The Bloom Box

[rseagle]

Did you all see 60 Minutes on Sunday night, 21 Feb.about the Bloom Box?

The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough? - 60 Minutes - CBS News

It provides homes and businesses with autonomous power so that we don't need as many power plants and power grid.

Could the Bloom Box technology eventually provide continuous AC power to RVs while Boondocking? It seems possible. Home costs will eventually be $3K for a unit. An RV unit should be smaller and hopefully cheaper.

All is needed is air, heat and natural gas (propane?) to work the fuel cell. A small module for an RV could be enough AC to power an air conditioner, lights, pumps, fridge, TV/DVD, etc.

[Minnie's Mate]

Sounds great...or like a scam. Five or six years ago, Clark Howard-local consumer advocate, said that within 5-10 years we would be able to buy a fuel cell to power our homes and they would be smaller than a central A/C condensing unit in our yard. He said he would be an early adopter. Let's see if he buys one.

[SilverRanger]

Saw a brief news article about this last night. Can't recall which network. Predictably, the details of how the technology actually works was intentionally vague, but it seems promising if/when they start to mass produce them so they will be affordable. Most interesting was that it is currently in use by FedEx, eBay and Google.

Don't confuse it with this BloomBox:
Bloombox by Northern lights - Marijuana Growing



In the meantime, I just ordered a Honda 2000i Companion.

[LuvRVing]

There plant is no scam that Leslie toured. Large CO. around Silicon Valley are using it; E-Bay, Google etc. They have been using it for about 18 months for testing. The interviews of the users sounded very promising. The one to power a house can be held in a hand so one for a RV should be very workable.
AIR: #42225
TAC:# CA-3

[Bluto]

I understand that it will be years before we could actually buy the units that will be affordable and small enough to have in our homes, etc. At least this is a workable product and only needs to be made smaller and smaller. The potential is staggering! Maybe even as a source of electric power for cars?

[centennialman]

In the interest of big utilities, big oil companies and kickbacks, the government will probably not let it go very far. I doubt we will see something so efficient and environmentally friendly come to fruition. I am normally an optimist but that's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the news story.

[garry]

WOW !!! It works not just fluff if you can run a critical data center on one of these there has to be confidence in the technology.

However; I also think the technology will be bought by GE or the power company's and no telling how long it will take to bring it to the home market.

[Al - K4GLU]

Bloom vs. Solar: Which One Is Best? | Reuters

[Al - K4GLU]

Originally Posted by centennialman

In the interest of big utilities, big oil companies and kickbacks, the government will probably not let it go very far. I doubt we will see something so efficient and environmentally friendly come to fruition. I am normally an optimist but that's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the news story.

Yeah like all those miraculous inventions that'll let you get 200 mpg that the big oil companies are keeping off the market.