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Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

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Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#41

Post by blhack »

mustpax wrote: post #16
mbreese wrote: post #11

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.

I think the box has to get heated to (or is heated to as part of the process) about 1000C.

Here is another article about them: http://www.fastcompany.com/1557348/bloombox-bloom-box-fuel-c...

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#42

Post by hop »

Fuel required @ rated power: 0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas. Rated power output (AC): 100 kW

Figure fuel costs of $10 per MMBtu. So it pumps out 100kW/hr electricity for $6.60.

~$0.09/kWh for electricity in Oregon (its double that for NYC). So we pay about $9 for 100kW/hr.

Thats a 30% savings in Oregon and about 70% for the East Coast. But it still releases a lot of CO2 - 773 lbs/MW-hr.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/

So if you ran one straight for a year and you used all its output, it would save $20k-$40k depending on electricity prices. So if they can get the price sub $100k and natural gas supply and price stays even, they could sell a lot of them.

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#43

Post by SpacemanSpiff »

So forgive me if this sounds jaded, but I fail to see how this technology is a "game changer."

1. Based on the EIA Annual Energy Review 2001 transmission losses only account for 3.1% of total power generation in the U.S.

2. A modern, large gas combined-cycle power plant has a quoted efficiency of over 60% http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/power-p...

3. From the presentation: "The carbon footprint is 50% cleaner than the grid and 100% renewable" Wait a minute, if the power generation is truly renewable, then how can it have a carbon footprint at all (other than manufacture etc.)? Isn't the whole point of renewable energy to have a perpetually renewing "closed system"? By that definition then the carbon footprint would be tiny compared to the grid.

The reason they say 50% is probably because they are thinking most people will run the units from gas, but that's definitely not renewable. Also, I can't imagine the efficiency of the unit is much higher than 50-60%, but maybe there's some data on that which I have missed.

4. "They have created 11,000,000 kilowatts so far" How much of this is from the burning of fossil fuels versus renewable fuel sources?

I am all for fuels cells and development of renewable energy. I think what would truly be a "game changer" is if this device could be used to store the cyclical output from a local renewable energy power system - for example store the energy created during the day from a PV installation for use at night. In my opinion this is more "green washing" than green.

edit: formatting

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#44

Post by erreon »

eru wrote: post #6
pkulak wrote: post #3

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.)

In South Texas a lot of the houses are heated with electricity. In my parents neighborhood they don't even have natural gas available to the houses at all.

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#45

Post by dantheman »

hop wrote: post #42

Fuel required @ rated power: 0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas. Rated power output (AC): 100 kW Figure fuel costs of $10 per MMBtu. So it pumps out 100kW/hr electricity for $6.60. ~$0.09/kWh for electricity in Oregon (its double that for NYC). So we pay about $9 for 100kW/hr. Thats a 30% savings in Oregon and about 70% for the East Coast. But it still releases a lot of CO2 - 773 lbs/MW-hr. http://www.bloomenergy.com/prod…

Natural Gas Figures for US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...)

Natural gas - production: 582.2 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 2

Natural gas - consumption: 657.2 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 1

Natural gas - exports: 28.49 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 10

Natural gas - imports: 112.7 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 1

Natural gas - proved reserves: 6.731 trillion cu m (1 January 2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 5

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#46

Post by Vivtek »

eru wrote: post #6
pkulak wrote: post #3

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.)

I do, partly. Especially nice in the bathroom.

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#47

Post by andrewcooke »

teilo wrote: post #33
andrewcooke wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you don't all get up and shower at the same time...

Let's consider this system in the context of the USA, where we have massive amounts of natural gas, but no efficient way to turn it into electricity. Existing turbine systems waste gas two ways: The inefficiency of combustion turbines, and transmission loss. Now, if we were to bolster our existing natural gas transmission infrastructure in order to support fuel cell technologies, we can presume that heating will cont…

yes, and more generally making things hot is easy (efficient). so it's normally pretty stupid to use electricity for this (you would be better burning whatever you used to make electricity directly).

[edit - ah, i see that they are hoping to use the "waste" heat to get the overall efficiency up]

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#48

Post by kreneskyp »

clistctrl wrote: post #39
blhack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$800,000 per unit. They hope to get it to ~$3000 in the next 5 years.

haha, sounded like 800k was the price for the huge box (the kind ebay is running) and $3000 is the price of one big enough to run your home.

Thats what they originally stated in the 60 minutes story. $3000 isn't bad. If what they are claiming is true then you would pay it off in less than 5 years and then have reduced electricity afterwards.

Throw in an electric car and you've seriously reduced your fuel costs.

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#49

Post by [deleted] »

andrewcooke wrote: post #18
teilo wrote: post #4

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

if you don't all get up and shower at the same time...

[deleted]

Re: Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

#50

Post by mbreese »

mustpax wrote: post #16
mbreese wrote: post #11

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.

Combustion is a chemical process, but it is hardly a controllable one. In this case, a fuel cell doesn't combust the fuel, but instead converts it into water and CO2 while stripping the electrons directly from the hydrogen (I think).
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