Rossi Eyes 15 MW Plant in Pursuit of Self Sustaining E-Cat

As Andrea Rossi discusses the commercialization of E-Cat Technology one thing seems to becoming clearer by the day: he is focusing much more now on the production of electricity. Two thermal energy producing E-Cats have been designed, the 1 MW plant now on the market, and the 10 kW units that Leonardo Corp is gearing up to mass produce.

Rossi seems to be pleased with both these products — but it is pretty clear that he is not satisfied enough to stop working towards the goal of the efficient production of electricity from his inventions. One of the key reasons for this is that if enough electricity can be produced from his technology he can start to work on a closed-loop system in which E-Cats produce the electricity that can power the E-Cat reactors so that both heat and electricity can be produced with no need for an external energy source.

A reader of Rossi’s JONP blog this week made point that I am sure many E-Cat observers would agree with:

Since e-cat requires electric power, which is very expensive in some countries (expecially here in Italy) it’s crucial to get also the electric power production as soon as possible. The first generation will enable substantial savings but only the second generation will trigger off the revolution.

Rossi responded:

I agree, also because the production of electricity will make the COP infinite, if we consider that in a system of E-Cats one makes the power to drive the others.

Those who purchase the first edition of home E-Cats will have to determine whether the cost outlay will be worthwhile. While heat is very valuable for many households — indeed essential for basic survival in many parts of the world — for some the heat-only E-Cat may not be cost effective solution compared to other sources of heat that are available, especially where the cost of electricity, which is needed to run the E-Cat, is high. However if electricity generation became available with home units, and especially if some kind of closed loop system, with an “infinite” COP were available, there would of course be a tremendous amount of interest. The idea of producing cheap and abundant power at home is one of the most appealing aspects of any LENR technology.

As things stand now however, it would appear that Leonardo Corporation is some time away from domestic electrical production. According to Rossi, recent collaboration with Seimens AG has shown promise for efficient electrical generation at low steam temperatures (251 C), but this is only from large E-Cat plants. Rossi commented further on this today:

We are working hard on this issue. The Siemens turbine, anyway, will be for plants over 15 electric MW of power, no way to make it fit for small applications.
Probably we will start soon the production of a 15 MW plant, totally self sustained utilizing part of the electric energy it produces to drive the E-Cat modules and using the remaining thermal energy for heating.

Up until this point, the largest E-Cat plant has been a 1 MW thermal unit. Now Rossi is talking about making something fifty times as large (he says 15 MW of electric power which at 30 per cent efficiency would require 50 MW of thermal power) with the intention of making a closed-loop self sustaining plant which will create enough excess electricity to drive itself. This kind of system would achieve the holy grail of energy production that many inventors and engineers have been striving for over the centuries — and which conventional science has said would be impossible.

Something fifty times as large as his current 1 MW plants would be a huge undertaking. The E-Cat units that he is using in the larger plants are not being made on the robotic production line, and according to Rossi have to be manually constructed, so this would take considerable time and money to achieve. As always, Rossi sounds very optimistic, but we will no doubt have to wait for some time to see if this can become a reality.