For those of us who were looking forward to a demo of the QuarkX in February, the timetable has recently shifted. Andrea Rossi reported that when he was in North Carolina with his legal team, he had been informed by his people in Miami that there was an unspecified problem with the QuarkX.
Soon after he made this post on the Journal of Nuclear Physics:
Andrea Rossi
January 20, 2017 at 5:00 PM
Jude Rabalais:
It depends upon the amount of work we do for the litigation, that in these last days has escalated enormously. The organization of a demo well done takes a lot of time and work.
Probably we will have to delay the presentation of the QuarkX until after the verdict of the litigation, that is expected by July. I matured this thought today returning from Raleigh, where work for the litigation has been made.
The presentation of the QuarkX must be perfect and to make it perfect I have to work on it with maximum focus, that now I have not. I am under too much pressure. I must first win one battle, then make the next and the litigation is now.
Probably we will start in March to receive visits of experts to make together with them closed doors measurements and tests.
This is the idea I formulated today examining the situation.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
It seems that this problem was the catalyst for Rossi making the decision to put off the demo. When asked what the problem was with his reactor, Rossi stated:
Andrea Rossi
January 22, 2017 at 9:10 PM
Patrick Ellul:
The latest issue is related to the overheating, therefore to the control.
I think we have understood and we are ready to restart. Tonight , in this very moment, I am working on it with the engineers of my great Team. We will win also this time. We have to.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Today I followed up with some questions of my own on the JONP, to which I have added Rossi’s answers:
Frank Acland
January 24, 2017 at 1:44 AM
Dear Andrea,When you say the QuarkX is acting a ‘little different’ now, does this mean:
1) You had to repair the reactor AR: yes
2) You had to adjust the control system AR: yes
3) The power output is lower AR: no
4) The COP is lower AR: no
5) The QuarkX is less stable AR: no
6) You had to start over on your quest for Sigma 5 AR: yes
7) Something else
So it seems clear that the reactor broke, apparently due to overheating, and the progress towards Sigma 5 has been halted, and it would appear that he will have to reset the clock and start again. The last test had run for approximately 10 months, and he said he was at around a Sigma 3.5, so there could take a long time to get to Sigma 5, even if there is no breakage this time.
As far as the closed-door meetings he mentions, I would expect they would be all under NDA, which means we would get no reports out of them, so it seems we are in another waiting period — something we have become very used to here! Rossi says he wants to have a perfect demonstration after the trial is over. According to the court papers, the trial is to be held in June of this year, and the judge seems to want to keep to that schedule since she denied IH a request for a 60-day extension. So maybe we can expect a demo at the earliest in August or September. I suppose, also that will depend on the outcome of the trial.
