Bloom Box Technology: Sand Power

Those two blocks can power the average high-consumption American home -- one block can power the average European home. At least that's the claim being made by K.R. Sridhar, founder of Bloom Energy, on 60 Minutes last night. The original technology comes from an oxygen generator meant for a scrapped NASA Mars program that's been converted, with the help of an estimated $400 million in private funding, into a fuel cell. Bloom's design feeds oxygen into one side of a cell while fuel (natural gas, bio gas from landfill waste, solar, etc) is supplied to the other side to provide the chemical reaction required for power. The cells themselves are inexpensive ceramic disks painted with a secret green "ink" on one side and a black "ink" on the other. The disks are separated by a cheap metal alloy, instead of more precious metals like platinum, and stacked into a cube of varying capabilities -- a stack of 64 can power a small business like Starbucks.

Now get this, skeptics: there are already several corporate customers using refrigerator-sized Bloom Boxes. The corporate-sized cells cost $700,000 to $800,000 and are installed at 20 customers you've already heard of including FedEx and Wal-mart -- Google was first to this green energy party, using its Bloom Boxes to power a data center for the last 18 months. Ebay has installed its boxes on the front lawn of its San Jose location. It estimates to receive almost 15% of its energy needs from Bloom, saving about $100,000 since installing its five boxes 9 months ago -- an estimate we assume doesn't factor in the millions Ebay paid for the boxes themselves. Bloom makes about one box a day at the moment and believes that within 5 to 10 years it can drive down the cost to about $3,000 to make it suitable for home use. Sounds awfully aggressive to us. Nevertheless, Bloom Energy will go public with details on Wednesday -- until then, check the 60 Minutes sneak peek after the break.

Google Goes Greener with 39 Million in Wind Turbines

Google Invests $39 Million in Wind Farms
By MIGUEL HELFT
Google has long dabbled in the clean energy business. Now the company is investing in the generation of green power.

On Monday, Google said that it invested $38.8 million in two North Dakota wind farms built by NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of the FPL Group, a $16 billion electricity company based in Florida. Google’s investment represents a minority interest in a $190 million round of financing for the projects.

The two wind farms have already been built, and Google said that its investment would provide funds for NextEra to invest in additional renewable energy projects. Google’s investment takes the form of a “tax equity investment” where it will earn a return based on the tax credits awarded by the government for renewable energy projects, said Jamie Yood, a Google spokesman. Mr. Yood said the energy from the wind farms would not be used to power Google’s data centers, which consume vast amounts of electricity.

Mr. Yood said that Google’s primary goal was to earn a return from its investment but that the company also hopes to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.

Conscious of its high electricity bills and its impact on the environment, Google has long had an interest in green energy. Its projects in the area run the gamut from a large solar power installation on its campus, to the promotion of plug-in hybrids, investments in clean energy start-ups like eSolar and AltaRock, a controversial project to tap geothermal energy in Northern California. Google has also worked on making its data centers more efficient, promoted changes in energy policy and developed technologies to to let people monitor their home energy use.

But the company had yet to live up to its promise to help to finance the generation of renewable energy.

“We’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy — in a way that makes good business sense, too,” Rick Needham, green business operations manager at Google, wrote on the company’s blog. Mr. Needham described the technology in the NextEra wind farms, which generate 169.5 megawatts, or enough electricity to power more than 55,000 homes, as state of the art. “The turbines can continuously adjust the individual blade pitch angles to achieve optimal efficiency and use larger blades with 15 percent more swept area than earlier generations, allowing capture of even more wind energy for each turbine,” he said.
New York Times Bits section

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Light Fair 2010

Light Fair
I went to the light fair this May in Vegas. The Light Fair is the biggest conference in the lighting industry. This is where all the new lighting products are shown. This year is a good year for the green market. About 80% oof all lights shown all lights shown on the trade floor were LED tech based lights.
LED s are amazing technology they have a life many times longer than traditional lighting. This is great because the cost of replacement and disposal is much lower. These lights are also more efficient, lowering lighting energy costs, requiring lower voltage and emitting less heat. The other great thing about them is they are solid state and can be made very small while retaining their brightness. This is allowing for all new light fixture designs and applications.
This is a bright new technology that is coming right at a time when we most need it. It is still a bit more expensive but rapidly pays itself off in savings but soon due to the type of the needs for manufacture it will soon be much more affordable due to its grabbing more of the market share.

Look into these LED lights as soon as you can and start working towards a greener future.

This is a great place to get affordable LED lights that are extremely dependable.
http://www.aibcusa.com/