As a huge advocate for sustainability I was intrigued by a February 21 episode of CBS’ 60 Minutes on the Bloom Box. The creation of Bloom Energy, a Sunnyvale, California-based company that is promising to revolutionize energy with its “power plant in a box,” Bloom Box is a collection of fuel cells (i.e., “skinny batteries”) that use oxygen and fuel to create electricity with no emissions.

Bloom Energy already has 20 customers, several you’ve heard of, including FedEx, Wal-Mart and Google. The fuel cell stacks are housed in a refrigerator-sized unit, “the Bloom Box.” Oxygen is drawn into one side of the unit, and fuel (fossil-fuel, bio-fuel, or solar power) is fed into the other side. The two combine within the cell and produce a chemical reaction that creates energy with no burning, no combustion, and no power lines. According to Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar, about 64 stacks of fuel cells could power a small business like a Starbucks franchise. The corporate-sized cells cost $700,000 to $800,000.

Google was the first to use Bloom Boxes to power its data center. Ebay has installed its boxes and estimates it receives almost 15% of its energy needs from Bloom, saving about $100,000 since installing its five boxes 9 months ago.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml