The most interesting piece of information, for me, to come out of my recent interview with Andrea Rossi was his answer to my question of how much money a customer will save by switching from their current energy source to the E-Cat. Rossi said the actual saving would depend on the specific situation, but said that the saving would be between 30 and 50 per cent.
That is the first time we have had even a ballpark number about how much the E-Cat would cost. It will be interesting to see how tempting that number will be to industrial customers. I would imagine that any industry, or any individual for that matter, would take notice if they were told that they could save up to half of their energy bill.
In many cases energy savings proposals come with an upfront cost, such as investing in a solar system, or a higher-efficiency furnace/AC unit. But Leonardo’s proposition apparently does not require any initial investment for equipment, since Leonardo will install the E-Cat hardware and will manage the E-Cats remotely at no charge.
There will be disruption required for the customer, which may come at some cost in time, space, and labor. They will have to find space for the E-Cat apparatus, and they will have to make modifications to their plants to incorporate an E-Cat heat source, and that might not be a trivial undertaking. They will also have to maintain a backup heat source and have it on continual standby in case the E-Cat goes offline — so that adds complexity.
Also, so far, Leonardo has no commercial track record. LENR is unknown to most people, and certainly not considered a real alternative energy source at this point. The customer cannot be sure how reliable the E-Cat will be. There is the risk that the E-Cat won’t work well for whatever reason, and the time and effort put into installation may not be worth it.
On the other hand, if the E-Cat system does work well, there are risks for customers not to give the E-Cat a chance. In industries where energy is significant cost of doing business, a savings of 30-50 percent could give a business an competitive advantage in terms of overall cost savings, allowing a business to provide products and/or services at lower costs to the end user.
There’s also the clean energy factor to consider. Again, if the E-Cat does work well, and it does not produce any pollution, it will be seen as an efficient way for a company to be environmentally responsible, which can count for a great deal in today’s economic and political environment.
It think it will be interesting to see whether the savings offered by Leonardo will be attractive enough for customers take them up on their E-Cat proposition.