I had the opportunity to speak with Andrea Rossi via Skype, on Saturday, May 12, 2012. Below is a transcript of the interview, and at the bottom of the page links to the three mp3 audio files on which the interview were recorded. During the interview, the Skype connection dropped a couple of times, so it was recorded in three parts. I apologize for the poor quality of the audio — certainly not up to production standards. I had a Skype plugin fail on me last time I interviewed Rossi, so I went for the safe option this time — I recorded the conversation into Audacity using a built in laptop mic. Low tech, but at least I had a recording!
Frank Acland: So we are speaking this morning to Andrea Rossi who is in Miami, and its a pleasure to have you join us, Andrea.
Andrea Rossi: It is a pleasure for me to be here with you and thank you for your attention.
F. Okay, you are very welcome. I would like to start out by talking about — you mentioned recently that you have made a breakthrough with stable heat production. Could you tell us a little about that?
R. Yes, we are working right here on a new reactor, but I cannot give very much information about this because it is a work in progress
F: Okay
R. Yes, we have stabilized the reactor at very high temperatures which is very promising for other kinds of applications, mainly for electric power applications. But, but we started less than a month ago, a couple of weeks, twenty days ago with this new reactor. So far so good. Until this moment it is working very well, but I prefer to suspend any kind of consideration because, we have a record to have solid consideration to make. The work in progress is going very well.
F: Excellent. You have mentioned previously you were hoping to achieve temperatures of around 261 degrees Celsius. Has this been made possible now due to the breakthrough?
R. Well, it is probably we will be able to operate the ECAT at temperature much higher. I mean temperature that reach the Carnot cycle can have a good performance and good efficiency. And sorry…
F: So this would mean that you would not be restricted to one type of turbine. Actually different turbines would be possible…
R: Yes, because before that we were working to reach at least 260C to have with a turbine made by Siemens to have an efficiency around 20 and 25%. But these breakthrough be confirmed we will be able to reach much higher temperatures and therefore to enter in the classic range of efficiency of the Carnot effect.
F: Do you think that will make you able to be able to achieve equivalent temperatures to what conventional electrical generators use at the moment?
R: This is my hope.
F: That would be very exciting. How about the use of a Stirling engine? Is that something that is attractive to you?
R: At this point, yes. If this new reactor will confirm what we are seeing, the Sterling engine returns in the race horse. Because I can see very well. I can see very well a cylinder that would be put directly in contact with the surface, with the top in contact with the surface of the reactor so that the cylinder is moved by the temperature, and we are working on this. We will work on this design. Yes, Sterling engine that operates, until now had too low efficiency with the temperatures for we had reached so far. Becomes a player with the new higher temperatures if the data is confirmed.
F: For people like me who are not particularly technically minded what is the advantages of a Stirling engine over a conventional turbine.
R: It is not a matter of advantage it is a matter of a kind of applications.
F: I see.
R: The efficiency of a Stirling engine, well I am not honestly an expert on Sterling engines. It is not my professional skill. We have a specialist that is working on this and he is working here with us in the United States. And you know, a Sterling engine can be extremely interesting as an application for you know transportation or also other things like that.
F: Okay.
R: While the Carnot cycle and also the Stirling engine can be useful for lower power levels. While the Carnot cycle is indicated for industrial high power applications.
F: Ok. Very good. Thank you. I would like to move to the subject of certification. I know that you have said that your dependent as far as your smaller ECAT devices upon the certifiers. Could you tell us a little bit about why certification is so important?
R: The certification is demanded by law. You cannot, it is not just important, it is mandatory, because by law you cannot sell a device that is not certificated for the safety of it. And we must put an important distinction between the certification of the domestic apparatuses and the industrial apparatuses. For what concerns the industrial apparatuses we are all set already, because it is easier to get certification for that kind of stuff. Because they are operated by specialists that make a course to learn how to operate with this technology. They make an exam after the course and after the exam they are certified by us as certified operators. In an industry there are all the safety apparatuses that are demanded by law, and they are totally maintained, etc, etc. So basically the opperation in an industry is much more easy to be made in safe way. For what concerns the domestic application, the situation is more difficult because the owner of a household is not supposed to even read the instruction book, let alone the course of preparation. You know in an apartment the owner of an ECAT can be not able to read the instructions, even if they are written in an easy way. You know he can be a prime example in your house, inside your house it can also be dry and he can make stupidities. Think to the lady recently has put a cat in a microwave oven and the manufacturer had to pay the damages because I do not know if you remember the case.
F: It sounds familiar.
R: There has been a history case, you know basically so the certification for a unit in a domestic situation is much more difficult because there is not a certainty of proper management of the ECAT. So that the ECAT must be supplied with all with everything that makes it absolutely safe even if improperly managed. It is clear that the liabilities that the certificator pays are very high in the case of domestic ECAT and also our liabilities are very high. And it is unthinkable that we can sell a household unit without certification.
F: What is the actual process you have to go through to get this done?
R: Well we have…. we have given… we have made a contract with an important well recognized company that makes certifications. And they are working on it. It is a process like this takes months. We have made this contract a few months ago so it will take more time. And the specialists are working on it and we are working with them. By the way, we are in course two certifications. Two certification processes. One in the USA and one in Europe.
F: I see. Is this like an ongoing process where you have to communicate with them frequently?
R. Exactly. We are corroborating with them exchanging information they will give us all the requirements because at the end of the process we will receive directions for requirements to be respected. Also, rules also have to be applied to the E-Cats to make them certifiable. AT that point we will have a document in which the certifier will say that this apparatus is safe provided it is made so and so and so.
F: In other words they will tell you what they require of you, you have to go and build it, send it back to them, and they have to test it again?
R: Yes, we are waiting for the requirements of the certificators before making the software of the robotized line which will produce the domestic plants. While for what concerns the one megawatt plants, the certification has practically already been given and we will receive it officially within weeks. And we are preparing already the instruction manuals which are based on the requirements established by the certificator.
F: Will that mean that you will be free to manufacture your one megawatt plants as many as you want?
R: Yes. This is correct.
F: I see. With the one megawatt plants, are these being manufactured in the United States or in Italy or can you say?
R: Yes, they are manufactured both in Italy at the moment and in the United States, because it is quite convenient because otherwise there should be heavy customs to pay that would increase the price in a relevant measure, And also the transportation costs can increase the price, but mainly the customs that would affect the price up to 20%. So it is convenient that they are manufactured in the area where they will be utilized. So far we have orders in the United States and in Europe. So we have organized in these two areas.
F: When you mention orders, are these new customers?
R: Yes.
F: And now with this new potential breakthrough will you have to redesign your one megawatt plants again?
R: It depends. Not for what concerns the plants that have to be used to make thermal power. We will have to redesign them, you know… first of all we have to see if the data will be confirmed. If the data is confirmed it will be possible to produce also plants for other kinds of utilization. For example, application to Carnot cycle circuits, and other application as we can say for example the Sterling engine, etc. The design will be different in that case, yes.
F: There have been some questions if whether the first plant you demonstrated in Italy has been delivered to the customer. Can you say yes or no for that?
R: I can say yes. The plant has been delivered and is working properly.
F: How about the factories for your small devices. How is progress going on those?
R: We have the factories and we have made a contract for the robots. We are waiting as I said for the certification requirements to make the software. As for the one megawatt plant, the situation is completely different because they will not be mass produced. Not at this time in any case. So the situation is much simpler.
F: I see. You said there was going to be a plant in the United States for the small ECATs. The other plant…..
R: We also for what concerns the small domestic ECATs we will produce them in the United States and in Europe for the same reason I said before.
F: Is that going to be Italy?
R: Yes. We are preparing a factory in Italy.
F: Yes, OK. The Italians will be happy to hear that.
R: Yes. At this moment in Italy it is particularly important to make jobs. But we are also proud to say we will make jobs in the United States. It was very important to make as I said before the E-cats in both areas to avoid customs and to avoid also another lot of issues.
F: I see. When do you think the public might first see one of your products in action?
R: Yes, I think it will not take a long time. Because we are close to deliver a plant in a situation that is not military, as has been the first one, and the public will be allowed to get information about that. The reason why we do not yet disclose names, etc is that I pray you to understand, I pray everyone to understand that we have been extremely disturbed from a mass of negative actions wherever we had to operate. You know there are many persons that are not working to help but are working to destroy. We must protect ourselves from this and our customers have and the persons that work with us have been extremely disturbed in past as soon as their name has been disclosed. Because they receive thousands and thousands of not positive pressures, and this makes our work, and their work very difficult. So we can disclose things when they are very consolidated, and when there is not a risk that wrong pressures can circulate our job and the job of ours and of our customers.
F: So do you think possibly sometime this year there might be a disclosure?
R: Yes. I pretty think so.
F: You mentioned on your website recently that in October you are hoping to have a conference for licensees. Could you tell us about that?
R: Yes, we will organize it as a course to exchange with them information, exchange information between them to uniform the commercial products. And to give all the technological informations that will be necessary.
F: Can you give an approximate number of licensees you have at the moment?
R: We have covered all of the main markets of the world. With some sections. At the moment we have about twenty licensees.
F: I see. There is one licensee per region?
R: Yes, there are licenses that have very large territories that are organized. And there are licenses for small territories. And so we have chosen them with many kinds of considerations. I think we have found very good people. They are keeping up with our pace.
F: In the future will these licensees have sub-licensees themselves?
R: Well, it depends. This is a fact that will be evaluated case by case depending on the situations of the organizations, the kind of proposals. It is impossible…. of course this will depend on them because they are sovereign in their territory, but also we have to be able to…. So when they will propose us sub-licensees, we will make together a consideration to see if it would be opportune or not. Of course, in the interest of our organization.
F: I see. What are your thoughts on the current state of research in the field of LENR? You are not the only person working in the field.
R: Yes, I see that the field now of LENR is very crowded at the moment. Let me say sincerely that we have the merit to have moved the ground because before our announcement of the fourteenth of January 2011, everybody was kind of sleeping in this field. Now, our success of our research and development and the industrial progress has given incentive to this research as correctly said, Dr. Bushnell of NASA recently.
F: Do you feel any kind of competitive pressure from organizations working in this area?
R: No, not at all. We are following our path and you know we have to confront our service with the market. When in the moment there is nothing in the market that can compete with us. But I am pretty sure that soon we will have competitors. You know, we have to be prepared for this, and this is why we have our service to be extremely competitive and from an economic point of view. It will be difficult to compete with us. And under the economic point of view I mean prices and under the technological point of view, because we have resolved very big problems and I do not see anybody at the moment able to make a real competition.
F: You may have been aware that Dr. Celani spoke at CERN in Switzerland a few months ago. He mentioned in Japan that Mitsubishi and Toyota had been doing some research in the field of cold fusion. So there are some big names that are already thinking about it, at least.
R: Yes that is correct. When they will have a product to compete against us we will fight.
F: How scalable do you think your technology is? I mean, could you get a very small micro-sized E-Cat as well as a large multi-megawatt E-Cat? Is that something possible with your technology?
R: Good question. For what concerns bigger plants it is easier because it is just a matter of us assembling and putting together modules. Which is much simpler. To miniaturize an E-Cat is more difficult. Theoretically this should be possible. But I do not think that it is a very interesting branch of market, because the consume of energy in micro-applications is so low that I do not think there is very much incentive to use this technology to save some dollars a year. I do not think this will be a market. While you pay back an E-Cat very rapidly when you have substantial consumption of energy a domestic or industrial. In case of micro application you save so small money that I do not think the light will be worth the candle.
F: The E-Cat reaction, is it the same at all levels? At low levels is the same mechanism taking place that is taking place at high temperatures?
R: Basically, yes it is the same. But there are substantial differences in the configuration of the reactor. Quite substantial, so it is not the same thing with some external device which is different. As usual in our research we have tried to test very different configurations internally and at the end I think we have found a way to get high temperatures. And no, it is not the same, even if basically the theory at the root of this technology is the same.
F: Some people maybe confused about the COP issue. You have said many times for the small E-Cat we have a COP that is going to be six.
R: Yes.
F: This is not the theoretical limit of your technology, is that right?
R: It is right. It is not the theoretical limit, but it is the technological limit at the moment to make safe devices.
F: Is that going to be different with the large E-Cats, the megawatt size?
R: Maybe. At the moment our top that we declarre is six. But again, it is not impossible that the top goes up. Here everybody is talking about COP like it was a piece of cake. Many persons do not know what they are talking about. Then let us return with our feet well set on the ground and consider this. In hot nuclear fusion billions, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent without any valid return to obtain a COP of 1.1. Again, 1.1. The COP 1.1 has not been reached with billions, hundreds of billions of US dollars. Now we say that we reached COP of six and there is around a quest to say six is low, seven is better. Some clown has said we have made twenty, thirty, fifty…. This is ridiculous, because six is a tremendous achievement. You think about it.
F: Are you striving for greater or are you satisfied with six?
R: The answer to this is when I see people who say the COE of six is too low, I don’t think they know what they are talking about. Do you remember as if Jesus Christ walked on the surface of the lake somebody could say but he is walking on the water but how old is he? 33 years, well he will never be able to swim. Now, what we have achieved when we achieved a COP of 6, is to understand what this means. You have to consider that hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in the hot fusion to which 1.1 COP and they did not achieve 1.1. We have achieved six and we have from some part some clown that says I made a COP of 20 a COP of 50 and this is just clownery that we never see anything working really at that level because it is simply impossible. On the other part you say yes, and someone says why not seven? Just remember that I want anybody to take the real measure of this problem. Because hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent to achieve 1.1 so when we say we got six, we say something which is very important and maybe can be increased maybe, there is not a theoretical limit, but you know I am sure that if we should say seven, that someone would say why not eight. Unluckily that the numbers are infinite there will always be one number greater than the one we have achieved. Somebody who will say why not plus one? we will always find. The reality is that work safely we can get a COP of six, and this is quite an achievement.
F: Safety is the main consideration for you?
R: Yes it is. Safety and stability. Because during the period of our preliminary experiments we had situations in which instability was a very big problem. So now we achieved this level. I cannot say that in future this limit will not be superceded. You know, anything is improvable in this world. So also this will be.
F: That is where the competition will kick in. Have you ever encountered any dangerous health situations with the E-Cat in regards to safety, explosions, out of control heat, etc.
R: No, explosions no… instability yes. And instability yes. It is clear that stability is a fundamental perameter to make a product. And we have very stable situation when we work with a COP of six, and this is why we stay on that range.
F: What happens to an ECAT when it becomes unstable?
R: Basically instead of having a flat curve parallel to the X axis, you have a sharp V shape at of the curve, and this compromises the operation of the plant which goes into emergency and shuts off. Of course we have system that shuts off the E-Cat as soon as the curve of the temperatures become unstable.
F: Can you describe a typical working day in the life of Andrea Rossi?
R: Yes, you know this is kind of unstable because it depends. I am like an ECAT with a COP 20. Because you know it depends on what happens. Most of the time it is unforeseeable. Basically I wake up around 6:00 a.m. and I work until 11:00, midnight or something like that. My work is everyday to test, to make experiments to improve the technology and to organize the development of factories and the production lines. I am a sort of combination between an inventor and an industrialist at this moment. The only thing that I do everyday apart from working is at least one hour of exercise to maintain healthy body which is necessary to work.
F: Are you surrounded by helpers or is this a solo operation?
R: Yes, I have helpers and in for what concerns the production line and for what concerns the research and development.
F: I see. Which part of your work is the most satisfying or is it all equally satisfying to you?
R: Research. It is the creative part of the work when I think I have the same sensation of an artist that paints a painting. Because it is the creative part. That is when I feel very happy. The other parts of the work are a necessary part and it is necessary to bring on these developments because I think that it is necessary that we work on the industrial development to avoid that the development gets breaked somewhere else.
F: So you feel your work is… there is no point to your work if you cannot bring this to the public.
R: Exactly. I want not absolutely that this remains closed in some laboratory just to make successful publications. I think that until a thing is useful for the people it is useless.
F: When do you think that there’s going to be more interest from the academic environment? At the moment there does not seem to be much interest from most of the universities around the world? When do you think that will change?
R: This is not a problem of ours, honestly. My battlefield is the market. We have to make a product that works well starting from industries and that is our battlefield. If and when the academic world will be completely involved with this is not my actual focus. It does not depend on me. But what I care to say is that we have very good professors from the academic world who are working with us as consultants and so it is not true that all the academic world is not interested in this. In any case, I think that a good sense allows us to think that with the development of the product, the movement of it in a competitive world will involve the academic world. You know the academic world works mainly based on financing and when results will be financed you can be sure . . . [inaudible].
F: Are you receiving any interests from governments of countries? Do you have any relationships with government bodies?
R: Yes, but I cannot specify which ones.
F: Do you know where your ideas come from when you make a discovery. Is there a way that you get ideas is it through study or thinking or do they come out of the blue?
R: An easier question which is the root of this invention. Well, the root has been the press conference that Pons and Fleischmann made in 1989. Because I was working in the field of energy production with alternative sources. That has always been my profession. I was very interested in that press conference and I tried to repeat the experiment and I had not been able to, but that has been the spark that ignited my research in the field. From then I worked on attempts to obtain results. Once I arrived at the point that I felt the experiment of Fleischmann and Pons was not replicable, not for me in any case, I have tried many other systems. And mainly I wanted to try empirically all of the possible systems derived from different theoretical approaches until we found the first results and then we got the development.
F: Since that time, is it from trial and error that you learn, or do you get ideas, thoughts?
R: This you know, you need an idea to make a trial. You have to start from ideas. But then the ideas have to be passed through trial and error. You know this is what in the history of science is called the Galilean method.
F: For some reason, Italy has been a fruitful ground for breakthroughs. Is there anything about Italian culture that contributes to the scientific progress that comes from your country.
R: Well, Italy has a very deep cultural background. This is true. Yes, maybe I did not I never thought about this. Maybe you are right, but we have to respect the fact that also in the United States there is a tremendous background of cultural achievements and also you know the United States is a country made by people that immigrated from Europe and so all the heritage of Europe has been transferred to the USA. But I myself I am a typical example of this. I have chosen to reside in the United States.
F: So you are a resident alien, is that right?
R: Yes, I am an Italian citizen, but a resident of the United States.
F: I think that is all I have to ask you today. Thank you so much for your time.
R: Thank you very much.
F: We have a lot of readers on my website that are always hoping to hear news of some public event or public announcement. Can you give any idea of when we might hear from you within the next can you say months or weeks.
R: Well the most important things that will happen in the next months will be first a public knowledge of one megawatt plant in operation in a normal customer situation. Second the fact the E-Cats are going to work at very high temperatures to fullfill the requirements to have high efficiency in many applications. And these are the two main improvements that we will be going through. With this occasion I thank you extremely very for this interesting interview that you made. It has been fun to have you here with me today.
F: Thank you so much and I wish you success as you go on with your work.
Audio File 1
Audio File 2
Audio file 3
UPDATE: Just today, Andrea Rossi made this comment about this interview on the Journal of Nuclear Physics:
Dear Frank Acland:
Thank you for the information: your inteeview has been very useful.
I have just an adjournment: the production will be focused on the USA alone, for the first years. This has been decided in a meeting of today of the Trust that owns Leonardo Corp with me, as the CEO of Leonardo.
Warm Regards,
A.R.