The Different E-Cat Approaches of Leonardo and Industrial Heat

We may be getting close to some important revelations about what cold fusion (in the form of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat) can do, but it’s a time of increasingly high tension as we wait for the report of the 1MW E-Cat Plant to be delivered. Yesterday the countdown clock I had running on the site ran out and I’m not going to try to make another guess!

Andrea Rossi insists that there is nothing that will prevent the ERV (Expert responsible for validation in the 1-year 1MW E-Cat plant test) delivering its report. The big question is: what happens when that report is delivered?
If the report shows that the E-Cat can clearly and safely produce copious amounts of energy while consuming very little input energy and small amounts of inexpensive fuel over a period of one year, then that will be very significant news which would have important implications for the world.

If the report is delivered to Andrea Rossi and Industrial Heat, then they will have to make a decision about what to do next. Here are some possible options:

Andrea Rossi has said that there will have to be agreement between all parties involved about what is released from the test. These parties, I would assume are the Rossi/Leonardo, Industrial Heat, the customer who was using the energy produced in the test, and the ERV.

1. Release the report in full. This will give the public and potential customers the most information about the potential of this technology.

2. Release the report in part. Andrea Rossi has suggested that there will likely be confidential information in the report, but that non-confidential information will be published on the Ecat.com website. In this case the nature of the content removed will be of great importance. For example, it’s possible the the customer will not want to be identified, since they could be subject to a great deal of unwanted scrutiny. It’s also possible that the ERV will not want to be identified for similar reasons. If the ERV is not named and does not publicly sign off on the document, then its effect will be much less dramatic. With no third party coming forward publicly to verify the report, it will not be seen as being very credible.

3. Not release the report publicly at all. It’s possible that the report will be considered by all parties to be confidential in total, and perhaps only available to potential customers under NDA. This would help Leonardo/IH continue to operate largely out of the public eye and away from the gaze of competitors, but it would also leave the general public in the dark about what cold fusion can do.

Of the options above, I would consider number 2 the most likely outcome, but probably there will be negotiations between the parties about exactly what is contained in the report, and when and how it will be released.

As important as this report is, I would contend that the whole of the future of cold fusion does not depend on it alone. Andrea Rossi in recent days has been emphasizing that he is planning to give an important news conference in Sweden in June. It’s significant, I think, that this conference will be in Sweden because this is Leonardo Corp’s territory. Andrea Rossi yesterday confirmed that Industrial Heat has the exclusive licence for the E-Cat in the USA (where Rossi works), and it seems that Rossi could not give a press conference on his own in the USA without the agreement of Industrial Heat.

What will the press conference be about? My guess is that he will be announcing something to do with the first industrial E-Cat X plant, and I am thinking that the first customer will be Hydro Fusion with whom Andrea Rossi has been collaborating closely of late. (A few weeks ago, Rossi said that the first E-Cat customer is based in the UK; interestingly while Hydro Fusion operates in Sweden, and the principles are Swedes, the company is registered in the UK).

The Leonardo/IH approaches seem to be very different. While Industrial Heat has issued a few very carefully crafted and understated statements regarding their activities in the LENR field (barely mentioning Rossi and the E-Cat), and the potential of this technology, Andrea Rossi blogs daily about his work in progress has been very clear about his desire to massively deploy his E-Cats around the world and bring about an energy revolution.

What could account for these different approaches? Probably there are lots of reasons that we are not privy to, but I think we can see that the personality and ambition of Andrea Rossi accounts in part for his approach. Rossi does not want to be just an inventor — he sees himself as both an inventor and (more importantly in his eyes) an industrialist who can realize the dream of Nikola Tesla of making infinite energy available for all. Industrial Heat, on the other hand, seem to be focusing on using LENR to solve the problem of pollution — they have never made any statement about making infinite amounts of energy available, or even in making energy much less expensive.

I would like to thank Torkel Nyberg of Sifferkoll.com for publishing the map at this link which shows the different E-Cat licensing territories. One thing I find interesting is that Industrial Heat has licenses for the parts of the globe which are the biggest fossil fuel producers: North/South America, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This might suggest that they are concerned about treading very carefully when it comes to upsetting the powers in government and industry which are dependent upon traditional energy sources for power and revenue.

How things will play out is impossible to know right now, but it does seem to me that there is some divergence in approaches on the parts of Rossi and Industrial Heat here. I’m not sure what IH thinks about Rossi’s approach (or vice versa), but I don’t expect Rossi to slow down in pushing for speedy production of his E-Cat X’s, and it will be interesting to see what he announces if the press conference in Sweden as it goes ahead as planned.