Thursday

Sridhar electrifies the world with magic Bloom box

On Wednesday Dr. K.R.Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, a company in Silicon valley USA revealed the much awaited scientific invention “ Bloom Box: a fuel-cell.” described as a power plant in a box.The invention looks like a miracle if the claims of Bloom Energy are 100 percent true.

Dr. K.R.Sridhar,Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering, University of Madras Tamil Nadu ,India, M.S. in Nuclear Engineering and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona. Advisor to NASA in nanotechnology and planetary missions

In a press conference in USA to officially launch Bloom box, Mr.Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California rightly compared this event by saying that 160 years ago people flocked to California for the gold rush and that same spirit is alive in Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box. Colin Powel( Former secretary of state USA) Brian Kelly (Coca-Cola) Larry Page( Google) , John Donahoe( eBay) and Bill Simon( Walmart) attended the Bloom Box launch.

Dr. K.R.Sridhar already had said “We believe that we can have the same kind of impact on energy that the mobile phone had on communications. Just as cell phones circumvented landlines to proliferate telephony, Bloom Energy will enable the adoption of distributed power as a smarter, localized energy source… It will allow customers to lower their energy costs, reduce their carbon footprint, improve their energy security.”

This fuel cell is expected to quench the thirst for future energy needs in homes, business houses and Industries where energy shall be produced in situ. What better dream can come true if ourselves can produce cheap and emission free electricity at our backyard replacing the conventional power we get from hydel, thermal and atomic power plants transmitted from far away lands?

This invention has kindled the scientific temper all over the world unprecedented in this century. In the history of science at the time of industrial revolution many tried to invent a perpetual machine using the gravitational force. But friction always retarded or stopped the objects from continuous movement. Later turbines and internal combustion engines were invented to tap the energy. In this century more information on the matter from nano to cosmic level are openly available and the thoughts of innovators stray into less traveled areas with a thrust on Environment.

The bloom box of Sridhar contains ceramic disks coated with a special type of green and black inks. The disks are separated by metal plates. The input hydrocarbons are pumped from adjacent tank. This hydrocarbon may be of any fuel such as natural gas or diesel. The oxygen combines with fuels to trigger a chemical reaction to produce electricity. There is no combustion. Each wafer of ceramic can produce 25 watts.From a bread loaf sized unit of fuel cell one kilowatt of electricity can be produced. More units of power boxes can be putgother to build a big box to power a campus.The secret in this innovation is the methods of coating green and black dyes on the ceramic.

The ceramic wafers with dye

Sridhar explains “For the same amount of electricity, you need half the fuel…If you use a renewable fuel you are carbon neutral. Use all the electricity you want and don’t feel guilty about polluting the environment.”

How Dr. Sridhar got this idea is another story. Mr. Sridhar was asked by NASA to find a way to make life sustainable in Mars where there is no oxygen. Initially Sridhar invented one reactor driven by solar power combined with Martian water to generate oxygen required for breathing , at the same time producing hydrogen to power vehicles. That was meant for Mars not for the earth. Later in the Bloom energy venture Sridhar reversed the same idea to feed oxygen and hydrogen into a cell to generate electricity.