This video is charmingly titled “Bloom Box: The Alternative Energy that Terrifies Obama”:
I don’t know how much of the Bloom Box technology is real and how much is hype, but what I do know is that if it does pan out, environmentalists will hate it. The idea of affordable, cleaner, off the grid energy would fill them with horror.
Perhaps that explains the odd title.
Comments
8 responses to “Cheap, low cost, sustainable power? No way!”
It’s getting energy subsidies which is not a good sign. Also, if you have to get fuel into the units in what sense is it really off the grid?
If the fuel is biogas (which ebay is using), that could come from a variety of non-grid sources, including human waste.
I guess a lot depends on what one means by ‘the grid.’ I am old enough to remember coal furnaces in the East and sawdust furnaces here in the Pacific Northwest. Were the trucks making the fuel deliveries part of the grid?
There isn’t much published about the Bloombox, but there are limitations which will make installation a trade-off. Early on, it was suggested that once brought into service, the box would function until fuel was interrupted. Once it was powered down, it was shot.
Also, there is no suggestion that the energy produced can be modulated to match the demand. In a residential setting, you’d still need the grid to supply or absorb electricity if you can’t store it. That unit he showed in the video seemed to have a lot of insulation. Does the box need to work at a particular temperature? Does it give off a ton of heat?
The electrical needs of Google are much different than the needs of a homeowner. It may not be suitable to get us off the electrical grid, but for baseline power and to use all sorts of fuels, it shows promise.
If the box costs $3000 and is the size of a dehumidifier, are you going to install it outside next to your heat pump?
The Bloombox has been around as a paper design for years. As far as I know one has never been produced. The concept is interesting (turn methane “directly” into electricity) using a fuel cell.
Two problems – the cost of the catalyst for breaking down the methane into hydrogen and carbon. And the waste heat in the summer. The installation would probably require a heat pump for managing the thermals. And of course you have to do something with the “waste” carbon.
And you have to build a reinforced bunker for the box – in case things don’t work out as planned. Methane explosions…..
Funny. He is a rocket scientist. Well I’m an aerospace engineer. One step below rocket scientist.
Interesting if it really works as advertized, and is producible. OTOH, fuel cells have been the new, upcoming, groovy, now a-go-go technology since the 60s. Sort of like tokomaks. Still not working.
Meanwhile, thorium reactors have all kinds of advantages and demo reactors were built. It’s an engineering challenge to make commercial units, not fundamental research.
My electric rate is 8.5 cents/kWh, so magic energy boxes aren’t all that tempting. I’ve heard CA rates go to $.46 so some market there, I guess.
What other advantages does a hydrocarbon fuel cell have, anyway? The output of one is CO2 and water vapor. The output from burning the same fuel is CO2 and water vapor. Unless it’s significantly more efficient it doesn’t really do anything you can’t do with a small generator. 5kW generators start at less than $1,000.
As “alternative” energy goes, it’s not very alternative.
Which is encouraging, honestly.
Fuel cells are things that actually are known to work in the real world (even if they never got as widespread as fast as advocates wanted), so unlike the old Steorn scam and other “free energy!!!” things, I find this completely plausible.
It “burns” normal energy-rich fuel and makes power, with plausibly efficiency claims and using a basic technology we know works.
(Contra Simon, the Wikipedia article not only says that they’ve been built and deployed, but claims that actual customers have publicly stated they worked for them; e.g. eBay.
I’d love a third-party engineering analysis, but it doesn’t seem to be a scam.)