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Monday, February 22

Is the Bloom Box All They're Claiming?

This is relatively new to me. I've seen some stuff about this new fuel cell technology before, but since there's really no information on how it works, real info on the ground is sketchy at best and made up at worst.

Supposedly we'll get the details on the Bloom Box this week. Stay tuned.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Update from Slashdot:
Many sources are continuing to excitedly report on the latest in a long line of startups chasing the holy grail of power sources. This incarnation, the "Bloom Box" from Bloom Energy, promises a power-plant-in-a-box that you can literally put in your backyard, and has received backing from companies like eBay, Google, Staples, FedEx, and Walmart. CBS recently aired an exclusive interview with K.R. Sridhar about his shiny new box.
"So what is a Bloom Box exactly? Well, $700,000 to $800,000 will buy you a 'corporate sized' unit. Inside the box are a unique kind of fuel cell consisting of ceramic disks coated with green and black 'inks.' The inks somehow transform a stream of methane (or other hydrocarbons) and oxygen into power, when the box heats up to its operating temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius. To get a view of the cost and benefits, eBay installed 5 of the boxes nine months ago. It says it has saved $100,000 USD on energy since."

2 comments:

Rusty said...

So, assuming $700k each, they're looking at what? 26 years to pay them off?

Hopefully they're factoring in "good press" in their ROI calculations.

Mad Man said...

Yep, that's a bit pricey. They're saying the home version will be cheaper, but probably will still cost as much as $150000. They seem to think if they can get it into production, they'll be able to lower costs, and that's probably correct. Who knows, in a few years, this might actually be cheap enough to defray the costs during the first couple of years?