Industrial Revolution 2

Bloom Energy Promises Cheap, Emissions-Free Power From a Small Box

Google, eBay, FedEx have already started using Bloom Boxes
By Jeremy HsuPosted
02.22.2010 at 11:58 am24

Bloom Box Can these boxes do away with traditional power plants and the power grid? CBSA boxy power plant that could one day produce efficient, inexpensive, clean energy in every home might sound like a pipe dream, but its the very real product of a Silicon Valley startup called Bloom Energy. Twenty large corporations that include Google, FedEx, Walmart and eBay have already purchased and begun testing the Bloom Boxes. 60 Minutes recently got a sneak peek at this possibly game-changing energy device.

See the rest of the article here: Bloom Energy Promises Cheap, Emissions-Free Power From a Small Box | Popular Science.

Technology Review: Sun + Water = Fuel

By Kevin Bullis

With catalysts created by an MIT chemist, sunlight can turn water into hydrogen. If the process can scale up, it could make solar power a dominant source of energy.

  Daniel Nocera describes the challenges of artificial photosynthesis in a talk given before his recent advance.

“I’m going to show you something I haven’t showed anybody yet,” said Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, speaking this May to an auditorium filled with scientists and U.S. government energy officials. He asked the house manager to lower the lights. Then he started a video. “Can you see that?” he asked excitedly, pointing to the bubbles rising from a strip of material immersed in water. “Oxygen is pouring off of this electrode.” Then he added, somewhat cryptically, “This is the future. We’ve got the leaf.”

Here’s the article…

AFP:

France sets plan to double green share of electricity market

“Solar is the big one.”

PARIS (AFP) — France on Monday published details of plans to double the share of renewable sources in its electricity market to meet a 2020 EU objective.

Solar will spearhead the challenge to give renewables a 23-percent share of the electricity mix by 2020, compared with 10.3 percent in 2005, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said, as he unveiled the 50-point plan.

“Solar is the big one,” said Borloo. “In industrial terms, and in terms of lower industrial costs, it’s there that we have the biggest capacity.”

He contended that solar energy would be competitive with other sources “around 2020.”

Here’s the article…