Amazing Power -- Bloom Energy and the Bloom Box

Last night 60 Minutes aired a story that was very exciting in its promise for clean energy.  It was  a story about the Bloom Box, an amazing energy source produced by Bloom Energy. The Bloom Box sounds like one of those magic perpetual motion machines you hear about, that are going to be a great provider of endless energy in the future — except this is real.  It’s a stand-alone plug-in power plant that is powerful enough to power businesses and homes, not just a single light bulb.

It’s possible that these fuel cell boxes could change energy usage all around the world.   Theoretically they would emit no CO2 unless they are powered in part by natural gas, which for some reason they need in some installations.  (They greatly increase the energy output from the amount of natural gas used.)   If  these boxes work as advertised, they could be the power plant of the future, — personal power plants that everyone has in their neighborhood, if not their homes.   The might replace the electrical grid and completely change the way energy is disseminated to regular people.  Imagine generating all the electricity you need from a box in your backyard.

Here is one of the videos from 60 Minutes.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

The Bloom Box is a set of fuel cells that run on oxygen. It was first developed for NASA, for a project to provide power and breathable air on Mars. When the Mars missions were scrapped, at least for now, the developer and CEO, K.R. Sridhar is taking the idea to the public and American business.

The Bloom Box is already being used by Google, eBay, and other large companies in California as a test power source.  It works, according to them.   (More videos  from 60 Minutes are here.) Since that story ran, the Wall Street Journal, always skeptical, has weighed in, along with other skeptics.

Besides the excitement of the technology, this could be just the thing that we need to replace fossil fuels, when used in conjunction with solar, geotheormal and wind power.  This could put renewable energy over the top into providing baseload power sooner, instead of later.  Here is why this is so important.  The AAAS  recently reported:

Governments ‘misjudging’ scale of CO2 emissions
21-Feb-2010 — Policymakers are markedly underestimating the changes needed to mitigate CO2 emission required to prevent dangerous climate change because they work in “silos.” Dr. Sebastian Carney, from the University of Manchester, discovered that the lack of communication between government departments, NGOs and other authorities has resulted in significant differences over who is responsible for what. He will describe his work at the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting.

Read more here.

Tomorrow, Bloom Energy makes its big public announcement.

[on Wednesday] . . . the company is scheduled to host “a special event” in Silicon Valley featuring presentations by luminaries including John Doerr, partner in the venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the key financial backer of Bloom Energy. (Sridar told “60 Minutes” that an estimate that the startup has raised $400 million was “in the ball park.”) Another attendee is scheduled to be former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said on “60 Minutes” he had joined the company’s board. The company’s Web site is also cryptic, containing a countdown clock to the event, to be conducted in eBay’s town hall.

Check the Bloom Energy site tomorrow.  This could be the start of sustainable clean energy for the world, or at least a big start to a large part of it.