The new leader is Brillouin Energy with a new process named the Hot Tube Boiler. Sterling Allen at PESN interviewed Brillouin’s Robert W. George II, CEO; and the inventor, Robert Godes, the Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Allen learned Brillouin has had two significant independent validations of their scientific model and claims. One of those was by Los Alamos National Laboratories. The other was by Dr. Michael McKubre of Stanford Research International (SRI), who subsequently joined their board of advisors.

What puts Brillouin out in front first is the temperature output. Brillouin expects the test of the new Hot Tube model at SRI will be capable of delivering steam at temperatures from 400ºC to 500ºC (750-932ºF). These kinds of temperatures are called superheated or deliver “dry steam”, a steam form that does not contain water mechanically suspended. Dry steam is what’s needed for generating power and moving heat because it saves a great deal of water and is more efficient. Pressures, especially for turbine drives can be much higher.

The second Brillouin advantage is control and predictable output. The Brillouin team noted Dr. McKubre has joined the Brillouin Board of Directors because of the consistency of the results. So far as we know, Brillouin is the first cold fusion or LENR process that is able to repeat tasks every time, without exception.

Brillouin believes they understand how LENR works, and if operating results are proofs, then the company has the idea worked out.

Robert Godes explained it’s not a nickel-hydrogen fusion reaction. Nickel is merely a catalyst. “A tiny amount of hydrogen protons are converted into neutrons. These newly produced neutrons are soon captured by hydrogen ions or other atoms in a metallic (e.g. nickel) lattice near to where the hydrogen ions were converted to neutrons. The captured neutrons generate heat because the new atoms that are one neutron heavier shed excess binding energy as heat to the lattice, resulting in a dramatically clean, low-cost, hi-quality heat output.”

Godes goes on to explain the error in “cold fusion” and “LENR”, instead using the terms Controlled Electron Capture Reactions or “CECR”, for “phonon-moderated hydrogen reactions.”

For documentation the suggestion is in the firm’s business summary, “Evidence suggests this reaction involves the synthesis of neutrons, which accumulate on hydrogen dissolved in a matrix (lattice), which progresses to deuterium, then tritium and on to quadrium that decays to helium. In a Brillouin reaction the process is promoted and catalyzed in a highly energized nickel matrix. The process releases thermal energy far in excess of what is possible from chemical reactions. The important feature is that neutrons are generated and accumulate in a comparatively low-energy environment, and this accumulation generates heat.”

Simply stated, hydrogen in a nickel lattice exposed to Brillouin’s proprietary electro-stimulation will yield heat and at the end, helium.

The latest visual explanation comes from Brillouin with a YouTube video:

Godes noted that 1.024 ml, a volume about the size of a #2 pencil eraser, of water provides as much energy as two 48-gallon drums of gasoline. “That is 355,000 times the amount of energy per volume – five orders of magnitude.”

Refueling and service expectations are extraordinary as well. Godes expects systems will last 3-5 years before servicing, including refills or replacement of the nickel lattice.

Godes points out the nuclear process Brillouin utilizes is the same albeit better understood and thus controlled, as is being used by the competition including Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat, Defkalion’s Hyperion, Piantelli’s Nichenergy, George Miley’s LENUCO, and Celani’s Cold Fusion Energy Inc.

Is there a business model in this that makes more sense than the seemingly odd reports about Andrea Rossi or the off/on information flow out of Defkalion?

The Brillouin CEO is Robert W. George II, who was a Managing Director at Grosvenor Financial Partners. Mr. George has honest, real and practical experience in bringing startups to market. It’s very likely that George can find a way to get the technology into customer’s hands at a price that’s attractive enough to attract even more customers.

The premise now should be that Brillouin has the technology worked out. Note that three patents have been filed – so far no issues because of the US Patent Office’s inability to recover from being mislead by experts over the Cold Fusion Debacle over twenty years ago. But the prior art is on file, copycats be warned . . .

Yet Godes points out that there are certain aspects that he has filed for patent protection on, and still others that he plans to maintain as proprietary or trade secrets. The intellectual property, or the know how to do the electro-stimulation, have to do with the circuitry used to control the CECR technology. “These trade secrets constitute a challenging barrier to entry for competitors,” said Godes.

The electro-stimulation is more complex than what is presumed to be going on at the E-Cat or Defkalion efforts. The Brillouin documentation says in the Business Summary, “One of the intellectual property methods claimed in Brillouin’s Patents, and being used in both systems, is designed to aid stimulation of phononic activity by introducing Q pulses. These are high current pulses through the lattice of our CECR reactor. The Q pulses cause electromigration, which means the nickel atoms and the hydrogen ions get moved by passing electrons. In other words, electromigration causes the creation of cold neutrons, which is an endothermic reaction. The cold neutrons accumulate on the hydrogen nuclei, from 1H to 2H to 3H to 4H then to 4He in milliseconds (see “step” block diagram below). Each time a neutron is added to the hydrogen nuclei it is an exothermic reaction. Unlike plasma physics, where high-energy particles would be emitted, this binding energy is released as pure heat.”

Mr. Allen has met Andrea Rossi, visited Defkalion and talked with the Brillouin people and without realizing it has hit on the key measure we have for now, “when I was watching the data emerge from the Defkalion set-up, when I was in Greece, I was expecting to see a steady curve, but instead what I saw were intermittent spikes from the nuclear events. The Brillouin curve would be steady.”

Allen believes that Brillouin can turn the reaction on and off, govern it up and down, and run it in steady state, capabilities that none of the competitors are reported to have yet.

By whatever the name, cold fusion is looking marketable – one of these is sure to get trails one day soon. Then the improvements will come, miniaturization, and the human tendency to exploit good ideas with the whole of good minds intuition and imagination.

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