cant believe noones mentioned it. its been in the tv world earlier this week, then they had their press conference today what do you all think about it?? link with video http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/24/bloom-box-energy-server-hands-on-literally-with-video/?s=t5 press event http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/24/live-from-the-bloom-box-press-event/
updated the thread with links and video. its got some serious backers, and if they can get it down to 3000, or hell.. i would pay $5000 for one if it can produce 80% or more power. Trickle in a bit of natural gas to power it, have an array of solar cells on the roof... FUCK the electric company.
I think it either works as slated, or it is an industry plant that's doomed to fail as an energy source. I've been kinda watching what happens because there isn't much in the way of the technology available other than simple specs ( http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/ ). I want access to the real life data in one year....the real data (your unit's performance will be monitored by Bloom Energy Products and is available through your Bloom account. there is a real hint of promis here and if it looks like the technology is something that'll sell, the moneybags will fund other projects and competition will take over from there. The sundance/hummingbird system sounded good too. Turned out better for the promoter than the thousands who put up major coinage to get in on the first floor dealerships. Just for the record, it is patented and UL approved. trhis product was heald back almost long enough for power comanies to get the ball rolling on legislations to make it illegal for customers to sell back any surplus electricity produced. What did make it into the various state senates is not a buy back, but more of a credit forward....no cash exchanged. if you are producing more than you use, you'll never trecieve a dime, only credit towards future usage. (in effect, the power comany won't have to buy your surplus) These legislations have been backroom/closed door style bills and you really have to dig to find them and the text of the SB's. example: http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_7_cfa_20090702_170543_asm_comm.html it's a sweet deal for the power companies. Myself, the windy season is about to start and I'm trying to get a turbine up for that, IMHO: if you have to be grid tied, you're just falling into the trap that's been set IE: giving the power company free energy.
So it's a fuel cell system, that can use natural gas and other sources? I've skimmed around and haven't gotten a solid handle on how it all works. Exciting if true, sign me up! Solar and wind isn't very viable where I live right now, so any alternative is welcome. EDIT: Here we go, well explained. Pardon the commercials: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n&tag=contentMain;contentBody
Notice that it's only for grid-tied. I've looked and looked without finding anything more than a sales pitch, so I withold opinion as of now. It is not a "free energy system". It appears to be overunity, but without some real technical disclosure, we'll not find out for sure. One of the things I found that seems to hold a shitload of promis, is the steam system outlined here: [video=youtube;yh_-DUKQ4Uw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh_-DUKQ4Uw[/video] Imagine this hooked to a water turbine to pump the fluid.
Adding to stay on the energy topic: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10456435-54.html Did anyone else read about Google receiving permission to sell energy now? Seems like they've got some cleaner solutions up their sleeves. Google is unstoppable.
When this alternatives energy ball really gets rolling, Tesla will be vindicated. Has anyone else really studied what that guy was all about? Flashback 1830's: [video=youtube;9PdzaYwgQBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PdzaYwgQBE[/video] [video=youtube;gt8Y93k0pB0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt8Y93k0pB0&feature=related[/video] And then there's the ones that followed: Perendev, Searl, Gorlov Other than Gorlov, the technologies of perendev and Searl have been minimalized and discounted.......why?
Because Perendev's motors have been proven to fail. Under constant heavy load the magnets lose their magnetism. I don't understand why people believe rare earth magnets are some unicorn for free energy. It takes 10 times more energy to create a strong magnet than is present in the resulting magnet. And Searl was a fraud. His own son told reporters he used wires to hang the disks in his anti gravity device so he could photograph it for the newspapers. And after his claims of powering his house with one of his generators he was convicted of stealing electicity and damaging the electricity companies property after they found he had simply bypassed their power meter. The first and second laws of thermodynamics are there for a reason. Gorlov didn't claim to create any free energy. He simply made a better turbine.
It figures, that the only person to actually investigate (and know what they were talking about :wink: ) anything I point out, would be one of the guys that work in the industry that would actually be threatened by the free energy movement. Much of what I post has a purpose to it. But alas, very few even read what I post. You've done a bit of research that props up the industry that gives you a paycheck, now investigate further. Getcher hands dirty, experiment check things out from a different perpective. For the record: of coarse Searl was a quack, just watching his vids leaves no doubt. How many here actually check anything out? At least you checked it out :thumbsup:. Laws are made to be broken, especially physics laws. Else we get in ruts that prevent our evolving past what we now do not understand. The enemy is contempt prior to investigation. But nobody here is guilty of that......right? Convienience did not get us where we are, but it will keep us here. reference: http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/27529/Rare-Earth-Magnets-The-Effect-Loading-vs-Degaussing I think, for the pricetag of a bloombox ($700,000-$8000,000), a home can be powered "off-grid" and powered very well by other means and for a shit ton less cash. I have not built an SEG, so there's no way to judge for myself what any characterisitics are.
The laws of thermodynamics are not made to be broken Wiskas. I have alot of respect for your ability to think outside the box but this is a reality. There is alot of room to grow in energy efficiency and new energy sources, but we can't create energy out of nothing like these free energy crackpots believe. In my opinion we need to stop burning coal and oil to generate electricity. These are not effecient uses of stored energy. We should be burning natural gas that is much cleaner and efficient and continue to develop renewable energy sources like wind, hydro and geothermal. There is no easy solution/magic energy machine. It is going to take alot of money, that is currently in short supply and time to convert our energy sources but it will happen. You always go off about the evil energy companies but you continue to buy their gas and oil for your truck. I run into people all the time that harp about how bad my industry is but they use the product daily. The logic is completly flawed. If I don't like the way a company does business, like Starbucks for example, I don't buy their product. If I tell them this they reply that it is their only option. Well what the hell would you do without that option then? Support something else, because if you keep buying a commodity and driving the price up, people are going to keep selling it. Sorry if I am bitter this morning, I have been working long hours the past few months and need a vacation. Q1 is always crunch time at work.
I think the difference is that we don't need Starbucks to get to our worksites or keep us from freezing to death in the winter. We use the product because we're over a barrel, and can't stop! Nonetheless, entropy rules all! The three laws of thermodynamics in normal english: You can't get something for nothing. You can't even break even. It doesn't matter because everything is going to hell anyway! (or at least the Ultimate Heat Death of DOOOOoooooOOOOooooooom! ) Jake's point about magnets brings up something most folks don't seem to bring to these debates, which is the hidden energy expenses bound up in items we don't normally think about adding to the energy-use equation, such as the energy needed to form high energy-density magnets or photovoltaic cells (or any other device requiring a huge monolithic crystal of Silicon, which is VERY energy intensive).
Well that price is for those big industrial boxes. To power big buildings and industrial operations. It takes substantially less to power a home. So I could easily see it being closer to $3000. In the CBS video he says it takes 2 cubes of power cells to power an average american home, it takes 64 to power a starbucks, so lets say 64 is a big box. $800,000/64 = $12,500 which is a lot more than $3000, but well within an affordable range lets say if included in the sale of a new house. None the less, the price will be driven down over time, new tech always costs more at the start. To jake, nuclear power is really an option, there is new (actually old, but abandoned for a long time) tech that makes it safe and stable and pollution free. Let me look up the information on it later today if I can find it again. Anyways, if they can get the funding to push those new plants in, it could be a real stop gap between now and sustainable energy. Though clean nuclear is pretty sustainable.
My point: *not that physical laws are invalid, just we do not know all that we think we know. *there is nothing wrong with profit, I do however, have a problem with promotion of an addiction in order to reap those profits. *I believe times running out on the forms of energy we are now using. *no sollution or new technology is ever found by believing something's impossible. for those that do not want to read what i post, i have pictures! :wink: Which of the following were concidered "impossible/improbable" 100 years ago? http://www.goodcleantech.com/2010/02/bloom_energy_its_the_economics.php
Ya nuclear has huge potential. Especially travelling wave reactors. There is almost as much bad press and public opposition to them as fossil fuel though. I would love to see them become a major part of our energy supply. It takes a long time and a big commitment to build them as well though. Ha, I can see that was a pretty poor analogy now. Whiskas, sorry if it seemed I was picking on you, it was directed at the wrong place. You actually are doing something about your beliefs. I was trying to get my frustration across about people that think complaining about oil and gas companies is going to stop pollution or global warming or climate shift or whatever the bad effects are today. The consumers are the ones burning the stuff. Sell your car, move to a location where you don't need to drive to work. Buy renewable electricity. But don't complain about the companies supplying dirty energy, if you feel so strongly about it ruining the planet just don't buy it.
That Bloom place is a few minutes from here. If it's nice this weekend I'm going to go scope it out and ride my bike around the area (it's near the Cisco campus / Lockheed Martin etc. in Sunnyvale). As for the technology... TBD. I read the comments on DailyTech and it gave a good summary of all the arguments.
Don't get me wrong, I need Jake's perspective as well as 7's. Petroleum has it's place and value. As supplys become increasingly more expensive to secure, other forms of fuel needs to be in place. The public cannot be expected to shoulder the cost to get from point A to point B, beyond a certain point. petroleum, as a motor fuel, became unviable the day it became worth waging wars over, not to mention the health risks to persons and planet. This bloombox concept is not new. UK and Austrailia have been marketing similar units for awhile now. I'd like to see where the bottom line ended up for those sold. As Dan put it: TBD. This could be a Marie Curie or another snake oil salesman http://www.goodcleantech.com/2010/02/bloom_energy_its_the_economics.php It was believed that it broke Einstien's Laws of relativity for a gamma ray burst to eminate from outside our galaxy. The one that proposed the idea was ridiculed and shunned by the science community. He had the right answer, he was simply discounted because people thought they knew so much, that they were blinded to the obvious. Laws of physics do not require that we pole vault over mouse turds.
Back on topic, what I have found from a few sources is: Without subsidies they can generate energy at $0.13 to $0.14 per kWh. This is roughly what I pay for wind powered electricity. It uses natural gas and produces carbon dioxide. They plan to produce a 1kw residential unit inside of 5 years @ $3000. The unit produces 0.8lbs /kWh of CO2 emissions. Based off what I have read so far they are economical because of the huge subsidies in California as well as the high electricity prices. If they can cut the costs by half I can see it being an alternative to renewable energy but right now I don't see the advantage, especially since their economics are based off of the incredibly cheap natural gas prices we have experienced over the last year. Gas has been bouncing around from $4 to $7 lately. But two years ago it was $14 and as demand continues to grow I can see it going up again.
I agree about needing alternative options for fuel, being dependent on one type and one or a few companies is just bad. About Bloombox or whatever, the tech itself isn't new. There are tons of companies and people that have or are trying to make fuel cells work. Actually they do work, it is proven technology as far as what they do, but the uncertainties are in the amount of fuel needed to run them and any waste output they have. So until we have those we have no idea their efficiencies and that is what dictates if they are selling us bunk or not. We know it works because quite a few big companies now have them, from Google to Walmart. I don't pretend to know all the specifics, but what I have seen or read is interesting and if what they say is true, and they can get it to the price they say they can, I think it could impact things for the better. I also agree about science and popular belief, there is too much stigma about science being the only truth, but science is founded on discoveries and disproving what is popular belief. Unfortunately, to prove someone wrong means you have to face their wrath and any one else that feels the same way. Anyways, there are too many people that automatically discount any other theories just because an existing one covers the area, even though if you just proved the theory wrong or right instead of ignoring it would be better.
It doesn't have to use natural gas. It can use other fuels. Like hydrogen if you could produce it without external energy.
Tell me about it. I advocate an alternative way to look at things and a way to live that offers as much, if not more satisfaction, and I get all sorts of dissing. The thing is, the amount and form of the dissing tells me that I hit a raw nerve ending. I have worked with countless addicts through counciling and detoxing and my experience is the same when I pull the covers on the addiction to convienience including energy. The brand of denial is nearly identicle. As with drug addicts, there is no helping those that do not want it. People can disbelieve in any sollution if it threatens charging their IPhones and IPods. When an obviously drug addicted person denies their dependency, the challenge to go 30 days abstinant is thrown down. It's not that the person can last 30 days without the object of their addiction that tells the truth. It is what happens on day 31 that tells the story. When profit rather than virtue is what motivates innovation, it usually equates to changing seats on the titanic. It also is akin to a drug dealer running the angle that they care about their customers and the community by making sure there's an adequate supply of quality drugs available. It's true that it takes capital to develope technology. It's also true that most capital suppliers expect enormous profits thus profit being the motivation as opposed to doing the best/right thing. The pursuit of profit has the tendency to foster an attitude of contempt prior to investigation. This keeps the world in a state of everlasting ignorance.....besides, everyone knows that it's preferable to make 30% rather than 29% return right?. Therefore we'll always be capable of so much more than we will ever be. case-in-point: These cells have been around for a long time, why haven't they been marketted until now? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_type_of_energy_powered_Apollo_spacecraft
But it does take energy to produce hydrogen, it dosen't occur naturally anywhere on earth. The only fuel source I see for these generators is natural gas right now. I mean sure, we could use electricity to produce hydrogen which we would use to produce electricity but that is not very efficient. Kind of like the comparison of electric cars to fuel cell cars.
Methane? A closed system powered by the by products of modern throw away societies. Kills two birds with one stone: the sequestering of a greenhouse gas 20X worse than carbon in a closed loop system and reduction of garbage presently being buried. math: the residential system produced by Bloom costs $3000 and produces 1Kw of power. My little 750 sq. ft cottage uses nearly 4Kw without electric heat. So, as a grid tied system, I'd need 4 units at a total of $12,000. That is more than it'd cost me to do solar and wind in an off-grid config. Factor in replacing batteries of today's type and technology, I may pay more.Emerging battery technologies could very well bring costs down faster that the reducing of initial cost of the Bloombox and not produce any residual products except for perhaps hydrogen (with metal/acid batteries). My whole thing here is not that power companies are "evil". Bloom is not "evil". I do, however, see the potential for this to stop the public from wanting newer, more eco friendly and sustainable option. This is far from the answer but can fill the void until the real sollution is found. I fear that society will mistake this for the cure-all, fix-all sollution and stop funding the developement and competition to achieve a real sollution. The only thing that makes anything imposible is when we stop looking for new ways. Suspicious of corporations? You bet you ass, the same as suspicion aimed at politions. revised quote: "it's not paranoia, when they really are out to get you....or your dollars".
