The Bloom Box is Coming!

Dis anyone see 60-Minutes report on the Bloom Box...a fuel cell powered by natural gas?
jhh

he Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

60 Minutes: First Customers Says Energy Machine Works And Saves Money

  • Bloom Energy's K.R. Sridhar, holding up fuel cells that are key components of the so-called _Bloom box._

    Bloom Energy's K.R. Sridhar, holding up fuel cells that are key components of the so-called "Bloom box."  (CBS)

  • INTERACTIVEEnergy Ed.

    A look at our sources of energy and how we use them to live and work.

(CBS)  For the past year and a half, several large California corporations have been secretly testing the "Bloom Box," a potentially revolutionary fuel-cell system. Confirming this for the first time, several of the companies report this system is a more efficient, clean, and cost effective way to get electricity than off the power grid. 

Lesley Stahl and "60 Minutes" cameras get the first look inside the secretive California company, just days before the Bloom Energy official launch, scheduled for next Wednesday (Feb. 24). 

Stahl's report will be broadcast this Sunday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. 

John Donahoe, CEO of E-bay, confirms Bloom Boxes were installed at his corporate campus nine months ago. The company says the boxes already saved them over $100,000 in electricity bills. "It's been very successful thus far. [The Bloom Boxes] have done what they said they would do," says Donahoe. The five boxes are able to produce five times as much electricity as the 3,248 solar panels that E-bay installed on its campus roofs, says the CEO. "The footprint for Bloom is much more efficient," he tells Stahl. 

Google, FedEx, Staples and Walmart are among the first 20 clients Bloom is confirming. 

Stahl is the first journalist to be allowed into the Bloom Energy lab and factory where currently one box a day is built. The boxes create electricity by a chemical process that utilizes oxygen and fuel, but involves no combustion. Bloom's founder and CEO, K.R. Sridhar, insists all the materials in the box are cheap and available in abundance. Bloom says each large box - which can power about 100 homes - currently sells for $700-800,000. They hope within five to 10 years to roll out a smaller home version for about $3,000 a unit. 

Bloom Energy was the first clean energy start-up Kleiner-Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, invested in. They currently invest in about 50 clean tech companies. Sridhar confirms the company has received over $400 million, making it one of the most expensive startups in history. 

John Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins partner who invested in Bloom, has high hopes. "The Bloom Box is intended to replace the [electric power] grid for its customer," says Doerr. He thinks existing utility companies should not be threatened or have a problem with Bloom Energy. "The utility companies will see this as a solution.All they need to do is buy Bloom Boxes, put them in the substation for the neighborhood and sell that electricity," he says. 

But there is another hurdle says Michael Kanellos, editor-in-chief of the Web site GreenTech Media. Even if Sridhar can mass produce his boxes and sell them cheaply enough, "The problem is then G.E. and Siemens and other conglomerates that can probably do the same thing. They have fuel cell patents," he tells Stahl.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by LP on February 24, 2010 at 5:43
Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on February 24, 2010 at 6:09
Re: Tampering with the units outdoors.

Lots of houses have gas meters or exposed pipes on the side of the house. What if they get tampered with?

Re: Cold weather

You can bet the unit generates a lot of waste heat to keep itself warm.

Re: Safety concerns

How many houses have a low tech gas-fired furnace inside the house? And a potential bomb if the water heater clogs up and the safeties fail? And an automobile in the garage with a tank of highly explosive gasoline? Safety is not that difficult. Suppose the Bloom box is 4 times safer than a home gas furnace?

I think the big technical questions will be cost, reliability, and catalyst lifetime.
Permalink Reply by Bacon on February 24, 2010 at 5:54
Appears to be lots of info on the site now. This is how it works.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-animation/
Permalink Reply by LP on February 24, 2010 at 5:58
That's great. I love simple explanations.
I sure would like to see the press conference.
Permalink Reply by DJG on February 24, 2010 at 7:40
Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on February 24, 2010 at 6:40
Will someone smarter than me figure out efficiency vs. other natgas to electricity devices?

http://c0688662.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/downloads_pdf_Blo...

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/
Permalink Reply by essay on February 25, 2010 at 4:47
The Bloom Box – innovation or replication?

"Is the long-heralded solid oxide fuel cell from Bloom Energy as innovative as the company claims?"

"Other developers, such as Ceres Power in the UK and Ceramic Fuel Cells in Australia/Germany, have products close to market launch and – so far – it is completely unclear whether Bloom's product is better or likely to be more attractively priced or more long-lasting."

and now for a really skeptical opinion

* Max Hugoson wrote:

At the urging of my “well into retirement” Mother, I watched the pathetic 20 minutes of 60 minutes yesterday as others, on the “Bloom Box”. What blew me away was the complete credulity on the part of the 60 Minutes staff.

Well, no suprise they are complete MORONS. (At least technically.) After all, you scratch the surface of these yo yo’s and they think a solar panel and a windmill on top of their houses, and they can say “good bye” to their utility bills.

OK let’s go over the details:

#1. It was almost implied that this device took no fuel. (But then admitted that it takes natural gas.

#2. There was NO talk of the quality of power it puts out. Is it 100 VDC per cell? 70 Amps per cell? That’s 7000 watts, and despite the alleged 90% electrical efficiency of fuel cells, that means you have 700 watts you need to “cool” during opperation. (Compare the fan on your PC, cooling about 40 watts, so you need 20 times as much cooling ability.)

#3. It took $400,000,000 to develop commercially??? Sorry, I know dozens of products, with processing cycles similar to that shown in the 60 Minutes piece, which have takend $40,000 or $400,000 or $4,000,000 to develop, and then gone on to success. $400,000,000??!!! Something STINKS right there. There should be more than just Ebay running a unit, there should be about 50 to 100 “demo” units around.

#4. So this device “magically” works without “chemical poisoning” by Sulfur, or heavy metals or more complex organics. Could be. They do appear to be based on a concept known as a “proton conductor”, which would run at about 600 C or 1000 F. This is a high enough temperature to “burn off” organic contamination, and the Sulfur contamination could come out as SO2. But please NOTE to have “enviromentally clean” output, one STILL NEEDS a massive “gas plant” to clean up the CH4.

#5. No mention of the “surrounding equipment. Let’s see, I just bought a 300 watt, DC to AC inverter. $50.
If I want 3000 watts, I need $500 for that, if I want 30 times that much…I need $1500. Say the Bloom box costs (and judging by the capitol put into it, this would not be unreasonable) $5000. I’m now into the $6500 realm to put my Bloom box” in place. (Also, my electrician costs me about $1800!)

That’s $8,400. For me that is, at current rates, about 4 years of electrical and gas costs.

Am I given an INSURANCE policy that the Bloom box will work flawlessly for 4 years? 8 years, or like my home furnace, 30 years?

What happens to the price of CH4, when I put 50% of all electric generation on it?

#6. Now this is scary…a Bloom Box promotional site says, “Produces 60% less CO2 emissions than standard means of “burning” CH4.

Whoops, sorry, NO FUEL CELL “alters” reality. Reality is CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H20. Therefore CO2 does not just disappear.

I smell CON JOB throughout this effort. Watch it peter out and watch the “inventor” retire to Bermuda (no extradition for economic crimes) and laugh at the RUBES in “silicon valley”.

Max
Permalink Reply by LP on February 25, 2010 at 7:39
"aginners" always like to pretend to be the smartest guy in the room. Max personifies that sort of self adulation and the blogs are roaring with the same "I know better than them" jabberheads.
But...I'm happy to sit back and along with ol' Max...watch and see what comes of it. I don't have a thing to lose by doing that.
Permalink Reply by Bacon on February 25, 2010 at 7:59
Haha, Sounds like he's on the same payroll as Mr. Berman.
Permalink Reply by essay on February 25, 2010 at 8:12
yes he's very abrasive and negative, just providing a little counterpoint to the "miracle box" angle
Permalink Reply by sesport on February 25, 2010 at 13:55
They'll probably just sell it to China (or some other developing industrial Asian country) and they'll refine it then sell it back to us.

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Permalink Reply by j garrett on February 26, 2010 at 3:08
Assuming this is legit, the manufacturing constraints will keep this out of vehicles for a while. BUT, it'll be interesting when they test Natural Gas (NG) consumption of a full CNG (compressed natural gas ) vehicle with an internal combustion engine vs putting a Bloom Box on board an electric vehicle, along with a CNG tank, generating electricity for an electric car. Which would be better / most efficient I wonder? Throw an ultra-capacitor into the mix (eestor) that can store electricity generated from anything, like wheels turning or braking, and we'd really have an interesting vehicle. Are the Tesla guys listening?

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