Silicon Valley Company Claims Advance in Fuel Cell Technology

Bloom Energy has unveiled its long-awaited and much-hyped fuel cell technology, which it says can convert natural gas into electricity through an electrochemical process that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent and at a price competitive with far-dirtier coal-fired electricity. With California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in attendance, Bloom co-founder and chief executive K.R. Sridhar unveiled his Bloom Energy Server at the Silicon Valley headquarters of one of its first customers, eBay. Taking up no more room than a parking space and looking like a large refrigerator, the servers — which cost roughly $750,000 — convert natural gas or another fuel into electricity by creating an electrochemical process on a series of small, stacked disks. Unlike other fuel cell technologies, the Bloom server does not use expensive precious metals, such as platinum, in its electrohemical process, but rather makes its discs of sand, Sridhar said. He claimed that in contrast to other fuel cells, which have been short-lived, his can work for years and can generate electricity at 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour with far less pollution than coal or merely burning natural gas. Bloom has $400 million in funding and has lined up major companies such as Wal-Mart, FedEx, Coca-Cola, Staples, and Google, whose founder, Larry Page, said he hopes to use the servers to power Google’s main data center.