Oxygen and natural gas are utilized by a fuel cell, Bloom Box, to make electricity. Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box was featured on “60 Minutes” Sunday, a few days ahead of the company’s formal launch on Sept. 1. An “energy server” is what Bloom Energy calls the Bloom Box saying it is clean, reliable and affordable power. Many companies already use this unit that is stand-alone to help with energy. Bloom Box may just replace power plants and transmission lines of the energy grid, says Bloom Energy. Price is a big factor within the Bloom Box. Unless it gets cheaper, it won’t succeed.
9 months of utilizing Bloom Box saves eBay $ 100,000
10 years were used to make Bloom Box. In its “60 Minutes” feature on Bloom Energy, CBS News reports that company founder K.R. Stridhar has raised about $ 400 million for the technology. You will find secret formulas on ceramic discs that are in the Bloom Box. A fuel source like natural gas goes in one side and oxygen on the other. The disk creates an electro-chemical response between the two elements to produce power. More power comes with more discs. Just 64 disks in a Bloom Box is enough energy to keep a Starbucks running. It costs $ 800,000, although twenty companies in California have found a way to cut the price in half with the 30 percent federal tax break and 20 percent state subsidy. More than $ 100,000 was saved be eBay, reports eBay’s CEO, John Donahoe, who told CBS the business installed five Bloom Boxes that run on carbon-neutral bio-gas from landfill waste.
Will the electrical grid be scrapped?
Stridhar told Newsweek the Bloom Box could replace the power plants and transmission lines of the electrical grid like personal computers changed mainframes. Google uses Bloom Energy and has servers ganged together to make huge data centers. Bloom Boxes could be clustered the same way to create energy farms. Stridhar admitted that subsidies are the only thing making the Bloom Box fly now. A $ 3,000 investment for home installation could possibly be possible. This is, of course, if you consider economists of scale. When volume doubles, price could go down. It will likely go down 10 to 15 percent each time.
The fuel cell market
Soon, Bloom box could possibly be demanded more. This is expected to go up. A report on the global fuel cell market by GBI Research published on altenergymag.com said that evolving technology and increasing demand brings the cost of fuel cells down. Fuel cells may be commercialized as soon as 2013. $ 975 million could be where demand for fuel cells will go to by 2010, increasing sixfold. This was shown by a 2008 report done by Freedonia Group. There is an expected rate of growth in that time frame of those using electricity coming from fuel cells. That rate is a 41 percent growth.
Find more info on this subject
CBS News
cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135_page2.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Newsweek
newsweek.com/2010/04/22/this-is-brand-new.html
Altenenergymag
altenergymag.com/emagazine.php?art_id=1468
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