The Bloom Box

[Neo]

The company has been crazy secretive about their product up until the last couple of weeks and tomorrow will reveal all. The Bloom Box is a fuel cell that can use almost any fuel (bio gas, natural gas, fossil fuels, etc.) along with beach sand and oxygen to produce an amazing amount of power in a very small unit. 60 Minutes ran a segment on the company, but tomorrow Bloom Energy will reveal their product to the world.

The company hopes to have it in homes within 5-10 years at an unbelievably low cost (I believe they said $2k for an average sized home). Google was their first customer to test the device and a prestigious list of companies followed, including eBay, Staples, and FedEx.

Here's a 60 Minutes recap of the segment:

Fuel cells have obviously been one of the holy grails of alternative energy, but no one has managed to get their costs down enough to be affordable thus other solutions like wind and solar have had more room to grow. I'm a bit skeptical of this device as it is being made out to be world changing. I can't help but remember when the Segway was said to be revolutionary and it obviously ended up being a dud, unless your a mall cop or tourist in a big city.

What's your take on The Bloom Box?

[Neo]

Their website was made open to the public earlier today and in reading through the information it appears that it isn't initially available to residential customers. The costs are also missing, though that's expected since each installation would obviously be a custom job, especially since residential installs aren't current available.