On many occasions people have suggested that one easy way to incorporate E-Cat technology into the existing energy infrastructure is to simply take out the current heating systems from power plants (coal, gas, nuclear) and put in E-Cat heaters. All you need to generate electricity is steam at sufficient temperature and pressure to drive the turbines, and if you can match the heat from burning coal with heat from E-Cats, it would not seem to be major problem. You could keep the turbines and other necessary elements for steam production in place, and the electricity transmission systems would not need to be altered.
Today on the Journal of Nuclear Physics, Andrea Rossi make a comment that puts that assumption somewhat in doubt. There has been quite a bit of discussion in the JONP about the Obama administrations new goals for carbon reductions, and this comment is related with that issue:
“I understand that there is the drama of the jobs bound to coal mining, but this too is an issue that can be resolved by technological retrofitting. When I proposed to retrofit coal fueled power plants with a system of E-Cats, I have been told that it is practically impossible due to permissions and authorizations bound issues: maybe to ease the retrofitting authorizations could be an intelligent compromise.”
So Rossi is not at all saying it would be technically impossible to retrofit current power plants — rather that regulatory decision making would be the issue. One would think that if government policy was in favor of reducing carbon emissions, that regulatory bodies would not put unnecessary roadblocks in the way of switching from coal to E-Cats.
There may be technical and safety issues to deal with, but I would expect them to be relatively minor. It seems the problem is more a human and political one. I hope intelligent compromise can be achieved.