I come back from Brazil, functioning on two nights of little sleep, but I cannot restrain myself from gushing and hoping that the much hyped "Bloom Box," which launched today, will revamp our nation's infrastructure over the next several years.

 

Not having read much news the past two weeks, I was jolted by friend and former classmate now studying in Denmark, who sent me a quick one-line email asking me what I thought about the Bloom Box, the creation of Bloom Energy, a Silicon Valley start-up that has received hundreds of millions of venture capital money.

 

So is the Bloom Box truly a disruptive technology, as some commentators have gushed?  Well, not being a scientist, all I can say is, if the Bloom Box truly is as scalable as its founder, K.R. Sridhar, says it is, we could well be on our way to energy independence.

 

Here's how it works.  The Bloom Box is actually full of modules that are about twice the size of your fist.  Each module contains a fuel cell about as slim as a cracker.  The fuel cell operates by oxygen flowing through one side--fuel on the other--resulting in a chemical reaction that creates electricity.  One of these cells can power a light bulb.  One module full of these cells can fuel an apartment; two can power the average-sized American home.  It's a marvelous example of why space exploration and military spending are a GOOD thing, despite what those on the left may say--Sridhar, a former NASA advisor, originally designed this fuel cell to create oxygen for a potential space mission to Mars.  After NASA scrapped that project, he re-engineered the cell, designing it to have oxygen flow into the cell and react with fuel.

 

Bloom Energy has plenty of high-voltage support.  John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, who was involved with the funding of Netscape, Amazon, and Google, is one of Bloom Energy's most enthusiastic promoters.  Its clients include eBay (are you listening, Meg Whitman?), Google, FedEx, and Wal-Mart.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Larry Page attended today's launching ceremony.  Colin Powell is on Bloom's Board of Directors.

 

Of course there are naysayers.  Right now these boxes are so expensive that only large enterprises can afford them.  Some have criticized Sridhar for being overly secretive of this technology.  Others say that if the Bloom Boxes were so great, companies like GE would have figured them out by now.

 

My instinct tells me that if large firms, especially Wal-Mart, are investing in this technology, they are on to something.  As I have always insisted, clean technology will only succeed if it is scalable and cost-effective.  As more companies invest and Bloom Energy can bring the cost down, the potential for these boxes is huge.  Remote villages off of the grid would have electricity.  Utilities could purchase these for their substations.  And since these boxes can work with any potential energy source, operating them off of America's natural gas reserves until alternative sources of energy become cheaper will wean us away from fossil fuels.  Then you have the smart grid contraptions . . . we may be on to something!

 

If we could have these boxes stacked here and there instead of sprawling solar farms, we have other benefits, too--more open space, for example.

 

I'm excited.  Maybe you will be, too, after you watch this link that my friend in Denmark sent me.

 

What do you think?  Is this truly the holy grail of clean energy?  I welcome your thoughts.