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The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

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JeffreyLebowski said:
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.
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800k a unit = 8 years to pay off in savings, per unit
4m = 40 years to break even

If the devices can last that long, they break even. If the devices can last 60 years, they made a damn good investment.
So long as they can afford the upfront cost, in reality it's all downhill from there.

We are speaking for corporations here. Corporations invest heavily for everything, with the intent that eventually their revenues and savings will come out on top. And typically when companies do that they are already quite in the green for profits, so every year their profits actually increase since annual costs are lower. Yes it will take time for the extra profits to move past the total original investment, but that's how corporations function.

If you don't do that, what happens is the corporation will eventually go stale due to lack of corporate progress, which means in the end a harder hit to the bank as revenue itself drops significantly for companies that don't reinvent themselves.

The big bet is that these devices can actually last.

The important question: are there costs for fuel that must be added every so often?

But in general - think of all other alternative energies. Each unit, whatever it is, costs quite a bit up front. The energy savings every year will never match the face value of the product; rather, energy savings over a periods of quite a few years will turn around to reach that break even point.
Wind power at home = significant cost up front. I cannot remember what I've seen quoted but it was over definitely over a decade for the average home to reach the break even point based on annual savings.
Huge benefit there is there is no fuel. So nothing must be added to be consumed.
If this device requires that, then obviously the break even point is delayed quite a bit.
Unless those energy savings per year are also including the cost of fuel for these devices. Which you can go about it either way - add the total to the principal original investment total, or add it to the annual energy cost, therefore reducing the savings on a yearly basis, versus looking at the fuel costs as investment value. Ultimately two different viewpoints to the same exact situation.
I'd assume a large corporation would include fuel in the costs. But maybe fuel wasn't included in the energy savings this year because no fuel is needed.

But I'm going to go with the notion that fuel cells consume material of some sort, which translates to something must be put into the fuel cells, after some period of time.
 
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destrekor said:
800k a unit = 8 years to pay off in savings, per unit
4m = 40 years to break even

If the devices can last that long, they break even. If the devices can last 60 years, they made a damn good investment.
So long as they can afford the upfront cost, in reality it's all downhill from there.
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Not quite... there is the time value of the money, $1,000,000 saved today is worth way more then $2,000,000 saved 60 years from now.
 
PepePeru said:
well, i am optimistic. I can't imagine wal*mart, staples or google falling for some bullshit snake oil.
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This alone makes me think there's got to be something to this, and the fact that they've been so secretive. If it was snake oil they would be trying to get as much publicity as possible to raise capital.
 
Hell, I can convert fuel to energy with the addition of oxygen, all without combustion. I'm actually doing it right now, and I'd wager that everyone reading this forum is doing so as well. If not, well, I hope that afterlife thing is treating you alright.


So yeah...what's the fuel?
 
PepePeru said:
well, i am optimistic. I can't imagine wal*mart, staples or google falling for some bullshit snake oil.
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dammitgibs said:
This alone makes me think there's got to be something to this, and the fact that they've been so secretive. If it was snake oil they would be trying to get as much publicity as possible to raise capital.
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Yes, this is why Americans are becoming the laughingstock of the world.
Apparently, independent and/or critical thinking has disappeared.
There is so much wrong with this it boggles the mind.

Here's just a very few:

Lesley Stahl and "60 Minutes" cameras get the first look inside the secretive California company, just days before the Bloom Energy official launch
Hmm. Hype for a CBS television show on the CBS website? Check.


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
Hmmm. You don't even have to read carefully to realize the CEO DIDN'T say the fuel was cheap and available in abundance. He just said the materials to make the Bloomer is cheap and available in abundance. In fact he NEVER says what the fuel is. Nor how much it costs. Nor whether its something that might be cheap because there was no real use for it until the Bloomer. And then it will cost a bundle, if it's even available. And I wonder why it costs 700-800 thousand if all the materials in the box are cheap and in abundance?


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.
Well, it costs so much now, as has been pointed out in this thread, that even without the possible skyrocketing price of its fuel, that it would take a huge amount of time to break even. And there is no info on how long they last.
And, 700-800 thousand dollars to make being reduced to about 3 thousand dollars is pretty spectacular. No info on how such a huge cost reduction would be made.



The five boxes are able to produce five times as much electricity as the 3,248solar panels that E-bay installed on its campus roofs, says the CEO. "The footprint for Bloom is much more efficient," he tells Stahl
Hey, a home generator can produce as much power as solar cells on your house, and with a much smaller footprint. This isn't really any kind of useful comparison.


John Donahoe, CEO of E-bay, confirms Bloom Boxes were installed at his corporate campus nine months ago. The Bloom Boxes] have done what they said they would do," says Donahoe
This seems to have "excited" the dim witted. Plus other companies saying they are using it. Of course, it may be that these companies have access to the kind of fuel it uses, and it makes sense for them. We don't know how much the companies were charged for the Bloomers. Maybe they were practically given away. And the fact they do what they say they do, is well, pretty vague. I assume that means they produce electricity. Which tells us nothing about any of the other questions raised.



That's just the first few MAJOR red flags in this story.
 
Jeff7 said:
Hell, I can convert fuel to energy with the addition of oxygen, all without combustion. I'm actually doing it right now, and I'd wager that everyone reading this forum is doing so as well. If not, well, I hope that afterlife thing is treating you alright.


So yeah...what's the fuel?
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this proves Jeff7 is NOT a zombie, all you zombie hunters sneaking into Jeff7's house, STAND DOWN!!! I REPEAT, STAND DOWN, DO NOT SHOOT Jeff7 IN THE HEAD!!!
 
Jeff7 said:
Hell, I can convert fuel to energy with the addition of oxygen, all without combustion. I'm actually doing it right now, and I'd wager that everyone reading this forum is doing so as well. If not, well, I hope that afterlife thing is treating you alright.


So yeah...what's the fuel?
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Bacon?
 
techs said:
Yes, this is why Americans are becoming the laughingstock of the world.
Apparently, independent and/or critical thinking has disappeared.
There is so much wrong with this it boggles the mind.
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yeah, only americans act this way. and only ones questioning this on this forum are the non-american members. all the american members ran off to invest in this company.
 
Bloom Energy == worthless as indicated by there information less web site.

The fuel is solar and wind, and bloom energy claims that they have a better way to convert/stores energy than traditional fuel cell.

Another fuel cell variant hype.

Move along, nothing to see here.
 
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FoBoT said:
this proves Jeff7 is NOT a zombie, all you zombie hunters sneaking into Jeff7's house, STAND DOWN!!! I REPEAT, STAND DOWN, DO NOT SHOOT Jeff7 IN THE HEAD!!!
Click to expand...

No! Once he was finally put out of the way I could go ahead and assume his identity and unleash myself on an unsuspecting ATOT! You win this time Jeff7.
 
So it sounds like bullsh*t but honestly my spidey bullsh*t sense was going crazy by the time I had finished reading this:

For the past year and a half, several large California corporations have been secretly testing
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Any time you hear the words "secret" and "energy" somebody is trying to force themselves into your ass.
 
PepePeru said:
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune...-k-r-sridhars-magic-box-ready-for-prime-time/

another article
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Ah, there we go.

Hydrocarbons such as natural gas or biofuel (stored in an adjacent tank) are pumped into the Bloom Box – ceramic plates stacked atop each other to form modules that can be assembled into a unit of any size – and out comes abundant, reliable, cleaner electricity.
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Using hydrocarbons for energy, what an amazing new concept.

Though I do wonder how the efficiency compares to something like a conventional natural gas power plant.
 
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I think they are skimming over a lot of the details. How much energy is needed to make the oxygen and such. Most of these wilds claims never pan out.
 
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