This is a bloombox. No not a boombox. Those went out in the 90s. The bloombox is new type of fuel cell capable of providing all the power for your home. I had looked up fuel cells some years ago when they were in development. I thought they might have had promise until I got to see one in action at a fair from Ballard power systems. The 1000 watt unit at a price of $5000 would not fit the bill for most homeowners. The fact that they run on hydrogen didn't help either. You can't run down to your local hardware store for a tank.
The bloombox runs on natural gas and as a plus produces hydrogen as a byproduct. It can also be run on other gases like methane another plus. Now if they can collect the hydrogen and run that through another fuel cell the byproduct of that is water. So without burning any fuels you get electricity to power your home or car and you could get water. As an added bonus this would decentralize our power grid. Units could be installed at substations eliminating the need for more ugly and dangerous high power transmission lines. They believe they can get the price down to $3000.
More info: Bloombox
9 comments:
I saw it on "60 Minutes" last night and it looked impressive. I bet all the Utility companies who saw it trembled a little bit, especially the ones with no vision. If it is genuine (and it sure looks it) it will have to be successful somewhere else before being embraced by countries with established grids.
I'd buy one at the right price point.
BTW, I still have a boombox. just sayin'.
Now that is what I have been hoping would start happening. The grip of the energy complex has been wrenched open some. Anyone with a brain knew that our stupid addiction to fossil fuels was created and nursed along by a group of greedy bastards who have forever done all they could to stifle this kind of thing. I really believe those days are gone. This ranks right up there with the peel and stick solar panels one outfit is working on.
And another BTW - I not only own two Ghetto Blasters from the 1980's. I listen to them everytime I spend any time in the basement or the garage. Hell, I even have a couple of 8-track players gathering dust in one of my many corners.
I'd buy one for five grand if I got remote property in the country, it would be cheaper than having PUD power put in.
As for Rick's problem, it was a simple find and fix. It was the PUD's breaker out on the meter post in the yard. It had gotten corroded inside and he lost one leg. Well, it was down to seven volts.
I flipped it a few times and it started working, for now, that meter station is 35 years old and needs to be replaced, at least a new breaker put in it but it's PUD that has to do that as the meter has to be removed to do it and they don't like us screwing with their meters.
Methane eh?
mmmm...Buy a boombox, buy pigs and your self sufficient.
I like it!!!
Four D is sort of right if you want to go through the work, there's plenty of information about such in old copies of Mother Earth News.
I am encouraged by this but I would be curious to see what the gas bill vs. electic bill costs will.
If I spend $20 a month on natural gas now and $80 a month on electricity, what will my gas bill be? I suppose as long as it is less than $100 then over time it would pay for itself.
It's encouraging for sure..a step in the right direction.
Plus if we had a smart grid with a large portion of the population using these things we'd never have blackouts. Might help make electric cars more viable too.
I'm not sure a smart grid is a good idea, but whatever. As long as I have my own cell and have power why should I care about other monkeys that abuse so many things?
A smart grid would be like spoiled monkeys expecting me to provide power to them, I don't see any reason why I should. They can just damn well buy how many of their own cells they need to support their needs and greed's.
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