A Skeptic's View of the Bloom Box

(CBS)  Bloom Energy will unveil its Bloom Box this Wednesday, and its CEO K.R. Sridhar told "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl he'd like to one day even see one of his boxes on the lawn at the White House.

Sridhar managed to secure hundreds of millions of dollars from investors and his boxes are being tested by some of the country's most prominent firms, including Walmart, Google, eBay and FedEx.

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

But there are critics, including GreenTech Media's editor-in-chief, Michael Kanellos.


"Well, let's talk about Bloom. How has Bloom gotten to have such an enormously high profile of most of the companies out here, that's the one you hear about?" Stahl asked.

"Yeah, you do. And it's a cool idea," Kanellos said. "You know, they wanna almost make instant energy. But they're also kind of sprinkled with stardust. You know, Al Gore talks about them. You see the CEO palling around with Tom Friedman at Davos. So there's a certain whiff of celebrity."

"I'm skeptical. I'm hopeful but I'm skeptical. 'Cause people have tried fuel cells for since the 1830s," Kanellos said. "And they're great ideas, right? You know, producing energy at an instant. But they're not easy. They're like the divas of industrial equipment. The little plates inside have to work not just for an hour or a day, but they have to work for 30 years, nonstop. And then the box has to be cheap to make."

"What if he can get the price way down? He claims he can," Stahl remarked.

"And if he can, the problem is then G.E. and Siemens and other conglomerates probably can do the same thing. I mean they have fuel cell patents. They have research teams that have looked at this. And they have a much greater leeway to actually spread that cost over a lot of products," Kanellos replied.


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[rwlade]

Here we go again. It's "Cold Fusion" all over again <g>

[bullfrog2625]

If you Google "stanley meyers" , this is the true guy who deserves the credit. He was killed by the Bilderbergs (nobody is allowed to have more power and money than these secret elite people). ...and Wiki says something like for the same reason of power and money they got a hold of Nokia Tesla (the father of free energy back in the early 1900's, who also invented a flying saucer. NO KIDDING.) I do not know if Tesla was murdered, but according to conspiracy the Bilderbergs not only control all of the money, but will kill anyone who tries to have more money and power than them!

[mbFareed]

Well skeptics and critics are a dime a dozen, and they kept repeating that it is wirelessly produces electricity, well gee wiz guys batteries produces electricity wirelessly too, it is the transmission of power wirelessly that would be the next frontier to break.
got to give it to the news media and editors or the stories that can just skew the facts to their liking, anyway I wish this guy and his team the best of luck, I do hope he succeeds and changes the world.
Good luck to all of us.
Fareed

[radscientist]

I have confidence in John Doerr as an intelligent technology investor and doubt that he would go into a $100+ million dollar investment without surrounding him with smart people who have done their homework. I guess we?ll see over the next 12 months if it is for real. I?m looking forward to the launch on Wednesday. Here are some of my thoughts on the Bloom Box and what it will mean to our future: http://blog.mapawatt.com/2010/02/20/what-is-the-bloom-box-does-it-work-bloom-energy-could-change-the-world/

[argonavis7]

As Kanellos said, G.E. and Siemens already have fuel cell patents. It may be 'nothing new', but the Bloom Box might be the catalyst that causes these larger companies to implement their existing technology.

[Uncle-Wally]

It's all hype and nothing really new. What is Bloom Energy doing that a dozen other companies aren't already doing? Nothing! It's just another hydrogen fuel cell company. The use of hydrogen fuel cells for the home is nothing new. They have been in use in Japan for years. Other companies use the fuel cells not only to provide home electricity but also provide hot water. The problems that the other companies are experiencing are high costs. They are not practical as long as the units are costly and need to be replaced every three years.

[jimeyemd]

The Bloom Box can run on fuels other than hydrogen; i.e., natural gas (of which it uses less than *half* of what would normally be used to produce the same amount of electricity by a nat gat plant) or enumerable other sources of energy like waste gas from land fills; even bio-fuels can be used to power the Bloom Box. Inotherwords, you dream up the fuels sourse (even solar) and the Bloom Box can be powered provide electricity.
Cost may be a current concern (they are currently very expensive) but Kanellos is hopeful of bringing the cost down for the average consumer to $3K per unit. Considering the fact that I pay about $2,700 for electricity alone ... count me IN. At that rate it would pay for itself within 2-3 years -- something that canNOT be said for solar, geothermal, and wind turbine technology as it currently stands.