Andrea Rossi on the E-Cat – Part 2/2

Below follows a stylized E-Cat Q&A section part 2 /2 from the interview with Andrea Rossi in Stockholm, 5th July 2011

Question: What is the start and stop time for a Hyperion device (E-cat)?

Answer: The start time of the reactor (E-Cat) is about 20-30 minutes, i.e. the time between the push of the on button until the reactor produces 5kW. The stop time, on the other hand, is about 20 minutes.

Question: What is the possible kW range for a single Hyperion box? We saw that the different series had different specifications but one Hyperion box could contain multiple E-Cats which, as we understand it, has a range of 5-30 kW.

Answer: The Hyperion box can at most contain five E-Cats inside and the E-Cats all have a power range between four to five kilowatt, so the Hyperion will then have a range of 4-20 kW (as the low estimate). It should be emphasized that the Hyperion series is developed solely for the household range, and that the bulk of the applications have not been developed yet, and will be open for third party developers to address.

The 1 MW plant on the other hand, is built within the dimensions of a 20 feet container for easy shipment, weighs 5 tonnes and contains 300 E-Cat modules. I jokingly call it a “Hyper Hyperion” and I’m still looking for the perfect match of another 20 feet container containing a high efficiency heat-to-electricity converter.

Question: Is the auto-shutdown temperature of the Hyperion tunable or is it factory preset?

Answer: The Hyperion has a highly sophisticated monitor system and will automatically shut down when dangerous levels of temperature or pressure are reached. These levels are factory set but can be tunable for certain needs if a third party developer needs to extend temperature or pressure ranges.

Question: If the Hyperion is used for producing steam at 100+ Celsius, will the temperature of the box be the temperature of the water, or will the output temperature affect the temperature of the entire box?

Answer: The inside temperature of the Hyperion box will through insulation be kept at room temperature regardless of both water inlet temperature and water outlet temperature.

Question: How will the E-Cat be protected from copying – i.e. what prevents anyone to disassemble it and analyze the components? We have heard Alexandros Xanthoulis(of Defkalion GT) announce that there are 12 levels of security.

Answer: Because of the patent situation, we have been forced to introduce counter measures against anyone trying to steal the intellectual property of the E-Cat. To that end we have introduced several levels of security that prevents anyone from disassembling the E-Cat and analyzing its components.

Defkalion GT has hired a separate team of people in order to get this in place because of the complexity of the issue. The biggest problem has been to find an auto-destruct mechanism that is not harmful while still fulfilling its purpose. I am still not sure if the mechanism is fully developed as of yet, but Defkalion GT who is responsible for its development has told me that all details have been solved and that the E-Cat now has 12 levels of security.

I can confirm that the patent has at this stage only been granted in Italy, but I want to emphasize that it should thereby hold within EU as well. When it comes to the international patent, it is still pending and has been so for three years, but given the complexity of the patent this is normal.

Actually, the standard administration time is between three to six years for this kind of technological patent. I’m not too concerned about the patent situation; it will take some time and in the worst-case scenario it will not be granted in the end. The important thing, though, is that the patent application and the Italian patent approval, guarantee that no one else can patent the same device. That means we can always be sure that we are allowed to produce and sell our E-Cats no matter what happens.

When it comes to competition I’m also well aware that people will eventually be able to reverse engineer my invention and come up with competitive alternatives – but I’m confident that our ongoing research and our early business position will give us an advantage at least for some time.

Question: Will Defkalion GT and AmpEnergo cooperate on the US market for the same Hyperion applications (we read that AmpEnergo wouldn’t go for the “low hanging fruit”)?

Answer: When it comes to exclusivity of manufacturing and selling the E-Cat, Defkalion GT have the exclusive rights for Greece and the Balkans while AmpEnergo has the exclusive rights for the Americas.

If the situation ever arises, however, where Defkalion GT or AmpEnergo has a product with a substantial demand from the other company’s region, and the other party has no product to offer in that segment, then they will act as a team. With that I mean that, for instance, Defkalion GT will be able to sell Hyperion’s in the USA if AmpEnergo does not have a similar product to offer. They will just have to solve the revenue sharing issues between the companies and this will not be a big hurdle to overcome.

The management team of both Defkalion and AmpEnergo will meet on the 14th July (2011) together with NASA for an important discussion regarding the research and business development around the E-Cat. After the initial meeting with NASA, Defkalion GT and Ampenergo will sit down and develop a joint program for the introduction of the E-Cat as a main energy source to the world.

Any information Ecatreport gets from the meeting will be published in our newsletter first followed by a website update later on. So make sure to sign-up for the newsletter to stay fully updated.

Question: What is the scheduled ramp up for the E-Cat production? How are they, Defkalion GT and AmpEnergo, planning to meet the high demand on E-Cat modules powering the various product lines that will arise, such as the Hyperion series and so on?

Answer: The number 300,000 per year given by Defkalion is the amount of single units of Hyperion’s that will be built during the first year, with a planned expansion plan of two new factories in Xanthi at some stage during 2012. When it comes to the E-Cat production, the reactor is not more than a nut in size and can easily be manufactured in vast amounts depending on the demand.

Hyperion producing factories (including 1 MW products) can be built all around the world and the corresponding E-Cat components are just shipped and mounted into these products. The stress testing can be outsourced globally, and for now there are already stress-testing agreements in USA & Greece. The E-Cat reactor itself should not be a bottleneck in the production process. It is more like installing new software in a computer.

Question: Are there any plans to license E-Cat production as well in due time?

Answer: There are no plans of outsourcing the E-Cat production itself since it is the only critical part of the invention and the risk of loss of intellectual property is too great.

Question: Finally, how do you measure the amount of non-vaporized water in the steam?

Answer: This has unfortunately been a big issue in the media lately, while at the same time it is a no-brainer in-house. One should never forget that heat measurements are one of the first things that high school children learn in physics class and that to inquiry five different independent physics professors about this is just plain silly.

The instruments used, measures the water content in grams per cubic meter and the question whether it is measured by mass or volume should thereby have been settled once and for all. Next thing to do would be to question the German manufacturer of the instrument if one wants the fuzz to continue.

Here is a picture of the label of the German instrument from manufacturer Testo for anyone who wish to enquire this further.