Bloom Box makes official debut Wednesday 02-24-2010

[myocardia]

So, ever heard of the Bloom Box? If the CEO of Bloom Energy has his way, you'll not only be hearing about their boxes, you'll be owning one in the near future. So what is this box, you may be asking yourself. It's a fuel cell that turns oxygen (something we have plenty of here on Earth) and a gas such as methane or natural gas into electricity. Oh yeah, and it was invented by a rocket scientist. Literally.

Sound too good to be true? I thought so myself, until I watched this video from CBS' show 60 Minutes. It turns out that some of the biggest users of electricity in California are already using these boxes. With Google, Fed Ex, WalMart, Ebay, and a few other big names using them, this may very well be the real thing. We'll see, I guess.

[myocardia]

In The New York Times on Wednesday, I wrote about Bloom Energy, the once-secretive Silicon Valley start-up that has apparently made a big breakthrough in developing a fuel cell that can generate electricity at competitive prices while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

The company is officially unveiling its Bloom Energy Server at a news conference on Wednesday morning featuring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California; Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state and a Bloom board member; and John Doerr, Silicon Valley’s leading green-tech investor. But on Monday and Tuesday, I had the opportunity to spend some time at the start-up’s headquarters in Sunnyvale and to see the Bloom box up close.

You can read the rest of the article here.

For those interested, here is a link to the article the author mentions that he wrote for the New York Times.

edit: The most interesting portion of the linked article is that we're finally finding out how exactly efficient this new style of fuel cell happens to be. It makes it extremely interesting to me that the CEO mentions how long they expect each device to last, and the service that may be needed.

[Hydro_Powered]

I remember reading about this just a few weeks ago and thinking it is fantastic.This technology has not only been in use for some time by companies like Google and eBay, but it also getting a lot of attention from the govenator Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think it's a great addition to green energy as we do have large supplies of gas, we just don't want to have to burn them. this seems a perfect stepping stone to renewable energy.

[myocardia]

I like the way you think. That's exactly the way I feel about it. Did you watch the story that I linked? They can not only use natural gas, they can also use methane, and of course anything that can use natural gas can easily be made to use propane or butane. We still have huge amounts of natural gas, propane, and butane, and we have more methane every year. It isn't the answer to all of our energy concerns, but it may very well be the right stepping stone to get us started in the right direction. They just need to get the efficiency higher, and the cost lower, to convince me.

[Hydro_Powered]

You're 100% right, but apparently that is exactly what they are working on now. The inventor stated that he hopes to offer a car battery sized model in the not so distant future that can power a home for a minimum of 10 years at a price tag around $3000.00, it's not cheap but it's in line with what you might expect, and is affordable if it's a priority for you.

However I think the most promise comes in the industrial sized market of which they are currently in. But like you say the prices have to come down, but I can almost guarantee they will.

[myocardia]

Well, I expect it to be at least twice that much, if it ever materializes. Still not a bad deal @ $6,000, though. If the cost of electricity continues to rise as fast as it has shot up in the last 10-15 years, a 3-4,000 watt Bloom Box will still most likely be something worth owning 5 years from now, unless the price of electricity magically starts going down between now and then.