Yesterday, we featured a story on Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box (aka Bloom Energy Server), a clean energy, fuel cell product which converts natural gas and air into electricity, producing water and carbon dioxide in the process (CH4+2O2 is turned into 2H2O+CO2).
The CBS News site recently posted a video about the fuel cell product wherein Bloom Energy investor John Doerr said, “The Bloom box is intended to replace the grid…for its customers. It’s cheaper than the grid, it’s cleaner than the grid.” Asked if utility companies will see this as a threat, Doerr replied, “No, I think the utility companies will see this as a solution,” Doerr said. “All they need to do is buy Bloom boxes, put them in the substation for the neighborhood and sell that electricity and operate.”
Bloom Energy’s CEO, K.R. Sridhar, claims to have over 20 large, well-known companies testing the Bloom Box fuel cell. The report mentioned that one of these companies, eBay, revealed that it had installed five of these clean energy boxes over a year ago. EBay’s CEO, John Donahoe, said the company realized savings of $200,000 in electricity costs because of the Bloom Box. “It’s been very successful thus far. They’ve done what they said they would do,” Donahoe said.
As noted in our earlier report, there are skeptics to Bloom Energy’s clean energy fuel cell. Michael Kanellos, editor-in-chief of GreenTech Media, told CBS News that he is “hopeful but I’m skeptical.” They’re great ideas, Kanellos said, but “they are not easy” pointing out that “people have tried fuel cells since the 1830s.”
An earlier report from The Wall Street Journal also shared the same reservation on the Bloom Box, “Fuel cells have been under development for many decades,” the report said, “but face challenges common to new technologies aimed at the power sector.” The Journal added, “It isn’t enough to be able to make electricity, a generation source must demonstrate tremendous reliability and it must compete on price with conventional sources of power generation.” At about the same time, a writer at SkepticExchange posted a short commentary on the Bloom Energy product. “All I can say at this time is remember the wise old adage, ‘If it seems to good to be true, it is.’” the writer said.
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