Except for the cost, fuel cells just make perfect sense. They are clean, efficient and have no moving parts. Whoever invents the perfect membrane material gets to be the next Bill Gates.

Considering how the US has about 200 yrs worth of natural gas in the ground, plus an abundance of methane and propane, it's a natural fit for us.

If you can make a small unit that will power a house or a military camp, it will also power a car or a tractor trailer.

But the best thing about it, it would just about end all our current problems with the electrical grid. Since power could be so easily generated locally, large facilities wouldn't have to be connected to the grid.

This guy was on 60 Minutes this past Sunday.

Quite the deal there.

The boxes at Ebay were about twice the size (+) as an AC unit for the home.

I watched a video about this guy a day or so ago. Cool stuff, to be sure.

Actually, it was the 60 Minutes video, now that I think about it.

I am just waiting to hear something that will destroy my impression that this guy has invented the future for us. IT was quite amazing and apparently not extravagantly expensive.

"Whoever steals the perfect membrane material and kills the inventor gets to be the next Bill Gates."

FTFY

Consumes methane, not quite as clean as promised.

DIB,

Converting methane from land fills into water and carbon dioxide is VERY clean. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

This is a win-win situation, something unusual with energy.

Keep in mind that buring the waste methane means that much less natural gas has to be burned (i.e. saved for future generations.)

Meanwhile, id bet my left nut that power companies are writing legislation and making campaign contributions to keep this out of american homes.

How would they tax this? The gov't ain't gonna like this not one bit. I want one now!

Speak,

The power companies are doing everything they can to AVOID buliding new plants. Why do you think they have those discounts for customers who let them put remote switches on the customers' water heaters and AC's to cut the power at peak times.

This would be GOOD for the power companies.

You'd be taxed like this: The power company would have to pay you for the power you sold them. This would reduce your bill, including the taxes you owe on the power you purchase from the power company.

If you got into a situation you were a net power supplier and the power company was your customer, you'd probably have to collect taxes from the power company and pass them along to the state and local tax weasels. Since this would be insanely cumbersome, the state and local tax weasels would probably make the power company pay them directly.

Of course you would then have to declare the net profits from your little power station as income and pay income taxes on it. (This is unlikely since you could depreciate the high cost of the equipment and all related expenses.)

I'd love to be in that position!! I'll pay THAT income tax.

Letus...ever see Mamet's The Water Engine? I know people who swear that it was based on a real story, but there are also a few conspiracy theories around people who were doing serious research into hydrogen separation technologies that died early or under mysterious circumstances.

Axe...Why not just buy a dozen of them, set them in an enclosure near a main powerline, hook them to a metering device, start them up, and voila! Sell power to the electric company as a business.

Greenies can buy this POS that is expensive per KWH, expensive to maintain and spews CO2 and a slurry of CH4 and H2O. I'll stick with my coal burner.

Methane, eh?

Time to invest in Taco Bell, I guess.

Lets see, $800k divided by $0.13 would be the kw that you would have to produce just to pay the initial cost without interest. Dam, that's over 6 million kw. I used 600 kw last month. If my math is right, over 10 thousand months or 854 years. Works for me.

The $800k is for the big commercial sized units EBay is using. The home size is more like $3k. (If you can believe the marketing.)

This is exciting technology on the cutting edge. Watch now for two things to happen. A power grab by the oil industry to throw a monkey wrench in the works and a propaganda campaign on how it will never work as good as fossil fuels. The idea that home energy needs can be accomplished with sewer gas will have all the crackpots on the right fuming too (get the pun). It's a technology far to simple for right wing nuts like Rush or Palin to understand.

Sniper...by the time you get around to figuring out where you went wrong with the math, you will be worm meat and you won't need to think anymore anyway.

The $3k home sized unit is still out a ways, and isn't actually guaranteed to be that cheap, but if the machine cost 5k, and cut my elec. bills in half, then I'm all for it. It would pay for itself in a couple of years or so. I'd love to force the electric company to buy my excess energy.

If this green energy worked it wouldn't have to be subsidized by our taxes and greenies wouldn't be trying to force us to switch by troting out global warming lies.

Axe,

I agree with you....but I think that it'll probably end up with people hooked up to existing natural gas infrastructure, which is petroleum based. It's a cool idea regardless.

Well, the thing has to run off of something, Dibb. The whole point the guy is making is that his "generator" is 50% more efficient than buying electricity off the grid. He's basically saying that if your elec. bill is $200 a month, you can generate your own for $100 with his machine.

Theoretically, yes, because you loose roughly half of the generated electrical potential in the transmission process. voltage drops as the current moves through the system, small loses through transformers, etc.

the technology is well known, how to do fuel cells. they are currently powering the space station. and they are very expensive.

If the military starts building them, I believe the price will become affordable, like computers did in the 90's.

The home size is more like $3k. (If you can believe the marketing.)

The cost per kilowatt hour for a private residence is targeted to be 6-7 cents v 12 (U.S. Average). For some geographic areas going to this is the obvious choice. Others it doesn't make sense (yet). Here's a map with KWH costs per state:

I love this stuff.

"The $800k is for the big commercial sized units EBay is using. The home size is more like $3k."

Once the Chinese knock-offs are available you'll buy one at Wal-Mart for $89.

FTA: Unlike solar power and wind, which are intermittent and dependent on weather, fuel cells have the advantage of being able to run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Scientists around the world have been working on the technology for years, but Bloom contends it has overcome some of the major obstacles to widespread use, making cells more reliable and easier to produce than ever before. Experts say it is not yet clear whether Bloom can deliver on those claims.

Mean, lean, clean and green.

That's wot Spud is talking about.

The ability to put a clean, reliable, affordable energy source anywhere you want has been a dream for quite a while.

While it doesn't sound like they are quite there yet they are definitely closer than ever before.

It would be nice to be able to buy a piece of property in the middle of nowhere and then set up a little place off the grid with one of these units.

Beyond that personal little pipe dream, the ramifications for the third world here are obvious and massive.

Huzzah!

Be Well.

It's definitely a step in the right direction. Certainly cleaner and quieter than my 20kw Onan. It still requires a fuel source. Same principle used to protect steel structures with zinc anodes, except on steroids. Figure out a way to use it to run on the natural magnetic fields of the earth or static electricity and the world will change overnight.

Here's another small step.

#29 "Once the Chinese knockoffs are available you'll buy one at Wal-Mart for $89.

Exactly. Perhaps this is a budding industry we should actually try to protect.

Pretty exciting stuff. Give it a few years and see where we end up.

Sniper...by the time you get around to figuring out where you went wrong with the math, you will be worm meat and you won't need to think anymore anyway.

#21 | Posted by RingMaster

Shit for brains. Let me keep this real simple for you. Initial investment ($800,000( divided by my electric bill last month ($75)is 10,666 minths. divided by 12 months a year is 888.8888888 years. How is your math doing?

hey snips, were you born a stupid as you are or did you have to work at it?

Shit for brains. Let me keep this real simple for you.

Look who is calling who shit for brains. The 800k model is for a whole community. The 3k model is for a single home...now let's see you do the math, shit for brains.

#35 | Posted by Sniper

That doesn't include the cost of the full. Face it, It's a backup generator, a cool, quiet and expensive generator. But, it's a start.

Hes putting people to work in India...Clearedge puts Americans to work

Sti, I assume you mean fuel. I wasn't sure the size of the generator so I don't know how many houses it would take care of.

If you want a back-up generator, go to a home improvement store, buy a 8k or 10k generator for less than $1,000 and buy a 5 gal can of gasoline. You arn't going to run your house on less than that. They will make 220v power which you will need for your house. The little 2 to 3 kw jobs only make 110v and arn't enough to do anything with except your lights. Every couple weeks pour the gas in your car and buy another can of it. That way your fuel won't go bad in the can.

"cost below $3,000 for a unit to make that happen. And he's talking a 5 to 10 years" If he is going to make one for under $3k it will be small and will not be big enough to run your house 10 years from now.

I've got a 20kw Onan that runs on Lp and 1000lb in ground tank. Runs everything I've got. I've got more than 8k in it and I installed it myself. My point is this thing still runs on fuel. This thing is no different than my Onan only quieter.