Tech | February 22, 2010 | 17 comments

Cheap, Emissions-Free Power From a Small Box

source: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/power-plant-box-promises-free-homes-power-grid

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A boxy power plant that could one day produce efficient, inexpensive, clean energy in every home might sound like a pipe dream, but it's the very real product of a Silicon Valley startup called Bloom Energy. Twenty large corporations that include Google, FedEx, Walmart and eBay have already purchased and begun testing the Bloom Boxes.

The Bloom Box idea came from K.R. Sridhar, a former NASA rocket scientist who once built a similar box device to generate oxygen on Mars for future colonists. Sridhar simply turned the concept on its head by pumping oxygen into the box, along with fuel. The oxygen and fuel combine within a new type of fuel cell to create the chemical reaction that makes electricity.

There's also no need for power lines coming in from an outside source, and Sridhar envisions the box eventually providing energy wirelessly to homes and businesses. That could do away with traditional power plants and the power grid.

Such transformative power may only come about if the Bloom Box fuel cells can work reliably and efficiently -- other fuel cell technologies have proven notoriously finicky.

Sridhar makes his fuel cells based on cheap sand-based ceramics, coated with special green and black "inks" that allow for the chemical reaction which makes electricity.

One of the simple disks can power a light bulb, and a stack of 64 disks with cheap metal plates in between them can supposedly power a Starbucks. And unlike fuel cells that require pure hydrogen, the Bloom Box can use fuels ranging from natural gas to bio-gas.

Skeptics may find good reason to remain cautious, at least until Bloom Energy officially unveils the device this Wednesday. Sridhar's project has required around several hundred million dollars to develop, and represents one of the most expensive clean tech projects.

The current Bloom Box also still remains too pricey for residential homes at $700-800,000 per device. But major U.S. companies have bought and tested them with the help of some California subsidies.

Four boxes have already powered a Google datacenter for a year and half, and used just half as much natural gas as a traditional power plant might require. And eBay's CEO told 60 Minutes that his company's five boxes have saved more than $100,000 in electricity costs over nine months.

eBay's boxes run on bio-gas made from landfill trash.

Many challenges still lie ahead. Sridhar had to fix one box at Google that simply stopped working, and also changed the air filter system during another incident. And there's a major question of whether he can mass-produce the devices and eventually bring them down to a targeted price of less than $3,000 for homeowners. But we'll sit on our excitement for now and applaud the man for thinking big.



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17 comments // Cheap, Emissions-Free Power From a Small Box

  • Kelly_Balthrop
  • morirjedi
    • 0
      morirjedi  

    • Great idea hope it is on the retail market soon. The tech works but the power companies will not let this happen without a fight.

    • 1 year ago
  • nursediesel
    • 0
      nursediesel  

    • I love the ebay methane collection to power the boxes... great idea! ....double the efficiency and removing an odoriferous smell!

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • nursediesel:

      Methane has no smell and is lighter than air. Mercaptans are added to natural gas to give it a smell for safety. Otherwise, you would not know when methane is present in the atmosphere.

      In the old days, miners would take caged canaries into the mines with them. Birds have a much higher metabolic rate than humans, they will die from methane in the atmosphere before humans feel the effects. This alerted the miners to a problem.

    • 1 year ago
  • nursediesel
    • 0
      nursediesel  
    • Wetdog:

      Was it methane or CO? What is the 'additive' that causes expulsion(flatus) of methane to smell? I know it's rotting organic material but is it a different substance than the methane that give human "gas" it's smell?

    • 1 year ago
  • 2warsoffbooks
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • 2warsoffbooks:

      Natural gas comes out of the ground as field gas----a mixture of gases, small amounts of butane and propane---CO2, hydrogen sufide(from contact with the earth, H2S smells like rotten eggs and combines with water to form acid rain).

      Unlike other fossil fuels, such as petroleum and coal, it is easy to remove impurities from natural gas because it is already a gas.

      So, what you get when you turn on a gas valve in the stove in your home is over 99% methane, CH4.

      Biogas, produced by bacterial action in the absence of oxygen on cellulose, also contains a mixture of gases. But it can also be scrubbed and the resulting biomethane is the same thing you get as the fossil fuel, CH4.

      Since fossil natural gas and biogas are the same thing, methane, CH4 when scrubbed to remove other impurities, they can be mixed in any proportion with no loss of performance in any application----it is chemically the same stuff.

      Methane, is lighter than air, has a very low solubility in water, is biological inert(non toxic)----and has no smell. What you smell when you smell natural gas is mercaptans---chemical compounds found in garlic and onions that have very distinctive smell. Those are added to the natural gas as a safety precaution to make it easier to detect a leak.

      --------" What makes a wet dog smell?"-----

      His nose.

    • 8 months ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • nursediesel:

      CO is often found in field gas(natural gas as it comes out of the ground)---or in this case, as it seeps into the air in a coal mine. There is almost no carbon monoxide in natural gas as it comes into your home, that was removed in the scrubbing process.

      Mercaptans are chemicals(found in garlic and onions) with a very distinctive odor that are added for safety to make leak detection easier.

      The rotten "fart" smell is caused by bacteria living in the gut. You are smelling the mix of bacteria living in your gut. The rotten smell is primarily Proteus Vulgaris, a bacteria that helps you digest meat. You will get a rotten egg smell, hydrogen sulfide, from plants that are of the cabbage family also---cabbage, broccoli, kale and some others.

    • 8 months ago
  • BohoZombie
  • peterzylstramoore
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  

    • Diesel engines can run on natural gas or biogas(both methane), generate electricity, and cost a LOT less than $700,000 to $800,000.

      It does sound good if they get them working reliably and the cost down though. Time will tell I suppose.

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
  • hack26
  • treewolf39
  • Andre_Rosario
  • Adamant18
  • Paven
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