Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box | Hacker News Reader

Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box

mashable.com

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Fuel required @ rated power: 0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas. Rated power output (AC): 100 kW

Figure fuel costs of $10 per MMBtu. So it pumps out 100kW/hr electricity for $6.60.

~$0.09/kWh for electricity in Oregon (its double that for NYC). So we pay about $9 for 100kW/hr.

Thats a 30% savings in Oregon and about 70% for the East Coast. But it still releases a lot of CO2 - 773 lbs/MW-hr.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/

So if you ran one straight for a year and you used all its output, it would save $20k-$40k depending on electricity prices. So if they can get the price sub $100k and natural gas supply and price stays even, they could sell a lot of them.

Natural Gas Figures for US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...)

Natural gas - production: 582.2 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 2

Natural gas - consumption: 657.2 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 1

Natural gas - exports: 28.49 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 10

Natural gas - imports: 112.7 billion cu m (2008 est.) country comparison to the world: 1

Natural gas - proved reserves: 6.731 trillion cu m (1 January 2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 5

Does that say we have a little more than 10 years of natural gas left that we know about? Or is that just in the reserve tanks?

So forgive me if this sounds jaded, but I fail to see how this technology is a "game changer."

1. Based on the EIA Annual Energy Review 2001 transmission losses only account for 3.1% of total power generation in the U.S.

2. A modern, large gas combined-cycle power plant has a quoted efficiency of over 60% http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/power-p...

3. From the presentation: "The carbon footprint is 50% cleaner than the grid and 100% renewable" Wait a minute, if the power generation is truly renewable, then how can it have a carbon footprint at all (other than manufacture etc.)? Isn't the whole point of renewable energy to have a perpetually renewing "closed system"? By that definition then the carbon footprint would be tiny compared to the grid.

The reason they say 50% is probably because they are thinking most people will run the units from gas, but that's definitely not renewable. Also, I can't imagine the efficiency of the unit is much higher than 50-60%, but maybe there's some data on that which I have missed.

4. "They have created 11,000,000 kilowatts so far" How much of this is from the burning of fossil fuels versus renewable fuel sources?

I am all for fuels cells and development of renewable energy. I think what would truly be a "game changer" is if this device could be used to store the cyclical output from a local renewable energy power system - for example store the energy created during the day from a PV installation for use at night. In my opinion this is more "green washing" than green.

edit: formatting

> Isn't the whole point of renewable energy to have a perpetually renewing "closed system"?

Nope. Renewable just means the energy source can be replenished. Technically, charcoal would fall in this category, even though it has a pretty hefty C02 output.

That's exactly my point. The process of growing the trees that produce the charcoal should remove as much co2 as is released when the charcoal is burned, thus a closed system.

Carbon footprint = carbon output - offsets

Much of the charcoal used in tropical regions is made by slash-and-charring rain forests. These forests aren't replanted. So, since the carbon output is high, and there is no offset, it has a huge carbon footprint.

You don't get to count the initial carbon sequestration as the carbon offset. If you could, then coal and oil would have carbon footprints of zero.

If you develop a closed loop system, like much charcoal production in North America, then yeah, your carbon footprint is low.

So, when they say "The carbon footprint is 50% cleaner than the grid and 100% renewable" they mean it produces half the carbon output per amount of energy generated (they claim to be more efficient than many power plants), and has the possibility of using renewable energy such as biomass gas (which is not currently produced in large quantities).

If you move from a central hub and spoke electricity distribution to a decentralized model, that alone is a game changer. You don't need to worry about the grid at all.

1. 3.1% seems low. Another estimate from 1995 says 7.2% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Los...). I suspect that the truth is closer to 5%. Also, the losses incurred are dependent upon the distance. Most power plants are located pretty far away from residential and commercial areas.

2. The power plant you're linking hasn't been completed yet. Plus, this is a cutting edge design. Most existing plants won't (couldn't?) be converted to this newer efficiency. And for cost reasons, existing inefficient plants aren't going to be shut down and replaced.

3. The fuel cell doesn't require natural gas. It can also run on biomass, which is completely renewable. And since this isn't based on combustion, you don't get the carbon monoxide, sulfurs oxides, nitrogen oxides, and heavier smog causing hydrocarbons. All of the nasties are produced with combustion. Also, since the CO2 is clean, it can be separated easily from the H2O and stored.

4. Well, they aren't burning anything, so 0% has been from burning fossil fuels. I'd guess most of it was from using natural gas as a fuel, but none of it was burned.

One interesting thing I've read is that they are claiming that this is a reversible process, which means it could be used to store PV energy collected during the day and reuse it at night. But, this system produces so much more energy than a PV cell that I'm not sure it would be of much use. You'd need a very large (sq footage) PV installation to generate this much energy.

The points you make are good, and I agree with what you are saying. My point was that from an environmental perspective, this device is basically on par with available power generation in terms of efficiency, and when used with natural gas simply moves the co2 generation from a centralized location to many distributed locations, but doesn't cut it down significantly per unit energy produced.

IF the device were to be used with biomass fuel, it would certainly be a huge step forward environmentally, but I don't see where the incentive would be outside of environmental stewardship, which some companies value but many do not. From your reply: "...which means it could be used to store PV energy collected during the day and reuse it at night. But, this system produces so much more energy than a PV cell that I'm not sure it would be of much use." This is exactly why I wouldn't call it a game changer from an environmental standpoint. Basically we're still stuck with the fact that it's much easier to produce power by burning, oxidizing in a fuel cell, etc. than by using solar, wind etc. In my book a game changer would be a technology that enables a move to truly renewable power generation while remaining practical and cost effective. Could the energy server fit that description? Perhaps, but it depends highly upon how it is operated.

* that it's much easier to produce power by burning, oxidizing in a fuel cell, etc. than by using solar, wind etc*

I agree... it would be nice if it was easier to use solar, wind, anything with zero-carbon footprint. I just don't know if they are going to be sufficiently powerful enough to replace the current coal / gas fired plants. But, if you could effectively use a fuel cell as a battery to produce H2 from H2O during the day, and then consume the same H2 at night, that would be a very good thing since the biggest problem with PV and wind isn't the technology, it's storing the energy produced so you can deliver electricity when its cloudy.

Could somebody help with some background on the science?

What strikes me as odd is that you put fuel in the fuel cell. One of the examples they give is using these to charge your hyrbid car. So, by the transitive property, aren't you putting fuel into your car?

I guess I'm trained to think of alternative energy sources like sun and wind, so I'm thrown off here. What's the innovation?

I can see that you're generating electricity locally, which I guess means we could get energy to places without running power lines. But reading the article, that doesn't seem like the point of these.

The article does claim that the energy is more efficient than what you get on the grid. But if that's the case, why don't we just put a ton of these onto the grid and push down the cost of electricity for everyone?

For your car example:

You would have to put some fuel like natural gas into your car. This would be converted to electricity.

The innovation is it would not be converted from fuel to mechanical energy (motor spinning) to electricity, but rather by a more efficient fuel cell. That is a big game changer.

You put in a hydrogen source... in this case, likely natural gas. It combines with oxygen from the air in a process that yields electricity, water, and a small amount of CO2.

The key benefit is that the fuel isn't burned. It's converted chemically, so it is a very efficient process.

They have a good flash video explaining it here: http://bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-animat...

Any idea about the relative efficiencies between this chemical reaction versus a thermodynamic process (say, Sterling Engine)?

I don't think there's a clear winner yet. The devil is in the details, as they say. A good Stirling engine will beat a lousy fuel cell, and a good fuel cell will beat a lousy Stirling engine. Both are in the range of 20-50% when implemented well, but they both have lots of problems.

Fuel cells, for example, typically have a membrane at their core; that membrane tends to get clogged with crud. Stirling engines, on the other hand, are generally heavy (and thus expensive) and need to use exotic materials to handle high temperatures, which they need to operate efficiently.

Burning, oxidization of hydrocarbons, is very much a chemical process. It generates heat, if they have somehow found a way of making it generate electricity directly, that would be really interesting.

Isn't that exactly what a fuel cell is about?

I think the box has to get heated to (or is heated to as part of the process) about 1000C.

Here is another article about them: http://www.fastcompany.com/1557348/bloombox-bloom-box-fuel-c...

Combustion is a chemical process, but it is hardly a controllable one. In this case, a fuel cell doesn't combust the fuel, but instead converts it into water and CO2 while stripping the electrons directly from the hydrogen (I think).

> It combines with oxygen from the air [...] > the fuel isn't burned. It's converted chemically

My last chemistry class was a long time ago, so this might be a dumb question. What's the difference between combining with oxygen and burning?

In a chemical sense, no difference, but fire is complicated. Check out Wikipedia articles on Redox, Radicals, Combustion, etc.

Fuel cells are cool because they grab electricity straight from the freed electrons as the fuel is oxidized. More efficient than using the heat to make steam to power a turbine to spin electromagnets, your typical power plant.

I think they just announced a highly-efficient natural gas electric generator. The question is just how efficient, if it's as efficient as the large centralized power plants we now build then we don't have to waste money on building and maintaining power transmission lines.

If I remember my thermodynamics correctly, the efficiency of a heat engine is constrained by the internal temperature of the engine. The higher the internal temperature, the more efficient the engine can be. This is the basic reason why we build as large power plants as transmission loss allows. With a smaller plant, the engine temperature is much lower for practical reasons, hence the loss in efficiency. (Many other economies of scale reasons.)

So if this device can really beat the efficiency of our current centralized natural gas burning plants, then this is revolutionary. If not, too bad for Colin Powell.

Fuel cells are not heat engines.

That would be exactly why this new technology might be more efficient than centralized power plants.

They claim that it's twice as efficient as grid. But this might take into account losses during energy transfer from power plant to receiver.

From their data sheet it's about 50% efficient, on par with modern large scale natural gas powerplants.

If you also use the heat it generates to heat your home the Bloombox can be up to 85% efficient.

> then we don't have to waste money on building and maintaining power transmission lines.

Instead we'd just need to maintain a much larger natural gas infrastructure.

The most interesting claim is that it's a reversible reaction. This explains the "it runs on solar" comment in that it can be used in place of batteries or a flywheel to store energy by turning the excess load back into fuel during peak generation from solar/wind and then expend it later.

Grinding some numbers:

The data sheet says 661000 btu/hr of fuel to run at 100kw. 100kwh is 341,230 btu, so it looks like about 50% efficiency from shipped hyrdocarbon source to electricity on site. Very good.

On the american house using 1kw, that is obviously not a peak. At 8 cents/kwh, a 1kw average use house has a $57/mo electric bill. Looking at my bills I can only presume they counted a lot of small apartments and homeless people in cardboard boxes in the average.

They really blew out all the stops in publicizing this ... Just the facts:

http://bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/

Seems the 'box' we discussed a couple of days ago does output 25 kW (I had guessed 30 kW, based on a 10c/kW back-of-the-envelope calculation).

Interesting note:

"Includes a secure website for you to showcase performance & environmental benefits."

Fuel Cells and Proton Exchange Membranes often use Platinum or Palladium as a catalyst - which is very expensive. Bloom's box uses something cheaper. The science/tech is used in a lot of places you might not expect, like submarines too. It can be the most efficient way to generate and process hydrogen as well. For example, if you put enough solar panels/wind turbines to power the United States - you would invest so much in power lines, and so much would be lost in transmission, that it's not economic. Fuel cells can generate hydrogen from water at the point of generation - I believe more efficiently than electrolysis. Then the hydrogen could be transported similarly to CNG. Then Hydrogen can be "burned" or run the other direction through the Fuel Cell.

The politics and economics are becoming more favorable. Glad to see coverage on Mashable.

They have created 11,000,000 kilowatts so far.

Are they saying that they've generated 11GWh, or that they've produced cells that continuously generate 11GW?

> 11 M KWH (>11 GWH), according to a slide shot on engadget's coverage

So is this a breakthrough in fuel cell design? Did they discover a completely new way to make fuel cells? Or is this rather a repackaging of existing fuel cell technologies?

They say that 1 KW will power the average US home, hu? Yeah, so long as all heating is natural gas and no one ever turns on a hair dryer. Maybe they were talking about averaged load? But then they seem to have left out the 4 tonnes of lead-acid batteries you'll need.

I believe the idea here is not that a single 1KW stack would be used to power a home, but that several homes would run off of a single 25KW module, so that you only need to accomodate their collective peak requirements

if you don't all get up and shower at the same time...

Let's consider this system in the context of the USA, where we have massive amounts of natural gas, but no efficient way to turn it into electricity. Existing turbine systems waste gas two ways: The inefficiency of combustion turbines, and transmission loss. Now, if we were to bolster our existing natural gas transmission infrastructure in order to support fuel cell technologies, we can presume that heating will continue to be provided by combustion heat exchange systems such as gas furnaces and water heaters.

Additionally, there are other ways we can generate fuel which can equally be used in combustion heat exchange and fuel cells. Chief among them is our garbage, much of which can be transformed into raw materials for methane production. Yeah, I know, the AGW folks will be crying foul on this one. I'm going to ignore them for the sake of this argument.

Now, even if you do not eliminate entirely the heavily centralized form of electricity production which we use now, you have dramatically reduced the load on the system as a whole by localizing power production in small modules everywhere. The result: say goodbye to rolling blackouts and cascading grid failures.

yes, and more generally making things hot is easy (efficient). so it's normally pretty stupid to use electricity for this (you would be better burning whatever you used to make electricity directly).

[edit - ah, i see that they are hoping to use the "waste" heat to get the overall efficiency up]

A well-sized electric furnace will use more than 25kW in one home alone: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

Presumably if you can get the natural gas to the box, you can get it into home furnaces as well.

Agreed. But --- who heats with electricity? (Heat pumps can be a good idea, though.)

I use a heat pump. It's 55 degrees outside right now, so I'm not using much electricity. I doubt I'd save any money heating with gas.

"Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c7/page_50....) also seems to favour heat pumps.

Depends where you are. In Quebec, about 90% of the electricity comes from hydro, and it's pretty cheap. A lot of people (more than half, I think) heat their houses with electricity.

In South Texas a lot of the houses are heated with electricity. In my parents neighborhood they don't even have natural gas available to the houses at all.

I do, partly. Especially nice in the bathroom.

My shitty uninsulated California house is entirely heated by electricity. Only the water tank is heated by gas.

Managed to break $400 for December's heating bill. I damn near lost my shit.

As they mentioned it can work on variety of fuel sources, they can probably create Gasoline -> Fuel Cell -> Electricity -> Motor type powertrain and create very efficient cars like 100mi/1gallon or something.

Question for mods - why was bbot's reply here and elsewhere on this thread killed?

Both times he's simply raised the very valid point that fuel cells don't run backwards. There are some woefully uninformed comments on this thread already. A little education would help.

Has anyone seen anything about costs? That actually lists dollar amounts? I know this isn't vaporware (it's running at a few companies), but I until we know how much it costs it doesn't really matter.

$800,000 per unit.

They hope to get it to ~$3000 in the next 5 years.

Excellent -- ~3k is a price that makes me happy, 800k not so much. Let's hope as they move out prototyping to the assembly line they're able to achieve the economies of scale they're looking for.

haha, sounded like 800k was the price for the huge box (the kind ebay is running) and $3000 is the price of one big enough to run your home.

Thats what they originally stated in the 60 minutes story. $3000 isn't bad. If what they are claiming is true then you would pay it off in less than 5 years and then have reduced electricity afterwards.

Throw in an electric car and you've seriously reduced your fuel costs.

The big question in my mind is can they make this small & portable enough to put into my next car? That would be game changing to me.

Now we know where the $400m went. Getting Colin Powell and the governator to shill for your company must require quite a bit of capital.

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