Fuel required @ rated power: 0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas. Rated power output (AC): 100 kW<p>Figure fuel costs of $10 per MMBtu. So it pumps out 100kW/hr electricity for $6.60.<p>~$0.09/kWh for electricity in Oregon (its double that for NYC). So we pay about $9 for 100kW/hr.<p>Thats a 30% savings in Oregon and about 70% for the East Coast. But it still releases a lot of CO2 - 773 lbs/MW-hr.<p><a href="http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/</a><p>So if you ran one straight for a year and you used all its output, it would save $20k-$40k depending on electricity prices. So if they can get the price sub $100k and natural gas supply and price stays even, they could sell a lot of them.
So forgive me if this sounds jaded, but I fail to see how this technology is a "game changer."<p>1. Based on the EIA Annual Energy Review 2001 transmission losses only account for 3.1% of total power generation in the U.S.<p>2. A modern, large gas combined-cycle power plant has a quoted efficiency of over 60%
<a href="http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/power-plants/gas-fired-power-plants/combined-cycle-power-plant-concept/scc5-8000h-1s.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/power-p...</a><p>3. From the presentation: "The carbon footprint is 50% cleaner than the grid and 100% renewable" Wait a minute, if the power generation is truly renewable, then how can it have a carbon footprint at all (other than manufacture etc.)? Isn't the whole point of renewable energy to have a perpetually renewing "closed system"? By that definition then the carbon footprint would be tiny compared to the grid.<p>The reason they say 50% is probably because they are thinking most people will run the units from gas, but that's definitely not renewable.
Also, I can't imagine the efficiency of the unit is much higher than 50-60%, but maybe there's some data on that which I have missed.<p>4. "They have created 11,000,000 kilowatts so far" How much of this is from the burning of fossil fuels versus renewable fuel sources?<p>I am all for fuels cells and development of renewable energy. I think what would truly be a "game changer" is if this device could be used to store the cyclical output from a local renewable energy power system - for example store the energy created during the day from a PV installation for use at night.
In my opinion this is more "green washing" than green.<p>edit: formatting
Could somebody help with some background on the science?<p>What strikes me as odd is that you put fuel in the fuel cell. One of the examples they give is using these to charge your hyrbid car. So, by the transitive property, aren't you putting fuel into your car?<p>I guess I'm trained to think of alternative energy sources like sun and wind, so I'm thrown off here. What's the innovation?<p>I can see that you're generating electricity locally, which I guess means we could get energy to places without running power lines. But reading the article, that doesn't seem like the point of these.<p>The article does claim that the energy is more efficient than what you get on the grid. But if that's the case, why don't we just put a ton of these onto the grid and push down the cost of electricity for everyone?
The most interesting claim is that it's a reversible reaction. This explains the "it runs on solar" comment in that it can be used in place of batteries or a flywheel to store energy by turning the excess load back into fuel during peak generation from solar/wind and then expend it later.
Grinding some numbers:<p>The data sheet says 661000 btu/hr of fuel to run at 100kw. 100kwh is 341,230 btu, so it looks like about 50% efficiency from shipped hyrdocarbon source to electricity on site. Very good.<p>On the american house using 1kw, that is obviously not a peak. At 8 cents/kwh, a 1kw average use house has a $57/mo electric bill. Looking at my bills I can only presume they counted a lot of small apartments and homeless people in cardboard boxes in the average.
They really blew out all the stops in publicizing this ... Just the facts:<p><a href="http://bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/" rel="nofollow">http://bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/</a><p>Seems the 'box' we discussed a couple of days ago does output 25 kW (I had guessed 30 kW, based on a 10c/kW back-of-the-envelope calculation).
Fuel Cells and Proton Exchange Membranes often use Platinum or Palladium as a catalyst - which is very expensive. Bloom's box uses something cheaper. The science/tech is used in a lot of places you might not expect, like submarines too. It can be the most efficient way to generate and process hydrogen as well. For example, if you put enough solar panels/wind turbines to power the United States - you would invest so much in power lines, and so much would be lost in transmission, that it's not economic. Fuel cells can generate hydrogen from water at the point of generation - I believe more efficiently than electrolysis. Then the hydrogen could be transported similarly to CNG. Then Hydrogen can be "burned" or run the other direction through the Fuel Cell.<p>The politics and economics are becoming more favorable. Glad to see coverage on Mashable.
<i>They have created 11,000,000 kilowatts so far.</i><p>Are they saying that they've generated 11GWh, or that they've produced cells that continuously generate 11GW?
So is this a breakthrough in fuel cell design? Did they discover a completely new way to make fuel cells? Or is this rather a repackaging of existing fuel cell technologies?
They say that 1 KW will power the average US home, hu? Yeah, so long as all heating is natural gas and no one ever turns on a hair dryer. Maybe they were talking about averaged load? But then they seem to have left out the 4 tonnes of lead-acid batteries you'll need.
As they mentioned it can work on variety of fuel sources, they can probably create Gasoline -> Fuel Cell -> Electricity -> Motor type powertrain and create very efficient cars like 100mi/1gallon or something.
Has anyone seen anything about costs? That actually lists dollar amounts? I know this isn't vaporware (it's running at a few companies), but I until we know how much it costs it doesn't really matter.