Translator: Robert Tucker Reviewer: Denise RQ
For the talk I'd like to give, I'll start from the beginning
and relate it to what we call cold fusion today.
That was first investigated about 22 years ago
when an American researcher, an American chemist,
claimed to have produced energy by a process of nuclear fusion,
by means of the use of palladium, which is a metal,
and deuterium which is one the forms of heavy hydrogen.
Many have set to work since then in their wake,
and have worked away for 22 years
without ever getting any great results.
For my part, I, together with a friend from the University of Siena,
decided to work along similar lines,
except with hydrogen and nickel,
and obtained some results,
to wit, energy being produced from the interaction
between the hydrogen and the nickel.
Consequently, I started to work again
after stopping what I had been working on,
with the engineer Rossi along the same lines,
that is the construction of a system that would enable the production of energy
using hydrogen and nickel.
Now what you can see
are the results of this work.
Can we have the first slide?
This is one of the first experiments made together with Dr Rossi.
You see on the right
a red bucket containing water
into which the materials are immersed.
To the left is the hydrogen cylinder
that was used to introduce hydrogen into this capsule,
where we also had the nickel.
Heated together, nickel and hydrogen produce energy,
and as a result the water is heated.
The experiment is obviously preliminary,
because for this experiment
it was not worth constructing intricate equipment.
This is the next experiment.
This time, instead of the water bucket,
there's that sort of doughnut thing on the right
in which water circulates,
and in which is located the capsule
containing the nickel and the hydrogen.
The tube on the right, that you see towards the bottom right,
is the one that carries the hydrogen,
in the center there is a cylinder of hydrogen.
And in this way we confirmed the data of the previous experiment
with a more detailed system than the first we used.
The third image, here it is,
is yet a third method to obtain the results.
This time there is a closed circuit.
You can clearly see the tube on the far right
to which the cylinder is connected, always on the right.
And the water circulates into the tube.
The process of heating takes place in in this cylinder,
that is a nuclear reaction between nickel and hydrogen.
What was observed experimentally
was the difference in temperature between the two ends of the cylinder.
Thus the three experiments have confirmed
that the system is indeed able to produce energy,
thermal energy.
That is to say we succeeded in heating the water.
This is one of the last of the objects
by the engineer Rossi,
called an E-Cat,
where Cat stands for catalyzer,
that we normally use at the present time
for experiments in which we still use
the reaction between nickel and hydrogen
to produce heat.
And this production of heat is observed
from its heating of the water
with various devices of which this is one example.
This is the next thing built by engineer Rossi,
again based on the same process.
It's a kind of railway wagon;
here you can't see it's a railway wagon.
Inside you see boxes,
each of which is a generator
that produces the same effects I described before.
Making all these elements work together
should result potentially
in a power production of a megawatt.
We have not yet put it into operation with all the generators,
that we will do this month.
At this point, clearly, we're talking about different dimensions.
But in reality, each of those boxes that you see
is just like the old generators
where we used the nickel-hydrogen reaction to obtain heat.
This is clearly a nuclear reaction,
so much so that in experiments that we have conducted
- we've been doing them for about two years, a year and a half,
I don't recall the exact date we started -
at the end of the experiment,
when we analyzed the material then,
that which had been introduced in the capsule,
that originally was nickel to which was added hydrogen,
was still found to be nickel, but also with some copper.
Now, copper is the element that in the periodic table
follows nickel to its side.
The copper nucleus differs from the nickel nucleus
only by having one proton more.
It is this proton that is introduced, that is captured by the nickel,
in the nuclear reaction process.
So this is further proof
that when we maintain that there is a nuclear reaction
between the nickel and the hydrogen,
ours is not a statement of fantasy;
we have evidence, because our results show that copper is formed.
One of the problems that arises, when it comes to topics like this,
is the issue of safety.
In this case, the safety concern is radioactivity.
Because being a nuclear reaction,
it is clear that one should expect
that there is some radioactivity emitted in the reaction.
This is true.
But fortunately, this reaction only produces gamma rays
and not neutrons.
I must also say that the danger of neutrons, the risk of neutrons,
it was always made clear by me
from the beginning of my collaboration with Rossi.
Rossi obviously took appropriate measures
because if there had been neutrons, things would have been more difficult,
because we can shield ourselves from neutrons but it's not a simple matter.
Fortunately, there are no neutrons, but there are gamma rays.
That there are gamma rays I found out for myself in the first experiments
which took place in the laboratory that Rossi had at Bondeno,
because often I took the readings
while he continued with his own activities.
Taking the first results, I used a radiation detector
and measured for gamma rays.
Not very dangerous,
not large doses compared to background radioactivity,
but nonetheless existent.
And it is clear that there was no reason for increased background radioactivity.
While we have never observed neutrons, that has always been my concern
because it is difficult to screen neutrons.
But they weren't present.
The gamma ray problem was quickly solved
by using around the energy generator
thin lead sheet that has the property of absorbing gamma rays,
so there is no risk from radioactivity
working this way.
This is all not only for us,
but above all, for when there are applications.
I think that at this point, I could conclude.
Thank you.
(Applause)