From PR Newswire we learn that a new energy firm in the US has acquired Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat cold fusion technology. Industrial Heat, LLC announced in late January that it has acquired the rights to the low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) technology, the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat) from its Italian inventor. The E-Cat is designed to use catalysts to produce large amounts of thermal heat using hydrogen gas and powdered nickel metal. The idea of cold fusion is to avoid the enormous costs associated with “hot” fusion projects such as ITER.
A primary goal of the company is to make this technology widely available for industrial purposes. The firm says it acquired the intellectual property and licensing rights to Rossi’s LENR device after an independent committee of European scientists conducted two multi-day tests at Rossi’s facilities in Italy. Since acquiring Rossi’s technology, Industrial Heat has taken measures to protect it by preparing numerous patent applications related to the core technology as well as associated designs and uses.
The published report by the European committee concluded, “Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources” [referring to energy output per unit of mass]. The report is available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3913. In addition, performance validation tests were conducted in the presence of IH personnel and certified by an independent expert.
Rossi, an Italian inventor and entrepreneur, claims to have invented a cold fusion device that can generate energy at room temperatures. Called the Energy Catyalyzer or E-CAT, it is purported to be a Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) thermal power source that can produce a net energy output.
Tom Darden, CEO of Cherokee Investment Partners; is the founding investor in Industrial Heat. Industrial Heat was incorporated in 2012 and is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Cherokee has a total of five investment funds with aggregate commitments exceeding $2 billion. Much of its investment has been in utility-scale solar projects.
For more background in Industrial Heat see here. For background on Rossi and his E-Cat see here and here and here. See also Triangle Business Journal, Confirmed: Raleigh’s Cherokee buys into controversial nuclear tech device.
As many readers of Earth’s Energy and other websites are fully aware, Rossi’s claims are controversial and his secrecy has not encouraged belief in his technology. Doubtful News continues this skepticism despite the Industrial Heat announcement.
There has never been a definitive test of the device and Rossi would not let others have it to test. The one paper on it is problematic and even though he claims it was verified by a third party, no one should feel confident that his paper-thin promises will overturn physics as we know it. You need to do a lot better than that. What will happen when the new company attempts to utilize it? Will we find out for sure what’s under the hood, so to speak? Or will it just fade away? I’m hoping for huge scandal myself so everyone knows about it.
Reminder: Cold fusion has not been verified by science and has been rejected. So I do not allow cold fusion advocates to post claims that it’s being verified all over the world. All over the internet maybe but this is a science based site. If you are interested in cold fusion work today, there’s a whole internet out there to examine. Have at it.