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Forum Index : Other Stuff : Bloom Energy
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isaiah Guru  Joined: 25/12/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 303 |
Bloom Energy unveils its 'Bloom Box' fuel cell - http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14461347v[IMG]cchttp://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14461347v URL=http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1973-11- 01/The-Plowboy-Interview.aspx>The Plowboy Interview[/URL> |
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Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
it tells me the link is Oops..broken. Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| neil0mac Senior Member  Joined: 26/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 210 |
Nope. (Just separately copy the URL into browser. (Maybe it's the lack of a space before it?) |
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MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Here, try this! Zowie, Batman! Now all we need is for one of us to come up with a way to build one of these puppies in our garage shop, eh?  Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Sigh.... looks like YMCA..... yesterdays muck cooked again. ............oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
Hmmm, YMCA ...i liked that  (havent heard it b4)
I would have to agree. Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
[Quote=Oztules]Sigh.... looks like YMCA..... yesterdays muck cooked again. Admittedly, I'm pretty shallow; I take things at face value and believe everything until proven otherwise. I thought it was pretty cool, but if I understand what you're saying, now I'm thinking it may be all hogwash, eh? Is that what you're saying or am I reading that wrong too? Quite possibly, the Internet was designed around my personality. I'm an eternal optimist, which apparently has nothing to do whatsoever with reality. Bummer!  Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
MacGyver. I just found this on the otherpower site. It is from Perry (who frequents here occasionally when engineering problems arise) and I thought summed it up well. [quote] Perry1 on Thu Feb 25, 2010 at 11:19:49 AM EADT [Edit User] So the information is out now and data sheets are posted on their web site. I think it is pretty clear now this is yester-years fuel cell technology with a bold new helping of fluff and PR. I say that tongue in cheek because there have been some new improvements but nothing above incremental. They post the efficiency of their box as 50% conversion efficiency, based on lower heating value of fuel vs electrons out. That's pretty low by 10 yr ago standards for fuel cells. There is also no ability to capture waste heat further handicapping them against other SOFC/Phos Acid, and even some of the high temp PEM systems. They claim twice the efficiency as grid power but we all know combined cycle plants running on nat gas are above 50%. They are using the same old distributed generation model to justify the great increase in efficiency. Are they taking into account the huge transmission losses incurred in piping large amounts of nat gas to everyone's home? How much energy per cu-ft of nat gas will be consumed pumping it all over the place? The cost of the enormous compressors at the gas substations. The power to run those. I bet that is not taken into account in any of their calc's. If you were trying to move energy from one place to another which would you prefer, wires and their electrical resistance or pumping it through a pipe and all the compression/flow resistances associated with it? This is where distributed generation models always have and still do fall apart. You want electrons at your house and the fuel comes from somewhere else. 'Wellhead to light bulb' efficiency calculations which are a dirty secret never discussed show that distributed generation does not fare well. On closer inspection you also see that their pricing curves (stating that they are competitive with grid power) are based on huge federal subsidies piled on top of California subsidies for their technology. Perhaps this is the beginning of corporately sponsored cap and trade, sprouting up right in front of us. The hype on this is incredible and the media comments, and especially the comments left by the 'average people' on the different forums are laughable. They have done a good job of making people think this is the next big thing. Not one critical question has been asked nor answered. If you run the math you will see that yes, Google may have saved $100k in electric bills due to the unit providing electricity. I think what is not mentioned is that their natural gas bill probably went up by $90k. Funny how that is omitted. I chuckle about the $3000 price for the home unit. When we were trying to make a similar unit we had Deloit & Touche do a bunch of market research for us. They kept telling us it would have to cost $3k. Tell people it will cost $3k, that's what the entry price point has to be. Perry[/quote] And it's not that he is short on hands on experience with this stuff and similar... with this quote: PERRY: [quote]I worked at Plug Power as they plowed through $500 million dollars bringing their $3000 backyard generator to market. I also worked on a team 10 yrs ago that installed a UTC PC25 250 kW solid oxide system powered by CNG similar to what Bloom is touting. All this hype is just as it was back then. It has come full circle. [/quote] ........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Bummer!  Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Here you go MacGyver, Perry again: [quote]I know people that work for Bloom and they are the real deal. In a previous career I worked for 10 yrs on fuel cell research (the real things not the HHO crap) If your interested in whats in a fuel cell and how they work and don't mind hearing me blab about you can see a video I made here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA0y85Urttc Perry[/quote] So now you will have a better idea from someone who actually knows... ..........oztules Ps, I was happy to see the reference to HHO .......for Bob and Pete  Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
I watched the video mentioned. The only part I actually "understood" was the "Hi!" part. All the rest was way over my head, but like I said, interesting. What was good about that is hearing Perry (?) talk. He sounds like he absolutely knows what he's talking about and that gives credibility to what he says here on the 4m. I guess it all comes back to that little saying about there being no such thing as a "free" lunch, eh? Nonetheless, I wish the Bloom Energry thing were true, but apparently another little saying which states "If it looks too good to be true, perhaps it's false." comes into play. Like I said before: Bummer! Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
[quote] I was happy to see the reference to HHO [/quote] You grumpy old bugger Oz. I think the smoke and mirrors with hho is the price that is charged for ..so called commercial made cells. I have never claimed it to be a viable fuel source other than a fuel additive to large diesel motors, and then i disagree with the huge amps drawn by some to produce larger amounts of gas. I also dont agree with the many crap designs on utube and elsewhere with the idea it will save you a fortune. It simply works in a very small percentage of vehicals. Only by burning the fuel that would be pumped out the exhaust as soot and unburnt fuel, not from the hho as an energy source. Grrrrr I will get back in my cage now. I think that was a cage rattler and it worked! Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| isaiah Guru Joined: 25/12/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 303 |
Well here is the latest Ive gotten on this subject . I haven't had time yet to run the links so Ill let you guys enjoy it. Isaiah Bloom box The Magic Box - 60 Minutes - CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228828n Bloom Box: What is it and how does it work? http://tinyurl.com/yjzwalg A '60 Minutes' Bloom Box segment has many excited about the home power plant. Is it too good to be true? The Bloom Box by Bloom Energy was featured on 60 Minutes Sunday night. How does it work? [Photo] http://tinyurl.com/yj89d7k The Bloom Box by Bloom Energy was featured on 60 Minutes Sunday night. How does it work? It’s being hailed as the Holy Grail of clean energy: a refrigerator-sized personal power plant that produces energy cheaply and cleanly and may one day replace the traditional power grid. Its inventor wants to put one in every home by 2020. Bloom Box is the creation of Bloom Energy, a Sunnyvale, California-based company that is promising to revolutionize energy with its “power plant in a box.” K.R. Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, gave Americans their first peek at the new device Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes. On Wednesday, Mr. Sridhar will make a major public announcement in Silicon Valley unveiling Bloom Box. So what is Bloom Box? It’s a collection of fuel cells – skinny batteries – that use oxygen and fuel to create electricity with no emissions. Fuel cells are the building blocks of the Bloom Box. They’re made of sand that is baked into diskette-sized ceramic squares and painted with green and black ink. Each fuel cell has the potential to power one light bulb. The fuel cells are stacked into brick-sized towers sandwiched with metal alloy plates. The fuel cell stacks are housed in a refrigerator-sized unit – the Bloom Box. Oxygen is drawn into one side of the unit, and fuel (fossil-fuel, bio-fuel, or even solar power can be used) is fed into the other side. The two combine within the cell and produce a chemical reaction that creates energy with no burning, no combustion, and no power lines. About 64 stacks of fuel cells could power a small business like a Starbucks franchise, according to Sridhar’s 60 Minutes interview. Working with an investment of around $400 million, aerospace engineer K.R. Sridhar spent close to a decade inventing the Bloom Box. It grew, he explained to 60 Minutes, from a device he originally invented to produce oxygen on Mars. When NASA scrapped the Mars mission, Sridhar reversed his Mars machine, pumping oxygen in, instead of making oxygen, he said. Sridhar already has some 20 well-known customers, including Google, FedEx, Walmart, Staples, and Ebay. The corporate boxes cost about $700,000 to $800,000. Ebay installed five Bloom Boxes nine months ago, and they fuel about 15 percent of its San Jose campus, said CEO John Donahoe in the 60 Minutes interview. “It’s been very successful thus far,” Mr. Donahoe says, adding that the company has saved $100,000 in electricity costs already. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is also on Bloom Energy’s board of directors. But the Bloom Box isn’t without skeptics. Michael Kanellos, editor of Greentech Media, which covers the clean energy market, says Bloom Energy isn’t the first company to claim it has invented a clean energy fuel cell. Cost is always a concern with fuel cells, as is round-the-clock, 24-7 functionality. Bloom Energy still has to figure out how to mass-produce the unit and get its costs down low enough to outfit every home with a Bloom Box, Mr. Kanellos said on 60 Minutes. Sridhar says he eventually wants to get costs down to $2,000 per box. Bloom Energy has also been cryptically silent about its new device. As of Monday, its puzzling website has no information about the Bloom Box, and the company has not replied to multiple requests for interviews. Still, Sridhar has ambitious goals for his Bloom Box, planning not only to place it in every American home in 10 years, but also in homes in Africa, India, and China. He’d like to start, he says, with America’s first family. “I want a Bloom Box next to the [White House] organic vegetable garden,” he says on 60 Minutes. “It’s about seeing the world as what it can be.” URL=http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1973-11- 01/The-Plowboy-Interview.aspx>The Plowboy Interview[/URL> |
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