Bloom Box

[Azure]

As for the box itself.

Wow.

I mean seriously, just reading the technical stuff it sounds very impressive.

It will be awesome once they figure out how to take solar power and harness it directly into the fuel cell to provide electricity for whatever, and then just have natural gas or something there as a backup.

Good idea having Google, Walmart and Ebay testing it out. I think this really might go somewhere too.

[photon]

Why in the world would I take solar energy, convert it to fuel through a box and lose some of the energy, and then put that fuel in my car and burn it again loosing energy, when I could take solar energy and put it directly in my car??

[photon]

Originally Posted by Azure

I mean seriously, just reading the technical stuff it sounds very impressive.

They haven't done anything new though, these kinds of things have been available for a loooooong time. Bloom's claim is they can bring the cost down and make them reliable, and that remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by Azure

It will be awesome once they figure out how to take solar power and harness it directly into the fuel cell to provide electricity for whatever, and then just have natural gas or something there as a backup.

You've got it a bit mixed up I think. You can run it forwards, put in natural gas (or whatever), and heat and get out electricity, heat, and CO2. Or you can run it backwards, put in (solar or other) electricity, CO2, and heat and get out heat and some fuel (hydrogen or methane maybe, not sure of the exact chemistry there).

If you were running a home you could have solar cells providing electricity when it is sunny, and have this generating from natural gas when it isn't, with maybe a battery to store the excess solar electricity. I guess you could run the fuel cell backwards to create excess fuel and store that and burn that later when the solar isn't producing, but that is probably logistically more complicated and far less efficient than storing the excess electricity in a battery.

Everything always comes back to a battery, what we really need is a few order of magnitude increases in battery capacity. THAT I'll be impressed with.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by photon

Why in the world would I take solar energy, convert it to fuel through a box and lose some of the energy, and then put that fuel in my car and burn it again loosing energy, when I could take solar energy and put it directly in my car??

As an intermediary storage vessel? I've noticed solar panels don't work as well at night.

[photon]

Most electric cars have batteries.

[Pastiche]

Already been said but this is just another fuel cell. Nothing earth shattering. It needs hydrocarbons to produce electricity.

The interesting bit is that it apparently runs at 55% efficiency. That's an improvement on most thermal power plants. So, there is an argument for distributed generation through substations or even at the point of end-use.

Eitherway though, only viable in areas with a NG distribution system. Still produces carbon. I don't get how the solar works? How does solar feed intot his system?