Talk:Bloom Energy Server

60 Minutes story

According to the counter on their web site this is getting ready to go public. This article is going to need updating.FX (talk) 03:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sridhar

Can we get a little biography of the guy? or should there be another page for this man? 58.179.137.71 (talk) 04:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Article balance

The article does not accurately reflect the balance of the press coverage, which has been mixed. I've added sources to the feasibility section and toned down some of the glow (it really isn't necessary to list the CEO's educational degrees in the introduction), but the overall structure and most sections need a review by other experienced eyes for balance. This article was created three days ago and has had very few authors. Durova⁴¹² 01:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Then where should his education and background info be? Should there be a Sridhar page like there is a Larry Page page? 58.179.137.71 (talk) 09:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please put that and his University of Arizona work into a biography article. I could help you start to create one. Durova⁴¹² 16:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, this should solve it. I've created K.R. Sridhar. For starters it's basically just a cut and paste stub of a few lines that were outside the scope of the company article. The information was referenced and is very relevant for the founder's biography. Please expand pre-Bloom Energy information about Sridhar there. Thanks, Durova⁴¹² 16:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, virtually all the content so far is company data from their website or press conference, albeit much has had a quick lookover by business newsies. This is a chronic problem for our articles about privately held companies. I'm afraid we still need an NPOV tag. User:LeadSongDog come howl 18:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure the NPOV tag is more appropriate than the breaking news tag, at this point? We're getting pretty near an accurate reflection of the available sources. The sources themselves just haven't had much time and information. Durova⁴¹² 22:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hydrolysis

Reposting edit summary for clarity:

Hydrolysis consumes energy, and simply reversing hydrolysis is not a feasible source of energy on earth because free hydrogen is lighter than air. The statement could be relevant to the CEO's biography (he may be notable to have one).

This is basic high school level chemistry and physics: free hydrogen will react with other elements or bond with itself to form H₂ and escape earth gravity. The paragraph reads like an attempt to coatrack a rather loose NASA connection into the company history, based solely upon the CEO's prior University of Arizona affiliation. No objection to starting a biography about him and including something along those lines there. Durova⁴¹² 03:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Clarity

Please be careful about shuffling sentences and the confusion that could create for readers. A recent reordering made it appear that one of the venture capitalists was refuting a statement about fuel cell manufacturing costs with an assertion about kilowatt hour costs. Durova⁴¹² 03:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

NextCell related?

At this, this, and this we see what appear to be the same 10cm square cells five years ago. Made by NexTech Materials and marketed as "NextCell" Any relation? User:LeadSongDog come howl 20:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Coffee shop?

The statement: "a single cell (one metal alloy plate between the two ceramic layers) produces enough power for a light bulb (25w) and 64 cells produce enough for a coffee shop" sets my BS detector going. Who can run a coffee shop on 1.6kW? That's enough for a single domestic coffee maker. Going full out, it could make one 250ml cup of coffee per minute. Even Starbucks isn't that slow. User:LeadSongDog come howl 21:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Might be a good idea to double check all technical paraphrases. The IP address that contributed a lot of the positive content seems to lack understanding of engineering and chemistry. Durova⁴¹² 21:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The cited Guardian article says of the CEO "He declares that one such stack, or cell, can power a light bulb; 64 can power a coffee shop." The problem isn't the paraphrasing, it's that reporters don't always do the math.User:LeadSongDog come howl 22:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem with covering that here at en:wiki is we can't do original research. At Wikinews it's allowable. Rather fun to skewer that kind of reporting. If you want to start a parallel article there, drop me a link. I have admin ops at that project. Durova⁴¹² 22:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys, good idea. I removed the coffee shop comparison. InternetMeme (talk) 22:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Good solution. Durova⁴¹² 23:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Engadget.com citations

I had started to reduce the engadget.com citations, but they seem to be spreading again. Their company profile states that they're a startup that was created a few years ago in concert with Weblogs, Inc.[1] It's debatable whether they count as a reliable source. Please use other sources; with this much media attention better alternatives shouldn't be hard to find. Durova⁴¹² 22:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sources getting updated

An IP address recently removed a mention of Google on a not in source cited basis. Turns out the San Jose Mercury News updated its story during the interim and appears to have cut that fact. Similar things might be happening with other sources used in the article. Durova⁴¹² 00:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's another reason for WP:NOTNEWS. It seems that after a day or two news publisher tend to stabilize stories. I suppose we'll have to revisit each story on Friday to validate the coverage. User:LeadSongDog come howl 02:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, if the article hadn't already been at stub class this would have been much better for Wikinews. Durova⁴¹² 03:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Splitting article

The company Bloom Energy has no notability outside the subject of this article. The only other reason for splitting that section would be if it was too long to be contained comfortably in this article.

Chemical reaction is wrong

The combustion reaction of methane, as written in the article, is not at all correct. If someone wants to show that there is a flow of electrons occurring, they should give the half reactions or just link to combustion of methane. Tarheels 100 (talk) 04:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Gas fired power plant efficiency

An expert at Gerson Lehrman Group, wrote that, given today's electricity transmission losses of about 7% and utility size gas fired power stations efficiency of 26-48%

Some expert. There are gas fired power stations with better generating efficiency than that. See combined cycle gas turbine. The GE Energy H System gets 60% efficiency. If you use combined heat and power you get even better energetic efficiency. The burn outputs are mostly the same (CO2, H2O). Fuel cells have their uses, you would want them in smaller sized installations where combustion would not be as efficient. But blatant lies will not help them get business. Quasarstrider (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you may be missing something here. The utility will run its most efficient units as base load, saving the less efficient units for load following. The marginal effect of adding new high efficiency distributed generation is to offload the low efficiency load follower sources, which may very well be below 48%. Thank you though for the comparative reference material, it was instructive.User:LeadSongDog come howl 06:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

kw an kwh

The installed Bloom Boxes are rated at 100kw. But the electricity consumed in my house, according to my bill, is 15-18kwh per day. So what sized Bloom Box would I need for my house? 58.179.137.25 (talk) 15:03, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

On average? The day has 24h, so if you use under 18/24 or 0.75kW, far too little for a 100kW unit to be economic.User:LeadSongDog come howl 05:58, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

orders of magnitude

"The current cost of each hand-made 100 kW Bloom Energy Server is $700,000–800,000. In the next stage, which will likely be mass production of home-sized units, Sridhar hopes to more than halve the cost of each of home sized Bloom servers to under $3000." Huh? While technically, reducing 700,000 to less than 3000 IS "more than halving" it, would it not be much better to say, for instance, "reduce the cost by two orders of magnitude"? malenkylizards 151.196.92.247 (talk) 14:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The $700,000 unit is for an office not a home. It generates 100KW in one hour so in 24 hours or one day it generates 2400KWH. The house above shows 15-18KWH per day so (18KWH/2400KWH)*$700,000 Is $5250. Then half of that is $2625 much less than $3000. The problem is to make it smaller for about half the price. Dsmith7707 (talk) 16:56, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

No, it generates 100 kW average electrical power. Sustained for one hour, it generates 100 kW · h electrical energy. Sustained for 24h it generates 2.4 MW · h electrical energy. It also produces heat (a.k.a. "thermal energy") but that's not what you're referring to. Please be careful about these abbreviations, they mean something. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I have a B.S.E.E and a M. S. E. E. and do a lot of computer programming. I use k for 1024 and K for 1000. Maybe I should reverse that. I didn’t know that the h in hour should be lowercase and hyphenated. The heat is only used to keep the reaction going not for extraction. And why are you so picky this is just a discussion not the main page. Dsmith7707 (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You say "It generates 100KW in one hour". I'm so picky because I worry about editors becoming confused. While few laypeople would confuse speed with distance, it seems a great many confuse power with energy. I'd hate to have any additional editors here operating under that misconception. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

It will be nice to see a clear cut environmental benefits spelled out and what are those in comparison to. A table of input resource and output resource of Bloom product and other product-- say a conventional power plant will help. samamehtaSamamehta (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)