The Technograph

The future of clean energy is here, and it has taken the shape of a drab green-gray box. Bloom Energy, a startup from Sunnyvale, California has created waves throughout the technology world with their unveiling of the Bloom Energy Server, which is commonly referred to as the Bloom Box. It is the brainchild of K.R. Sridhar, an aerospace engineer who has worked on projects for NASA missions to Mars. He claims that with only a small stack of his revolutionary fuel cells he can power an average American home.

This is not the first attempt to depend on fuel cells for clean power production. Experimentation on fuel cells has been going on for over a hundred years already. This is, however, the first attempt to make fuel cell technology affordable for average Americans. With $400 million dollars of venture capital from some of the same investors who saw the potential in companies like Google, Bloom Energy hopes to put a Bloom Energy Server in every home in America. But before you start asking how much, I expect you would ask how?

The secret behind Bloom Energy’s success has been the ability to take relatively cheap materials to create the fuel cells that generate power. Common sand is used to make ceramic plates, and each side of the plate is coated in a special dye. One side of the plate is fed oxygen, and the other side is fed some sort of fuel, such as natural gas. The chemical reaction that takes place produces enough electricity to power a light bulb. Bundling these fuel cells together allows for a much greater output of energy. Bloom Energy Servers the size of a large car are already in use at company headquarters of influential technology titans like eBay.

To the average person this seems like a wonderful development in a contentious market for energy. To better understand the technology behind fuel cells in general, I spoke with one of U of I’s aerospace engineering professors, Paul J.A. Kenis. He has conducted research on fuel cells that are systematically different from those that are being developed for the Bloom Energy Server. His research focuses on membrane-less fuel cells, which have some interesting applications in providing renewable power in remote areas where supply lines are not very reliable. Even though his research focuses on a different kind of fuel cell than the solid oxide fuel cells developed by Mr. Sridhar, he highlighted some of the engineering challenges in using any type of fuel cell to generate electricity: “they use solid oxide fuel cells, which run at very high temperatures, typically 800 degrees Celsius.” He went on to describe fuel cell issues such as material stress on seals, as well as the reliability of their product over a long period of time. These are details that Bloom Energy has not made apparent in their interactions with the press, but over time they will most likely describe their work around these engineering obstacles.

The Bloom Energy Server has made a splash in the world of clean energy. As its creator argues, the server can produce reliable electrical power with its chemically treated plates, a fuel source such as natural gas or solar power, and oxygen. Only time will tell what kind of impact this product will have on the energy field but the direction it appears to be taking looks like a positive one towards a future of localized, innovative, and clean energy.

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