Could a Bloom box hybrid be in your near future?
Could sulfur oxide fuel cells be the missing link?Since 60 Minutes ran its piece on the Bloom Box (watch), interest in sulfur oxide fuel cells has suddenly exploded, and one wonders if Bloom's take on fuel cells is just the tip of the iceberg in fuel cell breakthroughs.
Just a couple of years ago, it seemed the fuel cell was dead, even amongst some of the die hard automakers that had supported fuel cells rigorously for decades. The pipe dream, it seemed, just might be over.
Those of us that have continued to pay attention to fuel cells, however, have noticed some very interesting new angles being pursued in the last couple of years, from different materials to different fuels. The Bloom Box is just the latest, most public example.
Finish: Could a Bloom box hybrid be in your near future?
Labels: bloom box, fuel cells, Hybrid Vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
2:29 PM
7 Comments:
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Since 60 Minutes ran its piece on the Bloom Box (watch), interest in sulfur oxide fuel cells has suddenly exploded, and one wonders if Bloom's take on fuel cells is just the tip of the iceberg in fuel cell breakthroughs.
Just a couple of years ago, it seemed the fuel cell was dead, even amongst some of the die hard automakers that had supported fuel cells rigorously for decades. The pipe dream, it seemed, just might be over.
Those of us that have continued to pay attention to fuel cells, however, have noticed some very interesting new angles being pursued in the last couple of years, from different materials to different fuels. The Bloom Box is just the latest, most public example.
Likewise, automakers have suddenly seemed to re-embrace fuel cells, and one wonders if new fuel cell technologies are on the verge of rewriting automotive history.
In the past, fuel cells have used far too many cost-prohibitive materials and been too reliant upon inefficient fuel sources. New fuel cells, such as the Bloom Box, however, suggest that new materials can result in far cheaper fuel cells while ending inefficient hydrogen dependence.
Certainly, the Bloom box and SOFCs might not ever be the right fuel cell technology for the automotive sector, at least in terms of fuel cell hybrid vehicles. Instead, perhaps fuel cells will be the key technology for enabling cheap and clean battery powered vehicles to become a mainstream reality without any need for $trillion supergrids, smart charging technology, or even daytime charging worries.
And wouldn't it just be hysterically ironic if fuel cells - the scorn of much of the plug-in community - became the key to mass plug-in adoption?
This is an interesting article. The big news here is not that the Bloom Box is cleaner but rather its potential cost. It after all is still a fuel cell - with the emphasis on the word fuel. It takes some type of fuel to produce the electricity.
But again the big news is cost$. If the cost can be reduced to the levels indicated in several articles I've read then the day of the electric vehicle is just around the corner.
You could charge your car in the daytime with solar electricity from the solar panel array on your home. If you had some excess solar electricity available you could produce hydrogen and store it to run the fuel cell at night. No more batteries, no more grid tied connections, no more electric bills.
But wait; what about cloudy days or at night? Ah yes, rain and not quite enough solar to charge the car and make hydrogen. That's o.k. we can just run some natural gas or propane through the thing and we will get our electricity that way.
This futuristic lifestyle depends on one thing and that is a CHEAP, long lasting and reliable Fuel Cell. Instead of the thousands of dollars they currently cost they need to be in the hundreds of dollars range. When that happens we will be well on our way to becoming an electric society. A society without coal burning power plants. A society with much less smog and nitrogen oxide and other stuff we pump into our air.
Is it the full and complete answer; of course not; BUT it is a very good first step.
Tom G.
You are ABSOLUTELY right, Tom. It is a VERY good step forward.
I think we've learned - or should have learned - that there isn't going to be the one perfect solution. There never will be. The future will ALWAYS demand more energy, advancement. Dare I say, evolution?
Nevertheless, science demonstrates that we are still Neanderthals, at best, in terms of understanding of energy and our ability to harness energy.
Conseaquently, I think what the Bloom box demonstrates is that we can EASILY do much better with our energy paradigm. We have to act like the wise man that realizes he knows nothing.
We know NOTHING. Thus, we can do SO much better.
The Renaissance, the industrial revolution....we are at such a point in time right NOW!
We either go forward or backward.
To go forward requires cheap, unlimited clean energy. Batteries, fuel cells, composite materials, aerodynamics - we've only just begun to use these ideas - synergistically - to achieve maximum performance, including efficiency.
We know nothing yet we have so much potential.
Of course, we can stick with the status quo and continue to fight over the same BS we've been fighting over for the last 4 or 5 decades.
i'm sure eventually it will lead to something realllllly positive, eventuallllllly, hopefully, maybe.
The future of the Bloom Cell for hybrid cars are simple to test. They have stated that a Bloom Cell the size of a loaf of bread can power a home. Well... GM has the Volt which is an electric vehicle that is sourced with a small gas engine; replace the the gas engine with a loaf size Bloom Cell and test it with natural gas, and then different fuels.
anon-
if you could cost-effectively put a bloom box in a conventional automobile, then you make the entire premise of a 40 mpg range extended vehicle, such as the volt, irrelevant, completely and undeniably irrelevant.
Nice, but leaving out the weight of the device it would still be inapplicable for electric cars. The Chevy Volt backup generator produces 30kW, therefore a car would require 30x1kW generators at $3000 = $90000 (with a battery) or 120x$3000 = $360000 worth of generators that will be produced in 10 years time ;)
Emil-
Just the other day Israeli scientists demonstrated a revolutionary new way of storing hydrogen. Like the Bloom Box, such breakthroughs demonstrate that the myth of fuel cells might be far closer to reality than it would seem.
Coupled with quirky ideas, such as methanogenesis, the idea of something like the hydrogen economy might be far, far closer than it seems.
Without doubt, the bloom box is not ready to power an automobile - at least not cost-effectively. Nonetheless, the bloom box is more extrapolating evidence that underestimating the fuel cell is dangerous.
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