Casper Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtmlhttp://www.bloomenergy.com/What do you all think? Feasible? The public launch of their company is Wednesday, but FedEx, Google, eBay, etc have been using these boxes already. eBay says in 9 months they've saved $100K in electricity. Should be interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disclaimer Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 Talk is cheap. Claiming a price point of $3000 for the 'common household'... I'll beleive it when I see it. That's usually what keeps A TON of innovations out of the public domain is the manufacturing.With time and money, we can do just about anything. But, making 'anything' cheap enough for large mass scale manufacturing is the stumbling block for the majority of these tech things. This is why we don't have carbon nanotubes in everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper Posted February 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 Talk is cheap. Claiming a price point of $3000 for the 'common household'... I'll beleive it when I see it. That's usually what keeps A TON of innovations out of the public domain is the manufacturing.With time and money, we can do just about anything. But, making 'anything' cheap enough for large mass scale manufacturing is the stumbling block for the majority of these tech things. This is why we don't have carbon nanotubes in everything.$700K for commercial units is cheap, especially when in 9 mos it saved eBay $100k. Just over 5 yrs to break even is unheard of. Add to that the fact that they got 50% of the purchase price back via tax credits for clean energy, so it really only cost them $350k. That's just a little over 2.5 yrs to break even. If this all pans out, I think we're looking at the future of electricity in our homes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max power Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 If these things work as advertised, this could be huge, but, they will drive natural gas prices through the roof. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper Posted February 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 If these things work as advertised, this could be huge, but, they will drive natural gas prices through the roof.They don't run off just natural gas. They can run off damn near anything. That's the beauty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarvismb Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 I did just peruse over the article, so maybe I missed it, but what is the byproduct of this system? You put natural gas in, you put air in, what comes out? Are we left with some useless sludge, or is the byproduct a useful material? If we just end up pumping millions of barrels a day of petroleum-based products into a global system of these things, are we just going to end up with millions of barrels a day of useless waste sludge when it comes out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max power Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 They don't run off just natural gas. They can run off damn near anything. That's the beauty.Right, but if it is installed in a typical home, what is going to be the most available fuel source? Gas, unless you have your own garbage dump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper Posted February 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 I did just peruse over the article, so maybe I missed it, but what is the byproduct of this system? You put natural gas in, you put air in, what comes out? Are we left with some useless sludge, or is the byproduct a useful material? If we just end up pumping millions of barrels a day of petroleum-based products into a global system of these things, are we just going to end up with millions of barrels a day of useless waste sludge when it comes out?It emits carbon-dioxide, but 60% less than if the same amount of fuel had been burned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarvismb Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 It emits carbon-dioxide, but 60% less than if the same amount of fuel had been burned.interesting...I'm clearly out of my element here because the idea of a room-temperature phase change with a simple solid catalyst is too far beyond me. I get the idea of introducing a gas with another gas in the presence of a catalyst and getting a different gas, but I thought the appeal was that you would use any hydrocarbon-based product (ethanol, methanol, etc) and get the same result. But then you're putting a room-temp liquid across a solid in the presence of a gas and getting a gas back out with no liquid or solid byproduct. That's the part of the science that's beyond my level of understanding.If that's true, that's some impressive shit... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReconRat Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 Easily feasible, but the key is what they said. BioFuel, a cheap source of fuel. If it might run on alcohol, they just might be successful. But it might have to be a gas, which means a whole new industry of bio gases would result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted February 22, 2010 Report Share Posted February 22, 2010 it's a nice back-up idea, but I'm still counting on solar cell shingles for 75% of my energy production in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aerik Posted February 23, 2010 Report Share Posted February 23, 2010 Easily feasible, but the key is what they said. BioFuel, a cheap source of fuel. If it might run on alcohol, they just might be successful. But it might have to be a gas, which means a whole new industry of bio gases would result. Yep, every household now has a cow with hoses attached to both ends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironbuttwannabe Posted February 23, 2010 Report Share Posted February 23, 2010 $700K for commercial units is cheap, especially when in 9 mos it saved eBay $100k. Just over 5 yrs to break even is unheard of. Add to that the fact that they got 50% of the purchase price back via tax credits for clean energy, so it really only cost them $350k. That's just a little over 2.5 yrs to break even. If this all pans out, I think we're looking at the future of electricity in our homes. If I listened to the video right, 1 commercial box is $700,000. But it took many of these boxes to supply 70% of the electricity for ebay/google. The clean energy tax credit helps, but what if millions of people buy this unit. Will there be enough money to keep it going. I like it. I have a natural gas well on the farm, and it would be nice to lower the $1800 electricity bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShankroidBeast Posted February 23, 2010 Report Share Posted February 23, 2010 I saw this story on 60 minutes and the product does work as claimed. Once they get production cost down I believe Casper is right because there will be no need for an electrical grid and every house may eventually have one.I bet companies like AEP are watching Bloom Energy very closely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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