Bloom Energy Produces Fuel Cells For Homes – Bloom Box Unveiled on CBS 60 Minutes Show

Bloom Energy will be telling the world about their company Wednesday, but we have uncovered some information regarding their technology. Rather than use expensive platinum and hydrogen to generate power from a fuel cell, the company uses inexpensive silicon wafers painted with a special ink with natural gas.

Each Bloom Box is made up of 64 wafers with green ink painted on one side and black on the other. Made from beach sand, the ceramic wafers are stacked and separated by inexpensive metal plates before being place in a small box. The box only measures about 6-inches square but can provide enough energy to maintain a house in Europe.

The small box is central to the technology. You will also need a gas like methane (renewable bio-gas) or natural gas. Previously, fuel-cell technology used expensive hydrogen to create a current. The cost and energy to produce the hydrogen gas was a problem. Natural gas is in abundance.

The company has not revealed details and their website is very barren with information, but it is believed that the gas is used to push protons and electrons through the wafer. Typical fuel cells use a proton-conducting polymer membrane to separate the anode and cathode.

The company hopes to see their boxes power homes. John Doerr, venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers which is financing the venture, told Leslie Stahl with CBS 60 Minutes, “The Bloom box is intended to replace the grid…for its customers. It’s cheaper than the grid, it’s cleaner than the grid.”

The Bloom Box technology appears to be viable and has been used by Wal-Mart, Staples, eBay, Google, and other companies. The solid-oxide fuel cell is considered very efficient and could be the solution to the world’s energy problem.

In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard. You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines. It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.

60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl walks with eBay CEO John Donahoe near some of the company's Bloom Box fuel cells in this screengrab from the program. Experts say Bloom Energy's goal of powering many US households in 10 years is a lofty one.

60 Minutes screengrab/CBS

“The buzz is sort of a mix of excitement and befuddlement,” says Joel Makower, executive editor of Greener World Media. “It has to do with the fact that this is by no means the first fuel cell company to promote clean energy.”

To succeed where others have failed, he says, Bloom Energy will have to show its fuel cell technology is cheap enough for consumers while being adaptable enough for big business.

As the Next Big Future blog pointed out, the Connecticut company Fuel Cell Energy has been installing fuel cell units since the 1990s, but lost $71 million last year.

Source: http://www.digitalnewsreport.com/2010/02/22-bloom-energy-produces-fuel-cells-bloom-box-unveiled-on-cbs-60-minutes-show/3273

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0222/Bloom-Box-generates-buzz-skepticism-with-60-Minutes-spot

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/the_bloom_box_an_energy_breakthroug.html

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http://www.digitalnewsreport.com/2010/02/22-bloom-energy-produces-fuel-cells-bloom-box-unveiled-on-cbs-60-minutes-show/3273

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0222/Bloom-Box-generates-buzz-skepticism-with-60-Minutes-spot

Uneven Growth in India: UN Study

A new United Nations study finds that India's recent economic growth has been an uneven one. Uneven meaning that some states in India have had poverty numbers reduced while others have increased.

From Headlines India, we find out more of the study's conclusions.

"In recent years, economic growth has been relatively high in three largest countries in the region, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, which recorded annual growth per capita above 5 percent in 2000-2006," according to "Rethinking Poverty" report of the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

"As a result, the sub-region saw the proportion of those living in extreme poverty decline in relative terms, from a high of 59 percent in 1981 to 40 percent in 2005," it said.

"However, such growth has not been sufficiently inclusive and pro-poor to reduce the absolute numbers of people living in poverty. Income inequalities have grown steadily in India since the 1980s, in borh urban and rural areas."

Giving some examples, the report says the levels of poverty varied significantly within India where Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu saw the share of poor decline from 18 percent in 1993-94 to 15 percent in 1999-2000.

At the same time, the share of the total number of poor in Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal jumped from 57 percent to 63 percent during the same period.

"Therefore, although there has been a steady decline in the incidence of poverty in India, the efforts of the government have not resulted in a uniform impact across regions. There remain regions where poverty is still deep and severe and hence require greater attention."

Source : http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/uneven-growth-in-india-un-study.html

India may have lost Siberian Cranes for ever

For the tenth consecutive year, the majestic Siberian Cranes - among the most endangered birds in the world - have skipped India this winter, say experts.

They apprehend that the Siberian Cranes are unlikely to ever come to the Bharatpur region of Rajasthan again as they have apparently changed their centuries-old migratory route from Siberia to India.

"These birds have not been sighted in the famous Keoladeo National Park of Bharatpur or any other place in northern India. It is clear that their route has undergone a change owing to a variety of reasons," Dilawar Mohammed, ornithologist with the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), said.

The last time a pair of Siberian Cranes (Grus leucogeranus) was spotted in this park was way back in 2001.

"After that it has been a disappointment for bird lovers, ornithologists and tourists who used to go there for a glimpse of these royal birds," Mohammed said.

He explained that the Siberian Cranes' route to India was through Afghanistan. The adult birds stand as tall as 91 inches and can weigh over 10 kg.

Dodging the bombings by US fighter jets which tried to root out the erstwhile Taliban regime in October 2001 and after the 9/11 strikes in the US, the Siberian Cranes managed to reach India for the last time.

According to another bird lover and breeder Nigam Pandya, the Siberian Cranes or the Great White Cranes have not been sighted in this part of the world since 2001, indicating that they have skipped India completely.

"Presently, as per authoritative international estimates, there are barely 3,200 Siberian Cranes left in the world, making them among the most endangered species like the tiger or the Himalayan Pandas," Pandya said.

Depending on their breeding habitats, the Siberian Cranes were classified into central, western and eastern populations.

While the central population, which used to come to India during winters for over two centuries, is now considered extinct, the western population spends its winters in Iran.

Only the eastern population with about 3,000 birds is still strong, but it is also under severe threat owing to changes in their wintering areas in China, one of them the construction of the huge Three Gorges Dam, Mohammed said.

Usually, the Siberian Cranes would start flying towards India in mid-October and stay here till March or April.

At its peak, in 1965, Bharatpur hosted over 200 Siberian Cranes. Less than 30 years later, in 1993, only five were sighted there.

Then, after a gap of three years, four were spotted in 1996. That was reduced to barely a pair of these birds by the late 1990s, following by the last pair seen in 2001.

Besides the loss of natural habitat in most parts where they lived and bred, Mohammed said, there have been reports of hunting of these huge birds in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the recent past.

The Siberian Cranes have always fascinated scientists for their ability to fly distances of over 2,500 km to escape the cold winter of Siberia.

En route, they flew over Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and then to northwestern India. One of their brief halting points was the Abi-I-Istada Lake in Afghanistan. From there it took them around eight weeks to reach Bharatpur.

The US-based International Crane Foundation says the eastern population breeds in northeastern Siberia and spends winters along the central Yangtze river of China.

The sparse Western population spends its winter along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea in Iran and breeds near the south of the Ob river which runs to the east of the Ural Mountains of Russia.

The central population that nested in western Siberia and flew down for warm winters to Bharatpur is no more.

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/India-may-have-lost-Siberian-Cranes-for-ever/articleshow/5553272.cms

India

India is a diverse land where people of many religions, race and community live. As many as 30 languages with different scripts exist here. Main problem of the country is its huge population and poverty. 1.25 billion Population of India is the second largest in the world. More than 40% of the population live on less than 1$ a day.

Issues are many, problems are there and increasing with every going day. Is there any solution? How to go forward and take the country to the level of developed countries?? Big big question…