Bloom Energy on 60 Minutes talks about Bloom Box

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Bloom Energy on 60 Minutes talks about Bloom Box

Saturday, February 27th, 2010 Subscribe To Our Feed

Bloom Energy uses fuel-cell technology

“It is real. It works,” said K.R. Sridhar on “60 Minutes.”

He is talking about Bloom Energy’s invention, the Bloom Box, which creates power using fuel cells. Sridhar hopes that every home in the U.S. will soon house a Bloom Box. Not only is the invention suppose to be better for the economy, but it is said to be able to provide electricity at a much lower cost.

Bloom Energy - how does it work?

Sridhar is the scientist who developed the Bloom Box and is the co-founder of Bloom Energy who recently appeared on “60 Minutes” to speak about Bloom Energy. ” Luckily, he didn’t have to take out personal loans to start his company. He was given several hundred million dollars in capital investments from the same place - capital firm Kleiner Perkins - that helped fund Google, Amazon and Netscape.

According to New York Daily News, the Bloom Box “generates its power wirelessly through a combination of oxygen and a fossil fuel - natural gas, bio-gas, etc.” Sridhar said on “60 Minutes” that the fuel cells in the Bloom Box use sand baked into a ceramic and coated with proprietary inks. Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box will officially be unveiled Wednesday in San Jose.

Product testing and commentary

Kleiner Perkins reports that if a home uses Bloom Energy instead of going through a utility company, its carbon emissions will be reduced by about half, and it costs less. Michael Kanellos, editor-in-chief of GreenTech Media, is one of the many that won’t believe it until they see it.

“I’m hopeful, but I’m skeptical,” Kanellos said. “People have tried fuel cells since the 1830s.”

However, Bloom Energy fuel cell technology is good enough for Google. The widely used search engine company has been using power from a Bloom Box at its California headquarters for the past 18 months. “We have a 400-kilowatt installation on Google’s main campus that delivers clean and affordable power,” said Google spokesman Jamie Yood. Wal-Mart, FedEx and eBay have also used the Bloom Box. Keep your eye on bloomenergy.com for the official public unveiling.

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