Bloom Power

Saw this on 60 Minutes while at my dad’s.

Don’t hammer me for watching 60 Mins. It was between baseball games, nothing else was on, and my dad controls the remote.

:)

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Don’t get me wrong - you want to impress me, take the wheel.
When I see this hit the residential market for $3K, I’ll probably be one of the first in line.

But this sure is interesting, and I’ll be following this.

They are now using them at Ebay, Google, and one or two others.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/

Not gonna watch all of them, but there are 620 videos on Youtube for “bloom energy.”

Quote:

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http://thenewsoftoday.com/bloom-ener...es-again/1821/

Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box is once again getting attention from the national media. The Box was featured once again on 60 Minutes. The company from Sunnyvale, California, has produced basically a power station in a box, that uses hydrocarbons like propane or gasoline to generate electricity. The company which was started in 2002 by K.R. Sridhar is highly efficient and already being used by several large corporations like Google, who happen to be Bloom Energy’s first customer.

Currently a 100 kW Bloom server costs approximately $750,000, and is used for larger corporations or companies. A typical box will have a 10 year life span on average, according to Bloom Energy. Home sized Bloom Boxes will be produced in the near future, and will have a 1 kW output, costing just $3,000. The future of energy is on the brink of a revolution, and Bloom Energy is one of the leaders. As prices go down and efficiency rises, traditional energy sources will die out and newer more environmentally friendly alternatives will prevail.

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If you can't find the video, what I learned from 60 Mins was:

1. They take beach sand - yes beach sand - and bake it into about 4" squares. Didn't get a close up, but they looked maybe 0.125" thick.

2. On one side they painted it green, the other side black (or was it blue). Paint was a "secret formula."

3. They then put a square in between metal plates, and repeated the process for many layers.

4. The more layers, the more electricity it produces.

5. From what they said, and device about 4" x 4" x 6" was big enough to power a house.

6. There were a few fuels mentioned that are needed to make this work, but the only one I remember was propane.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/...ell-animation/

Thanks 4 the good news, backstop. Keep us posted when the 3g 1kw model is ready. Sounds like good chemistry and a very small generator with 50% reduced propane or gas costs.

So it's some kind of battery?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rick Donaldson

So it's some kind of battery?

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I'm gonna say it's exactly like a battery, except a chemical must be constantly added.

Whereas in a battery the chemicals are always in there.

Thanks for finding that link sami.

I didn't have time yesterday to look through it all.

Well, in a battery, you have, generally two dissimilar metals and a solution that allows ionization. in the case of lead-acid cells there is Lead and Lead sulfate and sulfuric acid.

Thing is, when the "chemical" is used up, you have to recharge them.

And I really have a problem from a chemical battery concept of how you would keep adding chemicals and still have any sort of a reaction.... oh well.

(two different colors of paint indicate dissimilar metals of course. Propane is a hydrocarbon and I can't see how a reaction could be accomplished there.... then I'm not a chemist)

What is an Energy Server?

Built with our patented solid oxide fuel cell technology, Bloom's Energy Server™ is a new class of distributed power generator, producing clean, reliable, affordable electricity at the customer site.


Fuel cells are devices that convert fuel into electricity through a clean electro-chemical process rather than dirty combustion. They are like batteries except that they always run. Our particular type of fuel cell technology is different than legacy "hydrogen" fuel cells in four main ways:

1. Low cost materials – our cells use a common sand-like powder instead of precious metals like platinum or corrosive materials like acids.
2. High electrical efficiency – we can convert fuel into electricity at nearly twice the rate of some legacy technologies
3. Fuel flexibility – our systems are capable of using either renewable or fossil fuels
4. Reversible – our technology is capable of both energy generation and storage

Each Bloom Energy Server provides 100kW of power, enough to meet the baseload needs of 100 average homes or a small office building... day and night, in roughly the footprint of a standard parking space. For more power simply add more energy servers.

Palladium has a strong affinity for hydrogen.... if I remember my chemistry. thus, I can see that stuff being used in the paint :)

Peterle. Stop breaking the threads with your attempts at making cool html boxes!

Sheesh

lol.

Well... did you see what it did? Not even sure why it happened. :)

Thanks for finding that link sami.
My pleasure. Thank you for visiting your Dad with courtesy and respect.

Due to increasing electric bills, most folk at one time or another probably can jive with with a fleeting mal-thot like they'd like to stick a bloom box up the butt of their electric company.

If this is true yankee engineering, (chemistry-imagination-hard woik) you kan be shure the teck will be spied, stolen and distributed.

As 4 chemistry- I'm pretty "lite". There is mention of need but limited quantity of comustion fuel presumably for heat control. propane/ is almost inexhaustable. Perhaps if the kind govts. of this world fart on the bricks- everyone will have lights and water. That's a start for "give them the wealth".

Good achievement for mankind. I hope it burns rubber. I read about 12 years back about a device to turn salt-2-kleen drinkin water- but some inventions don't take off. If ggoogle bought it- china has it. Probably agood stock.