Thread: BLOOM BOX. Can it replace the Power Grid?

Bloom Box On 60 Minutes Can it Really Replace the Power Grid? [VIDEO]

February 21, 2010 09:23 PM EST
views: 1158

Bloom Energy, a fuel cell company, has had a big week. 60 Minutes showed its viewers an exclusive look of the Bloom Box tonight. Wednesday is when Bloom Energy will launch. Bloom Energy has operated for the past 8 years, and they have raised about $400 million from the likes of Kleiner Perkins.

The video below shows an actual Bloom Box. It looks a bit like an industrial-sized refrigerator, and it sucks up oxygen on one side and fuel on the other side.

60 Minute’s Lesley Stahl shows us the Bloom Box “secret sauce." The Bloom bakes sand which it then cuts it into squares that become a ceramic. The ceramic squares are coated with green and black “inks.â€

Fascinating idea. One of our major energy problems, strategically and economically, is the current power grid. It is subject to disruption from natural catastrophes as well as terrorist acts and acts of war. Moreover, the further electricity travels over a distribution system, the more that is lost to reactance (combined effect of resistance, capacitance and inductance), which adds to the cost fuel and energy production in general. By producing power locally, much less is lost in distribution, and decentralizing the production points and widely dispersing them to literally millions of locations minimizes the probability of massive blackouts due to acts of nature, war, or terrorism.