Over the years many people have suggested that if the E-Cat Works as Andrea Rossi claims, and has a high enough COP, it should be relatively straightforward to use a portion of the energy produced by the E-Cat to generate the electricity needed to power itself — thus having a self-looped plant, without the need for any external electrical supply.
Andrea Rossi in the past has stated that this would not be feasible for “safety reasons”, without specifying exactly what those reasons were. I put a question on the Journal of Nuclear Physics about this issue in relation to the E-Cat QX, and this was Rossi’s reply:
Andrea Rossi
February 12, 2018 at 1:22 PM
Frank Acland:
To make electricity we need the Carnot Cycle, then we can use the electricity to run the Ecat. Theoretically possible, but economically useless and complicated, so far.
What counts is the COP, with or without longer or shorted SSM. In future, after the launch of the product, we will spend time on this possibility, but I think in the short term our core business will remain to make heat, with which our Customers will make what they need.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Rossi is clearly focused on his first product which will be a heater, but if the plant works well and the COP is high enough, it won’t be long before people start using them to generate electricity. At that point I think it will be only a matter of time before Rossi, or one of his customers decides to work on closing the loop as it’s such an obvious thing to do. Rossi is not counting it out, but I think given his current ‘race against time’ to get production started this year, generation of electricity with all its implications is a level of complexity that he currently doesn’t need to deal with.