New energy source!!!!!

[1st Class Husker]

Has anyone seen 60 min. recently!??

There was a man over in India that took sand and a special paint and put it together and made a fuel cell which will supposely and hopefully replace the power grid in 10 years!!!!


One sheet of this fuel cell will power a 25 watt bulb, want more power simply add more cells

It was called the (Bloom box) Collen Powell is on the board of directors for this, sounds like it already has customers in CA. Fed Ex, Walmart, Google for example , sounds like the real thing Check it out, VERY interesting!!!

[MI-Lineman]

Has anyone seen 60 min. recently!??

There was a man over in India that took sand and a special paint and put it together and made a fuel cell which will supposely and hopefully replace the power grid in 10 years!!!!


One sheet of this fuel cell will power a 25 watt bulb, want more power simply add more cells

It was called the (Bloom box) Collen Powell is on the board of directors for this, sounds like it already has customers in CA. Fed Ex, Walmart, Google for example , sounds like the real thing Check it out, VERY interesting!!!

Already had someone start a thread in the B.S. section. Sounds like B.S. Cost is way to high so even if may be real the grid bein replaced in ten years isn't realistic?

[Special ED]

If we are gonna replace the entire grid in 10 years Im gonna have to bump up my contributions cause all that OT i will be able to retire in 10 years!! Sign me up!!

[BigClive]

I think we can safely say that if the grid was stripped out you'd find the power companies would just have it all isolated and then get cheap labour to hack it all down.

[LINCRW]

If you do your research, the Bloom Box still requires fuel to operate. Typically, gas. It could be some other type fuel, but nonetheless, it requires fuel. The box without subsidies (100Kw) is around $750,000.00. Add in the fuel, and it is quite expensive.

The selling point is that you can actually budget energy costs well out into the future by securing long term fuel contracts, purchasing the box, and a maintenance agreement. The advantage is that you know what you will be paying in 10 - 15 years as opposed to the utility prices which fluctuate month to month, but are steadily increasing. If you have enough money, and the depreciation is something you can take advantage of, you can add that as a selling point.

If you ask me, it is too expensive at this point in time for the average joe to afford. You may see large corporations using it for all the reasons listed above; not to mention the free marketing the Bloom Box is getting.

As far as Colin Powell being on the board, that impresses me about as much as a steaming pile of S!#@. He is simply following one other on the board from another company he is affiliated with. They are cashing in on name recognition. Really, if I wanted armed forces advice I'd ask him. If I want energy advice, I'll ask someone else.

[topgroove]

Bloom mentions full ROI in 2-3 years on their website, and that ebay article says that ebay estimates a 3-year ROI, Well what does saving 20,000 a year (per box) mean? Let's say a company has an electric bill of 340,000 a year and decides to buy one BloomBox for 800,000 financed for 270,000 a year for 3 years. Plus 50,000 a year in fuel costs. So 320,000 a year total costs for operation. That is 20,000 a year in real savings. After 3 years they would have paid 1,020,000 in normal electricity costs. They have instead paid 960,000 and had 60,000 in savings. However, 150,000 of that 960,000 is fuel costs and is lost. They now own a power plant worth 800,000 and have 60,000 left over. Which costs 50,000 a year in fuel costs to run. These numbers are made up but the point I am trying to make is if you look at it this way you could justify the 2-3 ROI. You are buying a power plant instead of giving money to a power company. Your company has tangible increases in assets because of it. Kind of like the renting a car or house versus owning a car or house argument. also each company that purchases a unit may be elegible for state and federal grants, not to mention the tax savings on depreciation of capital assetts (One Quarter of your electric bill is taxes) . at the moment they can only build one 100kva unit a day at a cost of $800,000 each. what's gonna happen when they start churning out 100 or even 1000 units a day? I bet the cost per unit drops significantly. In less than ten years I predict the cost of a 5kw unit will be around $5,000 bucks.

[BigClive]

I wonder how long the plates last and if they can be damaged by contaminated fuel. And if they are damaged by contamination can they be cleaned or is it a case of buying a new set.

Also, do they maintain their peak efficiency on an ongoing basis or does it gradually reduce over their lifespan?

[topgroove]

Great question Clive! I've read through the patent and unfortunatly its a little vauge. They claim a twenty year life of the fuel cell stack? The archilies heal of all solid oxide fuel cells have always been cO poisining of the PEM and catylist which degrades the fuel cell stack over time.

Somehow they've managed to solve this?:confused: They claim this thing is really a fuel reformer and fuel cell stack in one. The plate material is certainly intresting. Its a silica bases substrate (beach sand) with a printed platinum ruthium surface. I'm thinking its a sort of P type, N type semiconducting stack and they use a screen type printer prosess to apply the platinum ruthium ink to the substrate.

The inventer of this thing, a former NASA scientist is truely a genius! This guy( sorry I forgot his name) has been working on this thing for ten years and has 400 million invested so far.

I've been an alternative fuel nut forever and have followed research like this for years. So many so called breakthroughs Have come out of MIT only to fade away because a economical manufacturing process killed it and no realistic business model exists. Other breakthroughs have been shelved when huge corporations buy the patent and sit on it or bury it.

This guy did it right, Keep it secret and install the units at major corporations and bring big names like Colin Powell and Arnold Swartzaneger on board.

[BigClive]

I've been an alternative fuel nut forever and have followed research like this for years.

Care to elaborate? Are you talking about alternative forms of home energy like solar, wind and hydro? Or biodiesel?

Have you dabbled?

[topgroove]

A few years back I started playing with water electrolysis and began building oxy hydrogen or hho torches. I've also experimented with plasma arcs. At the moment I'm working on an ethanol fuel reformer. My goal is simple... I need to make 14 litres a minute of hydrogen so I can power a 1000w fuel cell. This little hobby of mine is getting expensive.

[BigClive]

Yeah, that's the worst thing about free energy. It's so darned expensive to make. :D

I've got a home made electrolysis cell still sitting on my kitchen window sill from my experiments a few years back. It was made with perforated sheets of stainless steel held together with nylon bolts and spacers.

When you look at the videos of electrolysis cells on YouTube they either hide, fake or misinterpret the amount of voltage and current required to produce a small amount of hydrogen and oxygen. Likewise the cars running on just hydrogen and oxygen. It probably takes more power from the battery to electrolyse that gas than it would take to just move the vehicle with the starter motor. :rolleyes:

A friend who teaches jewellery manufacture has some really neat jewellers torches that do generate their own gas from water electrolytically. I don't think it's so much for energy efficiency as the convenience of having a tiny flame at the touch of a button without having to worry about gas tanks.

[topgroove]

you got it clive! Of all the water electrolysis cells I've built the best I could do was 207 watts of dc power to make 1 litre of hho.If I scaled it up to make 14 litres a minute it would take about 3000 watts and than I'ld have to seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen leaving me with only about 10 litres of hydrogen.

the math dosen't work, not even close. Thats why I'm focusing on a ethanol steam reformer. I can make ethanol easy enough with a little yeast sugar and water and than distille it to about 95% ethanol/water.

If you google " GEET fuel reformer " you'll see what I'm building, Only instead of using the waste exhaust heat from a internal combustion engine I'll be using ethanol for a heat source. I need 700 degrees celsius for this to work.

[LINCRW]

My son did the water electrolysis thing for his science project in school. He used a solar panel for the power source. WWWWAAAAAAYYYY too much work and energy for the small amount of hydrogen seperated.

Fuel cells like the Bloom Box have been around for many years. The only difference in this unit and the ones from years past is the improvement of the parts. The theory is the same. The problem is the cost to get this cheap power........

From what I have learned, if you have a damaged disc, you have to replace the whole thing. You can't replace only one disc. Kinda odd if you think about it, but I don't know.

It all boils down to price. Unless it's cheaper and more reliable than the traditional electric utility system, people won't buy it.

[BigClive]

My son did the water electrolysis thing for his science project in school. He used a solar panel for the power source. WWWWAAAAAAYYYY too much work and energy for the small amount of hydrogen seperated.


Yeah, but it was FUN and that's why most people do it.

If you look on YouTube there's an entire culture of loners who spend all their spare time tinkering and building stuff. My own house is pretty much one big workshop. :rolleyes:

[jasonthelineman]

WOW.. that is some really cool technology.. However, like anything else that is brand new... VERY expensive, and is not realistic to the homeowner yet to purchase.. however if a homeowner could purchase the $3,000 dollar box and power their home.. not bad I guess.. Our power bill is about 150 per month, so the return wouldn't be too bad.. it would be paid for in less than 2 years and then would be free after that.. of course, if there is not very expensive maintenance etc, that needs to be done....

So, I guess we don't have to worry to much at this point about our jobs... we will just have to see..

Jason