Believe it or not, the first cold fusion power plant is now available to pre-order. The E-Cat 1MW Plant, which comes in a standard shipping container, can produce one megawatt of thermal energy, using low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) — a process, often known as cold fusion, that fuses nickel and hydrogen into copper, producing energy 100,000 times more efficiently than combustion. It sounds like E-Cat is now taking orders for delivery in early 2014, priced fairly reasonably at $1.5 million.
Despite the rudimentary setup, though, cold fusion still has the massive power and energy density intrinsic to atomic fusion — earlier this year, when Rossi finally allowed some independent scientists to take a look at his cold fusion tech, a prototype E-Cat device had around 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline.
Despite producing 1MW of power, the plant requires a constant 200 kilowatts of input power — presumably to sustain the reaction. The spec sheet also says that the fuel (specially treated nickel and hydrogen gas) needs to be recharged every two years. One of the science community’ biggest sticking points about Rossi’s cold fusion devices is that he hasn’t proven that his LENR is self-sustaining. Despite a huge amount of output energy, the device still needs to be connected to the mains.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1716 ... -5-million
