A meeting was held on Saturday, July 23 in Viareggio, Italy on the topic of cold fusion in which Andrea Rossi (via Skype) and others involved in cold fusion research gathered to discuss the status of the research and development in the field.
Rossi reported that is work is going smoothly and the 1MW plant will be delivered to Defkalion Green Technology in Greece on schedule. He said it will be a couple of more years before the E-Cat will be available for home use.
Sergio Focardi was present at the meeting and reported on his collaboration with Francesco Piantelli and Andrea Rossi in researching of nickel-nydrogen nuclear reactions.
An interesting development to come out of the meeting was that Francesco Piantelli has established a new company named Nichenergy. This company will apparently be in competition with Rossi and Defkalion and will be producing reactors that will produce energy from a nickel-hydrogen reaction, but which do not involved a catalyst, like Rossi.
This is not really a surprising development — Piantelli would be considered the father of nickel-hydrogen reaction research, and he has obviously seen how Rossi is planning to take this phenomenon into the commercial realm. He probably has his own ideas about how to improve the reaction. Apparently Nichenergy has received some funding, and according to one of the participants there are plans for Nichenergy to enter into licensing agreements with companies that will become publicly held in the near future.
Competition is usually a good thing for consumers. It spurs innovation and leads to cost reduction, and it could help to accelerate the deployment of this new form of nuclear energy.
Full minutes of the meeting can be found here. (in Italian)
