21–30 of 63 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the idea here is not that a single 1KW stack would be used to power a home, but that several homes would run off of a single 25KW module, so that you only need to accomodate their collective peak requirements
A well-sized electric furnace will use more than 25kW in one home alone: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html
Could somebody help with some background on the science? What strikes me as odd is that you put fuel in the fuel cell. One of the examples they give is using these to charge your hyrbid car. So, by the transitive property, aren't you putting fuel into your car? I guess I'm trained to think of alternative energy sources like sun and wind, so I'm thrown off here. What's the innovation? I can see that you're generating…
I think they just announced a highly-efficient natural gas electric generator. The question is just how efficient, if it's as efficient as the large centralized power plants we now build then we don't have to waste money on building and maintaining power transmission lines. If I remember my thermodynamics correctly, the efficiency of a heat engine is constrained by the internal temperature of the engine. The higher t…
They say that 1 KW will power the average US home, hu? Yeah, so long as all heating is natural gas and no one ever turns on a hair dryer. Maybe they were talking about averaged load? But then they seem to have left out the 4 tonnes of lead-acid batteries you'll need.
Agreed. But --- who heats with electricity? (Heat pumps can be a good idea, though.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You put in a hydrogen source... in this case, likely natural gas. It combines with oxygen from the air in a process that yields electricity, water, and a small amount of CO2. The key benefit is that the fuel isn't burned. It's converted chemically, so it is a very efficient process. They have a good flash video explaining it here: http://bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-animat...
> It combines with oxygen from the air [...] > the fuel isn't burned. It's converted chemically My last chemistry class was a long time ago, so this might be a dumb question. What's the difference between combining with oxygen and burning?
Fuel cells are cool because they grab electricity straight from the freed electrons as the fuel is oxidized. More efficient than using the heat to make steam to power a turbine to spin electromagnets, your typical power plant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they just announced a highly-efficient natural gas electric generator. The question is just how efficient, if it's as efficient as the large centralized power plants we now build then we don't have to waste money on building and maintaining power transmission lines. If I remember my thermodynamics correctly, the efficiency of a heat engine is constrained by the internal temperature of the engine. The higher t…
Fuel cells are not heat engines.
Could somebody help with some background on the science? What strikes me as odd is that you put fuel in the fuel cell. One of the examples they give is using these to charge your hyrbid car. So, by the transitive property, aren't you putting fuel into your car? I guess I'm trained to think of alternative energy sources like sun and wind, so I'm thrown off here. What's the innovation? I can see that you're generating…
I think they just announced a highly-efficient natural gas electric generator. The question is just how efficient, if it's as efficient as the large centralized power plants we now build then we don't have to waste money on building and maintaining power transmission lines. If I remember my thermodynamics correctly, the efficiency of a heat engine is constrained by the internal temperature of the engine. The higher t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You put in a hydrogen source... in this case, likely natural gas. It combines with oxygen from the air in a process that yields electricity, water, and a small amount of CO2. The key benefit is that the fuel isn't burned. It's converted chemically, so it is a very efficient process. They have a good flash video explaining it here: http://bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-animat...
Burning, oxidization of hydrocarbons, is very much a chemical process. It generates heat, if they have somehow found a way of making it generate electricity directly, that would be really interesting.
Could somebody help with some background on the science? What strikes me as odd is that you put fuel in the fuel cell. One of the examples they give is using these to charge your hyrbid car. So, by the transitive property, aren't you putting fuel into your car? I guess I'm trained to think of alternative energy sources like sun and wind, so I'm thrown off here. What's the innovation? I can see that you're generating…
I think they just announced a highly-efficient natural gas electric generator. The question is just how efficient, if it's as efficient as the large centralized power plants we now build then we don't have to waste money on building and maintaining power transmission lines. If I remember my thermodynamics correctly, the efficiency of a heat engine is constrained by the internal temperature of the engine. The higher t…
If you also use the heat it generates to heat your home the Bloombox can be up to 85% efficient.