion” to reporter Marco Pivato.
http://www.ilrestodelcarlino.it/bologna/cronaca/2011/01/13/441795-realizzato_fusione_fredda.shtml
Not that I know what I’m talking about but – here are a few observations:
1) Randal Mills claims to produce energy in excess of calculated chemical reactions from a mixture of Nickel and Hydrogen (and other things). He claims the result is the product of dropping the electron location in the Hydrogren atom to produce Hydrinos. The excess energy was validated by a university engineering department.
2) Unlike the scientist above, Randal publishes the chemicals used in the proces. You can see it at http://www.blacklightpower.com
3) Could the formula be the same as these scientists are using? Who knows? might be interesting.
I remember reading on the Blacklight website years ago that they showed an outside company the hydrogen in nickel chamber experiment producing heat so I don’t see how this guy is not aware of that if he is an inventor in this field.
“Success has many fathers”? Maybe.
According to the New Energy Times article “Piantelli-Focardi Publication and Replication Path”
Focardi/Habel/Piantelli published “Anomalous Heat Production in NiH Systems” in the Italian Physics Society’s Il Nuovo Cimento in January 1994.
Blacklightpower apparently also did something with Ni-H .
But it looks that the the only one who made it really work is Rossi. And that is what counts. Wasn’t it Edison who said than an invention is 1% inspiration and 99% sweat? Rossi did the difficult part.
About LENR / Cold Fusion (CF), Pons/Fleischmann firmly established CF in everybody’s mind. CF is the deuterium/palladium stuff. This Ni-H is clearly something different, and LENR is a much better term. But I’m afraid the term CF will be with us for some time. Focardi’s patent talks about fusion also. I don’t read to much in it, that publications and scientists use the wrong term. In the end, they will be educated, one hopes.
I am sure the ICCF16 conference in India in February will be very interesting. Engineering beat the scientists
. Lets just hope now scientists, faced with facts, start modeling theory after reality. The other way around didn’t work (e.g. no nuclear radiation -> it cannot work)….
Mat
Mat,
Good point on the credit for the engineering – if that’s what it is. I still don’t know for sure what level of credibility to assign to Rossi and his claim. What I do know is that Piantelli, and when he worked with Focardi, published their work in reputable, peer-reviewed journals.
Steven
I don’t think Rossi claims to understand the process, he only claims to have a working device. Science is important, but I cannot replace my central heating system with published articles, peer-reviewed or not. I do hope a Rossi device can be a replacement at some point.
Piantelli, as you reported, preferred to work on cancer research rather than in Ni-H, even though he was probably the first who saw the effect. Fine, his choice. But then don’t come complaining if someone else perseveres in the field and engineers a device out of it. Much less take credit for something you dropped. How many other people have had the ‘now that is strange’ effect, and not followed through on it?
The NewEnergyTimes front page says” …to connect you with the hottest news in energy research and technology.. ” . Rossi may not be science, but it sure looks like technology to me.
Mat
It is a shame that the philosophy of science is eclipsed by the politics and process. Above all, results matter, but it seems that many ossified scientists stake a philosophical claim and then defend it, rather than keeping an open mind and modifying their beliefs based upon reality. For gosh sakes, if the “Energy Catalizer” works, then that ought to be enough. Instead, people act almost angry that the (the unworkable, short term, non-sustaining) status quo has been disturbed.
One other very important point: the economic ramifications of such a development. I figure roughly 100 trillion dollars in energy infrastructure will be made obsolete by this revolution clean cheap and abundant new energy production technology. While it will take scores of years to replace, the market will no doubt react violently, making this a highly disruptive technology (i.e. predictably trillions of dollars in wealth will evaporate suddenly).
On the other hand, it will change the demographics of the world, allowing people to settle just about anywhere because of a decentralized power generating capacity (a portable power grid). Furthermore, it will allow very cheap desalinization. I could go on and on…this is BIG (as Dr Mills of BLP says, it is the biggest invention since fire).
Brad, you might want to consider just how many “Free energy” scams there have been. That’s why it is so vital on these sorts of demonstrations to absolutely nail everything down to reduce the possibility of doubt to the bare minimum.
Having a closed demo, with a device that is not examinable, talking vaguely of trade secrets, and such is not such a demonstration. It’s a demonstration that reminds one of Dean Drives, psionics machines, and other such interesting material, all of which had their own boosters often claiming that mainstream science just didn’t understand them.
In fact, the whole secrecy attribute of the demo is a classic warning sign for scams. Could it be true? Possibly. But the nature of the demo really isn’t something to fill one with tremendous confidence.
It is hard to imagine being in the position of having something like this that you know is real and demonstrating it to the world. It is also hard, or impossible, to know how many of the past demos of such devices were fraudulent or simply a display of measurement error, or a misunderstanding of the physics concepts, etc., or actually real. The real test at this stage for those making the claims (assuming it will operating reliably, which is implied if they are going commercial, and not just opening the floodgates for “investors” (victims)) is to take the plentiful output energy stream and use it to make enough power to drive the device. If it cannot do this, it is not ready for demonstrating, and certainly not commercialization. The failure to prepare such a public demo is the mark of amateurism or fraud. It may be real, but the evidence is still preliminary.
Yeah, because “free energy scams” are plentiful, this one must be a scam. How can any new technology emerge when the future is always like the past??
Not having heard of LENR before I’m still in catchup mode on the “technology”.
Due mostly to the hidden bits I’m still in the skeptically open-minded camp regarding the belief/dis-belief scam/real question.
Accordingly, I wish all the “inventors” all the best in the hope that they can produce a workable, marketable device AND get it to mass market despite the expected resistance, fair and foul, from “vested interests”.
Most scientific breakthroughs are an evolution of the work of others so I am expecting more credits to others than have so far been given.
Best Wishes,
Ian
In other discussions in other venues of other energy “breakthroughs” I’ve often suggested something like, “If they had something real, they’d simply start marketing the energy from it, rather than spend their time debating whether it’s science or not.” Since here they’re doing exactly that, I’m at a loss.
Its just a battery.
From slashdot:
Reducing the layer of oxidized nickel in the presence of oxygen and hydrogen is an exothermic reaction that produces heat [slashdot.org] at about the levels shown in this experiment. This is chemistry they are doing. The hydrogen is combining with oxygen and producing steam. There are about 50ppm of copper in nickel and they are merely extracting it.
So:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_extraction_techniques#Recovery_from_nickel-cobalt_sulfide_concentrates_.28Sherritt_process.29
Seems more plausible to me as they give no description or evidence.
So your saying that their device that has run for two years heating an Italian factory was a chemical reaction of oxidizing nickle?? I question your judgment sir.
They give no description or evidence? Detailed descriptions are in related published work. 1998 paper can be downloaded from lenr.org
Large excess heat production in Ni-H systems S. FOCARDI , V. GABBANI , V. MONTALBANO , F. PIANTELLI
and S. VERONESI
The cell is annealed and purged under vacuum. Hydrogen is introduced to clean the oxygen off the nickel.
B Mal:
They said that the hydrogen used in an hour is less than 0.1grams.
In order to produce the reported amount of energy per hour through hydrogen and oxygen chemistry they would record around 162 gram of lost hydrogen, which is more than 1620 times more than what they have measured when they say “less than 0.1grams”.
Yes… but Ni- + H+ = HNi has a thermal value over 5x that of hydrogen combustion.
Assume for the moment that he’s compressing the hydrogen in the reaction chamber to the level that hydrogen cars use. He can pack over 60 moles of hydrogen in that chamber before he even brings it to the demo. That gives us 90 MJ or about 25 kWh of power. The reaction only actually ran for about 15 minutes so this is well within the realm of chemical power.
Now the second demo where only one other person got to see it and it ran for 18 hours? That one is well outside the realm of chemical. However only one other person got to see it.
Post the schematics for us to build our own versions and I’ll believe it. As is I’m going to try to build this from what I already know to see what I can get it to do.
I feel obligated to cite just two of many articles and reports out there substantiating “cold fusion:”
DIA-08-0911-003 Unclassified Defense Analysis Report “Technological Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance” 13 November 2009
Also:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4081892/Cold-fusion-experimentally-confirmed
Cold fusion experimentally confirmed (3/23/2009)
“U.S. Navy researchers claimed to have experimentally confirmed cold fusion in a presentation at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting.
“We have compelling evidence that fusion reactions are occurring” at room temperature, said Pamela Mosier-Boss, a scientist with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (San Diego). The results are “the first scientific report of highly energetic neutrons from low-energy nuclear reactions,” she added.”
Some of the comments on this page surpass normal skepticism and are instead obtuse. Get real, those Italian inventors have had a unit working continuously for two years. Do you really think they would hold a news conference and outright commit fraud??
“Do you really think they would hold a news conference and outright commit fraud??”
YES. Every six months a bogus “new” energy technology is publicised as fuel to a ponzi scheme. In this case it does appear that these Italians are genuine but let’s not forget the cosmopolitan history of quack.
I suggest setting your andoid/iphone calander to check back in a year.
You are assuming that every failure for a demonstration to develop into something famous is a ponzi scheme. There are alternate explanations, even prosaic. This was simply a demonstration to a 40-50 size group, not intended as absolute proof to the entire world. I’d like to see a better demo, of course, but many things have been demonstrated that left many open questions, which by no means implies fraud in even a majority of cases.
Every tried working in experimental physics?
Yes, the Frascati demonstration can’t be viewed in isolation. Very many diverse groups from around the world have published cold fusion anomalies of various kinds over the past 20 years. That the experiments don’t always work could be a reflection of their underlying difficulty. The first transistors were pretty bad too.
I have two Physics degrees from Oxford and I am pretty well convinced that something presently unexplainable is going on here.
IMO, the sometimes violent skepticism we are seeing here and elsewhere is mainly because the energy catalyser is just too good to be true. Lots of people just can’t take that. You get the same response from athiests when you suggest that, just may be, there’s a Deity and He is on your side.
If genuine, this would be the greatest invention in human history so far, without any question. Forget fire and the wheel. Those are sideshows compared with this.
Hi Steven:
Thank you for this site which is an extraordinarily useful source of information for people like me – an (intelligent?!) layman with some scientific background. You say: “Whatever the LENRs that are responsible for the device’s heat output, nickel-hydrogen reactions are not fusion, so this has nothing to do with the idea of “cold fusion.” ”
Well I will take your word for that. But you do seem to be using a very specific – and exclusive – definition of ‘fusion’. That is, only the fusion of “two like charged atomic nucleii”. Sure, it is useful to make this distinction one way or another. But is it really necessary to exclude from this definition the ‘merging’ of, for example, a hydrogen nucleus with a nickel nucleus to produce copper?
I realize the latter may be attainable, perhaps, while the former is very likely not.
But if merging H and Ni can release immense amounts of energy, is it perhaps splitting hairs about a definition that is concerned with the attempts to generate energy from events that occur within atomic nucleii?
Put another way: Can transmutation occur without some kind of ‘fusion’ of nucleii?
But to repeat, I realize that it is helpful to distinguish the like-charge reactions from the others.
Or am I missing the point? (Quite possible!)
Hi Rodney,
I am not sure where to start on a reply with you. How much of the New Energy Times Special Report “Cold Fusion is Neither” have you read?
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/35/SR35900outline.shtml
Steven
Hi Steve
Love to read the full report, but I’ve had six goes at downloading it now – it stops at 2.93mb.
Peter
Peter,
You can download it as PDF or read it article by article as HTML. The PDF is 7MB.
Steven
I hope this is true.
I don’t care if science community rejects it or not. Most scientists today are idiots and slaves of governments (they cannot do anything useful but rely on government funding to survive).
The litmus test is to hit the market. My worry is if this is true, governments and big oil companies will try to kill it. If Rossi and Focardi cannot get a patent, they’d better publish all details before they mysteriously die.
they’ve secured the information. Their words
i think you have some things to learn about intellectual property (click my link), and perhaps just what kind of legal environment it takes to go from research experiment to product benefitting mankind, but i am otherwise grateful for this article.
So is anyone informed what the next steps will be? Or are they now just actually trying to make it to the market and then we will know for sure?
I posted something to Adrea Rossi’s journal’s site that talks about whether patents should be a big concern in this case, given such an invention would remake much of our economic landscape On the socioeconomics of cheap energy
The key part of that:
A New York Times article called: “They Did Their Homework (800 Years of It)” talks about the inbredness in the mainstream economics profession and how it is based on endless mathematical extrapolation on extrapolation, in the absence of much connection to history or broader cultural issues. Of course, looking at history may only be a start, as economists also need to look to the future and what abundance and cheap (or even free) energy means in terms of producing divide-by-zero errors in all their elegant theoretical mathematical equations that assume demand for endless junk is infinite, and human labor will always be very valuable, and energy and material will always be very scarce.
In order to move past this problem with mainstream scarcity-based socioeconomic models, something made only more urgent by cheaper energy, our society needs to continue to develop in at least four interwoven areas:
* a gift economy (like Wikipedia, Debian GNU/Linux, or blogging on the internet, but also Freecycle and more volunteering of services),
* a basic income (social security and health care for all regardless of age),
* democratic resource-based planning (using taxes, subsidies, investments, and regulation to achieve mutually agreed-on social goals), and
* stronger local subsistence-oriented communities that can produce more of their own stuff (using organic gardens, solar panels and/or cold fusion devices, 3D printers, personal robotics, and so on).
…
So, when you think about the financial aspects of your innovation, please consider that fundamental things may change with cheap energy. Please consider how the scarcity-based economic model we all grew up with still govern so much about how innovations such as cold fusion are created, discussed, and distributed. Please consider that a scarcity-based economic model, and all the thinking and fiat-dollar-based financial conflict that relates to it, may be made obsolete very quickly by the rapid spread of a cold fusion innovation.
Sure, some people may get rich in fiat dollars in the short term by speculating on nickel futures (until cheap energy and cheap robotics drives down the price of all commodities). But ultimately, the bigger issue is encouraging a broad social transformation in a healthy way that makes the world work for everyone. That is something that will ultimately be about a lot more than a few bits flipped in some computer memory representing a bank account somewhere, and which Frederick Pohl suggested in 1954 would ultimately be meaningless in an age of cheap energy and cheap robotics.
In the age of “cheap energy” we could be opening up a new frontier (space). Otherwise, it is fair to say that the human population will have escaped another cap (along the lines of anti-biotics and nitrogen fertilizer). What I am concerned with is the short term severe financial market disruption of making 100 trillion dollars in energy assets virtually obsolete. I have the greatest quote from a Professor somewhere in the states saying that giving mankind cheap abundant energy is like giving a child a machine gun. Who knows, we may eventually be like Star Trek, where people are judged by their mind, not their possessions.
apparently Rossi has been talking about “making it to the markets” a lot. So i decided to contact “Defkalion energy” in Athens and find out what this thing is all about. Guess what. They’ve never heard of Rossi, Focardi the or the experiment. Weird, huh? Unless there are more than one “Defkalion” in Athens…
adding to the above: defkalion energy is the company Rossi claims he works with
After dooing some “Google research” I was surprised to see that there are many references on the web to scientific work that Focardi and Rossi have done in the area of Ni-H systems during more than 20 years! To me these people look serious.
One of the most interesting papers can even be found in English and was published by a respected Italian government research organisation which is also involved in the hot fusion ITER project:
http://www.enea.it/com/ingl/New_ingl/publications/pdf/Cold_Fusion_Italy.pdf (English version)
http://www.enea.it/produzione_scientifica/pdf_volumi/V2008_14_StoriaFusioneFredda.pdf (Italian version)
Title: COLD FUSION The history of research in Italy
Publisher: ENEA – Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment
On page 153 there is an article titled “Anomalous effect between 200 and 400 °C on Ni-H Systems. Neither chemical nor electrochemical phenomenon” written by SERGIO FOCARDI and FRANCESCO PIANTELLI.
This is quite technical and goes into some detail, among other it reveals:
1. The research in the field of nickel – hydrogen systems started from an experimental observation by F. Piantelli at the end of 1989 concerning a strange thermal effect at low temperature in a sample of nickel with hydrogen.
2. Neutrons were emitted while energy was produced.
3. Electromagnetic radiation emission (with energy of the order of 100 keV) was observed
4. At the end of the experiments they observed that the following had been produced: remarkable quantity Cu and Zn (with atomic number greater than Ni), F, Na, Mg, Al,
Si, P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Mn, Cr & Fe
The article also contains references to papers and procedings from scientific conferences.
WHERE DID ALL THE STEAM GO?
13 kg of steam produced during one hour should give a flow speed of about 20m/s in the exhaust hose. Why did Rossi and Focardi not blow a whistle with it or at least cook some pasta? It certainly would have helped to convince the investors. And maybe me too.
Is it not obvious? If Rossi had what he claims to have, would he not be the greatest hero ever in history of mankind – if he just told us what he has found? Would he not be able to live as a king for the rest of his life, even without any patents? Definitely he would. But his goal is not to save humanity, he knows he can´t, it is merely to get some little money for further investigation. To secure his old age. Unfortunately.
The industrial secret issue screams out the truth – he has nothing. Nothing at all.
I think you are probably right, Bertil. If someone of their ages had such a device, would they be trying to build a simple start-up business with it, working night and day? How could anyone possibly hope to hold onto something like that? Consider that the great and supremely powerful IBM could not hold onto the PC, which they initiated and which seriously threatened them when it was pirated by everybody else.
Most people would buy from a Chinese factory instead of a Italian factory. International patent protection would be worthless in the face of such massive economic pressure. What kind of trade secrets could be kept from the world’s best scientists who would place such a discovery as one of the most important things to understand that ever was?
I would like to believe, like you, that these two would be treated as liberating geniuses, pampered and wanting for nothing. However, the history of how the world treats its greatest benefactors is sobering and often grim.
The excess heat effect is real, even with light water and nickel. This demonstration, however, is showmanship.
Levi’s interpretation does not hold water.
*What is observed:
The temperature of the output fluid begins at about 15C, and increases over a period of about 1/2 an hour to near 100C (101.6 is claimed), and then remains there for another 30 to 40 minutes, depending on which test you look at. Then when the power is cut off and (in test 1) the water flow is increased, the temperature drops back toward ambient. In test 2, the rate of decrease is about the same as the rate of increase before boiling. In Test 2, the steam was checked with an “air quality monitor” and pronounced dry. They do not say when that check was made. The average input power in both tests during the plateau was about 1 kW, not 400 W as has been frequently quoted.
*What is claimed by Levi:
Given the flow rate, and the temperature change, the amount of power transferred to the water at 99C is about 1.2 kW. One minute later, when the temperature reads 101.6C, Levi claims the water is all being vaporized, meaning the power transferred is more than 10 kW. (His calculation of the total energy assumes the power is the same during the time the temperature is on the plateau.) So, although it took 30 minutes to increase from zero to 1.2 kW, he expects his readers to believe it takes only one minute or so to increase to 10 kW. And the increase must be the exact amount required to boil all the water, because 5% more would increase the temperature of the steam by 60C.
*Why it doesn’t hold water:
1. Presumably, the H-Ni system is not aware of what is happening inside the conduit, so the notion that at the exact moment the temperature hits boiling, its power output would increase 8-fold is not believable. Even less believable is the notion that the power increase should be enough to vaporize all the water, and not a per cent more.
2. The only way to increase the power delivered to the water, assuming the flow rate is constant, is to increase the temperature of the conduit. At the rate of temperature increase before boiling is reached (corresponding to ~ 1 kW per 30 minutes), you might expect an additional kW or so over the next 30 minutes, which on average would amount to less than 2 kW during the plateau.
3. In test 2, the temperature is not pinned at the plateau during the entire period, and in fact, about half-way through, drops by a few degrees. If the power is really 10 kW just before and after this dip, then not only would the conduit have to be heated by hundreds of degrees in a minute or so, it would have to cool equally fast. However, you can see that, without increasing the flow rate, the cooling rate at the end of the run is pretty slow.
*What would make 10 kW believable:
If the power transfer to the water increases at a continuous rate, the output fluid temperature will increase to boiling over a time period, and then remain at boiling for about 7 times that time period (at least), and then increase to higher temperatures. When the temperature increases substantially above boiling (>110C), you can be reasonably sure that the steam is dry. (I say “at least” because the transfer of heat to liquid is faster than it is to steam or mist.) (A degree or two above boiling is not unreasonable for a mist/steam mixture not in equilibrium, since the steam component can be heated above boiling.)
So, to believe the 10 kW claim, the temperature should be increased to 110C or higher. If
Levi’s interpretation were correct, and all the water was converted to steam, then a slightly lower water flow would cause the temperature to increase rapidly. And yet, even though the flow rates in the two tests were quite different, the temperature was exactly the same.
*What is probably happening:
1. The claim of dry steam is not credible, and certainly not from the moment the fluid hits 100C. When boiling begins, the turbulent flow of rapidly escaping steam and boiling water is likely to produce a steam/mist mixture. Whatever the “air quality monitor” measured, this claim requires more than someone’s pronouncement to be believed.
2. Looking at the shape of the temperature curve in test 2, assuming a smooth variation of the power transfer, suggests that at most the power increases by a factor of 2 during the plateau, giving an average power output during the plateau of less than 2 kW. The input was briefly reduced to 400 W in test 2, and that seems to correspond to the dip in temperature below 100C, consistent with this interpretation.
3. If the flow rate measurement is accepted, and that could have been made much more definitive, then less than 1 kW is being produced by the reactor. This could easily be explained by a hydrogen reaction; combustion would require only a few tens of grams of hydrogen. Considering the measurement of the hydrogen consumption was almost confounded by a piece of tape, hiding a 30-g change in 14 kg would not have been difficult. If the reaction were nuclear, then less than 1 mg hydrogen would be needed, and a connection to a hydrogen bottle would have been completely unnecessary.
That explanation rings true. 10 kW through that hose would have been making some effect, noise, etc.
I guess that the device has no storage, like a kettle. Because if you had water accumulating, then you would get 100 steam as it boiled off. But they seem to suggest that it is not like a kettle, more like a pipe, so for the first 30 min water was not accumulating but rather flowing through.
Yeah, your criticism seems reasonable unless you know human nature. Those Italian inventors claim to have had a working unit in an Italian factory for two years. Either that unit was heating that Italian factory or not. Either those inventors are guilty of fraud or not. Let’s face it: until they commercially manufacture a working unit people like you will take the Missouri line (i.e. I’ll believe it when I see it with my own eyes). Those inventors said the same thing at their news conference. The time for words is over, and this well thought out and completely legitimate criticism by Mr Cude is a great example.
Yes, the calculations all assume the output flow rate is equal to the input flow rate, meaning presumably, that the fluid passes through a heated conduit. So, when the exit temperature reaches the boiling point, the exiting fluid is mainly liquid with a small component of steam. As the power increases, the fraction of the fluid represented by steam increases, but the temperature stays at the bp until all the liquid is vaporized. After that, more power would rapidly increase the temperature of the steam.
My main point is that the second step, going from boiling point to complete vaporization, requires a 7-fold increase in power, and by Levi’s interpretation, this happens discontinuously exactly when the bp is reached, even though there is no feedback system. It doesn’t make sense.
Dear Joshua,
That is very interesting. I would suggest that you send your ideas regarding this to prof Levi. I am sure that he would be interested in such feedback regarding his test of the reactor energy output. You could either use the comment section to his paper: http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=395 or use the email feature on the contact (Contatti) section on his web site: http://www.giuseppelevi.it/
It makes sense if you look at how water boils for tea in a kettle. The temperature rises constantly until it reaches the boiling point. Then the energy has nowhere to go but start vaporizing, small amounts at first, then ever increasing amounts; eventually you have dry steam at a certain flow. So it doesn’t immediately require an increase in power, instead it will take some time before steam output in volume and dryness has stabilized. What the university should have measured is the volume and dryness of the steam throughout, although I’m not sure how easy that is. Once the water starts boiling, temperature is pretty constant, of course.
However, if eventually there was only dry steam coming out, and a fixed flow rate, then the energy gain calculations still are valid. Plus in one of the experiments it wouldn’t stop immediately when they switched of input power.
But it’s not a kettle! In a kettle, the water is stationary. There is no increase in power required at all when the water begins to boil. In fact, the power could decrease, and if heat losses are small, it would continue to boil.
But in a conduit, the water is flowing. A given temperature change requires a certain power. An increase in power produces an increase in the temperature change. After the fluid is at 100C at the exit, an increase in power goes into producing steam. But a small increase means only a small fraction of the water will change phase. To change the phase of all the water in the stream requires an 8-fold increase in the power. And that does not make sense.
A heated conduit is not a tea kettle.
Thanks for doing this, Joshua. The point you raise about the coincident timing between reaching 100C and the increase in energy output is one that the experimenters should address publicly. I believe Levi stated (either in the report or in an interview) that they had the apparatus under test starting in December and that they (approximate quote) “spent a lot of time getting the measurements calibrated”. Rossi has claimed separately that the U. Bologna researchers were not known to him and that they picked the instrumentation and ran the demonstration without assistance from him except in matters of safety.
Given those opportunities to do it right, the U. Bologna Physics Department should feel deeply embarrassed if the steam was not dry. There’s no excuse for blowing it on such elementary matters.
If on the other hand the steam was dry and there was no deception in the other measurements, we’d have to conclude that
1. the Rossi reactor features exquisite feedback control over “ignition” and steady state output, and
2. the “ignition” was programmatically delayed, for undisclosed operational reasons, to coincide with the water output reaching 100 C.
I, too, am curious about the steam output. One of the reports said they vented it into an adjacent room. I’m surprised no one thought to allow the news media to step next door and videotape it. As you and others have pointed out it should have been emerging with considerable velocity. Presumably they evacuated it into a hood (rather than condensing ~10 liters of water onto the walls
. Even so, it should have been easy to make some impressive video by placing the pipe end a foot or so below the hood inlet.
Hopefully Levi and the others will give a talk to a technically competent audience to allow these questions to be raised. Does anyone know if he’s attending the Chennai conference?
Neither Rossi or Levi came to ICCF16. Nobody representing Rossi spoke on his behalf. Celani, an observer of the demonstration explained what he saw. Melich spoke about the Rossi demo but he did not witness it and had no new information to share.
Even if your two conclusions were correct, they would not explain how the temperature could dip below boiling in the middle of the plateau. With the temperature below boiling, the power is in the range of 1 kW, so not only would the power have to increase rapidly, but it would also have to decrease by some 9 kW in a matter of minutes. Without an increase in the flow rate of the cooling water, that’s not reasonable given the heat capacity of the system, and the actual cooling rate observed when the instrument was shut down.
The absence of any description, visual or otherwise, of the output flow seems like an inexcusable omission. Presumably it’s coming out as a liquid stream below 100C. Is Levi saying that at the moment it hits 100C, it begins to come out as gas? My guess is it wouldn’t take much additional power to come out as a steam/mist mixture that might look like pure steam, because the boiling water and escaping steam would be highly turbulent. But some kind of more detailed examination of the output, where it went, how it was collected, why it didn’t produce a steam bath, and so on, is kind of a no-brainer, for a scientific report on the experiment.
Considering above discussion that power output could be overestimated up to 7 times
because of difference between vaporization and just reaching 100C, it brings to power output
in the range of existing power sources. A set of suspicious coincidences is pointing towards using nickel-metal hydride batteries, which are used in innovative way. Instead of just discharging them directly, they can be overheated to about 100-110C which will cause accelerated internal self discharge through direct reaction between H2 developed from metal-hydride anode and NiO(OH) cathode. This self discharge causes large heat dissipation, beasically entire energy of the battery is dissipated as heat instead of electricity.
Their energy density is about 300Wh / L, so considering that most of the blue box shown in the presentation is filled with batteries, it would account for enough energy (considering 7 times underestimation it would be just 1.7kW needed for 30 min presentation.
Using thermally induced self-discharge would also account for about 30 min delay – because
thermal time constant of all batteries is about 30 min due to large mass and thermal
capacity, it takes about 30 min to heat it up to needed 110C temperature with 400W heater.
This elegant apparatus would exhibit the same behavior os Rossi demonstration unit,
and, conveniently, it would even be rechargeable! By simple switching wires from heater
to battery string terminals, they can be recharged for the next demonstration!
Care should be taken not to allow overheating above 140C where NiO(OH) decomposes with
oxygen release and whole thing can blow up. That is where the need of very accurate
external temperature control and water flow control comes in. Btw operating battery
in such way is extremely dangerous as thermal run-away is possible, so all the participants of this demonstrations might have been exposed to mortal danger.
Hopefully these considerations are just a coincidence and Rossy device is a real thing.
But for any prospective investor I would absolutely require long time test
and inspection of the volume/weight of the inside of the device to exclude above mechanism.
Regards,
Yevgen
Mr. Barsukov, I have read your post which I find scientifically very unconvincing . Can you prove what you say by setting up such a unit as you have described, peer reviewed by scientists and convince us that the energy output is really 1/7th of what Rossi declares and that it can be produced by hiding nickel-metal hydride batteries inside the catalyser.
Rossi’s catalyser has a number of scientists backing it and also manufactruring firms who have invested a lot of money following their becoming privy to the Rossi-Focardi still-secret method of producing energy. Time will tell.
While it would be an interesting (but dangerous) science projects, batteries are well characterized devices and their energy density specifications are published, so I dont have to measure them by myself.
See for example for NiMH battery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-metal_hydride_battery
Lets check the required energy availability from NiMH battery
to replicate Rossi output.
From Levi report http://www.territorioscuola.com/download/Levi-Bianchini-and-Villa-Reports.pdf
“The basic observable elements are an horizontal metallic tube (approximate length 70 cm, diameter 20 cm, 22 L volume, 30 kg weight as a guess-estimate”.
Why is it so heavy? According to Rossi, apparatus includes lead shielding to shield radiation. However, very accurate measurements of neutrons and gamma radiation in the same Levi report showed no radiation whatsoever.
Levi also explained that lead shielding can not completely hide radiation, only reduce, so absence of radiation oustide shielding means that there is no radiation inside either.
So could it be that so called lead shielding is just an excuse for
the weight of batteries? Quick check – 30 kg * 80Wh/kg (NiMH energy density) gives 2.4kWh which would allow to produce 4.8 kW output for half hour demonstration – more than needed to account for 7 times reduced power estimate.
The same batteries would have volume of 2.4kWh/300Wh/l (volumetric energy density of NiMH) = 8 L. This is well within 22 L volume estimate and gives enough space for heater and water pipes.
Ability to undergo thermaly induced self discharge with large heat
release is also well known for NiMH batteries.
See for example some data here, showing
that once heated in 60C thermal chamber, NiMH batteries will maintain 80C temperature due to heat developed by self-discharge.
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DN50peMr\
wCH0C%26pg%3DPA501%26lpg%3DPA501%26dq%3D%2522nickel%2Bmetal%2Bhydride%2522%2B%25\
22thermal%2Brunaway%2522%2B-lithium%26source%3Dbl%26ots%3DYEwBumR30I%26sig%3DBLp\
EgtAIn8-rA9-FDoZEX0LlAWs%26hl%3Den%26ei%3DpQNYTd3VDoetgQeZ2aHQDA%26sa%3DX%26oi%3\
Dbook_result%26ct%3Dresult%26resnum%3D1%26ved%3D0CBoQ6AEwAA%23v%3Donepage%26q%3D\
%2522nickel%2520metal%2520hydride%2522%2520%2522thermal%2520runaway%2522%2520-li\
thium%26f%3Dfalse
Note that making apparatus larger (say 1MW, as in promised in october next demonstration) does NOT eliminate above
“NiMH thermal self-discharger” – it is perfectly scalable to any power by
increasing battery size! Only long (>24 hrs) continuous run-time with fixed device size/weight can assure against such contraption.
Recently surfaced interview with Levi that refers to 18 hrs test is
certainly a promising news. They did two important improvements –
excluding evaporation heat and increasing run time. If confirmed,
it would certainly exclude above considerations.
I hope by the time the results are published, they will add
complete log of actual measurement of water flow rate as well as complete log of input and output temperatures. It is critical to measure
rather than estimate because water flow can be greatly reduced
by boiling or cavitation inside the apparatus (that can be expected with 15kW across just 1 L pipe) so assumption that flow
with or without active operation are the same is very questionable.
Regards,
Yevgen
According to professor Giuseppe Levi’s report on his investigation of the Rossi apparatus the temperature at the water/steam exit end was measured with a PT100 thermometer. During steady state the temperature was mesured to be 101,6C and this is taken as a proof that only dry steam was exiting. This is not a good proof. The boiling point of water at standad pressure is 100C, but it takes only about 0,05 bar overpressure to increase the boiling point to 101,6C.
If I told you that I have a hen that is laying golden eggs, but if I just showed you then hen and not her laying the eggs would you believe me? Probably not. But in the present case it is very easy to collect the golden eggs to demonstrate their metal. Just take the steam/water exit hose that is connected to the top of the apparatus and stick it into a suitable volume of cold water (=calorimeter). By measuring the temperature increase during the experiment it is a child’s play to calculate the power generated.
As a matter of fact, the 0.5 meter vertical tube will increase the pressure by 0.050 bar if it’s filled with water. Of course, when boiling begins, then the tube is filled mainly with gas (even in only 2% of the mass changes phase, you get 97.5% steam by volume), but it seems likely that this gas is sufficiently confined to create a similar elevation in pressure.
Some commentors are suggesting that the Rossi-Focardi catalyser is a scam. Maybe it is and maybe it is not. What may have been a scam, a very big scam, was the devastating attack on the Fleischmann-Pons proposal of cold-fusion, or what is now being referred to as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, to distance the science from the original and but very descriptive title. It is now known that cold-fusion is possible, has been measured and that this Rossi-Focardi effect, ready-to-market, could very well be the result of cold fusion. If this is the case, then, the killing of the Pons-Fleischman theory would prove to be the greatest scam ever perpetrated by who ever had the finanial-political-anti scientific interest to kill the new cold fusion science. Time is slowly but surely proving Pons and Fleischmann right.
What would those scientists and the mainstream media that supported them have to say in few months time?
Probably not real.
Levi’s report tells about a COP of 12 (12 kW thermal output, versus 1 kW electric input), but:
- flow rate could have been overestimated by at least a factor 2 (pump model not compatible with declared flow rate);
- specific enthalpy increase of exit flow could have been overestimated by a factor 6 (the steam dryness probably has not been measured).
Therefore there would be no excess heat to explain.
Why not throw a turbine generator on the output and feedback some of the electricity to the input? Disconnect the input wires, and continue to use the surplus energy to fry an egg (and silence the inexorable skeptics).
If this was really running for two years, and Rossi is so intent on “selling the technology”, this seems like a no-brainer. Most laymen are going to have trouble swallowing the wet vs. dry steam arguments – but this seems like an easy opportunity to impress. If you want to impress, give me a little more showmanship, please.
How much hydrogen is consumed in the reaction? How the cost of producing hydrogen is involved in the power balance of the reactor?
Defkalion green technologies is real and there are articles regarding the investment in Greece.It is said that by the end of the year the factory will start producing units of 20kw with a cost of about 3000-3500 euro.plus the inverter cost of about 1000 euro.The units will be used primarily for heating purposes in buildings and the excess thermal load would be converted to electricity via the inverter so as to be sold to the national electricity provider .In the same articles it is said that this type of electricity will be sold under the same pricing policy as the renewable sources (solar,eolic). The spokesman of defkalion green technologies Tsalikoglou announced a productivity of 300.000 units /year for the Greek market and the Balkan area in general.The total investment cost is about 200 millions euro .It is also said that there gonna be a facility of 1MW for the needs of the factory production line and for demonstrating purposes.
source: [url removed]
As a mechanical engineer my self i just say that this is very big ,if its true or not, only time will tell.My logic says that this has gone too far to be a fraud…it is happening here and now in Greece.
I cant wait for a unit to test it in my bench
Anyways lets not get overexcited,its very big and the economical giants of the planet will have an eye over this for sure…
[Note: This post has been corrected: Tsalikoglou is the spokesman of defkalion green technologies, not the president.]
Dear Nasos Daoultzis,
The source you cited for your information (newsbeast) is not the original source, they cite a secondary Web site as their source (energypress). The anonymous operator of that secondary Web site failed to provide his or her identity when we attempted several weeks ago to seek it. Therefore, we do not consider the secondary site as a reliable source of information.
The Internet is very effective in sharing information as well as disinformation. Credibility of identified sources goes a long way to helping sort out the truth.
We learn much from the Wikipedia model:
“Once a person is disconnected from the consequences of his actions, he cannot be expected to behave responsibly. And that, boys and girls, is the story of how Wikipedia lost its way. Stay away from anyone who hides behind a screen name.”
- http://www.wikipedia-watch.org
Thank you for your interest in our news coverage and this topic.
Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
Update: Daoultzis has provided New Energy Times with a reliable, original source for the information. We are preparing this information now.
I posted another comment to Rossi’s Journal, on the issue of Prof. O.K. Manuel’s “iron sun” theory.
Potentially, could the sun, the Earth, and even the “gas” giant planets all have nickel-iron cores where heat is being generated at the boundaries in interaction with hydrogen? Could even much oil and natural gas on Earth result from abiotic processes at the core/mantle boundary caused by cold fusion of some sort?
When you think about it, what empirical evidence do we really have for “hot fusion”? Especially in the core of the sun?
Maybe that is why it has never really been developed? Yes, I know about H-Bombs, but even they use a core of heavy metallic stuff to set them off. I know this is far fetched to question whether hot fusion exists, but I wonder how far the eCat and the Rossi/Focardi effect may encourage us to go in rethinking fundamental dogma of physics and cosmology?
Maybe Prof Manuel is right with his “iron sun” theory? Maybe that also might explain the missing “dark matter” in the universe — that all stars are powered by neutron ejection from nickel-iron cores or alternatively some sort of Casimir effect at the boundary, where stars act more as antennas for energy from quantum fluctuations, and the apparent fusion at the surface is just a byproduct, as stars really produce hydrogen instead of consume it? Just speculations based on the Rossi/Focardi effect…
It’s sad that patent issues are getting in the way of confirmation. As I like to say, the biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.
If this works expect another financial tsunami.The energy sector which is headed for instant bankrupcy is currently worth wayyy more than the housing market!
But in the long run simply brilliant! We are talking about an industrial revolution scale change here…