There’s an interesting response from Andrea Rossi on the Journal of Nuclear Physics that indicates that he and Industrial Heat are well prepared for the industrialization of E-Cat plants.
A reader asked Rossi about how long it would take for the industrialization of the E-Cat to take place, assuming the current test is successful.
Rossi responded:
Andrea Rossi
July 8th, 2015 at 7:56 AM
Jan:
To answer to you I’d need the well discussed about crystal ball. I can say, though, that we have already all the plans ready, as well as agreements with a chain of industries in America, Europe and Asia ready to start their parcel of outsourcing activity. Assuming that the results of the tests on course will end up to be positive ( which is still not sure) , I can suppose, but it is only a supposition, that in one year the massive production could be in line. I underline: this is a supposition, not a forecast.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Rossi is typically optimistic here when it comes to his projections of when mass production might start begin, but he also admits this is just a guess. More interestingly to me here is that he says that plans and agreements are already in place with industries across the world to get started with outsourcing. It makes a lot of sense to outsource production of non-confidential parts for the E-Cat plants, since it will be much cheaper than doing everything in-house. I expect that many of the required parts needed are already available off-the-shelf, but perhaps some custom parts will be needed as well.
I would guess, however, that IH will need quite a bit of factory space for production of confidential parts, as well as for assembly of the plants.
UPDATE: I sent some follow-up questions on the outsourcing topic:
Q. When you talk about outsourcing, does this mean that companies around the world will be making parts for the E-Cat plants, and shipping them to your own factory for assembly into plants?
A: The final manufacturing, after the outsourced parts will have been collected, will be made in due places, under due supervision to help to control that the IP conservation procedures are respected. At least until the massive production will devoid of importance the reverse engineering.
Q. Will you be the sole manufacturer of the reactors and fuel because of the industrial secrets involved?
A: No, the manufacturing will also be made by the manufacturing Licencees: obviously the confidentiality of the secret parts will be maintained. We have studied together a procedure for this.
I find these responses quite interesting, and I think what Rossi says, could bode well for the fast dissemination of the E-Cat. He talks about final manufacturing taking place in “due places” (plural), which indicates that there will not be one central factory in the US where everything is shipped to and from. He also mentions “manufacturing licensees” — suggesting that Industrial Heat will not have to set up their own manufacturing facilities to put together the E-Cats. It could be a situation similar to how Apple contracts out the manufacturing of its products to a large manufacturing partner.
The big surprise here for me is in the response to the second question, where Rossi states that even the confidential parts will be outsourced. On May 2 2015, Rossi had posted that “We will manufacture only the confidential parts, outsourcing all the rest.” So there seems to have been a change in thinking here. If even the secret reactors are being outsourced it should eliminate a potential bottleneck. It seems like they feel they have a sufficient plan to be able to supervise the manufacturing process so that secrets don’t leak out.
In the end, Rossi concedes that reverse engineering will take place, but he hopes that with a mass production plan, and cheap enough products, it won’t make sense for competitors to try and build E-Cat clones to sell.
