Andrea Rossi has said that he wouldn’t be able to provide any details about the specifications of the 1 MW plant until it was open to inspection by visitors, but today on the Journal of Nuclear Physics he answered some questions from readers that actually clarify the picture quite a bit more.
In responses to various questions today, Rossi stated:
- The 1 MW plant will be installed at the premises of a USA customer.
- It will be the same size as the previously revealed 1 MW plant.
- It won’t be used to heat a building, rather:
- It will be providing the sole source of energy for an industrial process (not supplementing another power source)
From these responses it seems to me that the 1MW plant being installed may be the same one that was shipped from Ferrara to the USA last year — or at least the same shell might be used. That plant had already been refurbished prior to the performance testing it went through prior to acceptance. If you remember, when this plant was tested in October 2011 it had problems with leaks (Rossi said the gaskets were bad) and it only ran at half power.
Rossi has said that the technology for this plant has gone through ‘substantial evolution’ compared to earlier E-Cats , and this could mean that further modifications have been made. I believe Rossi has said that all his reactors now use the ‘cat and mouse’ configuration — which were not used in earlier models.
But maybe this is a brand new plant inside a new container of a similar size to earlier ones.
There had been some discussion about this plant being installed in Sweden since Hydro Fusion had at one time announced they were looking for a customer who would receive a donation of a free 1 MW plant — but now it seems that the first open plant will be operation somewhere in the United States
It’s interesting that Rossi says this plant will be providing all the required power in an industrial process. Could that mean it will be providing heat in a process where only heat is needed — or will it be providing electrical power too? Rossi has said the Industrial Heat is looking at the cogeneration market as an early application for the E-Cat.
There’s lots to speculate about — I hope it won’t be too long before we can know for sure. A working plant providing all the power at a reduced cost for an industrial operation of an external IH customer would be strong evidence for the E-Cat being a legitimate new energy technology.