The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

(CBS)  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.

Full Segment: The Bloom Box
Web Extra: The Magic Box
Web Extra: Plug-In Power Plant
Web Extra: Naming The Bloom Box
Web Extra: A Skeptic's View

K.R. Sridhar invited "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl for a first look at the innards of the Bloom box that he has been toiling on for nearly a decade.

Looking at one of the boxes, Sridhar told Stahl it could power an average U.S. home.

"The way we make it is in two blocks. This is a European home. The two put together is a U.S. home," he explained.

"'Cause we use twice as much energy, is that what you're saying?" Stahl asked.

"Yeah, and this'll power four Asian homes," he replied.

"So four homes in India, your native country?" Stahl asked.

"Four to six homes in our country," Sridhar replied.

"It sounds awfully dazzling," Stahl remarked.

"It is real. It works," he replied.

He says he knows it works because he originally invented a similar device for NASA. He really is a rocket scientist.

"This invention, working on Mars, would have allowed the NASA administrator to pick up a phone and say, 'Mr. President, we know how to produce oxygen on Mars,'" Sridhar told Stahl.

"So this was going to produce oxygen so people could actually live on Mars?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Sridhar replied.

When NASA scrapped that Mars mission, Sridhar had an idea: he reversed his Mars machine. Instead of it making oxygen, he pumped oxygen in.

He invented a new kind of fuel cell, which is like a very skinny battery that always runs. Sridhar feeds oxygen to it on one side, and fuel on the other. The two combine within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity. There's no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source.

In October 2001 he managed to get a meeting with John Doerr from the big Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

"How much do you think, 'I need to come up with the next big thing'?" Stahl asked Doerr.

"Oh, that's my job," he replied. "To find entrepreneurs who are going to change the world and then help them."

Doerr has certainly changed our world: he's the one who discovered and funded Netscape, Amazon and Google. When he listened to Sridhar, the idea seemed just as transformative: efficient, inexpensive, clean energy out of a box.

"But Google: $25 million. This man said, 'How much money?'" Stahl asked.

"At the time he said over a hundred million dollars," Doerr replied.

But according to Doerr that was okay.

"So nothing he said scared you?" Stahl asked.

"Oh, I wasn't at all sure it could be done," he replied.

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[joanvaughn]

Please!there will always be nay sayers,the energy companies will do everything they can to block this..even buy out the idea,just think people getting off the grid?This will go the way of the tucker and other invention that never see the light of day.I hope it becomes the energy of the future but have my doubts

[tomtom7876]

Take a second look and you will discover that Bloom Box makes less sense than you may think had you just watched the Lesley Stahl interview.

Point 1.The Bloom Box described here uses Natural Gas,so the end products are H20,Energy... AND CO2. This is only a cleaner system .. how much cleaner was not quantified, so I suspect that it is not very. The CO2 produced is why the owner closes by suggesting the Bloom Boxes should be installed next to the garden.. CO2 stimulates plant growth.
Point 2. The real cost of this system is.. the cost of the natural gas used + the annual monthly payments for the system. Compare this to a typical home now. I pay 11 C/KWH and I use about 1000 KWH/month for a total monthly cost of $110. My question.. at what price would the BB better my cost/month. Lets assume that the natural gas I have to feed the BB cost only $30/mo. That leaves $80/month to pay for the BB. If I can get a 5% loan-Ten Year loan, $80/month would allow me to spend $7,7574 for a BB to have a break even on my investment.

Based on comments made during the interview, the BB now appears that it would cost in the range of $25,00 to $50,000 per household. And, recall point 1, this is NOT a carbon free energy source.

For the price of a BB, I could add triple pane windows, double insulation, passive solar heat windows in the roof and thermal solar to provide hot water. This is all low tech, cheap and does result in an investment which would reduce my carbon footprint by at least that of the BB.

[oaera]

Renewable energy is very important nowadays especially that the traditional energy sources are getting used up. It's a good thing if there will be more number of investments for it. http://refillenergy.com/?page=about

[zhenghui11]

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, http://www.wholesaleeshop.com.au/Touch-Screen-LCD-Monitor/ 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.

[zhenghui11]

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, http://www.wholesaleeshop.com.au/Touch-Screen-LCD-Monitor/ 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.

[alyceobvious]

"The recent "60 Minutes" piece on the "Bloom Box" energy cell technology (with the intriguing, if slightly misleading, tag line: First Customers Say Energy Machine Works and Saves Money) is a prime example of the kind of problematic reporting that makes people feel less compelled to take immediate action. In the beginning of the report, K.R. Sridhar, Bloom Box inventor, tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl that it will require two Bloom Boxes (which cost $700,000 each in their current stage of development ... how could its first customers - FedEx and Google - possibly be saving money?) to power a single American household, while it will require only one box for European households, and one box for every four homes in Asia. Never is it suggested in the article that perhaps Americans could seek ways to become comfortable with using less - instead, it is assumed that we will simply need more expensive technology to support our current style of living. The viewer is A) not invited to examine his or her own consumption, and B) may conclude that some green magic-bullet technology is off in the future somewhere - someday it will become affordable and accessible enough, but for the present moment there's nothing that can be done."

for the rest of this response to the 60 minutes piece on the bloom box, please visit http://www.truthout.org/change-is-dead-long-live-change57879

[gr0124]

this BLOOMBOX is a huge thing. The industry coming out of this will be bigger than computer industry. The technology is working. Big successfull companies are using this

[tuthdoc]

How is it that teaching some hospitals are ignoring working hour regulations for residents. http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/dutyHours/dh_index.asp
It hurts when my daughter calls on the phone crying after 32 hour shifts. You have probably addressed this in the past.

[Funky-President]

You jumped into the whole WMD fiasco because you were duped. We did it, same with torture. I once trusted Colin, no more .

PUBLISHED SEPT 4, 2001.

nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04GERM.html ?pagewanted=all


Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare."

[Funky-President]

I bet we could make electricty with all the enhanced ANTHRAX we made but the government wont admit we have it. All our energy needs could be met forever if they would just tell us the truth!

[secwind]

Wait a second, I jumped in with both feet and heart and mind into the "weapons of mass destruction" fiasco because of Colin Powell holding up a little toy semi truck to the news media a few years ago, remember? Now "I have seen the technology and it works," former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, he joined Bloom's board of directors last year. I'm sorry once bit twice shy. When it is too good to be true, it probably isn't. Looks like another chemical process to me, simply a bit more efficient. I'll wait.