North Carolina Regulators Approve Apple's Plans for 4.8-Megawatt Fuel Cell Facility at Maiden Data Center

[SeattleMoose]

Fast Forward One Year

Microsoft and Google have both announced plans today for Megawatt Fuel Cell facilities to support their data centers. You JUST KNOW it is coming

 

[thekev]

That's great news.

I wonder how greenpeace will ignore this piece of news?

Greenpeace makes me sad. They could be a great organization given their recognition. They could publish articles with good information and real details on their conclusions rather than fluff. It is important how these large data centers are built given the potential cumulative impact over decades of future service. I just wish they would use information rather than pandering and fear mongering. I hate those kinds of tactics no matter who is using them.

 

[dasmb]

Make one affordable to power a home and I can say FU to the rest of the world.

Probably not the best idea. Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, these kinds of fuel cells depend on a high temperature reaction at around 1000ºF. Besides the inherent danger of installing something hotter than a pottery kiln near where your kids play, waste heat means decreased efficiency as the size of the installation drops. Better to get a megawatt sized unit for your neighborhood and sell the unused juice back to the grid.

Of course, you're still going to have to get the fuel, which means a source of natural gas or biofuels and a way to refine them so you don't gunk up your power system with a lot of impurities. That pretty much ties you to a grid.

Your best bet for off-grid living is still a big bank of solar or wind and an array of chemical batteries. Failing that, a propane generator is pretty nice.

 

[hansende]

My wife has plenty of "biogas". I would be willing to gladly have her collect it and send it to North Carolina.

 

[coder12]

We'll still need more power if we want to be able to use the flux capacitor! Keep building these fuel cells, eventually we'll get there!

 

[Benzman]

Bloom boxes spew out CO2. Not so great.

Reality check: Humans spew CO2.

 

[justperry]

I hear that there are some smaller scale pebble reactors that are supposed to be quite safe compared with the old style fuel rod models although there is still the issue with storage, transport and safe disposal of the spent fuel.

Or a thorium nuclear reactor, many advantages over conventional reactors.

 

[ptb42]

natural gas ?!?!?!

go watch the documentary "Gasland"

Fracking causes some of the worst environmental damage outside of radiation

it poisons the water supply with tons of carcinogens

enough so that you can set tap water on fire in some cases!

Search for "Gasland Debunked" on Google.

The film maker misrepresented several issues, and outright made some others up. And the "burning tap water" was found to be biogenic (naturally occuring), and not caused by any drilling. In one location, the phenomena had been occurring decades before any drilling occurred.

 

[Tailpike1153]

You know that GreenPeace will find more "problems." The trucks bringing the fuel cells are green. The tie-down straps aren't made from recyclable materials. The installers ate Wendy's instead of Chipotle.

 

[sporadicMotion]

Pffft. Mine is 1.21 gigawatts.

 

[KingJosh]

Bloom boxes spew out CO2. Not so great.

Do you want the potential risk of a problem with nuclear waste, or the certainty of a problem with CO2 generation?

i don't know much about bloom, but if it is the greenest solution as they say then the CO2 producing must be extremely slim. Extremely slim CO2 vs possible radioactive area. I know I would choose CO2

 

[dasmb]

i don't know much about bloom, but if it is the greenest solution as they say then the CO2 producing must be extremely slim. Extremely slim CO2 vs possible radioactive area. I know I would choose CO2

The emissions from fuel cells are far less pollutive than if the same about of natural gas had been burned, which is in turn far less pollutive than burning petroleum, which is in turn far less pollutive than coal.

And unlike these other technologies, the carbon byproduct is easily sequestered, if that's your thing. There are, after all, only two byproducts -- CO2 and water. Water comes out the bottom, CO2 comes out the top.

As for nuclear -- the amount of fuel waste is low, but adjunct waste is really high. Since anything that touches the fuel has a half life, nuclear gets pretty dirty pretty quick -- and it's the kind of dirt that can kill you for millions of years. Fission is a ridiculous mistake for mass fuel generation unless you need enriched plutonium, which we no longer do. Save the uranium for space flights and buy a big goddamn solar farm in the desert.

 

[G4-power]

CO2-wise these Bloom boxes seem very good. They claim 773 lbs/MW-hr which is about 351 g/kWh. This amount is very good, especially for only electricity production.

Natural gas or similar biogas is a good fuel in any case, as it is usually mostly methane. Methane and other similar short hydrocarbons have more hydrogen and less carbon than say oil or coal. This results in less CO2 per MW. When natural gas is burned into pure heat about 200 g/kWh (heat) of CO2 is produced. This is because of the lower amount of carbon vs. hydrogen in the fuel. Compared to this amount 350 g/kWh in making electricity is not bad. And considering it is biogas they are burning, the produced CO2 is compensated, as opposed to natural gas.

It all comes down to the chemistry of the fuel, and the efficiency of the process. If the fuel is "carbon-heavy", more CO2 will be produced. If the energy conversion process is efficient, there will be less CO2 per produced energy.

Bloom does not state a very accurate efficiency for their boxes, they say only that it is ">50%" of LHV. This is very good, and considering that you don't need the electricity grid and the losses of the network, this sounds very good. It's not entirely exceptional in terms of efficiency though. Siemens has been able to take efficiency up to 60.75% at their Irsching 4 CCGT plant. Same kind of fuel, completely different technology.

 

[AidenShaw]

i don't know much about bloom, but if it is the greenest solution as they say then the CO2 producing must be extremely slim. Extremely slim CO2 vs possible radioactive area. I know I would choose CO2

The emissions from fuel cells are far less pollutive than if the same about of natural gas had been burned, which is in turn far less pollutive than burning petroleum, which is in turn far less pollutive than coal.

And unlike these other technologies, the carbon byproduct is easily sequestered, if that's your thing. There are, after all, only two byproducts -- CO2 and water. Water comes out the bottom, CO2 comes out the top.

According to this analysis, a Bloom Box is less efficient and dirtier than a modern combined cycle natural gas generating plant.

They are better than coal, though.

 

[G4-power]

According to this analysis, a Bloom Box is less efficient and dirtier than a modern combined cycle natural gas generating plant.

They are better than coal, though.

Pretty good analysis, seems legit. What I don't like about Bloom is their odd way to give out data. Everything doesn't quite add up.

Anyway, yep, modern combined cycle plants are way more effective. One simple reason is that bigger plants can be thermally more efficient. In addition to that, proper power plants can be used to produce process heat (steam) and district heating taking their effectiveness even higher.

I'm not saying Bloom boxes aren't good, they just aren't heaven on earth, and they aren't suitable in every place.

 

[Wondercow]

Pffft. Mine is 1.21 gigawatts.

Great Scott!