Bloom Energy Cuts the Ribbon On Its Energy Servers

We watched our first episode of 60 Minutes in 20 years on Monday just to catch a glimpse of the magestic Bloom Box, a device that is taking the energy world and anxious public by storm. Yesterday, the company officially unveiled its Energy Server to a welcoming group of politicians, press and corporate execs at an event in San Jose, California.

The current iteration of Bloom’s technology is described to be about the size of a pickup truck. It’s a smooth, metal box that houses a collection of fuel cells that pump out electricity through a chemical reaction between oxygen and a given fuel (natural gas, ethanol, solar and others). The server can produce electricity at lower costs than the power grid (when factoring in government subsidies) and produces little emissions into the environment. Unlike less reliable clean energy sources such as wind or solar power, the Bloom Energy Server is capable of producing a regulated amount of energy day in and day out.

A who’s who of big businesses are currently testing out the Energy Servers including Coca Cola, Google, e-Bay and FedEx. Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar has said that the company plans to have small, box-sized versions for home energy use available within 10 years. The consumer cost is given at $3,000, a figure that Sridhar estimates could be recouped within three to five years from power savings.

So what’s the catch? It could be time. It’s not known if Bloom’s fuel cells will be able to perform over time and pay off the initial investment. In other words, we’ll have to sit back and wait to find out. However, Bloom’s energy is certainly one of the most ambitious and inspiring technologies we’ve seen in a long time. [via San Francisco Chronicle]