Posted on 02/22/2010 4:36:25 AM PST by MindBender26
(CBS) In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard.
You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines.
It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.
K.R. Sridhar invited "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl for a first look at the innards of the Bloom box that he has been toiling on for nearly a decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Santa Cruz nat’l gas powered busses are plastered with ‘clean air vehicle’ along the roof top tanks.
I’m tempted to educate them but it’ll just cost more money.
What to do???
Skimming the story, it sounds entirely plausible (and I entered the thread ready to denounce yet another perpetual motion machine). Seems the guy managed to create a better fuel cell, something that runs on “oxygen and fuel”; he may very well have found a different combination of common chemicals which can operate as a fuel cell, with its “fuel” being sourced from decaying biomass. Nothing bizarre here, just the next incremental (if big) step along the path of such technology.
I don’t smell a scam. I smell some guy who had a great idea trying to develop it and retain the rights before a bigger company does.
Thank you for a good skim and summary! We tend to assume amazing reports are scams, but not all are. We need to look at the facts and see that this is very likely an advance. Whether it pans out to make a profit for this guy and his investors depends upon a lot of things.
Thanks for posting this, MindBender. Very interesting. I hope it works out in line with the inventor’s vision.
They want to be able to control and tax our energy. This would, ultimately set the Left’s idea of “progress” back.
“If this technology was as great as this inventor says it is then this would have been marketable on a consumer scale years ago.”
SOFC technology was invented decades ago. There have been many problems that have kept it from common use.
The first cells only worked hundreds of hours, current prototypes are working 10’s of thousands of hours.
Early cells worked at extreme heat preventing the use of inexpensive metals in their construction. Current cells work at half the temperature allowing the use of stainless steel in their construction.
Early cells had low power density requiring very large volumes/kW produces. Power density has increased exponentially.
It’s like saying if the internal combustion engine was to good why didn’t they invent it in the 18th century. The technology is promising but is still a work in progress.
I don't think the invention is a scam. However, this looks to be one of those politically connected companies that spend a ton on PR, get a well-known person (Colin Powell) with no business experience on it's board and benefit from the energy-hating legal environment of California.
That's no big deal. But the reporting made me tear my hair out. This piece was deceptive in many ways and stupid in several others. It was deceptive because at the beginning it made it seem that the unit ran on air only and that we were looking at a little cube power plant instead of just one component of a power plant that required fans and pumps and more to make it work. Then a few buzz words, like "wireless" conveyed high-tech but were never explained and made no sense whatsoever. The claim about oxygen on Mars was never probed or defended. How does it make oxygen if it needs oxygen to produce energy? Perhaps it needs energy to break down iron oxide into it's constituents. Where does that energy come from?
Then Leslie Stahl asked if it could run on a variety of fuels and included "solar" and the inventor said "yes." He had no interested in correcting her air-head misunderstanding of science or engineering. If it needs methane or natural gas or hydrogen as a fuel, how does it use sun beams as a fuel?
The piece was stupid because virtually no important questions were asked, such as, what is the fuel efficiency? What is the cost per Kilowatt? How much energy is used to build a unit and does that energy come from the grid? If the invention is so good, does the manufacturing plant use it or just buid it? Are any hazardous materials used, such as lead, cadmium etc? Are any rare materials used that would limit widespread use? What are the byproducts, both in running the unit and recycling units after they have exceeded their useful life? Specifically, does the unit produce carbon dioxide, water vapor or other gases or solids. And, what is the useful life? Would this invention be economical if there were no government incentives? And on and on.
Instead we were treated to a bunch of superficial interviews with people who had PR agendas. At least they interviewd one critic who gave some insight into potential problems. Leslie Stahl is so economically ignorant she couldn't figure out why a power company would want to buy a unit, not understanding that power companies buy turbines and other energy sources all the time. She also didn't ask any questions about the economics of the grid versus maintaining ones own power plant. How cheap would the electricity have to be to convince me to maintain my own power source rather than have the evil power company maintain theirs?
The least CBS could do is to assign an engineer or scientist to cover these sorts of stories instead of someone who believes in perpetual motion and pixi dust.
The interesting thing about some fuel cells is that they can run in reverse. Supply current and water and they will produce hydrogen and oxygen.
It would be a power intensive way to produce O2 but feasible.
I have had a couple of angel investors tell me tales of similar products...I thought they had little chance and when I heard Bloom had gotten 400 million in this story I realized that it takes deep deep pockets even to try the idea.
Eww.
There is a company called violet fuel cells that has an interesting patent that would allow high enough power densities to allow SOFCs to enter the transportation market. They went silent about two years ago, I'm hoping they got funded and are going to introduce a product soon.
One additional advantage of having a fuel cell powering an apartment building or hotel, is the ability to use the heat from the fuel cell to produce hot water and to heat the building.
I think I have a few I bought at a former GM engineer’s estate sale 30 years ago...
You electrolyze water with your solar panels then feed the hydrogen and oxygen into the fuel cell?
“This Island Earth”
I believe the power source was called an “Interositter.” (Phonetic spelling; sorry)
That would, indeed, appear to be the case:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R = rho L / A
Yep: maximize A (Area)
...and -- minimize L (thickness)
Nope.
As a percentage of what a family spends every month, the money spent on fuel is minor. Even if it DOUBLED in price, most families would be able to absorb the increase without crushing them. Double the average family's mortgage payment, however, and they now have a Big Problem.
The causes of the recession are well documented, and fuel prices are not among them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.