For those of you frustrated by the lack of news coming from Andrea Rossi regarding his E-Cat, the best way to keep abreast of progress is simply to visit his official site at ecat.com, subtitled “Cold Fusion Revolution”.

His April news bulletins were as upbeat as ever and highlighted the following: The ECAT is environmentally perfectly safe to use and will respect product application requirements. It is currently in the process of being certified by UL. If the temperature goes above allowed limit, the Nickel inside the device melts and the ECAT stops, because melted Ni expels all absorbed Hydrogen. (The ECAT uses regular Nickel, thus eliminating some of the theories that rely on nano-sized particles to deal with the nuclear barrier effect).

The ECAT is stable up to 200 degrees Celsius. Should the reactor heat by accident, the lead shield of the ECAT unit is not affected because it is isolated in an area that remains under 200 degrees Celsius at all times. (Liquid lead has created problems when used as a primary fluid. It’s been tested with the ECAT, but it’s not a viable alternative, because it can generate issues such as: pump problems, condensation when the temperature goes down for any reason, etc.)

In the event of a short blackout, the ECAT goes in self-sustained mode under the control of an electronic system. In the event of a longer blackout, the control system turns off the ECAT for one hour. Currently the restart process is a manual one and can be transmitted remotely through a cell phone. ECATS’s maximum temperature achievable with an optimum number of cores connected in series is today 260 degrees, potentially higher without changing phase heat vectors.

Rossi plans to set up a division to produce and sell thermal energy and adding Ecat plants to the district heating grids and eventually electric grids. Various potential technologies suitable for a power-generating module for the Ecat Home device have been suggested and are in the pipeline to be tested. The Most important advantages are suggested to be its modern design, compactability, scalability, steam turbine technology and its ability to operate on 200 degrees C steam. We await his May news release with great interest.