A nuclear reactor as small as a laptop or a desktop, which does not pose any radiation threat and is capable of generating safe and green energy to power the households is on anvil. low Energy Nuclear Reactor, as it has been titled, is expected to revolutionise the global economy as well as energy , according to Dr Mahadeva Srinivasan, a physicist of repute who was the former head of the Physics Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay near Mumbai.
“A global scientific drama is being unfolded in Europe as well as in United States featuring this mini reactor. An Italian engineer by name Andrea Rossi has developed this reactor which generates heat at room temperature. All we have to do is to immerse an electrode (which has nickel powder and hydrogen) in water and it will generate heat. There is no radio activity in this process,” Dr. Srinivasan told the delegates of the Energy 14 seminar held at Chennai by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Saturday. He said he had met minister for power Piyush Goyal recently and submitted a project report about the feasibility and viability of such a fool proof safe mini reactor.
Rossi’s nuclear reactor has been named as E-Catalyser or E-Cat for short. It has taken Europe and US by storm. But the hitch is that Rossi is not willing to part with his technology. “A team of scientists from University of Bologna and University of Uppsala were bowled over by Rossi’s demonstration of the mini reactor in Italy last October. His argument is that E-Cat or Hot Cat of 10 kW could be manufactured and sold as portable and easy to operate nuclear reactors,” said Dr Srinivasan,
Two books authored by science journalists John Michell (Rossi’s E-cat) and Mats lewan (An Impossible Mission) has become a rave in scientific circles. The only missing link in the low Energy Nuclear Reactors is the failure of the main protagonists to explain the logic behind the generation of heat in room temperature and the absence of radio activity and radiation in a nuclear reactor.
“Rossi’s argument is that E-Cat or Hot Cat of 10 kW could be manufactured and sold as portable and easy to operate nuclear reactors,” said Dr Srinivasan. He said Rossi has proved that by adding up blocks of 10KW modules, it is possible to set up even 1000 MW power stations., Gerald Celente, the American trends forecaster who foresaw and warned about the global economic meltdown of 2007 says Rossi’s E-cat is a “game-changer”. “It will iberate the world from oil. It will be as big as the discovery of fire or the invention of the wheel,” said Celete about E-Cat.
The latest news from Rossi is that Industrial Heat llC, a US based company has acquired the rights for manufacturing the E-Cats in large scale. Dr Srinivasan is part of the global research on low energy nuclear reactors and hosted the international seminar on lENR at Chennai in 2010. He says a desktop type nuclear reactor costing around ` five lakh will be India’s answer to the country’s energy security.