Andrea Rossi has been answering a number of new questions about the QuarkX reactor on the Journal of Nuclear Physics since he revealed that each reactor is now smaller than ever in terms of power output. The reason for its reduction to 20W from 100W is, according to Rossi, for safety reasons. He said:
“Safety is first. Making modules of 20 W of power, it is much easier to control them. Combining them, we can reach any power rate we want in small space. Like Quarks…
Gerard McEk asked some questions; here is the Q&A:
What worries me is that because of this development you may need to go again through a new full test cycle again for getting the 5 sigma on all aspects.
1. Is that true? no
2. Does each QuarkX need to be separately controlled? no
3. Does such a small unit not automatically mean more control complexity for big clusters? no, the contrary is true
4. The ability to recharge seems more difficult for such tiny units, is it still possible? yes, by sostitution on the site of the Customers and recharge in our robotized line
5. If so, do you think of replaceable and recyclable units? yes
6. I assume that using the QuarkX in a jet engine is now one of your favorite applications, am I right? C.B.N.* [“Crystal Ball Needed]
7. When do you think you are able to produce a large cluster of QuarkX’s? soon
Bill Conley asked whether making so many small reactors would mean that refuling them prohibitively expensive or at least make maintenance significantly more expensive and if the QuarkXs were now considered disposable or swappable. Rossi’s response:
No, the maintainance is easy. The modules will be replaced and recharged in our factory. Imagine to substitute fuses in a control panel.
So what Rossi seems to be describing here are reactors that are easily swappable in and out of a plant as if you were changing fuses — nevertheless we’re talking about 50,000 fuses (if the plant was 1MW) which would be highly labor intensive and complicated if you were to install/replace each one individually (imagine how many you could drop or lose inside the plant!). So I would think that they must be planning for a way to have multiple QuarkX’s on some kind of circuit board that could be easily snapped in and out. If, as Rossi indicated above, each QuarkX does not need a separate control system this may be doable. It’s also interesting to me that he says that having many small QuarkX reactors require less control complexity than for large systems.
Rossi says that they will ‘soon’ be able to produce large clusters of QuarkX’s, which would require the manufacturing facility would need to be in place. On the JONP Nils Fryklund asked about this:
Are the plans on a factory together with ABB-robots in Sweden postponed due to security problems with Quark X? AR: No.
So plans for manufacturing seem to be going ahead, however he doesn’t say whether the factory is ready yet.