Fuel Cells Are Blooming

In just three days an up until now “secret” company called Bloom Energy will be  revealing to the world its potentially revolutionary new fuel cell system-The Bloom Box. Why revolutionary?

Well, according to Bloom’s founder and CEO, K.R. Sridhar, the boxes create electricity by a chemical process that utilizes oxygen and fuel, but involves no combustion. They can run on almost any hydrocarbon fuel, like ethanol, biodiesel, methane or natural gas.The components (such as beach sand) are cheaply and easily obtained.  Bloom Boxes have been designed to fit into a backyard or several of them can be configured to run a large business or industrial site. The Bloom Box System will be able to  produce both heat and electricity and veritably replace the electric grid on which we run today. Sridhar says each large box – which can power about 100 homes – currently sells for $700-800,000.

Sound like a Pipe Dream? Well, apparently beginning with Google, Bloom Boxes have been running large business plants for several months now. Ebay, Walmart, Staples  and FedEx are among the 20 others who have been testing the Bloom Box successfully.

On 60 Minutes tonight, Lesley Stahl had the exclusive interview with CEO, K.R. Sridhar and also spoke with  the CEO of ebay, John Donohoe who confirmed that Bloom Boxes were installed at his corporate campus nine months ago. He says the boxes already saved them over $100,000 in electricity bills.

It’s been very successful thus far. [The Bloom Boxes] have done what they said they would do. The five boxes are able to produce five times as much electricity as the 3,248 solar panels that E-bay installed on its campus roofs. The footprint for Bloom is much more efficient,

Bloom recieved over $400 million in startup investment from Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm, Kleiner Perkins’ partner, John Doerr, making it one of the most expensive startups in history.He has high hopes for this, his first investment in clean energy.

Right now, Bloom is building one Bloom Box per day. Although the corporate world has been secretly testing these $700,000.00 boxes, optimistically, they hope to produce a smaller home version in the next decade that will cost only $3,000.

Here is a short video clip from the CBS 60 Minutes Broadcast tonight.

On Wednesday morning many big wigs including Governor,Arnold Schwarzenegger , General Colin Powell  and others will attend the official unveiling to the press in San Jose, California. Let us know what you think the future is for this technology.