Those two blocks can power the average high-consumption American home -- one block can power the average European home. At least that's the claim being made by K.R. Sridhar, founder of Bloom Energy
via www.engadget.com
So if two small Bloom Boxes can power an average American home with clean energy, what's the catch?
I personally have some concerns about the safety of having a small power generator (probably using flammable gas) in your house but what do I know? I would probably be skeptical of the idea of electricity if it were new to me as well.
The other problem the Bloom Box has to overcome is the availability of whatever fuel is used to power the fuel cells. Apparently they can use a number of different types of fuel such as wind and solar, or traditional fossil fuels. So there's still no magic - the energy comes from somewhere and that somewhere probably has some carbon footprint as well.
I think what is most exciting about the Bloom product is that they have some proprietary technology to make the fuel cell cheaper. Right nw they are $700,000 and up, but the company's business plan revolves around having a $3,000 home model at some point. Wow.
Now, if someone can figure out how I can power my home with the leftover calories from a bag of Doritos, that would be pretty cool. I wonder if Bloom would start working on a fat burner supplement that runs your TV
