The Bloom Box is a green tech innovation that has the ability to drastically change our way of life. Developed by Bloom Energy, a company that is working to change the way we produce and consume energy, the Bloom Box is meant to be a power source that is inexpensive and clean. The idea for the Bloom Box was derived from a project that Dr. Sridhar, from the University of Arizona, was asked to complete for NASA. This project involved creating a device that could sustain life on Mars by producing air and fuel from electricity, and vice versa.
When the Mars project ended in 2001, Sridhar and his team of engineers decided to apply the principles they used in the Mars device to an energy-producing box that could be used on Earth. The box is composed of “cells” made primarily of beach sand, which is baked and then cut into wafer-thin squares. The squares are painted onto one side with green ink and on the other side with black ink. Both inks were developed by Sridhar, and contain secret ingredients.
The cells are then assembled into boxes, with sheets of inexpensive metal alloy placed between each cell in the box. Oxygen is fed into the cell on one side, while fuel is fed into the cell on the other, creating a chemical reaction that produces energy. As Sridhar states, “Fuel goes in, air goes in, out comes energy.”
One box can power one European home, while two boxes are required to power one American home or four to six Asian homes.
John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers was the first to see potential in the company in 2002, and has been investing in it ever since. The Bloom Box is currently being tested at the data centres of many companies across the United States, including FedEx, Google, Ebay, Staples, and Walmart. These data centres require a few huge cylinders, each containing many Bloom Boxes, in order to power the centre. One cylinder costs between $700,000 and $800,000, and four are required to power the Google data centre.
However, the box has yet to operate flawlessly. For example, after only three weeks at the Google data centre, one cylinder suddenly stopped working.
This shows a huge concern among skeptics: the question of whether or not fuel cells can actually be used as sustainable energy. Michael Kanellos, Editor-In-Chief of the website GreenTech Media mentioned, “I’m hopeful but I’m skeptical: people have tried fuel cells since the 1830s and they’re [a] great idea because they produce energy at an instant. [But the concern is] longevity.”
Sridhar’s goal is for Bloom Box to be powering homes all around the world in 10 years. He also expects that the unit required to power a home will cost less than $3,000. However, Kanellos argues that there is only a 20 per cent chance that this will occur — and if it does, the box will be a product of General Electric (GE) or another energy conglomerate, not Bloom Energy.
John Doerr invested $400 million up front into the Bloom Box back in 2002, which Kanellos says makes him cringe. “Anytime a company is given more than $100 million dollars up front, [one tends] to question the company and the investment.” Doerr has some huge failures on his record, including the Segway. However, he has also had some huge successes, such as Amazon, Google, and Netscape.
The Bloom Box is already proving to be a valuable energy source for large companies — it saved Ebay $200,000 of energy costs in one year. Bloom Energy is also constantly receiving new orders from companies who are interested in trying out the Bloom Box.
However, a few questions remained unanswered: will the Bloom Box have a place in the home, and will it be possible to create an affordable box that can create sustainable energy? When told that his goals for the future seemed far-fetched, Sridhar replied: “My job is to see the world as it could be, not as it is right now.”
