Below are some Q&As from the Journal of Nuclear Physics from July 23rd about the current state of production and testing of E-Cats products.
How is work going with the 1MW E-Cat plants? — Well
Do you have multiple customers with orders in for the 1MW E-Cat plants (low temperature)? — Yes
How is work going with the QuarkX? — still very promising
Is the QuarkX mature enough to be incorporated into industrial plants? — not yet
Do you have any customers with orders in for QuarkX plants? — pre-order
What is the status of having a factory or factories ready to produce your products? — in the USA we are producing industrial; in Sweden we are preparing the factory
That is great news about producing industrial E-Cats in the US factory. Is this accomplished through manual labor or robotics? — Manual labour, so far, but we are working very hard to complete our production capacity with the help of ABB. I really hope we will have our robotized lines at least installed by the end of the year. I really hope, but there are problems to be resolved. A lot of work has still to be done.
How many individual Quark X’s have been built so far that have proven to operate satisfactorily? — several tens
What’s the longest length of time a single Quark X has ran continuously? — 6 months
How many Quark X’s do you have have running at the same time on a daily basis? — 3
What is the general temperature range of a Quark X when configured to produce maximum electrical production? — above 1573 K
Do you think that a factory to produce Quark’s could fit into a shipping container that you could then sell? For example, you feed components (fuel, tubes, wires, electrodes, etc) down one end, a line of robots do the assembly, and completed Quark’s come out the other end? — no
If the above is possible, could a small, compact Quark “factory” actually be a product in and of itself? — no
My impression here is of Rossi and his team working to get production underway, but still having to deal with the practical limitations that come with probably limited funds, limited staff and new products. His answers here indicate that they still have to build the low temperature plants by hand, and that automated production is still under development with unspecified problems that still need resolving.
It sounds to me like there are some interested customers lined up to who are willing to take a chance on the E-Cat. Rossi has mentioned that the customer who used the heat from the 1-year 1MW pilot project in Florida has ordered more products, and there are apparently are other customers they are working with. Rossi said recently that the first application for the E-Cat would be in district heating projects. With winter approaching in the northern hemisphere, it will be interesting to see if any E-Cat projects are launched this year.