Pepperidge Farm Opens Largest Fuel Cell Plant In United States
I have Pepperidge Farm to thank for my Goldfish addiction, and now I’d like to thank the company once again for making strides towards sustainability. Earlier today, Pepperidge Farm dedicated the largest fuel cell plant in the United States at its Bloomfield, CT bakery. The 1.2 MW plant will supply 57 percent of the 260,000 square foot facility’s power.
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The new plant is Pepperidge Farm’s second foray into fuel cells— the company opened a 250 kW plant in 2006. Together, the two fuel cell plants will provide 70 percent of the bakery’s power. Excess heat from the new fuel cell will be used to support bakery processes, thereby reducing the fuel needs of plant boilers.
Pepperidge Farm’s new DFC fuel cell was built by Fuel Cell Energy, Inc. The cell operates at 47 percent electrical efficiency. When excess heat from the cell is used for bakery processes, it operates at up to 80 percent efficiency. In addition to lowering power costs for the company, the fuel cell will also drastically reduce CO2 emissions from the facility.
Yawn, I feel the grocery prices rising as I type!
Jiff
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Fuel cells are useless by themselves–they still need fuel. How do we know they aren’t just using hydrogen from dirty coal? It would be 90+% efficient if they just used electricity made by the coal plant, instead of using the electricity to make hydrogen, then ussing hydrogen o make electricity. If they are running their fuel cells directly off natural gas, why not build a traditional gas turbine, which makes plenty of heat to run the ovens (and probably saves money)? Or why not just burn natural gas directly in the ovens?
Fuel cells are practical in cars because they let us store energy in chemical form and refuel instead of recharge. The energy still has to come from somewhere, whether it is coal, nuclear, or renewable energy.
I feel our human footprint shrinking.
Now if they would only make their cookies healthier and cut out all the cholesterol in them. If they cut out the cheap hydrogenated fats it would be more impressive to me.
While the project itself IS impressive, Matt makes some very good points here. Fuel cell technology is impressive, but he’s correct, the fuel for the fuel cell has to come from somewhere, and while the end may justify the means, can they actually claim that the entire process operates at such a high efficiency?
Matt, the reason that fuel cells are better than gas turbines is because turbines produce co2 from the exhaust whereas a fuel cell produces no such exhaust by first turning the gas into hydrogen which is many fold cleaner when used in a fuel cell.
Burning gas in the oven’s is far from an efficent way to use the fuel because it only gains heat not heat and electricty from it, that is why fuel cells are more efficent.
As for the source of the fuel surely it is better to make as much consolidated use of the fuel rather than burn it in inefficient ways.
Matt,
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it’s difficult to capture in its pure form. Fuel cells offer a resource-efficient way of capturing hydrogen, which is then transformed into energy. They’re not “making” hydrogen per se, just synthesizing it from what’s already there. From a resource perspective (if we were to forget monetary cost, which is a very ego-centric, capitalism-driven model of evaluating the world), fuel cells make a lot of environmental sense.
Pepperidge Farm Heavy Industries Ltd. , in partnership with Hidden Valley Petrochemicals, Inc.