Rossi on Production: ‘Unthinkable’ to Sell E-Cats Until Economy of Scale Reached

I put a question to Andrea Rossi on the Journal of Nuclear Physics regarding the power output of the first industrial E-Cats, and got a response which covered more than I anticipated.

Andrea Rossi

Frank Acland:
Please remind that until the R&D on course will not have been completed we do not know precise data related to our market strategy.
This said, if the results will be positive I think we will have models of 10 an 20 kW for the domestic versions, while the industrial plants will be initially of at least 1 MW, made by modules of 250 kW. Eventually is possible that the modules of 250 kW will be sold separately and is possible that a module of 100 kW will be made. These are just projections of virtualities. Somebody wrote somewhere that as soon as the tests will have been completed we will start the distribution of the E-Cats, but this is impossible. Provided the results will be positive, it is unthinkable that we put for sale the E-Cats before reaching an economy scale able to make our products impossible to be conveniently reproduced; we have to set up robotized production lines, make big investments…nobody can seriously think that we will be ready to distribute the E-Cats in months! Certainly, we are already working on it: for example right now, tonight, I will spend my time- if She lets me in peace- studying the robotized lines, that are very important.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

As far as the sizes of the E-Cats go, it’s interesting that a wide range of sizes are being considered — even as low as 100 kW, which would be less than industrial strength, but they will start out with sizes at least of the 1 MW size. I suppose any organization needing more power could purchase multiple plants and combine the power.

We also get the picture here that if the current test proves positive, that there is going to be much further work to be none before they are going to put the E-Cats out in the marketplace. It sounds like they will wait for full-scale automated production before they start to distribute the new plants — as opposed to making hand built plants like the current one — in order to reach the desired economy of scale.

How much time would this take? It’s hard to say, but things of this nature generally take longer and cost more than early optimistic projections. When Rossi says that commercialization will begin in March, it seems clear from this response that he meant that the commercial phase will begin. This will involve getting investments, organizing production technology, taking orders, and all the necessary organizational activities that will be required.

Rossi says here it is not serious to think that this can be accomplished in months, so that would suggest we may not see E-Cat plants start being deployed until after 2016.