Image via WikipediaBloom's technology is cheaper and more efficient than others because of proprietary technology that enables it to use low-cost materials — sand and ink — in 4-inch-by-4-inch fuel cells as thick as business cards. One cell powers a light bulb. Bloom stacks them together to produce more power.
Bloom's big breakthrough was reducing breakage by figuring out how to get the cells and the metal plates that go between them in the stacks to expand and shrink at the same rate at temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit). The high heat makes the fuel more reactive and the cell more efficient, Sridhar says. The heat also enables use of different fuels, making the tech easier and cheaper to deploy, he says.
Bloom's big breakthrough was reducing breakage by figuring out how to get the cells and the metal plates that go between them in the stacks to expand and shrink at the same rate at temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit). The high heat makes the fuel more reactive and the cell more efficient, Sridhar says. The heat also enables use of different fuels, making the tech easier and cheaper to deploy, he says.
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More communities are turning trash into power.
Nationwide, the number of landfill gas projects, which convert methane gas emitted from decomposing garbage into power, jumped from 399 in 2005 to 519 last year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-02-24-landfill-energy_N.htm
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