Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 00:49:17**

Most interesting indeed:

The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/ ... 1135.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.

Lesley Stahl and "60 Minutes" cameras get the first look inside the secretive California company, just days before the Bloom Energy official launch, scheduled for next Wednesday (Feb. 24).

Stahl's report will be broadcast this Sunday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Is K.R. Sridhar’s 'magic box' ready for prime time?

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn ... rime-time/

K.R. Sridhar looks nervous. The CEO of Bloom Energy, the much-hyped fuel cell start-up, sits in a conference room preparing to show off his magical “Bloom Box” for the first time in public. The 49-year-old scientist-turned entrepreneur has raised $400 million in venture capital for his Sunnyvale, California company, but until now Sridhar has revealed almost nothing about what his company has actually produced since it launched eight years ago.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 01:05:37**

Can't wait!

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 01:12:12**

Sounds evolutionary rather than revolutionary to me. The big question is what these things cost.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 01:23:05**

i would think the bigger question is what are they made of? If it's another platinum deal like other fuel cells then it's not going to fly. If they are made of common materials then they will soar. Look forward to the answers.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 02:27:17**

Carlhole wrote:Can't wait!

Same here...what was my most recent famous quote? Oh yeah! "Oil may already be obsolete, and it just doesn't know it yet!"

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 13:20:33**

Fuel-cell maker Bloom Energy finally sheds cloak of mystery this Sunday

http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/02/19 ... is-sunday/

Bloom Energy is finally ready to debut its Bloom Box, a fuel-cell capable of running up to 100 homes — carrying the potential to fundamentally change how utilities and companies alike generate and distribute energy. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company plans to unveil the massive device this upcoming Sunday on 60 Minutes.

According to a preview of the episode on CBS News’ web site, Bloom has already recruited a prestigious roster of 20 early customers, including Google, Wal-Mart, eBay, and none other than the CIA. Some of them already have the fuel cells, which retail for between $700,000 and $800,000, installed. More information is sure to be revealed on the show, and again during a company-hosted press conference next week.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 13:52:02**

Cheap natural gas powered fuel cell.

Neat technology but ....

NOT AN ENERGY SOURCE

Don't stop putting up those solar cells, windmills and nukes just yet.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 15:11:16**

Heck, lighten up guys. . . put one of those babys in a Volt and it will only cost $840,000.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 15:14:34**

diemos wrote:Cheap natural gas powered fuel cell. Neat technology but .... NOT AN ENERGY SOURCE

Who cares? The biggest energy source there is in this solar system isn't predicted to shut down for billions of years yet, so don't sweat it.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 16:01:11**

Is it just me or has there been a dramatic increase in number of "revolutionary energy technology" news stories lately? (Shale "fracking", DARPA oil-gae, "bloom-box", and a couple of others.)

If it works as advertised (and is affordable), then Bring It On: I'm all for it. I don't want to be living in a country with a third-world grid when I'm an old man, and I'd be just as happy to stop checking this site (no offense).

But a lot of this stuff has a 1950s cornucopian-style ring to it. The DARPA announcement especially surprised me. That should've been front-page news in the Times and on all the nightly-news reports.

What next? Flying cars?

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 16:28:12**

shortonsense wrote:
diemos wrote:Cheap natural gas powered fuel cell. Neat technology but .... NOT AN ENERGY SOURCE
Who cares? The biggest energy source there is in this solar system isn't predicted to shut down for billions of years yet, so don't sweat it.

Can we vote you off the island like they do on TV? Even for this site you're next to nothing on the content meter.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 16:48:01**

TheDude wrote:Can we vote you off the island like they do on TV? Even for this site you're next to nothing on the content meter.

You are being very UNdude.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 16:50:38**

IMO the biggest thing that could come out of this is a decentralized grid, would be funny to watch the oil drum "the power grid is going to fail!" wackos scramble when bloom boxes start to be deployed.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 18:11:23**

... I forgot to add the "Plastic solar cells with 96% efficiency" and also the revolutionary new plastic that will "replace conventional batteries within 10 years". (How could could I have missed those two?)

Between shale fracking, DARPA oil-gae, bloom box, and these other two wondrous deus ex machina it appears we'll be faced with an embarrassment of riches very soon.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 21:58:07**

TheAntiDoomer wrote:IMO the biggest thing that could come out of this is a decentralized grid, would be funny to watch the oil drum "the power grid is going to fail!" wackos scramble when bloom boxes start to be deployed.

You still have utilities, in the form of natural gas suppliers. Or do you think everybody's going to have high-pressure hydrogen tanks on premises, filled by lossy electrolysis driven by wind and solar?

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 22:08:34**

mos6507 wrote:
TheAntiDoomer wrote:IMO the biggest thing that could come out of this is a decentralized grid, would be funny to watch the oil drum "the power grid is going to fail!" wackos scramble when bloom boxes start to be deployed.
You still have utilities, in the form of natural gas suppliers. Or do you think everybody's going to have high-pressure hydrogen tanks on premises, filled by lossy electrolysis driven by wind and solar?

NBC News covered that one years ago. And yes, the guy was doing exactly this. Running his car on hydrogen gas as well. So old school, but then we didn't know back then how much natural gas we had, the guy could have used that to power electrolysis instead of solar.

Posted: **Sat 20 Feb 2010, 23:08:01**

pstarr wrote:A setup like that: PV array, inverter and charger, hydrogen reformer, 5,000 psi compressor, and a storage tank; would have to run you $100,000

Why Pee, I am impressed. You are certainly in the ballpark, if I recall the figures correctly, it was about a 6 figure installation. He was being subsidized in part by both his local utility and some other institution to see what all was involved to put together a completely energy self sufficient home. Including transport.

Quite a bit of the money looked to me like it went into the tankage and related piping for the hydrogen storage.

pstarr wrote:This place must just be a hobby for you. Lost of disposal income, or are you just showing off?

Actually, I'm working at home right now, watching the Olympics (1) , just finished some light reading in the ANOVA section of "Analysis of Data, Introductory Statistics for the Behavorial Sciences" by Senter (2), and occasionally checking via VPN on a weekend long datarun (10 hours and 1/3 finished ), (3) while designing a next generation data scan algorithm for some time series data I've been asked to examine (4).

I suppose (5) would be I beebop in here and see what the action is like on a weekend night.

What can I say, its winter, time for moonlighting, as the day gets longer I'll do less work and more traveling. Does this answer your question?

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The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

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