It's kind of rare to live in the same lifetime of a genius who invented something so revolutionary to change the way we live.
Lately we had Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who back in the 80's they introduced the Personal Computer, the Operative System, the Smart Phone, but their invention was not a real revolution that had an immediate impact on a global scale, I mean they did not find a substitute for fossil fuels, that is instead what Andrea Rossi's e-Catalyzer is supposed to do in today's world.
Yes you read it right. Andrea Rossi, an Italian engineer who developed a cold fusion device in a little warehouse in Bologna, he's the man who is going to save planet Earth from the energy crisis, the climate change and the economic collapse. Like Superman or Batman, even if he looks much more earthling than the average Superhero.
In January 2011 Andrea Rossi demonstrated that his invention, a device called the “E-Cat,” (short for “Energy Catalyzer") purported to develop 10 kW of power from a cold nuclear reaction. The E-cat is a closed reactor of steel that is loaded with nickel powder plus secret catalysts and pressurized with hydrogen.
When the mixture was heated with an electrical current, a mysterious reaction occurred, generating large amounts of excess heat—far more than any known chemical reaction could produce. The heat boiled water into steam. The steam could be used to spin a turbine to make electricity.
The heat is generated from an unknown reaction, according to Rossi himself, and according to Professor Sven Kullander and Associate Professor Hanno Essén.
The E-cat by Andrea Rossi has the power to transform nearly 300 grams of 68 degree water into enough steam to turn a turbine. In the pre-Rossi world 12,400 watts of traditional electricity would be required to accomplish that feat.
To make it simple, the E-cat LENR (Low Eenergy Nuclear Reactions) is a device that produces electrical energy almost for free.
In practice, Rossi’s invention is the miracle that humanity has been waiting for years, — the boundless energy source that physicists have been pursuing since the dawn of the nuclear age.
The amount of coal we need today to generate electricity to power our world is financially draining, which makes electricity very expensive for consumers. Coal Fusion and the E-Cat not only could replace electricity, but gasoline as well.
In the near future, we could have cars powered by LENR engines. That’s why Rossi’s invention can also change the automotive industry. Since the e-cat process creates no emissions, it has no impact on the ozone layer, as well as on the human health. Nor the e-cat produces any nuclear reaction of any sort nor any other dangerous emission.
Hundreds of studies demonstrated the direct damage that nuclear plants have on the health of citizens living nearby, like cancer and other diseases. The last earthquake with the consequent tsunami that happened in Japan last year, created a scare at one of Japan’s power plant that reminded everyone how dangerous nuclear plants can be. We don't need to remind you about Chernobyl.
In addition Nuclear plants can be the target of terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Damage to one of these plants could have deadly consequences on those staying in the surrounding areas, and even more widespread damage in the event of a massive catastrophe.
Rossi’s invention will completely wipe out these dangers, replacing nuclear reactors with LENR reactors that would have no radioactivity to leak in the event of an attack or catastrophe.
In fact the e-cat is a weak nuclear device that not only will solve our energy problem on a global scale and forever, but it's going also to reduce the carbon-fuel emissions and consequently to stop the climate change process and ultimately to save the environment. In addition, by completely annihilating the energy costs, the e-cat will be able to restart the world economy.
I don't think there's any invention in the human history with such a track record that also had a similar enormous impact on a global scale. In practice Andrea Rossi is going to save the world, or at least its bigger problems.
The e-cat for domestic use will hit the market next month, on Februrary 2013, but in the meanwhile there’s a commercial version for industrial use, the Hot Cat which is already in the market, distributed by Prometeon Srl.
We don’t know what will happen in the near future and how the market, the media and the industry will welcome this revolutionary invention. What we know for sure it’s that big changes in human history always happen starting from very small realities, like a little garage in Palo Alto, or like in this case a warehouse in Bologna.
However we already witnessed very different reactions from the academic world which is traditionally very fragmented when it's about a new discovery. From those who warmly welcomed Rossi’s invention, to those instead who still criticize it because they say it’s against the known physics laws so they consider it a scam, while there are others who have started developing similar devices based on cold fusion reaction.
What we want to underline here it’s the fact that Andrea Rossi despite being Italian has not received much support from his own country.
In 1978 Rossi registered a patent for a system that was able to convert human waste into a fuel called refluopetrolio, (reflowoil) a type of fuel that was very similar to oil. The machine patented by Rossi was able to make 2 tons of oil per day out of ten tons of organic waste, with the additional advantage that the reflowoil was 30% cheaper than the regular oil. You have to consider that 1978 was a year in which the oil crisis made the oil price skyrocketing, so you can imagine how important such an invention could have been considered at the time.
The invention was simply revolutionary and the U.S. President Jimmy Carter personally granted Andrea Rossi a permanent U.S. visa to come to the United States to develop his research even further.
Unfortunately Rossi chose to stay in Italy, where he bought an oil refinery that he transformed into a reflowoil factory. He called his company Petroldragon.
Since its beginning reflowoil was very successful within the chemical industry, that used oil to make solvents and other oil-based products. Thanks to Rossi’s invention, chemical companies using oil as their main supply started saving 1/3 of their budget.
Everything went smooth until one day of 1987 when just out of the blue, the Italian government made a law, according to which the waste treated in Rossi's company had to be considered toxic material.
So if Rossi wanted not only to stay in business but to legally stay in business, he needed a new series of special government permits to deal with toxic waste. Obviously Petroldragon did not have any of the authorizations required by the new Italian law.
By consequence the company was immediately signed under the government black list and it could not legally operate in Italy. In a very short time Petroldragon went bankrupt and Andrea Rossi was indicted with several charges. Then he was arrested and had to serve six months in an Italian correctional facility.
There is even a founded speculation (based on a suspicious timing coincidence) according to which the end of Rossi’s alternative oil company perfectly matches the rise of the Italian mafia in the waste management business.
Differently than Italy, America has always supported Andrea Rossi and his work. Apart from President Carter’s permanent visa, America gave Rossi the chance to restart his research project right after he went out of jail and was completely broke. Indeed after the detention experience,
Andrea Rossi was immediately hired by Big Development Corp. a New Hampshire-based Company whose main business was biomass energy.
Rossi was named Chief Scientist and as Big Development was a Department of Energy’s contractor, several new patents were registered under Rossi’s name within the new field of non-fossil fuels.
In the year 2000 Rossi realized an important plant in Chicago for the production of Carbon from wood’s waste. Although one day, while on a journey to Italy, once he stepped at Rome’s airport he was arrested once again for an old charge the Italian justice was still dragging on, despite the reflowoil story was more than dead 13 years before.
During his Italian detention Andrea Rossi did not give up and kept working on his project. Indeed while in Italy he managed to develop a system to extract electrical energy from biomass that he had started when he was still in the US.
In 2009 Rossi went back to America where he founded the consulting firm Leonardo Technologies, Inc. (LTI) to conduct a research project on a renewable energy source that was patented by Rossi himself.
Rossi discovered his Cold Fusion process while researching methods of obtaining fuel through heating hydrogen and carbon dioxide. In doing so, he noticed the device was creating energy and began to look into generating energy from the device. Meanwhile, Bologna University Physics
Professor Sergio Focardi was researching Nickel-Hydrogen reactors, making him the ideal partner for Rossi’s new work.
In the end, if we want to analyze the story of Andrea Rossi under a Narrative point of view, the story premise of his life and work could probably be pitched into the Latin motto “nemo profeta in patria”, that in English could be translated as “A prophet is never respected in his own home”.
Indeed Rossi found his new home country in America, where not only a U.S. President in person invited him to come to America to carry on his projects, (while the Italian government considered him a criminal to throw in jail) but if you look at his whole life when he and his work were rejected in Italy, America was always ready to welcome both him and his projects.
Just to make a quick comparison, in 2011 when Rossi’s invention was a wide spread news in the American mainstream media, there was nothing in the Italian media. Zero.
Indeed still at today the Italian people completely ignores who he is.
In June 2011, I called the University of Bologna P.R. Office to understand what was their relationship with Rossi and the woman who talked to me on the phone she wanted to make it clear the University of Bologna had “nothing to do with the E-cat and Andrea Rossi”. Would you believe it? A couple of months ago I was visiting an Italian Oil tycoon at his country home. We were sitting in his hunter’s chalet, chatting about current issues and I mentioned Andrea Rossi’s E-cat. The man had no idea what I was talking about and he was staring at me like if I just told him I was born on Mars.
I think if we are going to have free energy in the near future, the two entities we have to thank are Andrea Rossi and the United States of America.
E Pluribus Unum.
