Since the recent update from Andrea Rossi about E-Cat progress there’s been a flurry of discussion on the Journal of Nuclear Physics with Andrea Rossi posting at a level not seen for months. All of a sudden he has started revealing information about his ongoing work in some detail.

Much of the discussion revolves around ‘destructive’ testing in which the high temperature E-Cats (hot cats) are deliberately pushed to their physical limits. Obviously it’s important for these kinds of test to be done, in order to know what the limits to the stability of the E-Cat — it would be disastrous if unstable products were put out on the market.

Here are some of the key points that Andrea Rossi has made on the topic over the last couple of days.

1. “If we give too much energy to the reactor the temperature raises above the controllability limits and the reactor explodes . . . Now we have a mouse with a COP above 1 and a Cat with a COP with zero energy consumption. If the Mouse excites the cat too much, the cat gets wild and explodes. We must not risk to reach this level. We have seen explode hundreds of reactors now, this way.” 2. “The explosions, or destructive tests, are made in controlled modes, in proper lab, with due control of the radiations made by proper instrumentation . . . obviously, no ionizing radiations are released outside the safety box in which the reactor is destructed.” 3. “Anyway: now we will estabilish the limits of the allowable excitation with series of destructive tests, then the control engineers will design the final version of the control system for the new limits of the temperature of the high temperature E-Cats ( Hot Cats).” 4. “Presently our E-Cat is working ( also right now, while I am writing this comment) at a temp of 1,100 Celsius, very stable.” 5. “A nuclear Physicist, analysing the registration of the data, has calculated that the increase of temperature ( from 1 000 Celsius to 2,000 Celsius in about 10 seconds), considering the surface that has increased of such temperature, has implied a power of 1 MW, while the Mouse had a mean power of 1.3 kW. Look at the photo you have given the link of [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XuKgtxpqL9U/UYQSyPJP-OI/AAAAAAAAJYI/96mRUBJjs1w/s1600/hot-cat.JPG], and imagine that the cylinder was cherry red, then in 10 seconds all the cylinder became white-blue, starting from the white dot, where is placed the charge, you see in the photo ( after 1 second) becoming totally white-blue in the following 9 seconds, and then an explosion and the ceramic inside ( which is a ceramic that melts at 2,000 Celsius) turned into a red, brilliant powder made of small stones, like rubys. When we opened the reactor, part of the AISI 310 SS steel was not molten, but sublimated and recondensed in form of microscopic drops of steel.”

This last comment provides fascinating illustration of the tremendous power involved in this mysterious E-Cat reaction. To have the reactor increase in temperature 1000 C in just 10 seconds seems quite extraordinary, and obviously potentially dangerous if sufficient safety precautions are not taken.

All these revelations give tantalizing glimpses into the work going on at Rossi and Co.’s headquarters and ramps up anticipation for the publication of independent and in-house reports in the new year. Rossi said that the independent team behind the upcoming report “has been increased” from the one that authored the Levi report earlier this year. I hope that the next report will be of sufficient quality and detail that it will bring to the E-Cat the attention it deserves.

UPDATE (12/29)

Here’s another comment from Rossi in response to a question from a JONP reader for a picture of the ‘blue hot’ E-Cat in destruction mode:

“The registration of these experiments, in particular of the explosions, contains information we deem restricted, so far. I gave a description that filtered the confidential data . . . If positive, what really will matter are not the destructive tests, but the stable operation at high temperature, which allows to exchange heat with water making steam at 500-600°C, with an efficiency around 40%. The distructive tests are important to determine the safety limits of operation”