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Cold Fusion Anyone?

kenandkids

New Member
arg-fallbackName="kenandkids"/>
Sometimes I come across things that are patently absurd and yet people treat the idea with such reverence that any claim to have created or designed it are met with open arms. Has anyone seen this one?
Eng. Andrea A. Rossi and Professor Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna (one of the oldest universities in the world), have announced to the world that they have a cold fusion device capable of producing more than 10 kilowatts of heat power, while only consuming a fraction of that. On January 14, 2011, they gave the Worlds' first public demonstration of a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor capable of producing a few kilowatts of thermal energy. At its peak, it is capable of generating 15,000 watts with just 400 watts input required. In a following test the same output was achieved but with only 80 watts of continual input.
They don't always use the term "cold fusion" do describe the process, but often refer to it as an amplifier or catalyzer process.
Focardi states:
"Experimentally, we obtained copper; and we believe that its appearance is due to the fusion of atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen, the ingredients that feed our reactor. Since hydrogen and nickel 'weigh' with less, copper must have released a lot of energy, since 'nothing is created or destroyed.' Indeed, the 'Missing Mass' has been transformed into energy, which we have measured: it is in the order of a few kilowatts, two hundred times the energy that was the beginning of the reaction." [1]
They also claim to be going into production, with the first units expected to ship by the second half of October of this year, with mass production commencing by the end of 2011. The first units will be used to build a one megawatt plant in Greece. This one megawatt plant will power a factory that will produce 300,000 ten-kilowatt units a year.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator
 
arg-fallbackName="RigelKentaurusA"/>
I've seen it and read his paper, which the reputable peer reviewed journals rejected (which isn't to say it sucks, but it could be improved rather). So he circumvented the peer reviewed journals and published it himself.

The controversy seems to be whether or not it's actually using cold fusion, but regardless, if it does work as described as far as power output, I can definitely see a market for it.
 
arg-fallbackName="kenandkids"/>
Anachronous Rex said:
Seems very sketchy.
It contains all of the stuff that a good public-fooling lie requires. It isn't said to be cheap, but it does create something more valuable (alchemy anyone?) while also providing a safe form of electricity. I can't buy in to a single claim. I'm impressed by the relatively near "production date," yet I'm sure that we'll soon be hearing that he was robbed and/or scuttled by the power industry...
 
arg-fallbackName="RigelKentaurusA"/>
kenandkids said:
It isn't said to be cheap, but it does create something more valuable, [snip!] ... while also providing a safe form of electricity.
Wouldn't that describe (cold) fusion anyway?
 
arg-fallbackName="Loru"/>
Ok. I've taken a look on that device.

They claim fusion of nickel & hydrogen to create copper and produce energy.

1. Fusing something heavier than iron (which is 3 units lighter than nickel) won't produce more energy that has been delivered into system. Maybe that's the reason why stars are ending theirs life with iron cores (no more energy from fusing heavier elements).

2. Energy requirements to fuse something (hydrogen) with nickel is enormous (you have to defeat coulomb force of 28 protons packed together). Only the biggest stars can do that and all heavy elements (heavier than iron) are products of very last explosions of giant stars (all thosse elements are produced by "pressure shockwave" in collapsing iron core of the star).

IMHO that thing is scam and I'm very disturbed by the fact that it's under a name of "University of Bologna".

PS: I know we can fuse heavier than iron elements by ourselves but energy input is far greater than energy output (creating new elements in particle accelerators).
 
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