The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

[13Gigatons]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml

For the past year and a half, several large California corporations have been secretly testing the "Bloom Box," a potentially revolutionary fuel-cell system. Confirming this for the first time, several of the companies report this system is a more efficient, clean, and cost effective way to get electricity than off the power grid.

John Donahoe, CEO of E-bay, confirms Bloom Boxes were installed at his corporate campus nine months ago. The company says the boxes already saved them over $100,000 in electricity bills. "It's been very successful thus far. [The Bloom Boxes] have done what they said they would do," says Donahoe. The five boxes are able to produce five times as much electricity as the 3,248 solar panels that E-bay installed on its campus roofs, says the CEO. "The footprint for Bloom is much more efficient," he tells Stahl.

Google, FedEx, Staples and Walmart are among the first 20 clients Bloom is confirming.

Stahl is the first journalist to be allowed into the Bloom Energy lab and factory where currently one box a day is built. The boxes create electricity by a chemical process that utilizes oxygen and fuel, but involves no combustion. Bloom's founder and CEO, K.R. Sridhar, insists all the materials in the box are cheap and available in abundance. Bloom says each large box - which can power about 100 homes - currently sells for $700-800,000. They hope within five to 10 years to roll out a smaller home version for about $3,000 a unit.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Nice! Hope this pans out!

 

[Eli]

Hmmmmm.... I am intrigued.

 

[Kalmah]

Interesting.

 

[FoBoT]

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/411/

written by Ronald W. Garrison, December 05, 2009
In everything I've read so far about Bloom, they haven't said how efficient their fuel cell is. And be careful about claims of 70 % or 80 % which include cogeneration of heat--that's fine if you really have a good use for the heat. If not, then you cannot turn the extra heat into some form of energy with any reasonable efficiency--the temperature difference is far too small.

The real show-stopper for hydrogen, and fuel cells, is the round-trip energy efficiency. Batteries and supercapacitors are much more efficient, and I just don't see that gap closing. The other problems may be solvable, but I just don't see a way around the efficiency deficit. And I have the feeling I'm probably being a lot more kind to the technology than it deserves.

Other Hyped Fuel cell companies
written by Juzer, December 27, 2009
Reminds me of Medis. Nasdaq MDTL. Same level of super secrecy, no mention of energy balances, price reality checks, etc. Just that it was going to revolutionize the portable power landscape. Final product was nothing spectacular. Doubt if they are still in business, but were able to raise and blow "hundreds of millions" too. Then there was MTI Micro. Final test is always the customer. Wait and see is best. Most of the hype is created by the VCs, but alas, Wall Street has no more oompf to pump up values on Hype. The criterion is performance. EPS, Dividends, Revenues. Basic rules of chemistry and physics do not change, and the simplistic scenario painted by non technical news reporters simply doesn't add up in an energy balance equation. Wait and see, wait and see.

 

[amdhunter]

It'll be killed like the electric car. No profit in cheap energy.

 

[Udgnim]

damn 700-800K a box and wow 400M for a startup

might end up being money well spent or China will just steal the tech

 

[techs]

this

 

[JulesMaximus]

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/411/

Pessimist.

 

[SunnyD]

I was wondering what video games had to do with energy.

 

[K1052]

Need more info from independent sources...too much snake oil being sold in the field.

 

[BoberFett]

Sounds too good to be true, but I'll withhold judgment.

 

[PepePeru]

well, i am optimistic. I can't imagine wal*mart, staples or google falling for some bullshit snake oil.

 

[Pegun]

I guess we'll see what happens. I'd like to see it pan out but I'd like to see the hybrid car thing go further than where it's at too.

 

[rivan]

I was wondering what video games had to do with energy.

That's exactly what I thought of.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

OK, so after 9 months, ebay has saved $100,000 in electricity. One unit costs $700-$800,000 dollars. Note "confirms Bloom Boxes were installed" indicating more than 1 was installed. that means at a minimum 2 were installed. So $1.4-$1.6 million bucks, it would take roughly 14-16 years to break even. Doesn't seem like viable solution.

 

[PepePeru]

OK, so after 9 months, ebay has saved $100,000 in electricity. One unit costs $700-$800,000 dollars. Note "confirms Bloom Boxes were installed" indicating more than 1 was installed. that means at a minimum 2 were installed. So $1.4-$1.6 million bucks, it would take roughly 14-16 years to break even. Doesn't seem like viable solution.

the article clearly states 5 were installed.

 

[13Gigatons]

OK, so after 9 months, ebay has saved $100,000 in electricity. One unit costs $700-$800,000 dollars. Note "confirms Bloom Boxes were installed" indicating more than 1 was installed. that means at a minimum 2 were installed. So $1.4-$1.6 million bucks, it would take roughly 14-16 years to break even. Doesn't seem like viable solution.

They actually bought 5 of them, so $4 million invested to save $100,000 worth of electricity. :awe:

 

[Gunbuster]

it uses "fuel" I take that to mean "Snake oil"

 

[RagingBITCH]

OK, so after 9 months, ebay has saved $100,000 in electricity. One unit costs $700-$800,000 dollars. Note "confirms Bloom Boxes were installed" indicating more than 1 was installed. that means at a minimum 2 were installed. So $1.4-$1.6 million bucks, it would take roughly 14-16 years to break even. Doesn't seem like viable solution.

Not to defend Bloom, but we don't know if what other electricity sources they're using. There could be additional sources they could shut off and utilize Bloom with. We don't know all the variables here.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Not to defend Bloom, but we don't know if what other electricity sources they're using. There could be additional sources they could shut off and utilize Bloom with. We don't know all the variables here.

I didn't read the whole article just the part that was quoted, so it doesn't matter what they used, they used something. If they saved $100,000 in nine months but had 5 units running. They didn't save shit. So my estimate of 14-16 years to pay off the intitial investment needs to be multiplied by 5. so roughly 75 years. I doubt the units will last 75 years. That's just to break even.

 

[RoloMather]

What fuel does it use?

 

[fleabag]

smells like bullshit, I don't believe it for a second.. Soon they'll be telling us that it works off the principle of cold fusion or some crap.

 

[rcpratt]

Every energy "breakthrough" that sounds too good to be true...is. So sick of the media confusing people.

 

[Matthiasa]

What fuel does it use?

Random guess oxygen and hydrogen.