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Bloom Energy, a Silicon Valley startup, has developed a fuel cell technology that can run on fuels such as natural gas and bio-gas from landfills. Their BloomBox is purported to be cheaper and cleaner than grid power. They envision seeing their fuel cell in every home in five to ten years with the average unit costing less than $3000 USD.
Bloom Energy, is set to publicly launch their technology on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010. Inventor and CEO, K.R. Sridhar, broke the longstanding silence of his company Sunday, Feb. 21, by doing an exclusive interview with 60 Minutes.
Sridhar is an India-born scientist with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He first began developing the technology for providing oxygen on Mars. When NASA scrapped that project, he thought to reverse the fuel cell process and use oxygen with fuel to produce electricity.
Oxygen is combined with fuel within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity. There's no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source. The cell plates are made from sand (turned into ceramic), and are coated with a proprietary ink: green on one side and black on the other.
The company has reportedly raised nearly $400 million in funding; and its first paying beta-testing customers have included Wal-Mart, Staples, eBay, and FedEx. Google was Bloom's first paying customer. A 400 kilowatt BloomBox sits behind one of the buildings on the Mountain View campus and has been powering a large chunk of the building's energy needs since July 2008. [1]
John Doerr, a principle involved in financing the company, who also financed Netscape, Amazon, Google and Segway as startups, predicts that the power companies will see this as a solution rather than competition. "All you need to do is buy a few BloomBoxes and install them in a neighborhood substation."
Sridhar's 9-year-old son came up with the name "Bloom", to signify the blooming of the future: blooming of jobs, blooming of clean energy. [3]
Visit our PESWiki feature page on this development for more information.
Here's the CBS interview segment:
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See also
- Directory:BloomBox_Fuel_Cell_by_Bloom_Energy
- Directory:Fuel Cells
- Directory:Fuel Efficiency - main index
- News:Fuel Efficiency
Comments
Although this guy credentials lend credibility to the Bloombox capbility, the lack of data and the incompleteness of the equation raises much doubt. It is impossible to pump gas and oxygen into a cell and get out only electricity and heat. What about the other byproducts? What are they? We know that regular fuel cell outputs water in addition to electricity. Again what are the other compounds of the bloom cell output? What is the cell true and absolute efficiency? What are its energy characteristics?
While I enjoy seeing the rise of fuel cells and distributed
power applications. The kind he is talking about will do
nothing to lower the overall carbon footprint, and also any
pollutants already in the fuel will undoubtedly go right into
the atmospehere. This is really not good enough in itself
to become *the* energy system of the future. Hydrogen would
indeed make the process cleaner, but hydrogen is an energy
vehicle, not an energy source. His solution is not fully
addressing the energy problem.
Fuel has other componets, you cannot have your cake and eat it to. Where are they going to out source the manufacture of them, China or India?
What we can say about this is that it is the only technology I've ever seen on Sterling's pages that actually works and has some promise. As others point out, they have not given enough information to determine its long term potential. It's encouraging that eBay, FedEx and Google have invested in it and, more important, are using the technology every day to make electricity they actually use.
That's a whole lot more (infinitely more, actually) than can be said in favor of Steorn, Mark Goldes, Dennis Lee, BLP, Eestor, Bearden and especially the promiscuous but vacuous Mr. Bedini and all the other promoters of weird toys that don't work, all of whom Sterling seems to admire.
It is no accident that Bloom energy's breaking of the silence comes on the heel of the president's announcement to build two nuclear power plants in Georgia. I commend Sridhar on his revolutionary fuel cell technology but let us not loose heart and continue the quest, the game is still afoot. A fuel cell is only an energy conversion device (ECD) we still have to put fuel into the thing. Oh and by the way--all viable energy ideas need to be put on the table now because after the nuclear power plant project ribbon cutting ceremony no new energy ideas will see the light of day through government bureaucracy.
Is this fuel cell technology, using natural gas or propane? Aren't these non-renewable resources? What are the polluting by-products of this process? They are often never mentioned. I am very disappointed to see this included in a free or new energy site.
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Advantages of BloomBox (TWO)… (4) There is typically a loss of electrical energy when power is sent long distances through transmission lines. Not with distributed energy, such as onsite or neighborhood fuel cells – no expensive and unsightly transmission lines needed and no loss of long distance current, when power is produced and consumed onsite or locally…(5) Multi-fuel Capability – BloomBox is Not just limited to natural gas. That was the simplest / easiest way, during its introduction, to double the cost effectiveness of natural gas and cut the carbon footprint in half. The BloomBox will also be powered with renewables (E-Bay). This can run on numerous sources of “synthgas” - derived from a variety of biomass waste feedstocks, or algae, duckweed, and biofuels, etc… BloomBox can run on domestic renewable fuel, such as 50-50 ethanol-water. We have inexpensive fuel reformers that strip all the hydrogen out of ethanol, Plus HALF the hydrogen out of the water, simultaneously.
While it is a good start, I doubt they can reduce costs below $3000. It is certainly not green unless the right fuel is used
What should be done is using the Rankine cycle power plants as use d by the Geothermal boys. This uses a refrigerant & only requires a temperature differance of some 60oC. It can also by scaled up & down as necessary. John M
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