Since hearing that John Doerr and the CEO of Bloom Energy are going to be appearing together on Charlie Rose, I've been putting some pieces together. First, KPCB, Doerr's venture capital firm, has been saying repeatedly, "we've been investing in some very interesting alternative energy opportunities."We know that they've funded Eestor, who makes the long-charge supercapacitors that will be powering the Zenn city travelers. But we also knew that that couldn't be all their investing in.  KPCB is one of these multi-billion dollar venture capital firms, and they've been (very intelligently) focusing on clean technology recently.

After a bit of research, I'd like to offer some speculation about what Bloom Energy will be doing.

We already know about the technology the company is based on. In short, K. R. Sridhar created a kind of fuel cell that can combine water, oxygen and an energy source, like natural gas or ethanol, to produce power extremely efficiently.

My guess is that that the profitability of these devices lies in distributed power.

I think Bloom Energy is looking to install 100 Kilowatt power units in everyone's houses. These will be flex-fuel, but likely running mostly on natural gas. They will also probably produce heat, and cooling, as well as power, making the devices roughly 85% efficient (thus generating two times less greenhouse gas emissions than a power plant per unit of power used.)

I don't want to say that they will also be used to create hydrogen, but the technology allows for the fuel cell to easily produce hydrogen if 100% of it's power isn't needed. This could then be used to fill up your new Honda FCX. As a last piece of wild speculation, I will ask: If these units have such wonderful energy densities and efficiencies, could we put one in a car?

Bloom Energy's current website says absolutely nothing about anything. But, it does finish up with a pretty picture of the earth and the tagline "Be the Solution," which lends credence to everyone having their own super-efficient little power plant in their basement.

 

I can't wait to hear what K.R. Sridhar has to say for himself tonight on Charlie Rose.