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
Al's busy fending off Tippers lawyers right now. And Im with Macdadtexas- I hope this technology takes off as well.
I hope it does too but not because I think a Polar bear will hug me in a commercial. If they would just say its better to clean things up instead of selling flawed and feloniously squewed science maybe they would actually get somewhere.
Climate change is more a cycle than anything else and the far left needs to come to terms with it, once that happens real progress can be had and many MANY more will participate.
This is exciting stuff. Check out the vid.
I would bet at some point in time, big oil will have a problem with this.
Big Oil will be behind this like you wouldn't believe. Big oil also is big natural gas, and domestically. It would be the biggest profit making venture of all time. Now IPP's (independent power producers) and large regulated power companies (FPL, Southern Co, TVA, WPS, AEP), now they will have problems with this.
Macdad,
I'm afraid that government policy is involved, like it or not.

My electric bill is for say.....450KwH per month. Let's just say I could buy a methane genset of 1000KwH per month capacity. The rules make it mandatory that the power company 'buy' my power. However, they never cut me a check, but use my power to 'offset' my bill. So, I could have a ZERO bill and make the power company money.
Change the rules and make 'em PAY me cash, and the game changes.
Likewise tax incentives / rebates. If the unit costs 20,000$ it'll take me a LONG time to justify the cost thru traditional payback analysis. This is strictly a money calculation. But, if I can sell my power for cash or get a lot of money from the government till, than the equation changes.

If your statements about being less expensive and lower marginal cost are correct, than it is indeed a game changer. However, the other side is that you are now a 'power company' and may have additional rules / licensing and taxation to contend with. Maybe if you stay off-grid?
Point is, the Power Utilities simply won't take this laying down.

I remember a couple summers ago when Enron was SCREWING California by selling our electricity back to us for some wacky rate that FERC did absolutely NOTHING. (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) ......

This is, however, after all is said and done, a technology to keep track of.