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End to All Power Problems

Has anyone heard of Bloom Energy? It's a new technology that many tech companies are now using to generate power off of the grid.

It takes methane (or another similar fuel) and uses fuel cells to chemically convert fuel to power. Check out the 60 minutes segment on it, pretty amazing. I think it could be a huge paradigm type shift for the entire country.

It actually works, and they are hoping to be able to get the cost down to $3000 per house. No more power bill, only a gas bill, and we have tripled our Natural Gas reserves in the country since 2007. Fewer power plants, many fewer transmission wires, less oil........

Oh yeah, and most importantly, clean power to your audio gear.
macdadtexas
magfan
1,583 posts
 
6550c, their are 2 kinds of invertors.....True Sine Wave and the 'others'. The 'others' would seem to be pretty noisy, but are good in your car for powering laptops, charging your cell phone or a map light. True sine wave inverters with even modest power conditioners will make good, clean power.

Al 'Where's my corporate Jet?' Gore uses an astronomical amount of electricity at his house, even after the solar retrofit and alleged improvements. Of course, it is a pretty large house with staff, but the per capita usage is still wacky high.
lokie's avatar
lokie
528 posts
 
Like the force of gravity, the market will determine what the solution is. If this box is cheaper and has a favorable ROI, then the individual homeowner and business owner will buy it.
4est
507 posts
 
Chadnliz- jeez, don't know where to start with that one other than two wrongs do not make a right.

As for methane, it is not just a fossil fuel, but is very easy to produce with organic waste products. The simplest example is cow manure. Farms have been producing their own heat and power that way for years. It would not take much to use this tech with a methane digester hooked up to a homes waste lines. Instead of expending energy to get rid of it, we'd get energy from it. The start up costs would be high, but as energy prices continue to rise it may look more attractive.
magfan
1,583 posts
 
Government policy has a LOT to do with this issue.

IF there were huge tax credits for say.....home methane production, you'd see more of it.
Likewise, an increase in the tax on fuel for cars would tend to decrease the amount used and 'push' those who could afford it, toward higher mileage cars.

One factor in all this 'green' stuff I've not heard mentioned is the environmental cost of this conversion. Solar Cells, for example, are manufactured using many of the techniques also used by semiconductor manufacturers. The material used for these cells is CZ grown silicon which is a very energy intensive process.
macdadtexas OP
1,794 posts
 
these are not solar cells, and they don't need any gov't incentives to get them going. The marginal cost to use this technology is projected to be lower than buying power from the grid, and use less infrastructure.

To me this is not a "green" play, heck I live in Houston,TX home of big Oil, big Nat Gas, big Power (get the theme?), and I still think this is the most exciting technology (if it works as it seems it will) in my life time.

This should make a huge dent in oil consumption, and fuel a a massive surge in electric car demand. All of these new products are huge economic drivers that coud drive our econonmy for years to come.

I hope it works.
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