Bloom Box: Energy Revolution?

• OneBuckeye

  

  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n
  
  Interesting piece on 60 minutes last night.
  
  It’s basically a fuel cell that uses oxygen and a fuel, natural gas, solar, biogas ect... to produce electricity, supposedly it is more efficient than conventional methods of producing electricity. Check out the video.
• OneBuckeye

  

  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml
  
  Link to article if you can't watch the video... the quote is the first page of the article.
  

  CBS) In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard.
  
  You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines.
  
  It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.
  
  Full Segment: The Bloom Box
  Web Extra: The Magic Box
  Web Extra: Plug-In Power Plant
  Web Extra: Naming The Bloom Box
  Web Extra: A Skeptic's View
  
  K.R. Sridhar invited "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl for a first look at the innards of the Bloom box that he has been toiling on for nearly a decade.
  
  Looking at one of the boxes, Sridhar told Stahl it could power an average U.S. home.
  
  "The way we make it is in two blocks. This is a European home. The two put together is a U.S. home," he explained.
  
  "'Cause we use twice as much energy, is that what you're saying?" Stahl asked.
  
  "Yeah, and this'll power four Asian homes," he replied.
  
  "So four homes in India, your native country?" Stahl asked.
  
  "Four to six homes in our country," Sridhar replied.
  
  "It sounds awfully dazzling," Stahl remarked.
  
  "It is real. It works," he replied.
  
  He says he knows it works because he originally invented a similar device for NASA. He really is a rocket scientist.
  
  "This invention, working on Mars, would have allowed the NASA administrator to pick up a phone and say, 'Mr. President, we know how to produce oxygen on Mars,'" Sridhar told Stahl.
  
  "So this was going to produce oxygen so people could actually live on Mars?" she asked.
  
  "Absolutely," Sridhar replied.
  
  When NASA scrapped that Mars mission, Sridhar had an idea: he reversed his Mars machine. Instead of it making oxygen, he pumped oxygen in.
  
  He invented a new kind of fuel cell, which is like a very skinny battery that always runs. Sridhar feeds oxygen to it on one side, and fuel on the other. The two combine within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity. There's no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source.
  
  In October 2001 he managed to get a meeting with John Doerr from the big Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.
  
  "How much do you think, 'I need to come up with the next big thing'?" Stahl asked Doerr.
  
  "Oh, that's my job," he replied. "To find entrepreneurs who are going to change the world and then help them."
  
  Doerr has certainly changed our world: he's the one who discovered and funded Netscape, Amazon and Google. When he listened to Sridhar, the idea seemed just as transformative: efficient, inexpensive, clean energy out of a box.
  
  "But Google: $25 million. This man said, 'How much money?'" Stahl asked.
  
  "At the time he said over a hundred million dollars," Doerr replied.
  
  But according to Doerr that was okay.
  
  "So nothing he said scared you?" Stahl asked.
  
  "Oh, I wasn't at all sure it could be done," he replied.

• myron pater boswell

  Yeh, a fascinating story, and would be a revolutionary breakthrough if it all pans out.
  
  Interesting that some google, ebay, and Fedex offices all use this energy source and are--by all accounts--very pleased with its operation.
  
  p.s. Isn't this too serious/educational of a thread for this forum???
• tk421

  

  I see the big electric conglomerates crushing this if it get's to the point of replacing them. If someone can buy a $3,000 power box for their house instead of using the grid, the electric companies aren't going to like that.
• OneBuckeye

  

  ^ There are alternatives to that such as the power companies buying these rather than generators from Rolls Royce, GE and Siemans. The electric company can probably get a cheaper fuel than the average home owner, therefore I think they would buy these and turn around and sell the electric to homeowners. (Unless someone figures out how to use their excrement to power these things)
• tk421

  

  There are already some out there that use cow crap. I remember hearing about these years back, I haven't heard anything about them since.
  
  http://www.redferret.net/?p=10222
• OneBuckeye

  

  ^ Right but those use generators not a fuel cell. And this fuel cell uses a lot less gas than a generator.
• pepperpot

  I also saw this story on 60 Minutes. Very interesting and encouraging as far energy use.
• I Wear Pants

  Doesn't exist until I can buy it.
• fan_from_texas

  tk421 wrote: I see the big electric conglomerates crushing this if it get's to the point of replacing them. If someone can buy a $3,000 power box for their house instead of using the grid, the electric companies aren't going to like that.

  Why wouldn't they like that?
• dwccrew

  

  tk421 wrote: I see the big electric conglomerates crushing this if it get's to the point of replacing them. If someone can buy a $3,000 power box for their house instead of using the grid, the electric companies aren't going to like that.

  With over $400 million being invested into this company, I highly doubt it will get crushed. Now if it doesn't pan out, that is a totally different thing.
• gut

  It's a little misleading. It appears to cut energy costs in half, and I suspect that quote is measuring the monthly variable costs and excluding amortization of the equipment.
  
  One quick thought...So it uses oxygen - anyone potentially see a problem there if these boxes are all over the place? The use of natural gas is another constraint - supplies and distribution infrastructure just aren't where coal and oil are at.
  
  Colin Powell was probably honest and accurate when he said it's part of the solution.
• OneBuckeye

  

  ^You are forgetting it puts out hydrogen... could mean a lot to hydrogen powered cars.
• j_crazy

  

  I said it on the other thread. This is awesome.
  
  regarding the oxygen issue. I'd say more research would need to be done. It can't be as good as we've been lead to believe in this blurb. Simple physics say we're not getting the whole story. Oxygen and NG in and electricity out is fine except that electricity has no mass and oxygen and NG do.
• gut

  j_crazy wrote:Simple physics say we're not getting the whole story. Oxygen and NG in and electricity out is fine except that electricity has no mass and oxygen and NG do.

  I'd say my very quick take is that it's basically a more (much more?) efficient natural gas-powered generator. Well, and I guess it can use some other sources of fuel as well.
  
  Still, a doubling of BTU potential for a given fuel source would go a long way toward a temporary solution. When it's using natural gas, it's not using renewable fuel (debate about the "renewability" of natural gas aside).
  
  I simply can't imagine if this thing was global that it wouldn't put tremendous pressure on the natural gas supply chain, which is why, again, it's part of and not the entire solution.
• gut

  OneBuckeye wrote: ^You are forgetting it puts out hydrogen... could mean a lot to hydrogen powered cars.

  I'm sure Ford would be anxious to resurrect the Pinto re-named as the Hindenburg.
• fan_from_texas

  gut wrote:

  j_crazy wrote:Simple physics say we're not getting the whole story. Oxygen and NG in and electricity out is fine except that electricity has no mass and oxygen and NG do.

  I'd say my very quick take is that it's basically a more (much more?) efficient natural gas-powered generator. Well, and I guess it can use some other sources of fuel as well.
  
  Still, a doubling of BTU potential for a given fuel source would go a long way toward a temporary solution. When it's using natural gas, it's not using renewable fuel (debate about the "renewability" of natural gas aside).
  
  I simply can't imagine if this thing was global that it wouldn't put tremendous pressure on the natural gas supply chain, which is why, again, it's part of and not the entire solution.

  Most of the new generation coming online is natural gas anyway, so I don't know that it would change much more than we already have. Coal plants aren't really being built, and we're only seeing a handful of attempts at nuclear. I haven't had time to read this article, but does the technology look fairly scalable? That's the big issue--is this something that can be done with large, baseload facilities (e.g., 1000 MW)? Or is it limited to distributed generation? The latter isn't bad, though it means there are increased security and maintenance risks, albeit saving on some transmission losses.
• fan_from_texas

  An article was in the trade press this morning that indicated that the Bloom Box currently cost $700,000. They're hoping to get it down to a few thousand dollars for a typical residential installation. So yes, it appears that the physics work and the ongoing fuel costs are very low, and that this is energy efficient, but it's extraordinarily expensive to make right now. We'll see if the capital costs can get lower. Right now, the levelized cost of power from one of these things is off-the-charts high.
• OneBuckeye

  

  ^ The actual materials that go into the fuel cell are extremely steep. Check out the video and they will explain, but I think they could mass produce these things for very cheap. Most of the price I assume is accounted for the massive intellecual property and investment that has been made in this product. The 700,000 unit is for commercial use too.