I dream of a playa without gasoline....or generator noise or

manowar · Post by **manowar** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 12:15 am

Wow I just found this on the net the other day and had to share.
http://www.mgeups.com/products/pdt120/a ... /index.htm
I know all you alternative energy people are saying 'fuelcells, yeah big deal, old news' Well the cool thing about this is YOU CAN ACTUALLY BUY IT!
Yup that's right if you really wanted you could have one of these things out at the burn this year. Of course for $6500 you'd have to be really commited to alternative energy sources, but still. I've heard a ton about what we will someday do with fuel cells, how they'll power cell phones and computers and maybe cars, but this is the first usable fuel cell product I've seen on the market.
So basically this thing is the size of your average gas generator, produces about the same power (3KVA or about 1000W) but has no moving parts besides a valve or two - so it's real quiet, and the only polution it produces is water (fuel cells use Hydrogen for fuel instead of gas). The really cool part is that this company has a prototype they're demoing for a 30 KVA power output. That 's a hugh amount of power. You could run an entire raver camp off one of those babies and the only noise your neibors would complain about is the music itself. It really gives you an idea of how things will change over the next decade.

DVD Burner · Post by **DVD Burner** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 12:47 am

I'm looking foward to see the response on this.

I tried suggesting this and other energy sources and.......well......

good luck.

really.

I think it's an awsome idea.

manowar · Post by **manowar** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 1:05 am

Maybe I should tell you that I'm an electrical engineer. I took a laptop out to the playa last year and have been looking into buying a Honda generator for this year. I'm all infavor of power on the playa. After all what would BM be without all the lights and the music? What I found so cool about that product is just the fact that it exists. I think we all kind of assume that there are a few trade offs that we have to make inorder to have those things, like generator noise and polution. This product line questions those assumptions. Yeah the current model isn't going to put gas generators out of buisness, but imagine where we'll be in 5 or 10 years.

er1c · Post by **er1c** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 5:59 am

Right after the big blackout, I was a typical consumer and rushed out and purchased the little, super quiet, Honda generator (e2000 or something?). It is *AMAZINGLY* quiet! (10 feet away and you can barely hear it). But at $700 it wasn't worth keeping just for emergency use, so I returned it. Now that Im coming back home, I wish I would have kept it.

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 8:02 am

It'd be hard to imagine BRC without the amazing lights and electric attractions, and generators are a necessary evil, but it's important to consider exactly what it is that you need juice for and whether or not you could do without the genny.....Hushville and AEZ got along just fine, although it wasn't exactly lit up like a carnival midway. Then again, that was kinda the point......

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:26 am

wounder how much those trailor mounted generators cost to rent. they are big enough to run four or five theme camps. think colective corp.