Andrea Rossi has commented recently about feeling a sense of high anxiety regarding the 1 MW plant he and his team is working on.
When a reader on the Journal of Nuclear physics asked him about future commercial plans for the E-Cat, he responded:
About the future: the commercial strategic decisions are totally premature, because all will depend on the results and we need to wait the end of this test period. Every moment here we do not know what will happen the next moment. I am in the plant ( inside the 2 containers wherein is everything) from 5.30 a.m. through midnight and there is no moment without anxiety. I understand it is difficult to imagine how difficult this is.
For now my future is in the next 10 minutes.
I followed up with a question about whether his anxiety is caused by the unpredictability of the E-Cat, or worries about equipment failure, and mentioned that I hope he was able to sleep well and not suffer too much mentally or physically under the pressure he is feeling.
He replied:
To obtain statistics about predictability you need experience. We cannot have experience, since this plant is the first of industrial size ( 1 MW) to be observed in operation 24/7/350. This is also why we prefer not to publish data before at least one year of operation. I sleep 4 hours per day, but very well. This life will go on for all this year and possibly a slice of the next. But it is worth. During the long nights I can hear the voice of the plant ( just speaking of mental health….-he,he,he): the voice of the plant is a blend of huge bubbling of water, pumps tictocs, bips of computers and blinking leds, bzzzzs of electric stuff…all this is not constant, but is dynamic, it’s an integral. I get data also from it. Obviously the gauges of the control system make the job, but the voice raises my instinct. I invented him, not the gauges. ( Whattaya think about my mental health, after this? He,he,he,he…)
Warm Regards,
A.R.
He seems to be able to maintain a sense of humor, which is good! I expect he may actually be thriving on this experience, since it’s what he has lived for in recent years. Anxious, I am sure, but probably a great sense of adventure and challenge. It’s probably too early for him to feel pride in achievement, since there’s a long way to go before they know that the plant can operate as it is intended.
UPDATE: This is a follow up comment from Rossi in response to a question I put to him regarding his mentioning that there were two containers at his place of work:
Frank Acland:
One container contains the E-Cats, pumps heat exchangers and the satellitar informatic system of every E-Cat. The second container contains the central control system, the general electric panels, general switches etc, plus the computers to read all the data and, obviously, the chairs and the desks. One of the desks is mine, from it I am writing this comment to answer to you, as well as all the comments I sent and will send in 2015. I make the trip from one container to the other not less than 100 times every day, but for the 60% of time I am in the container where are the computers. Together with me are several components of the Team. Both containers are installed inside the factory of the Customer.
Warm Regards,
A.R.