I wrote: This test has been a colossal disappointment. >> > > I know Rossi pretty well by now, so I was expecting something like this. > Given who Rossi is and how he thinks, this wasn't a colossal disappointment. >
Also, this was not a colossal disappointment to me because, hey, it did not blow up. As readers here know, I was seriously worried the damn thing might explode or irradiate the audience. I am relieved that nothing like that happened. It seemed to work at 1/2 of nameplate power. For a reactor they just finished building, that's fantastic. That is as good as 1 MW. Rossi is much braver than I am, or much more foolhardy, or both. As you hear in this video, I am not the only one who is worried about radiation and other dangers. So are the Italian authorities, as well they should be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLAdGduQ50A Rossi says here that they issued some sort of conditional permit, with restrictions. That is the sort of thing you would expect for an experimental device. That sounds plausible. It is what I would expect a responsible government official to issue. I still think it was much too big a reactor, and I still think the test schedule was too fast. But evidently Rossi and the Italian officials share some of my concerns about safety and that's good. I predicted that a major company such as GE or Mitsubishi would want to get involved in such risky tests. Perhaps I was wrong and this was a big company. But if it was an up-and-coming profitable, risk-taking place such as Manutencoop, that may be the kind of thing they would get into. Back in the go-go late 1960s, companies such as Data General used to get involved in risky start-up technology. According to "Soul of a New Machine" there were rumors that Data General was involved in some actual physical risk and possibly criminal behavior such as burning down the buildings of rival companies. - Jed
