Silicon Valley startup Bloom Energy has invented a small power plant in a square shape device about the size of a brick that is said to be able to power an entire home.
The Bloom Box will allow home owners to generate electricity wirelessly, with the company’s ultimate goal being to rid the need for big power plants and transmission line grids. The project came about as co-founder and CEO K.R. Srindhar was approached by NASA to find a way to make life sustainable on Mars while working as a director at the University of Arizona’s Space Technologies Laboratory. The first project his lab came up with was a device that would use solar power and Martian water to drive a reactor cell that generated oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to power vehicles, then came the Bloom Box.
The Bloom Box is a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that uses liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons (such as gasoline, diesel or propane produced from fossil or bio sources) to generate electricity on the site where it will be used, According to the company, a single cell (one 100mm × 100mm metal alloy plate between two ceramic layers) generates 25 watts. Sridhar said, "The Bloom box is intended to replace the grid…for its customers. It’s cheaper than the grid, it’s cleaner than the grid."
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