Bloom Box Energy

It is a type of "fuel cell". I'm not impressed, but many others seem to be. May be more hot CO2 than substance. Research thoroughly before buying into this one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Energy_Server

Here's the website:

http://www.bloomenergy.com/

There is a bunch of really horrendous media coverage on Fuel Cells in general but it doesn't help that often they mix concepts from different types of fuel cells, different types of "green energy" and general marketing.

Fuel cells chemically transform reactants via an electrochemical reaction to products and release bunch electric energy directly along the way. You can think of it just like a battery that you keep putting more chemicals into. All fuel cells transform hydrogen and other hydrocarbons into electric energy with a little waste heat, all of them, they're solid state energy conversion devices not magical boxes. This makes them significantly more efficient than other generation types due to the reduction of lossy steps and the fact that they are not Carot limited. The big thing about solid oxide fuel cells (like the ones bloom uses) is that they run at ridiculously high temps (600-1000C) so their reaction kinetics are tremendously faster than other kinds of fuel cells, they can self reform various fuels (natural gas, diesel, JP8, and they are tolerant to most containments (except usually sulfur and chromium). This is in comparison to lower temp fuel cells, such as PEM or Phosphoric acid, that require straight hydrogen. Using plain old hydrocarbons alleviates one of the big problems with fuel cells, namely storing hydrogen.

However, the high temperature comes with a price, their interconnects degrade extraordinarily fast, sealing is a problem because of huge thermal expansion mismatches, and finally at 1000 degrees materials stability (think lifetime) is a big problem.

A rough overview of blooms technology: they use an electrolyte supported cell, coated with "inks" which are just catalyst layers, every fuel cell manufacturer and university uses those, everyone has their secret sauce. The "beach sand" electrolyte is probably YSZ, yttrium stabilized zirconia, or SSZ, scandia stabilized zirconia, which are the standards. The metal interconnects are coated with some oxidation resistant coating, no one would think of using platinum interconnects, they use that for catalysts on PEM fuel cells, it's totally unnecessary for SOFCS. Technically speaking, nothing Bloom is doing is super exciting from a technical standpoint, or really an economic standpoint. However, they are the first to commercially sell SOFC's. Their price is an order of magnitude higher than other generation costs, their technology is probably 5-10 years off state of the art, and they can really only sell in places with huge subsidies (eg California). However, one must give them credit for being the first to start selling stuff, and ideally their technology will improve and their costs will come down. As with any new technology, there is a steep curve between proof of concept and cheap/ubiquitous.

And if you're wondering, I'm doing graduate work on SOFCs, so hopefully this information is useful to you.

Other companies to check out: CFCL, Ceres Power, Topsoe, Versa Power

Good sources of info: wikipedia article on SOFC