Clean electricity via the Bloom Box power plant

by Stevie Smith - Feb 24 2010, 10:33

As concerns regarding more ecologically friendly fuel alternatives mount, Bloom Energy, a forward-looking start-up in Silicon Valley, has revealed a new fuel cell technology capable of providing energy two-thirds cleaner than that produced by traditional coal-fired facilities.

According to Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar, a former professor of aerospace engineering at NASA, the ‘Bloom Box’ technology involves no harmful burning process and produces its own supply of electricity by combining oxygen ions with added fuel such as natural gas, ethanol or biogas.

Rather than being a mere pipedream that may or may not come to fruition, Bloom Energy is expected to announce today that major companies such as Walmart, Google, Staples, Coca-Cola and Fed-Ex have already signed on for commercial versions of the Bloom box – which are the size of a single-car garage and cost approximately $800,000 USD each.

Beyond being an expensive enterprise-only technology specifically aimed at helping to power office buildings, Bloom Energy hopes to have home-based Bloom boxes ready for mass consumption within the next five to 10 years.

Given the reduced power these boxes would need to create in order to support a single home, sizing would be somewhere in the vicinity of a standard shoebox, while projected pricing for the home fuel cell is likely to be less than $3,000 USD.

In terms of established success, USA Today reports that online auction house eBay began using five Bloom Energy fuel cells in July of 2009.

And, according to eBay’s feedback, the combined energy produced by the cells provides enough power to satisfy the needs of up to 3,000 employees and has already reduced the company’s bills by $100,000 USD.

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