SAY ANYTHING: The Bloom Box: “Clean” Energy of the Future?

 On Feb. 21, a promising Silicon Valley company called Bloom Energy went public with news of a breakthrough product in fuel cell technology. The company has been quietly working on energy producing solutions since 2001, but only recently started showing off their innovations to the public. Their principal product is a new solid oxide fuel cell called the Bloom Box which has created significant media and internet buzz.

            K. R. Sridhar, a former NASA engineer and the young company's co-founder and CEO, first revealed his innovation to the world through an installation of "60 Minutes" on CBS. In this segment, he spoke about the Bloom Box and its potential to change the way electricity is provided to the public.    

            The Bloom Box is a fuel cell which creates electricity through electrochemical reactions. It is intended to be eventually marketed to the consumer as a distributed power generator. If the existing power grid we use is like a land-line, the Bloom Box is like a cell phone. It has the potential to create a whole new industry of consumer generators and to render the existing utility market obsolete.

            The fuel cell can produce electricity anywhere and at any time, unlike wind and solar generators. It can operate on a variety of inputs, but natural gas and oxygen would definitely be the most widely available and affordable. The chief draw is that this energy can be produced much more efficiently than through current methods of combustion. Also, although the product has people buzzing, it creates very little noise itself, unlike a combustion generator.

            One huge benefit of on-site energy production is the elimination of power transfer over the electric grid. Currently, between 6-8 percent of all electric energy produced at U.S. power plants is lost through resistance before it ever reaches its destination. The ability to produce electricity at any location could eliminate the need for the grid and make the Bloom Box perfect for application in developing nations and rural areas.

These features make the possibility of an affordable home Bloom Box very attractive. Bloom Energy has already installed huge Bloom Boxes for large corporations looking for "green" PR and electricity savings. Google has been using the fuel cells for the last 18 months and is pleased with their efficacy. However, the product is not yet ready for sale to the general public.

Several issues need to be addressed before the individual consumer can have an opportunity to obtain this technology. The cost of manufacturing the fuel cell is still far too high. Sridhar plans to drive the price down to below $3,000 for a home model, but has not explained how he will accomplish this. Durability could also be a concern. The models need to last for at three to five years to pay for themselves and much longer for the consumer to see any significant savings. The cost and availability of the inputs also needs to be considered.   

Bloom Energy has been hyped by the press as a "green" tech company. Its own Web site advertises its product as "clean" and "sustainable." While Bloom's fuel cell certainly has the potential to deliver a greater amount of electricity per unit of fossil fuel, the fact remains that whenever fossil fuels are used, there will be carbon emissions. To me, that makes the company's claims of eco-friendliness completely disingenuous. Running the Bloom Box on bio-gasses is not a feasible solution for the entire country, and running it on natural gas will not solve our environmental or sustainability issues. Also, the price of natural gas could quickly become an issue if this fuel cell becomes widely used.

Sridhar has said that he foresees a Bloom home energy server using solar produced electricity to create pure hydrogen, which could be used as a fuel for cars. This reverse reaction is possible using Bloom's existing technology, but we currently do not have adequate means of storing hydrogen or vehicles on the road which can use it. Even with the right technology, a switch over to hydrogen powered cars could take decades.

For the foreseeable future, the Bloom Box will still rely on finite resources, but may offer significantly improved efficiency compared with combustion methods of producing electricity. Thus, the Internet hype might be excessive, but it is not unfounded. This appears to be not only a promising, well funded company, but a potentially game-changing technology. The Bloom Box could be a major step in the right direction and could radically change the way homes and businesses obtain their energy.