Andrea Rossi today responded to a question from a reader who asked him what the eventual model of the QuarkX reactor (Rossi’s most recent version of the E-Cat). He responded:
Andrea Rossi
September 30, 2016 at 4:00 PM
Andrea:
Yes, in these last days we made tremendous progress.
The modules will be real “quarkx”, they will have a power of 20 Watts each.
The dimensions will be very small and they will be able to be combined without limit of quantities.
The COP is very high, and the small power/module is necessary for safety reasons.
They can produce heat, light, electricity, but the main application will be to produce heat and eventually turn it into electricity by Carnot cycle. It is possible also production of light and direct electricity, but the highest efficiency is achieved making heat an eventually use the Carnot cycle for other energy forms.
We are very close to industrial applications, we are making important measurements and I am very happy of what is going on.
Ad majora,
Warm Regards,
A.R., from the bench of the QuarkX
Key points to me:
1. The QuarkX now is rated at 20W, whereas previously Rossi had said that the smallest unit would be 100W. So for some reason they have made a decision to go smaller. Perhaps this is for safety reasons. Rossi has said that they had been experiencing problems with the reactors overheating, and it makes me wonder if they have found the problem is lessened if the reactors are smaller.
2. While the QuarkX reactors can reportedly produce electricity and light directly, Rossi says that it will be more efficient to produce electricity from the heat of the QuarkX via the Carnot cycle; i.e. using the heat to turn steam turbines. If the COP really is ‘very high’ (Rossi has said recently that it is similar to the COP of the E-Cat plant in the one-year test which he claims was around 50), then efficiency of the electricity production would be very good.
3. Rossi saying they are ‘very close’ to industrial applications sounds encouraging; however, that is still indefinite. I try to temper my expectations in this area — we’ll see it if and when we see it.
4. Rossi reporting being ‘very happy’ about the current state of affairs might be significant. The fact that he says they have made ‘tremendous progress’ might signal that they have successfully dealt with overheating issue they have been experiencing. Incidentally, Rossi said that the specialist they had brought in from California to help them to deal with this problem was a “retired officer engineer of the US Navy.”
