TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Green Fuel Cell Aims to Power Home, Industry Off-Grid

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 02-24-10 | Comments

Will tomorrow�s electricity be generated off-grid by fuel cells burning bio-gas from landfill waste? Bloom Energy is already powering pilot projects at Google, eBay, Walmart, Staples, Federal Express and 15 other leading corporations, with more signing up every day.

Bloom Energy board member Colin Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state, joined California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today to announce an energy revolution that could enable both industry and homes to generate their own electricity off-grid. Called a Bloom Box, the fuel cell-based system strips the electrons off of natural gas to create electricity with twice the efficiency of conventional gas electricity generators, and can also run off of bio-gases from landfill waste.

A Bloom Box's fuel cell stack uses a ceramic core with proprietary black and green "inks" painted on each side.

Today, Bloom Boxes, which look like an oversized refrigerator, can cost up to $800,000, which companies say they are already recovering from lower electricity bills. But within five to 10 years, according to Bloom Energy, the Bloom Box will cost as little as $3,000 for a unit large enough to power a home. The vision of Bloom Energy founder K.R. Sridhar is to first conquer industry by selling the expensive units, while it ramps up the economy of scale to build Bloom Boxes cheap enough to power homes. Eventually, the entire grid could be replaced by local Bloom Boxes, according to Sridhar.

Sridhar originally invented the Bloom Box to work in reverse�extracting oxygen for astronauts to breathe from the carbon dioxide in the Mars atmosphere. However, when the manned Mars missions were scrapped, Sridhar repurposed his fuel cell-based technology to transform natural gas into off-the-grid electricity. With the help of venture capitalist John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Sridhar has persuaded top companies like Google to sign on. And eBay has even agreed to test using bio-gas from landfills to power its Bloom Box, which the company claims is providing five times as much electricity as the solar cells covering it roofs.

KPCB, New Enterprise Associates, Morgan Stanley and Advanced Equities have ponied up more than $400 million so far to develop the Bloom Box and to ramp up production capabilities. GE, Siemens and other energy giants are also developing rival fuel cell technologies, but so far have had less success popularizing their efforts. One small company, Fuel Cell Energy (Danbury, Conn.), has 60 fuel cell installations, including Pepperidge Farm and Westin Hotels, but Bloom Energy claims to have a technological edge on its competitors�both big and small.

Bloom Energy's claimed advantage has to do with its lower manufacturing costs. Fuel cells ordinarily require a stack of costly elements, including expensive catalysts like platinum and temperamental proton exchange membranes (PEMs). A Bloom Box's stack, on the other hand, uses an inexpensive alloy in place of platinum and a ceramic core with proprietary black and green "inks" painted on each side to replace the temperamental PEMs.