Now that Andrea Rossi has said that the design of the domestic E-Cat has been finalized there is quite a bit of curiosity about its specifications from people who actually believe that this invention might become a reality. One of the big questions that people are now asking is whether it will be worth it to make an expenditure for one of these early devices. Rossi has always guaranteed that these E-Cats will put out 6 times more thermal power than the electric heat required to run them, but even with that kind of COP, you have to take into account the cost of electricity and the machine(s) itself if you are trying to figure out if it makes sense to make a purchase.
Recently some detailed questions have been asked on Rossi’s site, and he has provided some answers:
First set of questions with Rossi’s answers in bold.
1. Can the e-cat replace my existing boiler and will I require two e-cats? the 2 E-Cats will be applied to your heater, which will be a back up
2. Is the home e-cat designed to operate on an ‘on demand’ basis? I read that it had a long start up time so I’m not sure. It can work on demand, using a by pass. The E-Cat will work at lower energy, ready to give max power on demand.
3. Will the e-cat need to be on and operating non stop, i.e. 24 hours per day for my scenario above? it will be alweays on, but you will regulate it on demand
4. Can the output be varied in accordance with the heat required? Yes
5. If yes to the above question, will the electricity consumption reduce too with the reduction in heat output? Yes
6. If yes to above then by how much will the electricity consumption reduce? What is the minimum consumption? The minimum is zero, the max is 2.7, the average is 1.2
7. Is the 1.67kW electricity consumption an average consumption taking into account the 2.8kW start up consumption and the self-sustain periods? Yes
8. If yes to the above question then for 24 hours continuous operation it will use 40kW (1.67kW*24) of electricity? less, it will be 1,2 x 24, if you use it 24 hours
Second set of questions:
1) Could the E-Cat itself (not it’s control devices) be damaged if the starting procedure was abruptly interrupted? No
2) Giving immediately back power, would mean restarting from the beginning or you will save the time spent before interruption? depends from the time elapsed between the two phases: if it is up to 15 minutes, it recovers, after that recovers progressively less
3) Given that every two hours the E-Cat would require again to be powered, the necessary amperage needed in this phase would be the same of starting phase? No
4) How long will last this periodical powering phase (more or less)? 1 hour
With this kind of information it will be time for many people to start getting out their calculators and start looking at their fuel bills to see iff projected fuel savings will be worth an outlay on E-Cats. For people who already have well insulated home and are using cheap natural gas, or have solar heating systems already installed, it may not make too much sense right away — but for people who are paying high rates for fuel oil, propane or electricity, the E-Cat could look very attractive.
Another point to consider is that energy prices are quite volatile. Fuel that is cheap now could increase for a variety of reasons — or go down if LENR really takes off and puts a dent in the energy markets. It is very difficult to predict what might happen. Another thing to consider is this E-Cat would be the very first LENR mass production product on the market, and certainly will be primitive in its technical development compared to what it might become in the future. Some people will likely wait a few years to see what a mark II or III E-cat might look like. More efficient models will probably follow this first one, and if an E-Cat that produces electricity comes on the scene, there will probably be a lot more interest from consumers.
