E-Cat or LENR?

Has anyone been following the developments with "cold fusion" lately?

http://earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/e-cat-update-lenr-confirmed-by-mainstream-scientists/ Owen has a pretty good breakdown of info at his blog.
http://e-catsite.com/energy-catalyzer-overview/ has a good video talking about the latest experiments and verifications that have been made.

First, the cynic in my figures it's an elaborate hoax, but there's quite a few people smarter than I am swearing it works.

Secondly, I wonder what this will do to power use with mankind's general tendency to over-consume that which is cheap and plentiful. This would dramatically change what is considered acceptable power consumption levels. It's daunting to begin thinking about all the implications this has...

I have been watching this for a while, and while I think there are some major advances happening here, I don't expect that we'll be using this technology anytime soon. These are "lab" devices, not real-world prototypes.

It would be nice to have an open source DIY version, though....

Sterling Allen has a website and Newsletter devoted to "Free Energy" and is huge proponent of Rossi's E-Cat device. You can find one page at http://pesn.com/2012/01/12/9602003_E-Cat_Weekly_January_12/, and explore his extensive site further at your convenience.

Although not really "free" energy, devices like the E-Cat and other things in experimentation stages look promising in the ability to provide abundant power without reliance of petro-products. How we incorporate these into our daily lives will further enable us to be and truly live off-the-grid in the not-too-distant future.

the problem with these technologies is that they offer a future full of cheap energy, so that we can continue business as usual. The problem is that this is neither desirable nor possible.

While e-cat may eventually come into being, it will not be the silver bullet everyone hopes it to be.

Abe Connally wrote:the problem with these technologies is that they offer a future full of cheap energy, so that we can continue business as usual. The problem is that this is neither desirable nor possible.

Abe, are you saying that expensive energy would be more desirable, in the hope that ever-increasing costs forces people to use energy differently?

I don't think most people are looking for a "magic bullet" as much as they are looking for alternatives to today's costly energy providers, as well as solutions for whatever inherent challenges those many alternatives will bring.

energy is not expensive to the consumer, especially in the US.

I am saying that these continued promises of being able to have unlimited cheap energy is doing no one any favors. They distract from real alternatives that are available and working today.

Should we invest in new and developing technologies? yes
Should we believe the hype? no

If anyone is so easily "distracted" by someone reporting on someone else developing alternatives in the field of energy, or healing, or finance, or music reproduction, or gardening, or community, or recreation, or education, or anything else that people use and derive Joy from, I'd say they are easily distracted because they have decided to choose to be distracted, for any of dozens of reasons.

well, research and infrastructure money comes from people who are easily distracted, namely the permies.

So your solution is not report or pay attention to anything new and promising? That might have the unintended consequence of "big (fill-in-the-blank)" quash or buy up and lock away alternative research? I think we've already seen that game played.

I guess I'm missing the big point(s) you are attempting to make.

I guess I'm missing the big point(s) you are attempting to make.

Yeah, for sure.

Abe Connally wrote:

I guess I'm missing the big point(s) you are attempting to make.

Yeah, for sure.

Abe, maybe you can help me out then.

You said you've been "watching this for a while," so you must know Andre Rossi has taken his system past the lab stage, all without a cent of public money. You must also know there are LOTS of other people pursuing many forms of "free energy," also at their own (usually considerable) expense. Of course most hope to profit from these endeavores, but, the vast majority of them are just as interested in systems that put power into the hands of individuals at far lower rates or costs than we currently have access to. (not to mention the BILLIONS on this planet still without the ability or means to generate power without human or animal propulsion)

I've been seeing and hearing people talk about new forms of energy since the 60s, and know of the many people who did their own R&D before then, back to and even before the days of Tesla. I've heard of the many inventors whos projects have been bought up and secreted away from production so existing standards and practices weren't disrupted. (In the late 60s, I got to drive a full-size car that got 75+ MPG. Like MANY similar garage-based improvements in the 50s and 60s, these plans were acquired by some company who never brought the technology to market)

We stand today in a world well suited to make lots of technological advances actually work, and, they can easily co-exist with better Earth and Nature practices.

This is where you can help me Abe. Help me understand what real problem(s) you have with abundant and cheap, even ULTRA-cheap energy. Name'em all, because they will need to be addressed as we (individually, collectively and societaly) begin to realize some of these projects are actually coming on-line, perhaps in the very near future.

Abundant and cheap energy would buy us some breathing time and be a godsend for minimizing climate change

It would also come with all sorts of real problems, because energy isn't the only limiting factor in the finite system we inhabit. It would allow us to continue merrily on a path of over-consumption, base economies on the idea of infinite growth, etc....It would allow the momentum in population growth to continue or increase. And pretty soon everything would come crashing into the other limits, as loss of habitat and species diversity, pollution, and other resource scarcities become the next crisis....as we lose the resilience of natural ecosystems globally and live in increasingly engineered low-diversity environments we put our species increasingly at risk and lose a great deal of the richness and beauty in the world.

Humanity hasn't shown the collective wisdom to live within the means of the biosphere, and with free energy and the associated hubris the party wouldn't be slowing down anytime soon...it would just be a further extension of the cheap fossil energy growth frenzy.

I google e cat whenever I need a good laugh. A better dog, and pony show can not be found. I also like reading the posts on the phony web sites he has set up to give his gong show good reviews.
One video had me in stitches, Rossi is claming a output of 5kw of steam from his ecat. This so called 5000 watts of steam was going through what looked like a half inch garden hose to a sink drain. Not one of the so called "experts" reviewing this test questioned this! there would have been a mushroom cloud of steam over that sink!! The hose should have been flopping around like a loose fire hose.
Another test has Rossi monitoring the input to his ecat with a clamp on ampmeter. He just split the primary cord and hung his probe on one of the conductors! No monitoring of the voltage at all!! and have these so called "experts" not heard of a wattmeter!!! Even a high school lab has one.
My favorite video had some science expert giving a interview regarding the claimed output of the ecat. This "expert" starts out saying the experiment was producing 2kw, then within seconds says 3 then goes to 4kw within a few more seconds he said it was producing maybe 5 kw of power. The output just increased 2.5 time as this guy talked, Thats how they evaluate the output of the e cat, by quessing!!!. My sides hurt just watching that one.I do not know how the camera man held steady. You might wonder how he determined this output, he says himself he put his hand on it and could feel it bubbling. That is what passes for science in Italy.( I should say, in Rossi's lab)
Though in fairness I think he may have been distracted thinking about his last visit to the cafes of Amsterdam.
Here is a clue to spot a fake- Lots of tin foil, ever changing tests (nothing standerdized), and secret ingredients......Rossi has them all... (remember tin foil is always a big clue)

So Kari, what I'm reading you say is that free ..... (let's change that to ABUNDANT) abundant energy wouldn't really ADD problems, but it might allow things to continue as they already are. Am I interpreting correctly what you wrote?

I'm not here to state a case for or against "abundant energy," because in reality, it's already on the way.

I agree with you when you suggest there are other areas that DESPERATELY need to be addressed.

Consumption ......
This may continue to present itself as a problem, but I think local source abundant energy will actually provide more solution than it would exacerbate current challenges. Here's a couple REAL problems we in America face today:

1 - HydroFracking.
If we don't "need" the hard-to-access-and-harvest Natural Gas they are going after, the price of NG will plummet, making this dangerous and damaging practice non-cost-effective, and will die out straight away.

2 - Oil Pipelines.
When oil is no longer "needed" for virtually EVERYTHING that touches our daily lives, the delivery or refining of said oil can be dramatically reduced, and the dependence we've come to believe is inevitable will no longer be fact, but fiction. Just about everything petrolium is used for today can be made with alternative means, but, one of the big limitations to those alternative has been the energy needed in their manufacture or creation.

3 - Clean Water.
When we can wean our cities off "the Grid," we can do away with many of the hydro monster-dams that inhibit natural flow of water. This alone will allow more local source crops and back-yard and Family Farms to once gain be the norm, rather than the exception.

4 - Transportation.
There are sooooomany ways abundant energy will benefit Transportation, I'll allow your imagination to fill in those blanks.

Pollution .....
Most, if not all viable forms of abundant energy are relatively or actually pollution-free. Will we still need some forms of mitigation in their usage? Undoubtedly, so, we will still need to be vigilant in making that happen.

Population .....
did you know population growth RATE is actually lower today than the mid-60s? Even factoring in an incredible increase in average lie-expectancy, that momentum is actually much smaller today, essentially because of 2 things .....
1 - Education.
2 - Availability of non-human power.
While it's true the overall world population will continue to grow, people around the world are limiting the number of children they bring into a family. They don't ned as many kids because of increased use of automation and technology. At the same time, we are also learning how to deal with increasing life-span, due in part to both better access to health care and technology. The Technology element comes in 2 forms - lower Worker death rate (typically from automation) and more extraordinary-means care. In Western Societies, the working-class male has experienced a doubling of life-span since the mid-1800s, while women have seen about 25% extension.

Loss-of-Habitat .....
As long as some humans continue to think of expansion and growth instead of expression and inSpiration, this might be a problem, so we really need to get this one handled. Although there are MANY reasons this continues to be so, I think the single biggest reason is because we can continue to expand, without thought of or acknowledging the impact, whether intentional or not. Until the reasons WHY expansion is considered important are examined and met, this will see little change.
Let's take the Amazon for example. My understanding: they "need" to slash and burn to clear the area to grow the food and build the houses for all the people moving into the area to take jobs all the new industries offer, because the people cannot support themselves on their small-scale farms. How to stop this cycle and create another sustainable cycle? I don't know, but I DO know one of the main crops they now grow in those cleared areas is Sugar Cane, which provides the base to make the energy they chose to use to replace the imported Oil Brazil could no longer afford. (think abundant energy would be welcome there?)

NONE of this stuff will happen overnight, but, if we as individuals and societies see positive-step movements, especially towards Abundance vs scarcity mindset, that alone will shift patterns and practices of consumption. But the BIGGEST thing that will make a difference has been, and will continue to be ..... Education.

I wonder how they are going to make plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, insulation, and all the other non-fuel uses for petroleum out of the hot air from the e-cat?

From a permaculture perspective, which I'm assuming you would prefer people orient towards, would fertilizer or pesticides be necessary?

Do you really think I or ANYONE is saying this would be the only single-source alternative to petroleum products? Come on Abe, you can't be that combative about people pursuing alternative forms of energy, can you?

Plastics, fertilizers and pesticides will continue to be made with petroleum for decades to come. No amount of "free energy" will change that. So, the fracking and the oil pipelines will continue to exist. As far as transportation is concerned, this technology will have a minor effect on that, at best. No truck is going to have a steam engine on board.

I eagerly await a third-party verification of this technology as well as a paper in a peer-reviewed publication. Until then, you are jumping the gun saying this unproven technology would solve the world's problems.

Abe, where did I say this one technology will solve the worlds problems? It will be one of MANY tools to use. The best technology will be Education.

I'd have to agree more with Abe here. The continued availability of cheap energy will only accelerate consumption and encourage continued population growth. This will eradicate natural area's and result in ever more destructive practices to extract every available resource for that ever expanding consumer market. If you are old enough you will remember an original star trek episode where a world has conquered death and disease it is so overpopulated that everybody has nothing but the essentials to survive and are literally crouded in cheek by jowl. That is what Abe is alluding to. Our social ethics need to catch up to our technical expertise otherwise the cure, cheap energy, will actually be the disease! Ethical behaviour has sadly progressed backwards especially with the tremendous push for ever expanding markets since WWII!

yes Max! exactly! We don't need more "free" or "cheap" energy. We need more conservation, better design, and efficient implementation of the technologies we already have. We need to realize that "cheap" energy causes us to over-consume and over-populate.

I still doubt the ability of the e-cat to actually solve many of the issues its proponents claim. It's still a long way from becoming a reality, even if it actually works.

Abe Connally wrote:We don't need more "free" or "cheap" energy.

Wow... really?? If somebody made a device that ran on micro-grams of a common metal, produced unlimited hot water and electricity for at least 6 months and perhaps years on end without refilling---safely---with NO WASTE PRODUCTS WHATSOEVER, without the need for expensive resource-hogging lead batteries... AND cost less than $1,000 out the door...

YOU WOULDN'T BE INTERESTED???

You'd rather that new technologies never be developed or pursued? WHEW.... Sounds like a severe case of 'I've got mine, the rest of the world can go hang'! Thankfully those who think otherwise are going ahead with these incredible new technologies that have the potential to change human history. YES THAT IS RIGHT, they very well could change human history. And NOT in the ways you are describing but instead, the potential for humankind to have a much smaller footprint on the earth. Examples:

---Personal 'hovercraft'... needing no roads or infrastructure or mass quantities of polluting fuels
---Micro hospitals wherever needed
---Water desalinization instead of aquifer pumping
---Plows for keyline terra-forming of deserts and barren lands aka 'greening the desert' aka 'changing the climate back from arid to moderate'
---Aquaculture in any locale, increasing protein and providing fertilizer while treating wastewater sustainably
---CELLPHONE / INTERNET ACCESS for the entire world
---which leads to increased education, knowledge, connectivity, networking, outreach.... HOPE.
---which will tap the untold millions of human minds who will develop more amazing inventions that will further decrease resource use
---which just might lead to radical transformation of human culture on a scale never seen before...

OMG IF YOU CAN'T YOU SEE THE POTENTIAL HERE then maybe you need to open your heart a little.

Love this thread!! I've had my eye on the Rossi ECat for months and I am signed up to snag one as soon as they are available. Right now the home version is at Underwriters' Laboratories for the final tests before production. The manufacturing facility is being built and they anticipate ONE MILLION UNITS in a year's time OR LESS. This is not pie-in-the-sky folks, THIS IS FOR REAL.

http://pesn.com/2012/01/14/9602012_Momentous_Breakthroughs_Announced_During_Anniversary_E-Cat_Interview/

And here's another one of those 'cheap or free energy' devices we certainly don't need:

http://pesn.com/2012/01/29/9602027_PlasmERGs_Revolutionary_Engine_Getting_Ready_to_Rumble/

PlasmERG's Revolutionary Engine Getting Ready to Rumble
The Nevada based company PlasmERG, with their sister company Inteligentry, is prepping for the testing and manufacturing of their Noble Gas Engine. The first test engine has been assembled, and the electronic control system will soon be installed. Demonstrations of a running engine seem to be in the cards!

...in the near future a manufacturers' symposium is planned for the "unlimited manufacturers" that have invested in the company. The purpose of this meeting will be to verify the 3D drawings, and discuss any issues regarding production of the engine. Five such unlimited manufacturers exist in the United States, and will handle OEM (original equipment manufacturer) sales. They are spread out all across the country, from the west coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Additional manufacturing licenses will be sold as things progress.

In addition, a board meeting is planned for the near future (maybe only a few weeks away), in which a running engine may be demonstrated. PESN is invited to this private board meeting, but we will not be allowed to release the names of who attended. Rohner does not want his investors harassed by hundreds of people trying to contact them. However, it seems like we will be allowed to say if we saw a running engine or not, and hopefully additional details.

If the engine runs and things go as hoped, this technology could be a great solution for the energy crisis. For those who are not aware, the benefits of this technology (once validated) are huge. An engine with one liter of displacement is claimed to produce a couple hundred horsepower, and a couple hundred pounds of torque. While producing this huge amount of mechanical power very little fuel is consumed. A single filling of the cylinder is estimated to last months, with re-fills costing only tens of dollars. Also, the electronic controls of the engine are said to only consume an average of 100 watts. This means the electrical input used to create the ball of lighting in the cylinder, power the coil windings, and emit radio waves into the cylinder consumes almost nothing compared to the output of the engine."

I'm glad this thing is solving all of our problems!

Now, we just need proof that it actually works...

Looks like Rossi got his hand caught in the cookie jar... 3rd party tests failed, and his experiments have been called into question after tests were being manipulated. Same story, different characters.

As long as enough people desperately want to believe in something there's going to be hucksters lining up to sell it to them. Time to accept some sacrifices and hard changes and start the real work..instead of counting on next year's silver bullets that will re-write the laws of physics.