BIOMASS HUB

Last week, Silicon Valley’s Bloom Energy announced the release of its eagerly anticipated Bloom Box, a refrigerator-sized generator that produces emissions-free energy.  Although they look nondescript, the groundbreaking technology aims to “change the way people generate and consume energy,” providing distributed power generation that enables customers to efficiently create their own electricity on-site.

So how does it work?

Bloom Box sucks up oxygen on one side and fuel (natural gas, biomass, etc) on the other.  The two combine within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity.  There’s no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source.

Reports say that Bloom Energy bakes sand and cuts it into little squares that are turned into a ceramic, which are then coated with green and black “inks.”  Using a special process Bloom Energy creates these ceramic discs and stacks them together interspersed with metal plates of “a cheap metal alloy.”  The bigger the stack the more power the Bloom Box will create.

They’re basically tiny power plants installed right in your back yard, next to the dumpster at your corporate campus, or at your local electric-car charging station.  Bloom Box claims a “40-100% reduction” in carbon footprint over energy from utilities, while also a offering portable power source for a lower price than those of available fuel cell technologies.  They are also modular, which provides considerable flexibility to consumers who wish to scale-up their energy production.

According to the company’s press release:

The technology is different from hydrogen fuel cells in the following ways: it uses lower cost materials, provides unmatched efficiency in converting fuel to electricity, has the ability to run on a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels, and is more easily deployed and maintained.  Unlike traditional renewable energy technologies, like solar and wind, which are intermittent, Bloom’s technology can provide renewable power 24/7.

Current customers include eBay, Google, Lockheed, Wal-Mart, Staples and the CIA.  There are rumors of an enormous Bloom Energy government contract and a multi-million dollar order backlog from Coca-Cola and FedEx.

Long-term, the company hopes to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines.  While the device will help integrate renewable energies and reduce emissions, “it should be viewed as an enhancement to — not a replacement for — the power grid,” explains Ralph Cavanagh, codirector of the energy program with the Natural Resources Defense Council, speaking to TechNewsWorld.

How green is Bloom Box?

It depends largely on the fuel choice.  Biogas and biomass offer much more favorable carbon profiles than coal and other fossil fuels.  With respect to biomass feedstocks, the Bloom Box opens up exciting possibilities to bring power generation capabilities to local resources, offering an intriguing way around the logistical challenges associated with aggregating sufficient biomass to supply large power generation plants.

Sources:

Is the Bloom Box the iPod of clean energy?

Bloom Energy Fuel Cell

Just How Green is the Bloom Box?