Bloom Box

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benaround said:
Bloom Energy has already installed systems in sites for; FedEx , Wal-Mart , Google , E-Bay,

Bank of America , etc. and they are all looking forward to getting more systems installed.

Are you still skeptical ?
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Yes I am and not too happy about it. All of them are in California, and these corps had US tax payers, and California Tax payers and rate payers pick up around 75% of the cost. This means for the portion the companies paid they will get an ROI in less than 2 years. After that they pocket the $100K per month profit in their accounts at our expense and investment. :mad:

All it is doing is shifting the utility company from the POCO to the gas company. There is no gain from what I can tell so far.
 
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Will just sit back and see what happens. Many things have changed from the 50's. Look at the electronics of then and now. Can this happen ? Might but don't expect it soon. Very few of us need much more than 25 kw of service. Photo cells could provide this but not without spending more than we save. The bloom likely be the same. Just how much would you invest to get free or reduced cost electric ? My likely bill for electric is under $5,000 a year and i am a heavy user. Now in 10 years that is $50,000. So if this new system does not work out cheaper than that it is no bargain. With POCO i have nothing to maintain.
 
I believe that dereckbc's comment is spot on technologically, but severely understates the 'politics'.

The technology needed to recycle fuel rods is in essence the same technology needed to make weapons grade materials. There are significant differences in the details, but nuclear power with the breeding and reprocessing necessary to solve the waste issue is a big proliferation issue.

Instead of figuring out how to store waste for many years, you need to figure out how to get people to be nice enough to each other so that they don't use the bombs that the technology will make available. IMHO Yucca Mt. is a much easier task.

As far as the 'Bloom Box', combined heat and power does have its place, but it would really need to be inexpensive as well as reliable, and a don't see a breakthrough here; just hard core marketing of small improvements. I suspect that units such as these may be able to help with the current limits on the electric grid, trading gas usage (remember that gas can be stored locally in tanks) for electric usage at peak times. But it is just shifting the burden from one utility to another, and these units are less efficient then centralized generation.

-Jon
 
e57 said:
Then a again - nuke waste somehow makes armor piercing bullets that we scatter all across battle-fields of the wars we're in??? Not sure why we do that???? :roll:
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Those applications use depleted uranium, which is natural uranium from which some of the fissile U-235 has been removed as part of the enriching process. So it is not nuclear waste in the sense that it has never seen a nuclear reactor and is not contaminated with fission products or activation products. The main reason depleted uranium is used is that it is very dense, 68% denser than lead.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
Those applications use depleted uranium, which is natural uranium from which some of the fissile U-235 has been removed as part of the enriching process. So it is not nuclear waste in the sense that it has never seen a nuclear reactor and is not contaminated with fission products or activation products. The main reason depleted uranium is used is that it is very dense, 68% denser than lead.

Cheers, Wayne
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Still mildly radioactive - still a waste product of nuke fuel production with a half life of 700,000 years - and still not nice to make a sandwich out of. Especially if you plan on breeding... (ref)

Back to the box though - NG is not it's only stated available fuel source. (while I like the local still idea - as ethanol is one) My limited understanding of how the thing actually works is that there are some chemically coated surfaces that react and I assume this produces a DC current which is then inverted - I'm not even really sure of how or what it actually exhausts???? As I assume it is a version of solid oxide fuel cell? Since hydrocarbon fuels and oxides have some spectacular reactions under certain conditions - I wonder how safe it would actually be? A little electrical hickup could result in a bomb box...
 
Bloom Energy has already installed systems in sites for; FedEx , Wal-Mart , Google , E-Bay,

Bank of America , etc. and they are all looking forward to getting more systems installed.

Are you still skeptical ?
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Maybe even more skeptical.

If they'd cut to the chase and say it produces electricity for x cents a KWH, I could do the math in my head. When they talk around something as basic as that they are trying to sell me something.

They started the show by holding a couple of small fuel cells, saying that they could power a house with a couple of them.

Cool.

Turns out that the cells are only a tiny part of a massive generating system that uses natural gas.

Lame.
 
220/221 said:
If they'd cut to the chase and say it produces electricity for x cents a KWH, I could do the math in my head.
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They have and expressed it two different way, and for the 3rd time in this thread:

Takes in 0.66MMBThU of gas (193KW/H), puts out 100KW of elec.

9 to 12 cents per Kwh in NG gas cost
 
dereckbc said:
They have and expressed it two different way, and for the 3rd time in this thread:

Takes in 0.66MMBThU of gas (193KW/H), puts out 100KW of elec.

9 to 12 cents per Kwh in NG gas cost
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Using current rates on my most recent statements, it works out to just under 8 cents per kWh in NG... vs. being charged about 10.4 cents by AEP. That difference would have been about $23 savings last billing cycle, and about $300 savings last year for my household.

What's the anticipated price tag on a household sized unit?
 
In ten years the cost might be $3,000

In ten years the cost might be $3,000

The current cost of the systems that they were showing off I believe were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. What I heard was that they hoped that the cost would end up to be around $3,000 or so for a home sized unit in ten years. Noting the earlier posts regarding costs for the fuel cell operation at 50% efficiency means they won't be too cost effective for a while, I'm not holding my breath on this one and it's sounding alot like a modernized cold fusion in a jar.
 
dmagyar said:
Noting the earlier posts regarding costs for the fuel cell operation at 50% efficiency means they won't be too cost effective for a while, I'm not holding my breath on this one and it's sounding a lot like a modernized cold fusion in a jar.
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It's been over 30 years since I worked for a POCO and knew real numbers, but as I remember it, 30% is better than fossil plants do; nuclear, I believe, are about 25%.

REAL 50% is darn good.
 
They have and expressed it two different way, and for the 3rd time in this thread:

Takes in 0.66MMBThU of gas (193KW/H), puts out 100KW of elec.

9 to 12 cents per Kwh in NG gas cost
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By "they" I meant the people in the report.

Using your calculations, the rest of the math is simple for me. That's pretty much what electricity costs are here so there is zero benefit.

Now, if it cost 9 to 12 cents per KWH and all you needed was a box it would be a good deal.
 
220/221 said:
...

Now, if it cost 9 to 12 cents per KWH and all you needed was a box it would be a good deal.
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But from the marketing point of view, all you need is a "box"...problem is, from the consumer point of view, the "box" is rather expensive for relatively little to no economical gain in fuel costs ;)
 
Smart $ said:
But from the marketing point of view, all you need is a "box"...problem is, from the consumer point of view, the "box" is rather expensive for relatively little to no economical gain in fuel costs ;)
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It's about fashion - how much green you spent - getting green... Why do you think Ebay put them on the lawn in front of the building? Make the fashion statment as visable as possible.
 
Look at it this way. The Bloom is a 100KW box for $10K, so (round numbers) $10/watt

Solar is well less than $10/watt, and dropping year on year, and you dont need to feed the solar cells with NG, and they don't emit CO2 every minute they're working...

Ok, so the Bloom will work 24/7 whereas solar doesn't, but given that any distributed generation scheme used today is grid intertied, the lack of 24/7ness is actually not such a big deal. The Grid is a very useful battery.
 
Cold Fusion said:
I missed where that number came from. What is the reference on that?

cf
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It may have come from my previous post about 30kw resi units proposed - and a video I watched about future speculative pricing of resi units that do not exist yet. Basically the inventor spitting out numbers on cue without the assistance of his handlers - who seem to be constantly correcting him on any number with a $ in front of it.... ;)
 
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