Bloom Energy Revealed on 60 Minutes!

$7-$8/watt for a 48% efficient natural gas genset? I’m guessing their business model has them reducing that cost considerably at scale.

Is this the same Steve Pluvia?

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/04/business/fi-24043

Now you can have a fuel cell for your car as well as home.  If you don’t know yet, there is a fuel cell designed to power your entire home or office that can be less expensive than solar power and runs from your natural gas line.

Reduce your cost of utilities by 50% with a simple installation.

Finance it with AB811.  Out of pocket expense - ZERO.  Electricity Bill - ZERO.  Check out more details at http://www.ab811application.org
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Chuck—Agree 100%.  I see these “customers” as more participants in a subsidized (read Bloom gifted) field test until ROI, warranty & longevity make financial sense. 

Bloom has offered no evidence they can rise above these obstacles.  All evidence of fuel cell development points to an impending failure followed by BK.  Until they meet these milestones, they’re nothing more than a very expensive science project with a bunch of trapped VC & sucker investors looking for an exit.

I think the main objective was to lower the cost associated with producing solid oxide fuel cells. If Bloom Energy has done this, they have hit the jack pot. Think about this, if they can bring down the cost and size of these things, and they can run on fuels like propane or diesel, it make this a more feasible method to produce fuel cell powered automobile than purely hydrogen powered fuel cells. The possibilities are endless.

There’s always an article here and there about some sort of reformer that’s going to enable car-borne fuel cells to hit the big time. We should be wondering where they are. Maybe these guys are going to do, it’s about time!

Bloom Energy will someday change the world but are they hold something back?
http://www.psychikos.com

Bloom Energy will someday change the world but are they hold something back?
psychikos. com

BLOOM energy for my home. Can I be put on the list as a home to use this new device.
My wife and I are 100% disabled and I am a Veteran of Active duty. I will soon be building my dream home
I would like to offer my home has a test home with the new Bloom products please.

I would love to get off the grid and have control of my home wouldn’t everyone!
The power companies have had there way for way to long and its time to move toward saving our world because all the fuels they use today is doing all the major damage to our world. I would love to be the test house of the future with the home Bloom device!

If you are really interested in green alternative energy that is working right now and that burns NO hydrocarbons at all you need to look at http://www.powerverdeenergy.com

I would love to own one.Can I make a residential purchase.

Fuel cells are a “Pig in a Polk” and you will end up paying more for this suger coated technology. Fifty thousand watts per hour sold back to the power company grid at current purchase rates is $1800 dollars a month income. So they sell you the system and pay for the fuel and they walk away with the profit. Let me buy stock now.

If they can provide them directly to your home, that would cut out the most expensive part of electricity—the transmission costs. Also, the amount of electricity lost over the long-distance wires would be saved.

Main concern is how long do they last?  Can you replace one module or need to change the whole unit?

I am also a disabled vet and have to cut and split firewood to heat house because of the cost of electric to run the (elecric) furnace.I have back problems and this firewood is causing seriuos pain but have to do it or starve,its cut the wood and have groceries or its pay the electric. I ran the furnace for one month last year and it cost $800.00. My disability check is only $853.00 and have house and truck ,insurances ,so no way can i run the furnace. So at $3000.00 id be a fool not to want one.

Distributed power generation means distributed CO2 emissions. We could not effectively capture and store the CO2 from small distributed sources. To be truly green, the fuels cells would need a non-fossil fuel.  [Insert comment about hydrogen economy here.]

Distributed power generation means distributed CO2 emissions.  We could not effectively capture and store the CO2 from small distributed sources.  The only way that could be truly green would be to use non-fossil fuels.  [Insert commment about hydrogen economy here.]

Plug Power - stock symbol; plug . During ative trading ; profit 12,000.00 . Check Plug Power web site..

Watching 60 minutes…It Is interesting that nothing is being said about “amperage”, we all know that fuel cells do not produce high enough amperage…so this “marketing job” is great to back up computers but how about real power delivery…..this is the problem…....like Mike Cannalis said.this technology has been around for 100 years and now somebody put a new face and it is trying to sell it as new….....There is not way that it can be replaced the grid….....who are these guys kidding?

Way to go Sridhar! Nice to know someone from my country of origin is poised to change the world! My $3000 is sitting here ready to be spent when these units will become available.

There are many fuel cell stocks available from companies adapting the tech to powering eveything from buses, locomotives, cars, home power plants, even tiny units to replace batteries for your iPods and laptops. Check out: Plug Power(PLUG), FuelCell Technologies(FCEL), Ballard Power(BLDP), and Mechanical Technologies(MKTY). You can buy these NOW, while they are still cheap!

If they have teamed up with Honda or Nissan (leaf) and then not only create energy at half the current cost, but are able to store it in your car, and sell it back to the grid at peak times and at peak rates, it seems that you could generate an additional $300 -$500 a month at CURRENT energy prices, yielding a positive cash flow from investment. Power your home, power your car, (for free essentially) and become a net energy producer/provider on the individual lever. Then what if I bough another battery car/distribution funnel?
Did I just spell out the basis of PERPETUAL MOTION?  - Of course I’m just a pessimist. Go K.R.!

Although this looks promising, there are a lot of hyped-up energy “miracles” out there that turn out to be hard to scale up at reasonable cost or expensive to maintain. Once this one has stood the test of time and higher production (and the cost projections are substantiated), I’ll be convinced it has a significant role in our energy future. Until then we need to continue focusing on renewables, from geothermal to concentrated solar thermal, along with the efficiency improvements that make ANY energy source go further.

Somehow nobody mentions the need for a dc to ac converter!!

I worked on fuel cells for 26 years and solid oxide cells were investigated. Of all the different cell types possible this is the most technologically difficult. It needs to operate at elevated temperture (1800f) and it needs some exodic materials. The fuel cells being developed by United Technology are nearest to commercial reality.

I was a bit shocked by Lesley Stahl’s “reporting,” and Doerr and Sridhar’s misinformation.  Kanellos was the only reasonable talking head in the bunch.

This was an impressive episode of 60 minutes. I’ll be watching with keen interest as this develops.

I’m not sure why people in this post think this is energy for free. Unless you get Natural Gas for free, I read somewhere that this gets to 1000 degrees C. So perhaps there is CHP potential here as well.

Anyone know is the heat chemical heat and not created by burning?

CAN YOU GET ON A LIST TO BUY BLOOM BOX.

Uhhh, S. Silverman.  Not to get off topic from Bloom, but isn’t one of the central tenets of combustion here on planet Earth (such as, for example, in an internal combustion engine), that oxygen be burned?  Too bad we don’t have plants to make any more.  Hmmmm, where did that budget for teaching science in our public schools go to….....

why doesn’t 60 minutes report on how solar panels can be used as a weather proof roof system,why the cost of this system is kept so high[all solar panels are manufactered by the big energy companys]how the energy companys have guidlines in place so they don’t have to buy back any surplus suppied to the grid.don’t kid yourself that will indanger the profit of the power company’s - it will be buried in cost.lets not forget that bush and cheny knew all about enron and did nothing.

What isn’t included in the economics as posted is the near zero emission factor of fuel cells.  It’s the factor many fuel cell critics leave out, along with other important facts on actual commercialization trends.

Bloom “units run on natural gas, propane, biofuels or diesel which gives them about 48 percent overall efficiency.”

What this means is that they generate less CO2 & water vapor (the dominant greenhouse gasses) than a gas -fired PG&E plant, but still about 1lb CO2/kWHr.  For a typical home, that’s 30lb a day or 5 tons per year—not a great stride forward.

What media folks don’t seem to do is bring reality to the hype.  Bloom & Kleiner… are banking on the Calif. 20% subsidy of 20%, plus the US subsidy of 30% make an expensive, marginal improvement makrketable.  There’as nothing wrong with fuel cells where there’s no other choice, but anything that consumes oxygen & hydrocarbons worsens climate change.  It also maintains our dependence of petroleum exploration & extraction, and it retains dependence on oxygen production by living organisms, particularly in the seas.  Those dependencies are poor bets.

I used to work at a Department of Energy lab on fuel cell tech.  And I can tell you that I’m having a hard time buying into the Bloom Energy hype.  Large companies such as UTX, GE, Siemens, etc. have all looked at a variety of anode, cathode, and membrane materials for not only PEM’s but also SOFC.  One of the main problems with using non-exotic anode and cathode materials is they tend to have a slower diffusion rate and often have poisoning problems from the CO produced.  So unless Bloom has developed some marvelous new mixture that eliminates these draw backs.  I find it hard to believe that their product is so vastly superior.

48% efficiency is not bad, but a utility-scale combined-cycle gas turbines are 60%.

It seems doubtful that the 48% is for anything other than Methane.

Do they really claim that natural gas, propane, biofuels or diesel all have the same efficiency?

A 100kW box would be enough to power a car. What is the volume and mass of the box, and what is the volume and mass of the required natural gas tank? We already know that the price is $800k. That’s $8000/kW in capital cost. A utility-scale gas turbine is $400-700/kW in capital cost.

I don’t see a real win for this technology. The cost is too high and the efficiency is lackluster. There may be niche applications where it shines.

Of course big oil is not going to supress and kill this like they would zero-point energy.They are supplying the natural gas and government will continue taxing the usage.
The real pioneers and inventors of free energy are silenced by intimidation of their families or liquidated.
When I heard the promo for this bloom box on sixty minutes, I figured that there was no way the Bilderbergs would allow demonstration of a true free energy device on mass media TV.Fuel cells suck.

Fuel Cells have been around for decades.  Promises, Promises.  We were told 20 years ago they would be powering cars.  If they can’t bring something to the market to power cars how they expect us to believe they can power a home or more?  I have been in the energy business for over 15 years.  If you want to see something that can save 15% on fuel usage and it pays for itself go to http://www.vapsterdiesel.com

With more technology, hopefully the box will be smaller for residential use.  I enjoyed the 60 Minutes story.

Fuel cells will NEVER be as reliable and affordable as solar PV.

First of all, Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells and Phosporic Acid Fuel Cells, are much more efficient, and proven technologies, when compared with Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. But back to my point, fuel cells are NOT reliable, they’re expensive, require significant maintenance, and you’re stuck with a natural gas bill every month!

Who needs that?

Compared with solar, there simply is no comparison.

Solar has very little maintenance (sweep the panels off every 3 months or let the rain do it where there is rain), there is nothing to maintain, solar rarely - if ever “breaks down” or needs regular maintenance like ALL fuel cells, and you NEVER get a natural gas bill with a solar energy system!

- our group installed a Solar Trigeneration energy system for a 5,300 sq. ft. office building near downtown Los Angeles in 2003.  To this very day, ALL of this building’s power and energy come from our Solar Trigeneration energy system, whether it’s 12 noon and the sun is shining, or 12 midnite, and the moon is shining - and this is WITHOUT any connection to the electric grid, and no connection to the natural gas utility.

Our solar trigeneration energy system provides all of the power and energy when needed, WITHOUT any greenhouse gas emissions, and the client NEVER receives an electric bill or natural gas bill.

Fuel cells emits greenhouse gas emissions, and are still dependent on fossil fuels. While somewhat cleaner than coal, natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and fuel cells like the Bloom Box, still need natural gas.

More info on Solar Trigeneration at:

http://www.SolarTrigeneration.com

http://www.NetZeroEnergy.com

http://www.CarbonFreeEnergy.com

http://www.PollutionFreePower.com

GLTA, and especially Bloom Energy,

Don’t get too excited until you find out what the monthly fuel and maintenance costs are.

Remember, if there was a cheap & easy energy solution, it would have already been found. You might be better off investing in improved insulation for your home instead.

When the government pulls their head out and embraces solar enrgy then i’ll listen.

Congrats to Bloom Energy.  However, it still takes the input of fossil fuels.  Why not think a little more different?
In its simplest form electricity is a movement of electrons.  We have figured out a way to produce clean electric energy in a vacuum, by creating static, capturing it, amplifying it and reproducing it.  No input from batteries, algae, wind, solar.  More soon.

This is tech for big companies that suck up a lot of power, maybe someday rural areas or dense residential and probably power cos to distribute the grid. This ain’t gonna be powering your house from your basement anytime soon.

Exciting or not, three things in this:
1. No combustion/cooling/moving parts… = more efficient
2. No power grid needed
3. Modular

I.m currently a student at a solar pv installation and design class and a 20 year electrician. Even with my limited knowledge of bloom and their box, I’m still smart enough to see that it needs fossil fuel to operate and puts out greenhouse gases that they say can be “stored”. Then what do you do with them? Shoot them into space? Sounds like the same old song and dance.
I’d rather stick with pv, wind, hydro or geothermal. No emissions and free fuel.

The hype, the hoopla, the big names and the secrecy of the BB remind me of the gyro-stabilized peronal transporter of 2005 that was guaranteed to replace walking. What happened? Apart from a few security guards and colleges, the thing went nowhere. Why? Because there was no compelling reason other than gee-whiz to spend money to buy one of the gizmos.. you could walk for free. Same thing here: why in heaven’s name wouldn’t I just buy electricity from the grid?? 

It’s trivially easy to give your products to big name “customers” for a song and get them to say good things about them. It’s much, much harder to get lots and lots of regular people or managers to buy them. Even Big Blue was rudely surprised and run out of the market by upstart copycat Compaq. Why should Sridhar be exempt?

And another thing.. big names can and do drink each other’s bathwater and get high on arrogance. Example: Iridium and Globalstar together lost 10 billion dollars in global satellite phones.. that were supposed to be irresistible gild mines.

Fuel cell technology is in our future and this sure sounds good but it is not renewable energy, with energy-efficient LED lighting, solar cooling and co-generation, heat waste recovery systems, solar hot water and photovoltaic systems there is a much better immediate solution to our energy concerns

skander…I think there is flaw in your calculation

If you take 3kW/hour this box can server only 33.33 houses as its capacity is 100kW(as per the datasheet http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/ )

$800000 is one time investment and its capacity is 100kW/hr

So it should be $8/W is one time investment which is close to the current solar system. But only difference is maintenance and running cost (this is major cost) which is not available for public at this point of time.

I see this is kind of good solution if its costs comes down little bit. With current cost it turns out to be $23.5k per house (for 3kW avg requirement).

Can some on convert the input from the data sheet for running cost (i am not good in this) ?

This is a elaborate master plan to exploit money and as such the management as well as VC firm which is also ties up with Google now try to take materials out of the internet which is against this bloom energy and its predecessor ion America

S. Silverman -Oww!  Your post was riddled with errors; please get out your high school chem book and review all chapters prior to confusing others with your future posts; thanks.

S. Silverman -Oww!  Your post was riddled with errors; please get out your high school chem books and review all chapters prior to confusing others with your future posts; thanks.

It was said that the device could be installed in homes, generating both electricity and heat, which would result in big efficiency gains. Commenters on Reddit point out that the real savings may lie in avoiding transmission and maintenance costs with a machine that’s much simpler to handle than a full fledged power plant. Although the boxes cost a lot (up to $800K), the amount of power they allegedly put out more than makes up for it.
Is this the future? http://bit.ly/bloom-energy-will-change-the-world

Bloom Energy to receive 2010 Innovators Award from USC. http://prlog.org/10549609

We live in a Solar Heated Geodesic (Bucky Fuller type) Dome in LOS ALAMOS NM USA.  This scientific community would certainly like to evaluate the Adequacy, Efficiency, Elegance and Parsimony of the Bloomenergy &  Bloombox.  We have two (residential-agricultural) acres where experiments could be conducted to ascertain how such system could power one conventional House and one Geodesic Dome house and some horse facilities.  For more information Google—petr jandacek

For those w/o $700,000-800,000 to spend for a 100kw power source using natural gas as a fuel, check out the 100kw commercial generators readliy available for $24,000 that use natural gas. Simply Google “price of 100kw natural gas generators”. To run off grid, your local propane guy will simply change the fittings (assuming someone off grid is also likely to not have a natural gas conection handy).
What a bunch of hype! What a waste of taxpayers money!
Alex Stevens

Bloom is way ahead on the use of PR, but on technology, The Fuel Cell Energy Co. of Danbury, CT Molten Carbonate fuel cell and Versa Power Systems of Littleton, CO Solid Oxide fuel cell appear to be far ahead of Bloom. Bloom’s fuel cell is also a Solid Oxide fuel cell.

FCE targets loads from 300 kW to 3,000 kW such as supermarkets, colleges, hotels, hospitals. FCE has already cut its costs so that its largest model can now be manufactured to sell with a positive margin. The production cost of these fuel cells declines sharply with volume production. FCE currently has 60 installations around the world. FCE owns 42% of Versa Power Systems. Versa Power does not yet market a commercial product but has already gotten the cost of its smaller fuel cell down to an estimated cost of $700 per kW (when manufactured in high volume) through its participation in the billion dollar US DOE SECA program. According to DOE’s NETL (National Electric Technology Lab) the cost estimates have been certified by the US Office of Management and Budget. By continuing to participate in that cost reduction program it expects its fuel cells to cost only $400 per kW by 2012, a competitive cost. Bloom’s cost estimates seem to be predicted on estimates that its fuel cells will be reduced to about $300 per kW in about 10 years when manufactured in volume and will then be commercial.

Neither FCE nor Versa use platinum catalysts and neither need to be fueled with hydrogen. These are advantages that Bloom has implied are exclusive to its product. In fact the FCE fuel cell reforms more hydrogen from natural gas than it needs to generate electricity—the surplus could be used to fuel cars with PEM fuel cells that require hydrogen for fuel. The FCE fuel cell, in addition to using natural gas as a fuel, can also use coal gas (“syn gas”), propane, mine mouth methane, bio-gas, diesel oil, and byproduct gases from industrial processes such as methane from beer brewing and bread baking, and even paint fumes from the painting facility of an auto manufacturer and sewage effluent from an anaerobic digester.

Most American single family houses have a 100 amp connection with the grid, a service drop that will accommodate a peak load of 10 kW at 110 volts or up to 20 kW if loads are served at 220 V. The Versa Power Solid Oxide fuel cell is suitable for that use to satisfy the electrical and/or heating and air conditioning needs of a single family residence but can also be scaled up to 100,000 kW plants using syn gas with an efficiency of 50%. FCE and Versa Power are currently developing such a large plant for DOE.

Bloom’s 100 kW fuel cell weighs 100 tons or 200,000 lbs according to its spec sheet. That is one ton or 2,000 lbs per kW. But the Versa Power fuel cell weighs only 200 lbs per kW, an order of magnitude lower. Versa Power has been cooperating with the US Airforce on developing power supply for military drones and with the US Navy on developing power supply for mobile underwater platforms. At 2,000 lbs per kW, Bloom fuel cells are likely far too heavy for this purpose. They are more than 6 times as heavy, per kW as the FCE fuel cells.

FCE’s stationary fuel cell has an efficiency of 47% after its DC output (efficiency, 54%) undergoes losses due to its inversion to AC so as to be compatible with the grid. It could be used as DC if operated in isolation. Its efficiency in relatively small sizes permits it to be located near its loads so it does not have to provide for losses over transmission and distribution lines. Conventional coal fired steam turbine generation must get up to sizes of some 500,000 to 600,000 kW to reach an optimal efficiency of 38% (or 43% for rare supercritical units). Per kW hardware costs are also lower also in these larger units. Power from these giant units when adjusted for transmission line and distribution line losses to the customer’s meter, may only have a fuel efficiency of 29%. The invention of the aeroderivative internal combustion gas turbine-generator in the early 70s permitted gas to be used as a base load fuel when it was somewhat higher in cost than coal per mmbtu but not a multiple of that cost. That was because of its greater efficiency and lower capacity cost as no expensive boiler was required. The increase in gas cost to multiples of coal cost after the year 2000, greatly reduced their desirability. These gas turbines can be used as the front end of a combined cycle unit. When fully loaded and at optimal temperature and pressure combined cycles can reach a 50% efficiency at sizes of 50,000 kW, and at a size of 400,000 kW, reach an efficiency of 60%.

FCE can also be used as a combined cycle or hybrid “FC/GT”. When its exhaust is fed into a turbine-generator its electrical fuel efficiency increases to 56%. It can be used with backpressure turbines at high pressure gas transmission line pressure step down stations where it can develop a fuel efficiency of 60% (its model DFC-ERG).

The Bloom Box uses MM.661btu of natural gas to produce 100kw hours of electricity. A 100kw natural gas generator (Generac) needs MM1.376btu (or 1339 cubic feet) to produce the same 100kw hours of electricity. So Bloom’s twice as effecient!
Bloom Box cost $800,000 vs $24,000 for the generator (a proven technology).
With natural gas @ $7 per 1000 cubic feet, anyone who paid attention to their elementry school arithmatic teacher can see this is a bunch of hype.
Unfortunately, they are going to cause serious damage to the genuine efforts of scientists worldwide who are working to advance fuel cell technology.

There are many benefits to Bloom’s solid oxide fuel cell technology if it succeeds.  The distributed nature of the device could help foster adoption of electric vehicles since it could help offload some of the stress on the national grid. 

http://www.notpetroleum.com/2010/02/27/bloom-energy-and-the-electric-car/

Bloom’s energy server can also help reduce the amount of fresh water used to generate electricity at centralized coal-fired plants especially for arid climates such as in the southwestern US.

http://www.drywelljournal.com/2010/03/06/bloom-energy-and-water-conservation/

I think it is important that we look at the big picture of the value of technologies such as this instead of just focusing on whether its claims of GHG reduction are accurate.

Great read!
http://www.thewineclubdirectory.com

SS, you are trippin. The fire from a match suck Oxygen from the air. Grow a few houseplants and MOVE ON! Geez.

Great read, slly bloom

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