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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6691115" data-attributes="member: 177">If you mean, what is the efficiency of the Bloom Box as compared to the traditional generator of the same type?&nbsp; I don't know.&nbsp; That's not a matter of theory, such that I can ballpark a guess.&nbsp; That's entirely dependent on the engineering details.Something to note when considering the cost of a generation system - to honestly compare, you need to compare end-to-end.&nbsp; For traditional generation, you have losses from power transmission through wires to your home.&nbsp; However, there's a cost to distributing fuel in teh Bloom Box as well - say we are using those big propane tanks - you *drive a truck* to deliver it, so the gas used in that truck counts against the Bloom Box.The only straight water -&gt; fuel I know of is taking water and splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen.&nbsp; You can do this just by running a current through it - a normal high-school science experiment.&nbsp; The basic problem is that it takes a lot of electricity to do this, so it isn't terribly cost-effective - you don't get more Hydrogen energy out than you put electrical energy in.&nbsp; Another difficulty is that, when you take it to an industrial scale, impurities in the water matter.&nbsp; Since the water bubbles off as H2 and O2, any impurities are left behind, and they tend to gunk up production - getting on the electrodes, making them less efficient, and so on.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6691115, member: 177"] If you mean, what is the efficiency of the Bloom Box as compared to the traditional generator of the same type? I don't know. That's not a matter of theory, such that I can ballpark a guess. That's entirely dependent on the engineering details. Something to note when considering the cost of a generation system - to honestly compare, you need to compare end-to-end. For traditional generation, you have losses from power transmission through wires to your home. However, there's a cost to distributing fuel in teh Bloom Box as well - say we are using those big propane tanks - you *drive a truck* to deliver it, so the gas used in that truck counts against the Bloom Box. The only straight water -> fuel I know of is taking water and splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen. You can do this just by running a current through it - a normal high-school science experiment. The basic problem is that it takes a lot of electricity to do this, so it isn't terribly cost-effective - you don't get more Hydrogen energy out than you put electrical energy in. Another difficulty is that, when you take it to an industrial scale, impurities in the water matter. Since the water bubbles off as H2 and O2, any impurities are left behind, and they tend to gunk up production - getting on the electrodes, making them less efficient, and so on. [/QUOTE]

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