Bloom Energy's "Bloom Box"

[phi1.62]

A story appeared on CBS Sixty Minutes on Sunday about an energy device manufactured by Bloom Energy called the Bloom Box. Basically, it's a compact and cheap fuel cell that can not only use hydrogen gas as a fuel source but also gas derived from biofuels and natural gas. The device has been trialed by a number of high profile companies over several months, which include Ebay, Google and Wal-Mart, amongst others. The inventor of the device hopes that within ten years it will be available to purchase for the domestic consumer at a cost of around $3000. A link to the Sixty Minutes story can be found here:

The Bloom Box - 60 Minutes - CBS News

Bloom Energy has been quite secretive about the device but will be revealing it to the public in the next two days.

[ewizard]

Interesting and I see it as good in some ways but it still ties people to purchasing fuel which in this case will be natural gas most likely (although other fuels like hydrogen and others were mentioned) which then puts natural gas in bigger demand and if the price goes up (which it did a huge amount when gasoline prices were over $4 a gallon) people buying this tech may find themselves paying more than for traditional electricity IMO. Bottom line is you are still tied to buying a fuel that is limited in supply. Eventually the fuel will become more scarce and price will go up.

[broli]

It's definitely an interesting technology and quite an interesting feat to have so much money involved but at the end of the day it's still a fuel consuming technology.

This world is rotting not because of the technology we use but because of the control freaks who want to own everything. This technology won't change much of that. Well what did you expect if almost half a billion has been invested in it. Where there's mountains of money there's the wolves.

I'll rather cut the bull**** and have a truly free energy device that can be build cheaply by off the shelf materials that last years. Than sell my soul to a technology based on dependence.

[Moe R]

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...d-compost.html

Seems like u could hook her up to one of these.Yes,no,mabe?

[sucahyo]

The inventor of the device hopes that within ten years it will be available to purchase for the domestic consumer at a cost of around $3000.

Agree that this isn't a solution for our energy problem. It introduce lethal bomb to everyone house / car.

[1NRG24Seven]

I agree Broli and was thinking....If you invent something that dosn't use fuel....Lie like hell that it does and then these control freaks will fund it and promote your product. Just include a fuel tank on the device so they can dump fuel in it, eventually the consumer will figure out it never runs out of fuel....hehehe

24

[jibbguy]

Once you have the electricity, you can make your own Hydrogen (so it may be possible to "loop" it, which i guarantee you won't hear about on MSM TV lol).

"Hydrocarbon fuel" should not be a requirement; carbon shouldn't be needed for a fuel cell reaction at all. Maybe they ARE LOOPING IT to disassociate the H first! After all, it is an awfully big cabinet for such a small stack they claim... Something, anyway, is probably going on in there to crack the fuel before they run it into the membranes.

Despite the drawbacks, i was glad to hear about this one. Every new alternative energy that releases and goes mainstream helps the next that comes along in terms of public acceptance, and gradually instilling the thought that there are BETTER ways than we know and have been taught... it helps prepare people for a REAL free energy device.. It gives them a "taste" for it, and they start to think that the current paradigm is NOT the only, or BEST, way to live

But i did find it interesting that not one word about it being used in "vehicles" was mentioned: Is "60 Minutes" that ignorant; not to ask so elemental a question? I think not

Imo, this one was "allowed" and publicized in the corporate-owned mainstream media only because:

> A deal was made that it be used in stationary applications like businesses, but not in vehicles (at least for many years).

> The price is high enough that many people won't be able to afford the installing costs, nor will we be able to buy one even if we wanted to. Remember that "$3k" figure is a projected one for down the road once they truly mass-produce it, not NOW (it is more likely "$30k" now, or even higher, and i bet their current output of "one per day" is already spoken for with back-orders, for a long, long time to come).

In other words: YOU CAN'T GET ONE.

> It still "requires" a hydrocarbon fuel (the implied message anyway). According to them, it generates electricity at "50%" better efficiency than heating a boiler and running a dynamo would... NOT FREE ENERGY, but a significant improvement in fuel efficiency and pollution.

> It can be "controlled" by making sure they really DON'T mass-produce it in huge enough numbers; or they can build enough just "to look good", and only sell to corporations to LOWER, not ELIMINATE, their grid power requirements. It is important for the status quo that "the grid" remain as the central fact in all future calculations Especially when they are still pretending to debate funding for "Smart Grid" in Congress

> As an all-new tech with a clear provenance, it is "perfect" for the above uses: The Patents should hold up quite solidly in Court, and it cannot be Open Sourced for many years. It may prove to be difficult for us or anyone to Replicate this; because they won't give out the recipe for the "secret sauce". THAT IS IMPORTANT. They do NOT want to initiate a revolutionary new tech, and then lose control of it, so average people may be able be benefit

> IT LOOKS GOOD TO THE MASSES. Makes it look like something "positive" is happening with energy, finally after all the years of B-S and NOTHING AT ALL being done; which even the most hard-core copper-tops were finding "strange".

But that last one may backfire on them, when people realize that they are not allowed to have one after all. Meanwhile folks will have starting thinking that being chained to the grid, and paying a very high secret energy tax to monopoly private utility corporations and energy cartels, is not the only answer.... and is in fact is a form of "slavery".

[ewizard]

Really excellent insights and thoughts jibbguy! I do hope it works out to raise public awareness on this. The one bad thing is the public is going to think it takes a real rocket scientist (which this guy was) to come up with anything that works. So any backyard inventors may still have a hard time getting things going for that reason as well as the PTB and factions that don't want to loose control of their gross income stream.

[broli]

With an investment of 400 mil$ any oil guru will be attracted. It's not about the technology but about the green toilet paper they call money.

They are having a press event as I speak which can be seen at:

Live from the Bloom Box press event -- Engadget

and they have a website up at:

Bloom Energy | Be The Solution

While they play their monopoly games we the tinkerers continue on tinkering in the dark until the day all their assets crumble and the mass sheeple wake up.

[Cherryman]

As i understood it correctly they stated: The powercompany's will buy those units , put them in the neigborhood and you can buy you're energy from that point from them.

In other words:

Clean? maybe (It still needs some kind of fuel)

Renawable? Doens't look like it

Free?: No

Free from powerstructures (governments, big companies)?: No.


It's just oldschool energy 2.0



(I for one, still think the governments can not AFFORD free energy. It will take a whole new political and powerstructure to handle free energy)

And it take's a brave inventor to share it open source immidiatly after invention, before it will be "politcal" evaluated.

My two cents

[sucahyo]

Fuel cell is not green, do not reduce pollution, do not reduce our dependency to fossil fuel as long as industry still use fossil fuel to produce the hydrogen. They not going to use solar or wind soon enough to prevent the additional pollution by fuel cell technology. Don't expect the industry will use alternative method of producing hydrogen because for safety, the hydrogen produced must be 99.99% free of oxygen. A little bit of oxygen in storage means kaboom.

[Allcanadian]

@jibbguy

Despite the drawbacks, i was glad to hear about this one. Every new alternative energy that releases and goes mainstream helps the next that comes along in terms of public acceptance, and gradually instilling the thought that there are BETTER ways than we know and have been taught... it helps prepare people for a REAL free energy device.. It gives them a "taste" for it, and they start to think that the current paradigm is NOT the only, or BEST, way to live

I would agree completely, I'm not sure everyone understands what a big deal this is. In one moment we needed very expensive gas turbines or boilers/steam turbines, all have moving parts and maintenance requirements--- and now we have a little cube with no moving parts made from cheap materials. In this case there is no other hydrocarbon fueled power producing machinery which can compete, they have just raised the bar to which everyone must now rise or go bankrupt. This is why the big industries do not introduce new technology, because it produces competition and competition is bad for business because business is not about products and services it is about profit margins. It may not be perfect but now we may actually have some real competition in the market place which is always a good thing.
Regards
AC

[ANTIQUER]

Listen again

Cherryman;

In other words:

Clean? maybe (It still needs some kind of fuel)

Renewable? Doesn't look like it

Free?: No

He said you can run it on any fuel, including solar, and I assume methane which could be produced from many sources. Also claimed it will run for 30-50 years as it has no moving parts. Also, at $3,000.00-$15,000 not free, but it's a bargain and would pay for itself in 1-5 years or less. I think the people at Google, Fedex, or others he mentioned figured that out & they are no dummies. Neither is Bloom Tech; at the prices they are charging for the current large units they have sold ($750,000-$850,000) and installed they have already recovered a healthy chunk of their investment.

Sucahyo;

Fuel cell is not green, do not reduce pollution, do not reduce our dependency to fossil fuel as long as industry still use fossil fuel to produce the hydrogen. They not going to use solar or wind soon enough to prevent the additional pollution by fuel cell technology. Don't expect the industry will use alternative method of producing hydrogen because for safety, the hydrogen produced must be 99.99% free of oxygen. A little bit of oxygen in storage means kaboom.
Yesterday 12:29

What Hydrogen: what stored Oxygen? He only mentions air and a fuel to run it. That fuel is used chemically, not burned. Notice no exhaust pipe sticking out anywhere. I suspect he has different models to run on solar, etc. or the current model can be adapted to any fuel source. As the fuel and air going in appear to be totally consumed in the chemical process and the only product of the cell is electricity, what pollution?

Jibb;

But i did find it interesting that not one word about it being used in "vehicles" was mentioned: Is "60 Minutes" that ignorant; not to ask so elemental a question? I think not

On the whole a good post. I had the same thought and I think they are probably already working on that and will deploy it when they get the size down and can mass produce them, same problems as on the large units. They are still a relatively small company and can only do so much at a time. I think K.R.'s attitude shows his desire is to truly produce an invention he is proud of and which will benefit mankind. As to secrecy, who would not keep their work secret until all was ready to reveal and patented to protect their investors and keep it from being pirated by other companies like G.E. or Westinghouse? Most of the components like the actual cell and the inks could not be replicated by small inventors in any case for individual replication even if they looked the patents up.

In any case this was an initial announcement to spur interest. I'm sure more detailed info. will be provided as the story develops that will answer many questions and end a lot of speculation. Just give it time and see what develops. In the meantime I just hope some gigantic company doesn't buy them out and bury it, scuttle it, or raise the price so it becomes unaffordable.

Al

[Aaron]

Bloom Energy

Is stock available? I couldn't find any investor info on their page.

[broli]

What Hydrogen: what stored Oxygen? He only mentions air and a fuel to run it. That fuel is used chemically, not burned. Notice no exhaust pipe sticking out anywhere. I suspect he has different models to run on solar, etc. or the current model can be adapted to any fuel source. As the fuel and air going in appear to be totally consumed in the chemical process and the only product of the cell is electricity, what pollution?

You basically need hydrogen to run the process. The hydrogen dissociates in protons and electrons. The electrons cause electricity while the protons go towards the oxygen. The electrons then return to the protons and oxygen to form water vapor.

To go from "fossil" fuel to hydrogen they use a fuel reformer. This gives carbon dioxide as a by product and other wastes.

When they say they can use "Solar". It's just a retarded way of saying they use electricity from solar panels to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen to use as the fuel. So basically the hydrogen becomes sort of like a bank of batteries.

The only real "breakthrough" is the use of cheap materials here, there's nothing revolutionary about this technology or concept.

Like I mentioned elsewhere this media buzz is intentional, it's over hyping something that changes jack **** in this broken society. Why? So they can continue on doing what they do best, satisfy their control fetish. Colin Powell on the boards of directors should bring a huge red flag up by itself.

Remember a system called GEET? Where was all the hype for that? I guess running an engine on mayonnaise with no carcinogens will get you into a mental hospital. However plans of it are freely available now. I guess it takes experience to change your pink view of this money addicted world.

There's no such thing as the "American" dream. Only a mild nightmare and a brutal nightmare. The inventors that wanted to change the world (lol) ended up mostly in the later.