<story><title>Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box</title><url>http://mashable.com/2010/02/24/bloom-box-launch/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hop</author><text>Fuel required @ rated power:	0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas. Rated power output (AC):	100 kW&lt;p&gt;Figure fuel costs of $10 per MMBtu. So it pumps out 100kW/hr electricity for $6.60.&lt;p&gt;~$0.09/kWh for electricity in Oregon (its double that for NYC). So we pay about $9 for 100kW/hr.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bloom Unveils Its Game Changing Energy Box</title><url>http://mashable.com/2010/02/24/bloom-box-launch/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>SpacemanSpiff</author><text>So forgive me if this sounds jaded, but I fail to see how this technology is a &quot;game changer.&quot;&lt;p&gt;1.  Based on the EIA Annual Energy Review 2001 transmission losses only account for 3.1% of total power generation in the U.S.&lt;p&gt;2.  A modern, large gas combined-cycle power plant has a quoted efficiency of over 60%
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/power-plants/gas-fired-power-plants/combined-cycle-power-plant-concept/scc5-8000h-1s.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/power-p...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. From the presentation: &quot;The carbon footprint is 50% cleaner than the grid and 100% renewable&quot; 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&apos;t the whole point of renewable energy to have a perpetually renewing &quot;closed system&quot;? By that definition then the carbon footprint would be tiny compared to the grid.&lt;p&gt;The reason they say 50% is probably because they are thinking most people will run the units from gas, but that&apos;s definitely not renewable.
Also, I can&apos;t imagine the efficiency of the unit is much higher than 50-60%, but maybe there&apos;s some data on that which I have missed.&lt;p&gt;4. &quot;They have created 11,000,000 kilowatts so far&quot; How much of this is from the burning of fossil fuels versus renewable fuel sources?&lt;p&gt;I am all for fuels cells and development of renewable energy.  I think what would truly be a &quot;game changer&quot; 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 &quot;green washing&quot; than green.&lt;p&gt;edit: formatting</text></comment>