Bloom Box

[63tb]

Anybody see the 60 Minutes story last night on the Bloom Box? Seems almost too good to be true but quite a few big name companies seem to have embraced it. Aparently the designer reverse engineered his own design from a device to generate oxygen on Mars to a device that generates electricity.

 63tb

[uptown]

Yes i watched it. Wonder what they'll cost for us average folks. Sounds too good to be true.

[allaire]

Probably be priced so much that the average individual won't be able to afford it.  Just like everything that would benefit joe average and hurt chuck corporation.

[trax1]

Looks like a cool technology, and does seem like it works, the only problem I see for it will be price, yeah most companies out there will probably be able to buy them and have it save them money in electricity now.  I think at $3000 in the home unit price it will definitely appeal to homes in the south that spend a lot on electricity on a/c, I know my mom who lives in Houston regularly spends a couple hundred on electric bills in the summer, but who knows how long it will be until he can get it down to that price.  Hopefully it won't end up being something that was to good to be true.

Here's a link to the full story.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n

   

[Delirium]

At 3k a pop, you'll see companies selling them 'rent to own' at inflated prices.

I know I'd buy one with cash right now, if it was available. Heck, I might even go to electric heat if it was reliable enough.

That would be great! No money for oil going overseas, no brown outs in the summer because the stupid electric company can't 'anticipate a summer demand', and no need for the generator in my garage.

[Maverick]

I am very very skeptical about this contraption. It still uses hydrocarbons, that's oil in one form or another folks, and is supposed to provide electricity. OK, how much electricity at what voltage, wattage? What is it's peak load  and normal load carrying capacity? So far there are no answers other than a vague claim that a bread box size unit will provide a kilowatt capacity at an unstated voltage, for an unstated fuel use, for an unstated time, with an unstated wattage. What is the exhaust of the product? If it is still in an oil form it will need to be cleaned up and not released into the environment.

Before I am going to take this seriously they are going to have to start putting out some numbers and have an independent organization do real world tests.

TAANSTAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Right now I see vague claims and nothing to back them up.

[trax1]

Well they have already been in use at a couple companies, it said that Google has had a couple of the Bloom Boxes being used at one of it's buildings and they said that since they've been using it they've already saved around $100,000 in electricity.

[boxboy28]

fuel/gas   and electricty...next add lightning   BOOM.

[trax1]

fuel/gas   and electricity...next add lightning   BOOM.

I'm sure they're built to be hit by lightning.

[FTJR]

Well there is a press conference in at 8.30 PST, should be interesting.

[63tb]

I think they said the Google bloom box uses gas from a landfill as fuel.

63tb

[uptown]

I think they said the Google bloom box uses gas from a landfill as fuel.

63tb

Only problem with that is government regulations are forcing landfils everywhere to shutdown.  If this Bloom Box turns out to be the answer to the worlds energy problems, someone or somewhere will think of a way to get into our pockets. We'll be "saving" the planet but it won't be free or cheap.

[Megalodon]

live conference this am at 8:30 pst  bout 45 min.

"Sunnyvale, California-based Bloom Energy is holding a press event Wednesday morning where the company is expected to unveil further details on its Bloom Box product. In case you're just joining us, these boxes promise to not only bring ample amounts of power in a small amount of space, but to change people's dependency on traditional power grids. All for less than $3,000 a unit."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20000091-248.html
more about the Bloom box....
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10457646-64.html?tag=mncol;txt

[trax1]

Only problem with that is government regulations are forcing landfils everywhere to shutdown.  If this Bloom Box turns out to be the answer to the worlds energy problems, someone or somewhere will think of a way to get into our pockets. We'll be "saving" the planet but it won't be free or cheap.

Well it can run any any kind of fuel, and using any kind of fuel I'm sure it can still produce energy cheaper then getting it from the electric company, otherwise it would be useless.

[Maverick]

Lots of claims but still no numbers other than tossing out the kilowatt term. I also found this to be rather intriguing. They claim it will run on any hydrocarbon based fuel and say they are running it on methane from landfills. That's nice but how does it run on liquid hydrocarbons then (oil, gasoline, veggie oil)? Does it have to be gassified? What happens to the residue? How does solar then come to be a hydrocarbon fuel for it? Take a look as they claim it will run on hydrocarbons or solar. Exactly how are they gassifying solar to hydrocarbon fuel???

What are they going to do about finding and storing hydrogen for the fuel if they want to run it that way? It takes more electricity to break down water for hydrogen than the hydrogen can provide energy as fuel. Methane is renewable certainly but it's also very limited. There isn't an infrastructure in place to move it from the land fill (with limited production) to the use point.

I want to see numbers, verified by independent labs, before I'm going to accept any of their hype as containing truth. Until they can provide the output under load conditions it isn't viable.

Claiming 8 cents cost per kilowatt for electricity makes it even with several places retail cost for power from the power company. I wonder how they arrived at that cost. Was it based on free fuel? How about gasoline at $2.65 a gallon? Veggie oil at $3.00 plus a gallon? Without real numbers for operating costs per output in real world conditions it's too much like pie in the sky for me.