Bloom Energy Produces Fuel Cells For Homes – Bloom Box Unveiled on CBS 60 Minutes Show

Bloom Energy will be telling the world about their company Wednesday, but we have uncovered some information regarding their technology. Rather than use expensive platinum and hydrogen to generate power from a fuel cell, the company uses inexpensive silicon wafers painted with a special ink with natural gas.

Each Bloom Box is made up of 64 wafers with green ink painted on one side and black on the other. Made from beach sand, the ceramic wafers are stacked and separated by inexpensive metal plates before being place in a small box. The box only measures about 6-inches square but can provide enough energy to maintain a house in Europe.

The small box is central to the technology. You will also need a gas like methane (renewable bio-gas) or natural gas. Previously, fuel-cell technology used expensive hydrogen to create a current. The cost and energy to produce the hydrogen gas was a problem. Natural gas is in abundance.

The company has not revealed details and their website is very barren with information, but it is believed that the gas is used to push protons and electrons through the wafer. Typical fuel cells use a proton-conducting polymer membrane to separate the anode and cathode.

The company hopes to see their boxes power homes. John Doerr, venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers which is financing the venture, told Leslie Stahl with CBS 60 Minutes, “The Bloom box is intended to replace the grid…for its customers. It’s cheaper than the grid, it’s cleaner than the grid.”

The Bloom Box technology appears to be viable and has been used by Wal-Mart, Staples, eBay, Google, and other companies. The solid-oxide fuel cell is considered very efficient and could be the solution to the world’s energy problem.

In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard. You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines. It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.

60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl walks with eBay CEO John Donahoe near some of the company's Bloom Box fuel cells in this screengrab from the program. Experts say Bloom Energy's goal of powering many US households in 10 years is a lofty one.

60 Minutes screengrab/CBS

“The buzz is sort of a mix of excitement and befuddlement,” says Joel Makower, executive editor of Greener World Media. “It has to do with the fact that this is by no means the first fuel cell company to promote clean energy.”

To succeed where others have failed, he says, Bloom Energy will have to show its fuel cell technology is cheap enough for consumers while being adaptable enough for big business.

As the Next Big Future blog pointed out, the Connecticut company Fuel Cell Energy has been installing fuel cell units since the 1990s, but lost $71 million last year.

Source: http://www.digitalnewsreport.com/2010/02/22-bloom-energy-produces-fuel-cells-bloom-box-unveiled-on-cbs-60-minutes-show/3273

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0222/Bloom-Box-generates-buzz-skepticism-with-60-Minutes-spot

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/the_bloom_box_an_energy_breakthroug.html

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http://www.digitalnewsreport.com/2010/02/22-bloom-energy-produces-fuel-cells-bloom-box-unveiled-on-cbs-60-minutes-show/3273

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0222/Bloom-Box-generates-buzz-skepticism-with-60-Minutes-spot