The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

reply to post by pteridine


There was reference to the efficiency compared to the cost of current electric costs at a consumer level.
Where your normal bill may be $400 a month; the cost of the gas for the Bloom Box would be only $200, this being rough example.

Just that in those terms, the increase in Natural Gas consumption would raise it's cost, possibly to the same level as conventional means. Unless you produce your own bio-gas to cut those costs.
The information isn't too extensive in those press releases.

[edit on 24-2-2010 by Mr. jack]

reply to post by Mr. jack

If that were the case, the use of "% effiency" is incorrect. It is probably the result of copy writers not understanding what was being explained to them.
You are correct in your estimates. There is not enough gas to replace even a fraction of the coal that produces 55% of our electricity.

reply to post by serbsta


Bloom's version of a electricity generating machine is for profit, not for advancement. Bloom's and solor, and magnetics ad such get more attention because they are more "marketable". Real technology advancement is much smarter & reliable.

If you think about the movie "young einstein", where he splits an atomin his shed and blows it up. You then understand the point behind that, one small ato contains enough energy to explode his shed. Now, i'm not saying that there are electricity machines that dwell on explosive energy generation. I'm simply saying there is enough energy in that atom to do it.

What i'm speaking of is a devise that manages the energy within those atoms to create a current and power electrical devices. Enough energy in 1 sq.in. to power the entire world for a day. You cannot destroy atomic energy, it will be replaced as soon as it is used up. Thus, infinite global power if conducted on a grid.

California is testing super solar fresnel gernerator, where is concentrates the sun through millions of fresnels and directs them into a small beam that is sent into generation and storage of power. The heat those millions of directed fresnel creates is enough to "melt" a solid 4" chunk of hardened steel in about 5 seconds completely through. And, estimated that the heat energy it could producing could sustain electrical systems throughout the United States daily, and without loss of storage power.


[edit on 24-2-2010 by Cosmicdjinn]

Originally posted by Cosmicdjinn
reply to post by serbsta

 

Bloom's version of a electricity generating machine is for profit, not for advancement.

Exactly, it was first a method for terraforming or oxygen production in oxygen lacking environments. As a generator it's not enough, unless you want to make money selling it as a fad 'green' energy device.
Production is a poor word, but close enough to get the point across.

I stand by my statement that if given 400 Million dollars to research and test energy generation methods, someone with the right idea could come up with something that's an actual solution and not just riding a fad to make profit.

[edit on 24-2-2010 by Mr. jack]

reply to post by Blazer


We just spent USD $12,000 for solar and a wind genny and are about 90% off-grid. It just depends upon the size of your house, and how creative a person is with paring down their energy needs.

Example: We bought a 24-volt fridge and freezer. BOTH of these together use about 1/12 of the power of our previous fridge/freezer. Our water pump for house pressure is 12-volt, runs off two batteries wired parallel and charged by a small PV array. Our water heater is a homemade solar collector.

We can do better, if we just put our minds to it. Our $12,000 will pay off in about 3 years (bills WERE about USD $350-400/month).

I think the Bloom Box is an innovation in that it is a more efficient generator. I really don't like that it requires the Bloom Corp. fuel cells to make it so. $3000 is not so much for a home generator, IF and ONLY IF the other associated costs make for a short paydown.

People WANT to be energy efficient. When technology emerges that is a true cost-savings, they will flock to it; they won't have to be tricked into it.

reply to post by argentus


No, $3000 isn't much for a total home energy solution, but I don't see these things being that much in the near future when the fridge sized units are over 700k already.

There are many solutions that one can use right now to fix their energy needs, like an efficient gas generator modified with a hydrogen combustion system to raise the efficiency. Could go the extra step and convert it to run on ethanol and distill you own. Pricey to get that all together if you don't know what you are doing, but will pay for itself.

I've seen some simple 2-stroke generators run for 6+ hours on less than 2 pints of fuel. Many things one can do on a personal level to fix for their needs. Hell, I've seen a truck that runs off of wood and coal, built off the designs for the generators used in nickle mines north of me. Crazy, looks like crap, but it works.

Who's to say it's impossible to build your own stuff rather than wait for someone to fix the problem for you.

reply to post by Cosmicdjinn


Speaking of atomic power this 60 minutes story on cold fusion discusses its future use as a renewable power source:

www.cbsnews.com...

reply to post by drew hempel


Still a lot of opposition to cold fusion working, else you wouldn't see the fusion research in Europe having all that money funneled to it.

Be a long time till they have the Arc Generator level device like in the Iron Man movie.

Yes, there are so many things outside of the very laws that we write in which we cannot explain. It is becoming a technologic epidemic to create something of great efficiency, or power...which could not or would not even have been accepted before.

reply to post by Mr. jack


You mean this ultrasound water torch?

www.youtube.com...

Naw that's just a teflon coater -- but still:

sonofusionjets.com...

[edit on 24-2-2010 by drew hempel]

Originally posted by argentus
reply to post by Blazer

 

We just spent USD $12,000 for solar and a wind genny and are about 90% off-grid. It just depends upon the size of your house, and how creative a person is with paring down their energy needs.

Example: We bought a 24-volt fridge and freezer. BOTH of these together use about 1/12 of the power of our previous fridge/freezer. Our water pump for house pressure is 12-volt, runs off two batteries wired parallel and charged by a small PV array. Our water heater is a homemade solar collector.

We can do better, if we just put our minds to it. Our $12,000 will pay off in about 3 years (bills WERE about USD $350-400/month).

I think the Bloom Box is an innovation in that it is a more efficient generator. I really don't like that it requires the Bloom Corp. fuel cells to make it so. $3000 is not so much for a home generator, IF and ONLY IF the other associated costs make for a short paydown.

People WANT to be energy efficient. When technology emerges that is a true cost-savings, they will flock to it; they won't have to be tricked into it.

I did the math, and assuming $6/watt (average for photovoltaic), 20% capacity factor (average for photovoltaic), what you are saying is only possible if grid electricity is approximately $1.17 per kilowatt hour, or approximately 10 times the average cost of electricity in the United States (in 2008). So either...:

1. You live in a place with VERY expensive electricity.
2. You built a world-beating system.
3. You get government support helping you pay it off.
4. You also previously used a huge amount of power, 4000 watts on average, but now have cut down massively and now are now counting this power reduction as energy saved by the solar system even though it wasn't.
5. A combination of the above.

If, for example, we assume you spent $12000 on solar photovoltaic panels at 6 dollars per watt (avg for large pv cell installation) means you must have 2.000 kilowatt of solar capacity. On average it will generate 20% of that or run at a power level of 0.400 kilowatt output average. With 720 hours in a month, that is 288 kilowatt hours per month generated by the array and given the average price of electricity of 11.26 cents per kilowatt hour, means your solar array generates $32.4288 per month worth of grid electricity. $12,000 in capital investment for $32.4288 in monthly energy savings, means it would take 31 years to pay off the array. Photovoltaic systems last 30 years so the overall economic savings is closer to ZERO.

To pay off the 12,000 dollar system in 36 months you must of be previously been using (and now saving) $333 worth of electricity per month, even though $12,000 worth of photovoltaic cells would only generate $32 worth of electricity per month based on average US electricity price. The only way for a $12,000 PV array would pay back in 3 years would be if your cost of grid electricity was 10.4065 times average cost of electricity in the USA, or $1.17 per kilowatt hour. That's an impossibly high price. I'm guessing you have made significant reductions in power consumption and are counting these power-efficiencies as money saved by the solar system, and thus are attempting to make your solar array look extremely competitive by using these figures. Reducing your power consumption would of had to given you these savings (unless you were paying $1.17kw/h from the utilities), not the PV system itself.

Ergo your statement must only be true for some very specific circumstances such as a high cost of electricity in your region & is extremely unlikely to apply to the average consumer. Of course, this assumes that all the $12,000 was spent on electrical generation, which probably was not the case. That being said, heating water usually only accounts of 25% of household electricity bill, so the solar-water heater is not able to account for the savings in money you achieved. Point being, to compete with grid electricity economically it's going to take a whole lot more than current solar photovoltaics. Something an order of magnitude better. Without government support I really have no idea why someone would go off the grid using solar.

Thanks.

Also, what's the capital cost, operating cost, output and return on investment for the bloom-power? Until that's figured out I'm still very skeptical.

[edit on 25/2/2010 by C0bzz]

reply to post by C0bzz


It's really quite simple. No, we don't have government assistance nor incentives (Cayman Islands). If you live in the U.S., or really, almost anywhere else, there are massive incentives. Those living in New York state can recover almost 90% of their investment.

Our island power comes from two giant diesel generators, and yes, it's expensive. As I said, prior to us paring down our needs and changing things up, our monthly power bill was usually between USD $350-$400. We don't have a clothes dryer (use a clothesline) and we've always cooked with a propane stove. Yes, our costs are high.

The USD $12,000 was not all spent on PV panels, contrary to your figures. I think also you might've missed the part where I talked about having included a wind genny. We have 1250 watts of PV panels. Add to that array combiner, charge controllers (3), DC disconnect, Magnum split-phase inverter (240/120 pure sine wave), 250 watt wind genny, 180 feet of #10 wire, 150 feet #6, 20 feet #1, 18 300 ah batteries, #2 wiring for the batteries, secondary panel, 30 feet sched. 40 steel pipe epoxy coated for the wind genny, several hundred feet of 3/4" PVC conduit, DC box, 8 cu. ft. Sundanzer fridge, 5 cu. ft. Sundanzer freezer, two 12-volt Floject water pumps for house water pressure, two 1.2 amp bilge pumps for (a) circulating water from holding tank to solar collector for house hot water (b) circulating water from hot tub to solar collector to heat the tub to a delightful 105 degrees, and a bunch of fittings, several L.E.D. lightbulbs.

Now, what I didn't factor in there was labor. I did all the work myself, and that would certainly add a significant amount onto most peoples' costs.

I think the thing that many people don't figure about alternative energies, is that -- at least initially -- they involve a fair amount of tweaking, watching over, maintenance. This has been an ongoing thing for the two of us, since Hurricane Paloma kicked our butts in Nov. 2008. We used a 3500 watt gas generator for nearly 4 months while the power company brought in an installed all new utility poles, restrung the wires, etc. etc. etc. Fortunately for us, prior to that hurricane, we'd already acquired a small 100w PV panel, two 12-volt batteries and one of the flojet water pumps, as our 3500 watt generator wouldn't have run our regular 120-volt 1/2 hp. water pump (start-up watts).

Hot tub, no necessity, of course for most people. for our again bones, it seems pretty vital. When I made a solar collector to heat it, and rewired it so I could turn on the various jets and features with switches rather than using the internal board, that saved us about $100/month right off the bat. Solar water heating is a no-brainer. It easily and quickly pays for itself. I don't know why, unless a person lived in, say, Seattle, a person wouldn't jump at the chance to acquire one and install it. Even moreso if you make it yourself. I salvaged materials for both solar collectors as well as aluminum square tubing to make the PV frame. As I said before, we have to be innovative to make these things work, but work they do.

The 24-volt fridge and freezer are wonderful. They use such a tiny dab of power (both are chest-style) compared to our old fridge/freezer.

So there you have it. Soon as the weather clears up here where I can open the outdoor lockers I built to house all the electronics and batteries, I intend to take photos and do a thread on it here.

This system will have paid for itself in three years or thereabouts, and then after that will continue to "shine" for us for many, many years -- the batteries probably being the first things to go out. Toward the end of extending the life of the batteries, we don't allow them to discharge any more than 20%. So far, so good, even with this two weeks of overcast/raining/squally weather.

I'm in process of clearing land for a "windway" for the wind generator, which I hope to install and get online in the next two weeks. Whenever the next hurricane comes, the genny and PV panels will have to come down and be stored inside. This house went through Cat 4/5 Paloma without trouble, and although everything is insured, that doesn't get it replaced quickly, so PV panels are held onto the inclined frame (roof mounted) with SS wingnuts for quick takedown.

I'll be doing my future thread on this in the Survival forum, because brother, that's exactly what it is for us. Hope that answered your questions.


Cheers



[edit on 25/2/10 by argentus]

reply to post by C0bzz


p.s. I don't know where you get the "20% efficiency" figure from. The 1250 watt array, on a sunny day, at peak often pulls in 950 watts. Averaged over a good, sunny day, we might realize an average of 600 watts for 7-8 hours. That's more than 4000 watt-hours or 175 ah.

On occasion, we're lucky enough to get an "edge of the cloud" effect going on, and the wattage at least momentarily skyrockets. As I said, this is an ongoing process, and having LCD tvs help, having propane stove helps a LOT, having an ultra-efficient ductless split a-c that is only used when we sleep, that helps a lot.

Anyway, it's working for us. I can't wait to get the wind genny up and running. Then, and only then, I will truly be king.

reply to post by C0bzz


y'know...... I was thinking about this all a bit more. We DO have one incentive -- alternative energy stuff that I order from the U.S. is duty-free. That's a big savings that I didn't take into account, because here the duty is also applied to the shipping as "value".

I thought about what you were talking about with the efficiency. I think I can clear something up. When it is written that PV panels are at best 30% efficient, that's true, but what it means is that the excited electons in their orbital energies that are dancing around the PV panel --- PV panels can only "harvest" about 30% of them, however if a panel is rated for, say, 200 watts, it will be able to produce very close to that 200W at peak solar radiation.

When PV panels can harvest all of the energies that they create, that will be AWEsome! We chose the BP solar panels, partly for their rating and partly for the price vs. guarantee ratio. They carry a 25 year guarantee from the company. I don't dare hope the company will be in business for that long, but it's a general indicator of quality of the panels.

This thread is about Bloom Boxes. I apologize for getting off-topic, but I think the dialogue that has transpired in between the two of us is somewhat relative to the ideals that are hinted at with the Bloom Box. So far, I haven't been privvy to any actual specs or parameters of the BB. It's a hopeful thing. As I said before, I think it might represent a cost-savings for large complexes and perhaps lead to decentralization of power plants.

reply to post by argentus


Hi argentus. Great post, it's always great to know that many people are taking innovation into their own hands and building systems that can save themselves huge amounts of money. Look forward to your thread in the survival forum.

p.s. I don't know where you get the "20% efficiency" figure from. The 1250 watt array, on a sunny day, at peak often pulls in 950 watts. Averaged over a good, sunny day, we might realize an average of 600 watts for 7-8 hours. That's more than 4000 watt-hours or 175 ah.

I was not using efficiency in the equation, I was using capacity factor.

The net capacity factor of a power plant is the ratio of the actual output of a power plant over a period of time and its output if it had operated at full nameplate capacity the entire time. To calculate the capacity factor, total energy the plant produced during a period of time and divide by the energy the plant would have produced at full capacity. The capacity factor should not be confused with the availability factor or with efficiency.

Solar energy is variable because of the daily rotation of the earth and because of cloud cover. However, solar power plants designed for solar-only generation are well matched to summer noon peak loads in areas with significant cooling demands, such as Spain or the south-western United States. Using thermal energy storage systems, the operating periods of solar thermal power stations can be extended to meet baseload needs.[3]

Wikipedia.

Photovoltaic cells typically have capacity factors of 20%.

That for PV is significantly flatter; thus fluctuations at short time scales are larger relative to those at long time scales for PV than for wind. While wind’s capacity factor varies from 32% at the sites examined to 40% at excellent sites, the capacity factor for a 4.6 MW PV array in Arizona is determined to be 19% over two years."

www.treehugger.com...

(Nuclear has a capacity factor of around 91.5% & Coal is usually around 75%. Nuclear makes up only 10% of the total grid capacity, yet supplies about 20% of the energy in the US simply because they run at full power for almost two years non-stop which gives it a very high capacity factor.)

p.s. I don't know where you get the "20% efficiency" figure from. The 1250 watt array, on a sunny day, at peak often pulls in 950 watts. Averaged over a good, sunny day, we might realize an average of 600 watts for 7-8 hours. That's more than 4000 watt-hours or 175 ah.

600 watts for 8 hours, averages out to 175 watts for the entire day. 175 / 1250 = 14% meaning the capacity factor of your PV cells is about 14%. The technology is progressing quiet fast in efficiency and cost, but from what I understand, it will be some time (decades) before it becomes competitive with average grid power.

[edit on 26/2/2010 by C0bzz]

It appears that the unsubsidized price of the Bloom Box is about $7-8,000/kW, so their 100 kW units cost $700,000-800,000 without subsidy. As a fuel cell, it also needs fuel to run, in this case natural gas or another source of methane (such as landfill gas or biogas from anaerobic digesters).

The unsubsidized cost would be 13-14 cents/kWh, with about 9 cents/kWh from the capital costs of the Bloom box and 5 cents/kWh from natural gas costs, according to Luz Research. If natural gas prices rise or fall 50% (gas prices are often volatile), overall price would fluctuate from 11.5-12.5 cents/kWh to 20.5-21.5 cents/kWh. That unsubsidized price is still too high to compete in most markets with retail electricity without subsidy. However, this is the first generation, and if Bloom can bring prices down (and/or natural gas prices are stable/low), there could be a significant market for this fuel cell.

As far as climate benefits, supposedly it generates electricity at 50-55% conversion efficiency. CO2 emissions when running on natural gas would be just under 0.8 pounds/kWh, which compares favorably to electricity from central station coal-fired plants (2 lbs/kWh) or natural gas plants (roughly 1.3 lbs/kWh) and the national average for on-grid electricity (around 1.3-1.5 lbs/kWh). Clearly, though, the Bloom Box is still not a zero emissions tech and would only cut emissions by roughly 50% relative to the national average, unless it runs on landfill gas or biogas or hydrogen from electrolysis fueled by zero-carbon electricity (which would be much more expensive as you have to add cost of electrolysis unit, higher cost electricity, and about 30% conversion losses in electrolysis).


blogs.forbes.com...

That works out to a capital cost of $7000-$8000 per kilowatt, and has an efficiency of 50% to 55%. Meanwhile the Siemens Gas Turbine SCC5-8000H Combined Cycle has an efficiency of over 60%, and costs $800 per kilowatt. Meaning the gas turbine will use about 15% less fuel, but also cost 10 times less. Bloom has a massive way to go before this is affordable, because at the moment, it isn't.

SGT5-8000H:

I also hear that it may require zirconium oxide as a membrane (can anyone confirm that?) and zirconium doesn't grow on trees, nor is it processed quickly, which may hamper production volumes.

So is the Bloom Box the solution to all the world's energy problems? Of course not. But could it finally move fuel cells for stationary power generation a big step forward? It looks like the chances are good. Only time, and the tests of the market, will tell...

It's worth noting though that with the idea initially funded through NASA's Mars program and the initial product launch only enabled by public deployment incentives, the Bloom Energy fuel cell is another good example of how public investments in technology R&D and deployment can catalyze significant private sector investment, innovation and entrepreneurship to drive forward a new technology with potential for widespread application as costs come down.

blogs.forbes.com...

[edit on 26/2/2010 by C0bzz]

I do tend to believe that this device has much potential, especially for bringing electricity to remote areas of the world without the need and expense of the construction of a power grid.

lets say we have a remote village in Africa or India that raises cattle, the dung and resulting methane/bio gas could be used to power their power generator without being dependent upon a power company running power lines out to their remote location.

Another aspect that is being overlooked here is that even though that Siemens Gas Turbine generator is all of 60% efficient. IT is still utilizing the concepts discovered by Tesla over 100 years ago.

It is still :

1. Converting fuel to heat energy via "Combustion"
2.Heat energy to mechanical energy and
3. Mechanical energy to electrical energy.

With each step inherently plagued with inherent losses of energy.

The Bloom generator utilizes only one chemical step, w/o any combustion or mechanical losses whatsoever. There are also no moving parts to break or maintain as with anything mechanical such as a turbine.

Furthermore, the power companies themselves would most likely be the first customers. Instead of running power over hundreds of miles, and generating the additional power to compensate for the transfer losses, they could have localized power generation stations without the inherent losses of power required to PUSH power over vast distances.

So conceptually , wherever we have a landfilll, or farm, we could potentially pipe this gas to a local power generator generating power and/or subsidizing power generated by solar and wind power of local communities.

This is also phase 1 of this idea, with boundless room for improvements over the years.

reply to post by serbsta


Bloom Box is great, although the cost presently is quite high and the CEO bloke says it will be at least 5 to 10 years b4, they will be available for home backyard installation.
Though the tech is not new, they have certainly made it more efficient and using a lot less expensive materials.
Geez 5 to 10 yrs, by that time the ZPE will be already big time IMO, if indeed they are not suppressed that is.

Cheers

I find this thread fascinating, and have learned a lot here.
Some of the information is hard for me to comprehend, as I am not a specialist in this field. However, I will keep plugging away.
I think a lot of the considerations have to do with environment.
For example, I live in the high-plains desert, so wind and solar would be beneficial to my particular environment. The same cannot be said for other areas.
Bravo, people, for digging into this, and please try to keep things simple for those of us who are trying to learn this wonderful information.
We are finally on the right track.
My goal is to finally get the power company to pay me for excess power. That would be amazing!

I went to there website bloom energy
it looks like the some of the big business are getting them and there working on getting Japan to buy them.

Has there been any other news on it.