Alternative Energy

[snowman]

Did any of you guys see this on CBS today.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/22/the-bloom-box-a-power-plant-for-the-home-video/

This looks kind of exciting to me.

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

Thats cool.

[lightspeed]

yeah i have seen it , i actually posted it on a different forum before , the only problem with something like this is , the goverment will either deny it being publicly used or a company will offer a big amount of money ( oil company or a link to one and then just not allow it on the market and suppress the technology if someone builds something simular the co. can then sue for infringment and copywrite laws . i imagine the public would be pretty surprised if they actually new how many things was suppressed from the public in the name of "greed !"

[Art]

Yes, but as shown in the video, there are a number of very LARGE corporations and companies who are currently using the Bloom Boxes successfully. Ebay, FedEx, Google, just to name a few and the list is growing.

Soon the company will be taken public.

One can spout doomsday and conspiracy theory but the reality is that the boxes work and they work well.

I think they will be very real in our near future.

Just my $.02

[snowman]

Yeah I agree Art, people aren't really crooked. Politicians love us, bankers only have our benefit in mind and pay no attention to their own personal wealth, and there is no such thing as corruption in our military, police, or judicial system . Ahh, I wish I owned the same glasses you do Art.       

Probably the only reason why the bloom box is being promoted right now is because there is much political preasure to promote such technologies, for both environmental and job growth. But where the real test will lie is how much it will be used and by whom. If it is indeed a relief to energy expenditures of big companies then it ought to do well. If it is continually promoted and properly developed it should be used all over the world like they envisioned. This could be one of those consumer driven inventions the public will demand... one can only hope.

[Art]

My main concern / question is "How much energy does it require to output a certain amount?"

In other words, it doesn't produce something out of nothing so what is the trade off or ratio?

How much propane is required to run an average house for a day?

Usually, even with my glasses, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

[Art]

The video mention that the input is less than 20% of the output.

This device is claiming to produce 80 % of a voltage output and
requiring only a 20% input.

This...is nothing more than a scam to raise money under the guise
of a "greener earth."

In physics, you only get out what you put in.
Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

I saw something as interesting a while back about some Florida man
who was working on an invention that basically allows his car's engine
to run on water as it did his welding / cutting machine.

Where is it?

If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

[snowman]

Where the benefit is to some of this technology is not in making energy out of nothing, but instead to use energy efficiently.

I seen a PBS video that said that only 1% of gasoline's energy is used to actually push the vehicle forward. That said, there are far more energy efficient transfers of energy.

Electric is by far one of the most efficient systems. So any vehicle that is using it as apart of its power should naturally be more efficient. Hybrids cars are very efficient compared to combustion type vehicles.

If you strap a generator to a electric motor you will get a type of battery. The energy is held in a type of electromagnetic wave form. Moving from magnetic to electric and back again. It is kinetic energy. I've seen an electric car powered by such a device. It used it as a mechanical battery.
 
A device that is efficient in converting gas into electricity in a strait-forward way would probably be very efficient, and definitely more efficient than 1%. I’ve heard of Hydrogen cars that attempted to use a device like that to convert hydrogen to electricity, so the car ultimately ran on the electricity. However, they said they were having trouble with the converter corroding. So it looks like the Bloom box would fix this problem.

I think the best option would be to vaporize gasoline and then feed it into the converter, then you could use the electricity to power the car. This would make an even more efficient hybrid car. (Well, at least until gasoline is band by the UN and other world governments.)

Now a simple power plant for a home, based on the previous idea, would be optimal. A little bit of fuel can be stored cheaper than owning lots of batteries. If in the event of a power failure you would be effectively off the grid. I wouldn’t doubt it would be cheaper to run this device (including maintenance) than to import electricity from the power companies if the prices keep climbing upwards.

I’ve seen allot of energy systems and this seems to be one that has the most overall potential for the consumer. Solar is expensive to get started, wind power is too, and both either takes up too much space or can be seen from space  . Magnet systems are no more than very cool batteries. And Nuclear power pants in the backyard can cause quite a stir in the neighborhood  .

It seems like I'm trying to sell it.... lol... we'll eventually we'll see how good it is, assuming we get to. 

[snowman]

I don't know the science of magnetism too deeply but I've heard from the occasional youtube video showcasing their magnet engines that some energy is pulled from the magnets themselves and eventually will kill the them. According to them permanent magnets do runs out of magnetism. Not to say it isn't super efficient.

In order to create energy from nothing you would have to be drawing energy from empty space itself. Strange as it may seem some scientists believe that it can happen and that it is happening now. Of course they also believe that the big bang occurred in this manner. So you can take what they say with a grain of salt. I prefer to stick with the E = MC^2 theory myself.

Because if E = 0 * C ^2 Then E = 0.

According to Eienstein's E = MC^2 energy is not coming from empty space because it can be measured in terms of mass. And I'm pretty sure you cannot measure empty space in terms of mass. The First law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created or destroyed. So if there is a transference of energy then it is leaving from something and going somewhere. In the case of a magnet then it is leaving the magnet to power a house. The magnet will eventually run out of energy.

Now if God was to change the Laws of Physics then that would change everything. I'm not sure He's done that yet, except perhaps only for a few individuals. Not to say He won't. But according to the Laws already set that I'm currently familiar with you cannot get energy from nothing. I'm not sure where Steven Hawkins is getting the idea of spontaneous creation out of nothing, and says it's a property of the universe, so that God is considered, in his words, "redundant".

Unless I'm missing something