In reviewing the video of the Rossi Q & A session at Zurich I found one of the exchanges very interesting, and it helps to understand better why Rossi has been so careful in controlling his E-Cat reactors. Someone asked him a question about why, since there were early reports of Rossi able to run his reactor with a COP of up to 200, is he now staying within a limit of 6. Here is Rossi’s response (at about 8:30 in the video):
You have correctly said that when we made the first experiments we had a COP: 200; we were working with powers of some hundreds of watts. We were working at an absolutely experimental situation. Now we are making products that have to be sold to industries at the moment (because the domestic have not been certified for safety).
It is right to make a Forumula 1 car to race, and to push to the extreme an engine, to learn how to make normal engines, and to make a car that has to be driven by normal people like me. To go to a COP 200 is extremely dangerous, and when I worked at those powers it happened that we had some escape of neutrons, in some situation. For obvious reasons this is very dangerous. This is why we had to reduce to 6, and this is why we have to limit the self-sustain mode . . . we must stay within the absolutely sure safety limits, this is very important.
I hadn’t heard Rossi speak about neutron emissions before, and since neutron radiation is extremely harmful, it is something that must obviously be avoided at all costs. The drive that Rossi speaks of (heat applied to the reactor) must somehow dampen the E-Cat reaction and keep the reaction from running out of control. He has said that in normal E-Cat operation, the drive is on about 50 per cent of the time. Safety certifiers will certainly be very careful to ensure that there is no chance that an E-Cat can run out of control, and this concern could well be the reason why it could be a while before E-Cats are approved for domestic use.
