Going off the Grid with the Bloom Box

The Bloom Energy Server, a "smarter, localized energy source," is storming the market and the airwaves as the next great thing in clean energy technology, reported Computerworld. Formerly unveiled yesterday during a press conference in San Jose, Calif., its supporters include California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former  Secretary of State Colin Powell. And twenty major corporations--Google and eBay, to name two--are already using the Bloom box. 
 
But what exactly is it? As Computerworld describes it, the Bloom Energy Server is a "solid oxide fuel cell ... built to generate electricity with a mixture of oxygen and renewable or traditional fuels -- all without creating any emissions."
 
And so far the results have been impressive. Google has been using Bloom boxes for 18 months; these servers have delivered more than 3.8 million kilowatt hours of electrictity to the Internet giant. For eBay, the boxes have met 15 percent of its energy needs at its San Jose headquarters--that's a sizable chunk now 'off the grid.'
 
K.R. Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, hopes to see the product in most homes around the country. And while the commercial-sized boxes cost upwards of $700,000, it should cost closer to $3,000 for the residential version.
 
Still, as excited as some appear to be about the technology, others are more cautious:
 
"This is certainly interesting technology and, at least from what I've seen, is the first fuel cell that is deployable now and not just a scaled up lab experiment," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. "They cite a three-to-five-year payback on capital investment via energy cost savings, which is a great number. But without knowing the lifespan of the unit or maintenance costs, it really doesn't tell us the whole story."
 
We'll have to wait and see as the story unfolds.
 
(Photo credit: Paulo Barcellos; Creative Commons)