Live blog: Bloom Box press conference

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Bloom Energy is holding a press event Wednesday morning where the company is expected to unveil further details on its Bloom Box product. In case you're just joining us, these boxes promise to not only bring ample amounts of power in a small amount of space, but to change people's dependency on traditional power grids. All for less than $3,000 a unit.

A quick primer on the technology can be seen on this segment from CBS' "60 Minutes," which aired last week. We've also got an FAQ that explains more about what it does here.

The event is being held at eBay's San Jose, Calif., headquarters, which has been running a test batch of Bloom Boxes for the past nine months. Former secretary of state and current Bloom Energy board member Colin Powell is slated to speak, along with Bloom Energy founder K.R. Sridhar and venture capitalist John Doerr, who currently sits on President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. There's also a surprise appearance by what the event planners claim will be a "prominent California government official."

We'll be there snapping photos and bringing you the updates as they happen. If you want a simple reminder, just sign up with your e-mail in the CoverItLive blog below. It'll give you the heads up when we get things going, which should be around 8:30 a.m. PST.

BloomEnergy's live conference today on Feb 24. Source : news.cnet.com

Bloom Box press briefing

(02/24/2010)

8:37	Hi everyone, people have just taken to their seats. Looks like the event is running about 10 minutes late.

8:37

8:37	[Comment From Liz]  Are there any tv news stations or web sites covering this via video?

8:37	All the big folks Liz.

8:38	[Comment From doug ny]  is this going to be live on tv or th internet anywhere so it can be vewed by all?

8:38	Doug, re: video--I'm unsure. We're here live though :D

8:38	[Comment From Thomas]  Will there be a demo of the technology

8:38	There is a mysterious covered box....that's a good sign.

8:39

8:39	[Comment From Brad]  Who do we think the California politician will be?

8:40	Could be Arnold, Meg Whitman...who knows?

8:41	[Comment From Rob]  Their website (http://bloomenergy.com/) is live, and I think that is an "energy server".

8:41	[Comment From carlo]  Did you receive any handouts with specs or anything?

8:41	I did, here's a PDF...

8:42	Hmm nevermind. Looks like PDFs don't work on here. Sorry about the tease.

8:42	[Comment From Bharat]  Are you sitting in the front row?

8:43	Second row back, I believe K.R. Scridhar's kids are in front of me. No school I guess :)

8:44	[Comment From Tal]  The data sheet is up on the website http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/

8:45	[Comment From Jenn, Milwaukee]  That's ok, Daddy's about to change the planet.

8:46	[Comment From Barry]  Change the planet? He could if it didn't require hydro carbon fuel source like natural gas. It will still emit CO2.

8:48	K folks, lights are dimming. Video rolling.

8:49

8:49	"We can change the face of energy. We can change the world."

8:50	K.R. is out, and says Arnold is coming out.

8:50	Gov. Arnold that is.

8:51	Arnold: I love hanging out with this guy, b/c I'm not the only one with an accent.

8:52	Arnold saying that when he was in charge of presidential fitness, Colin Powell gave him support.

8:54	Schwarzenegger: 160 yrs ago people flocked to California for the gold rush. Same spirit is still alive and can be seen as Bloom Energy.

8:55	Schwarzenegger: Bloom is 60% cleaner than coal.

8:56	Schwarzenegger: Big things like AB 32, million solar roof program, and hydrogen highway have been groundbreaking. We're doing what govt does best. Making laws and setting standards and getting out of the way.

8:57	Schwarzenegger: Green jobs have grown 10x faster than other areas. Even in the recession. We want that future and we want those jobs. Proposing a job package, to exempt purchase of green equipment. from CA sales tax.

8:59	Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar up now.

8:59

9:00	Sridhar: I was trying to make Mars our second home. Breathable air, water, heat, electricity and fuels. If you have that you can live anywhere. While I was working on that, the tech dev. was robust. Unfortunately I couldn't say the same thing about the funding and the rockets.

9:01	Sridhar: I had to look back at our first home, instead of our second home. While I was dreaming about Mars, historically unprecedented things have happened on earth. The poor coming out of poverty wanted more of everything--more resources, water, energy. They have a right to this.

9:01	Sridhar: But we were trying to provide that in an old fashion.

9:02

9:03

9:03	Sridhar: This image, the world at night is what really got me. It's the Earth at night. You see who has money, and who doesn't. You see who has light and who doesn't.

9:04

Sridhar: Without energy these people don't have a passport to economic growth. The geopolitical and social impact on this, is a very big part of world politics and policy. We saw this as a call to our generation. A call to make an impact. To do good, and make good. World needs accessible energy that is sustainable.

9:05	Sridhar: Why can't we simply follow examples? PCs to Laptops, analog telephones to cell phones.

9:05

9:06

Sridhar: Needed to be reliable and affordable. If you have that, the world will adopt. The world will have access. Is that power sufficient to energy? The answer came out, simply "no." the bar is slightly higher. That bar is clean--it also has to be clean. Why clean? When you take dirty power plant and put it in your back yard, either the emissions have to go, or you have to go.

9:07	Sridhar: We felt it was our calling to make this technology.

9:07

9:07

9:08

Sridhar: What is the product that can provide an answer to this need? Thomas Edison had the idea of distributed electricity 100 years ago. This was already out there. The fuel cell--yes folks we did not invent this. Was there in the 1830s. What we neede to do was a simple task--take all these pieces of a puzzle and weave them into once coherent picture.

9:09	Sridhar: What had not been done was clean energy that was affordable. And that is what we have done. We needed to start with something simple...the core of our technology. It's sand.

9:10	Sridhar: It's plentiful, cheap.

9:10

9:11	Sridhar: Why is this so different? We take this material and bake it in a process called powder to power.

9:12	Sridhar: Cost, Fuel Flex, Reversibility, Electrical Performance. We're gonna walk you through each of these.

9:12	Sridhar: No precious metals, no corrosion.

9:12

9:14

Sridhar: What goes into the fuel cell? Traditional fuel, natural gas, renewable fuel. Biomass gas, landfill gas, ethanol. Whatever you have. This fuel cell can take any of those fuels. And b/c of the unique chemistry, it can use that to produce electricity. If you have multiple fuels, you can try to get the cheapest fuel into your box, and get the cheapest form of electricity based on market value.

9:14

9:16	Sridhar: Bloom Box can operate in two ways--converting electricity and storing it too. In a few years how we will use it is to get it hooked up as a home server to power your car and mix with solar. This won't be ready for 10 years though.

9:16

9:17	Sridhar: Let's talk about what's coming out of this box. For the same amount of electricity you need to consume, you're using half of what you'd use off the grid.

9:17

9:18	Sridhar: Lower cost, use of fuels that will reverse how much we're currently using, and higher efficiency.

9:19	Sridhar: Each piece produced 25 watts, enough for a lightbulb. 2 years from now...stay tuned.

9:20	Sridhar: You take a stack of these and you can power anything. (The one in his hand, the picture below can power a house)

9:20

9:20

9:20	Above is how that breaks down.

9:21

Sridhar: We had a moral obligation to not talk about something so many other people had talked about before without proof points. Those are products and customers. It took 8 years and over 400 million cumulative hours of making, breaking, improving this fuel cell to get it to where we needed to get it.

9:22

9:22	Sridhar: It is with great pride I would like to introduce the bloom energy server. It's my baby, isn't she beautiful?

9:23

9:23	Sridhar: We wanted it to be something you're not embarrassed to have in your backyard. Nothing dangerous to shock you, or any vents. It's plug-and-play future of electricity.

9:24	Sridhar: 3 major value propositions: lower energy costs, clean power, and reliable power.

9:25	Sridhar: 3-5 year payback, with costs that are fixed for 10 years. Can reduce carbon footprint with renewable bio fuels.

9:25	Sridhar: Just like a server our technology is hot swappable. If a part of it is not working, it can be fixed without bringing down the rest of the unit.

9:26	Sridhar: Since we put our first units up, we have powered greater than 11 million kWhs

9:26	Sridhar: With 14 million lbs. of Carbon reduction to boot.

9:27

9:27	Above are a list of the company's first customer partners.

9:28	VC John Doerr will be moderating a panel with reps from these companies shortly.

9:30	Doerr: "I think we've just seen something wonderful between Martha Stewart and Steve Jobs"

9:31

9:34	Q: What makes you excited to be here? A: eBay chief John Donahoe says Bloom is "disruptive" just like eBay was. We put solar in, 65,000 feet of it, which powers 18% of our campus on peak. But then we ran into Bloom. Put it in last july, and it's powering 15% off those 5 boxes.

9:36

Q: What company is the largest company in the world with 2 million employees? COO, Bill Simon of Wal-Mart. What led you to decide to put these in your operation? A: Simon: We aspire to power our buildings in the 100% renewable energy. And in order to do that, it has to be profitable--first and foremost. This is an opportunity to do both those things. We also have scale. The opportunity to provide it for everyone at less cost is a goal of ours.

9:36

9:36	Simon says they're experimenting with packaging reduction and alternate energy sources like solar and wind.

9:38	Q: Rob Carter CIO and executive VP @ FedEx. --what was the idea of putting this in our Oakland, CA hub? A: We wanted to change the way the world works. This is something cool. Bloom array matches the power of the solar, and is helping us get 100% off the grid.

9:38

9:40	Coke's President Brian Kelly: We have aggressive goals. We need clean, reliable energy sources that meet customer and community demand. One of the very aggressive goals we have is to measured our carbon footprint and want to reduce it by 2015 . Bloom box is powering a 1/3 of an Odwalla plant.

9:43

James Kennedy of Cox: We need to reduce our energy and carbon footprint. We were able to reduce 10% very quickly just via conservation. But getting beyond that was really difficult. Has 4 units at KTVU in San Francisco. It's been working for over a month now. We've produced energy we need for 70% of the facility.

9:44

9:45

Larry Page of Google: I liked that I didn't need to call the mayor to get approval. We were the first customer. Those boxes sat there and nobody knew the wiser. Lets you as a business decide on what fuel you're going to use and that's a really big deal. I'd love to see us having a whole data center running on this at some point--when they're ready.

9:45

9:46	Oops, guess you'll have to turn your computer sideways.

9:47	Simon (of Wal-Mart): Bloom Boxes are carrying 60-80% of our energy needs at peak in the buildings where they're installed.

9:49	Q: Why is carbon neutral important to you & your employees? Donahoe (of eBay): We envision our business growing substantially. Using biofuels, it's 100% renewable. It's taking that net carbon out of the environment.

9:49

9:50	Doerr points out that the panel of execs share 4 million employees worldwide, and about a half-trillion dollars of revenue.

9:50	Video rolling now. US Senator Dianne Feinstein talking, as well as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

9:53	Testimonials keep on coming. Patrick Pichette (CFO of Google) included. "For us it's been really transformative..." he said. Google's Bloom Box is powering an R&D center.

9:53

9:54	Sridhar is back up on stage, thanking the speakers. One more thing! One more thing!

9:55	Introducing Colin Powell

9:55	Powell: I used to have 4 million employees, and boy did they use a lot of power.

9:56	Powell: When I left public service I was looking for things to do. And John Doerr came to me and said come work on things at Klein & Perkins.

9:56

9:57

9:57	Powell joking about how when Sridhar first pitched, and showed him the sand he was skeptical. But that Sridhar won him over by showing him that it worked.

9:58

9:59	Powell: I saw a world that had come out from behind, the end of a bamboo curtain, an India that was a partner, and a economic powerhouse in China. I saw these countries trying to figure out how to create more wealth. Not just rich people, but getting people up out of poverty.

10:00

Powell: Once people move up out of poverty they want things that consume energy. Homes, cars, etc.

10:00

10:01

Powell: We want people to move up. So you take economic growth, you then look at the energy demand it places on the existing systems. And then you look at the impact on the environment...all those three things are connected & you can't separate them out. Bloom seemed to be a product that matched all these needs.

10:04

Powell: Progress in 5-8 years is amazing. We're no longer hiding--and I'm glad for that. Of course it will be criticized--we've got some witnesses that say it does. The proof in the pudding is in the product and the reception from the business community. What you heard today was from business people. That's not what we want--we want to keep moving forward and get future models in places like African villages. "My wife is mad at me b/c there's all this snow in the backyard and I'm not shoveling it. I tell her it's alright, I'm going to get us a Bloom power generator"

10:04

Powell: The product will sell itself.

10:05

Powell off now. Sridhar back up closing out. Press will be getting a tour of the boxes. There will also be a Q&A session.

10:06

Hopefully a time/price for consumers will be mentioned.

10:06

[Comment From Rama]  In the interview Sridhar mentioned that Bloombox could run on Solar. HOW?

10:07

That demo was a mixed model. Using both sources in one house.

10:08

Sridhar thanking employees for work they've done. "This day is your, enjoy. But don't forget we've got a long way to go to meet that ultimate goal that General Colin Powell talked about."

10:09

Sridhar done now.Alright folks, that's it for the press conference, hang tight for the Q&A. I'm going to put the live blog on pause while we change rooms.

10:10

[Standby]  We're changing rooms for a Q&A session with Sridhar and others. Be back shortly.

10:18

K we're back

10:20

Q: WSJ asks "have you conducted third party cost analysis?" Sridhar: Customer proof points. Public companies, costs have been scanned. 10 year life that's warrantied through Bloom Energy. Q: NBC asks "is there a particular kWh cost? Sridhar: Says $.09-.10 per kwh. Customers save compared to grid. Q: Forbes asks 'Does $.09-.10 include CA tax cut? Sridhar says it includes all of the costs. And that no systems installed outside of CA.

10:21

Q: Can you give us some of the key details that have brought you here. A: One of our cofounders built the Gemini fuel cell and other cells that have been in submarines, space stations, etc. There is no one secret, magic bullet.

10:23

Q: CBS asks what kinds of discussions Bloom has had with utilities. A: Sridhar says "we are a friend of the utility." The utilities don't build nuclear power plants---other companies build them, and the utilities buy them. There's no reason they wouldn't be able to do that with the energy servers.

10:24

10:24

Q: Can you explain how this works with solar? A: Sridhar says that when the sun shines, it powers the home--and leftover energy goes into the Bloom home energy server. It's then stored there as a fuel--local and as a fuel. At night, when the sun isn't shining, the fuel goes into the home.

10:24

(not literally of course)

10:25

Sridhar: For market reasons, cost reasons, solar price coming to the price it needs to come to, and automakers getting alternate energy vehicles--we're about 10 years away from that.

10:26

Q: San Jose News asks: Any plans to add thermal applications? A: Sridhar says that building a box that provides heat and electricity changes based on seasons, geography--every install needs to be a custom job and that adds to the cost. We found a way to reuse the heat in a way that turns it into power output and customers love that.

10:28

Q: Can 2 bloom boxes be used in something like a vehicle? Sridhar: You don't want to be hauling a power plant everywhere you go. You want to put it where it belongs--stationary and on the ground. Q: So it would never be inside the vehicle? Sridhar: No, that doesn't work from a performance perspective.

10:28

Sridhar is comparing it to calories "we can take hydrogen and natural gas--with those 100 calories coming in, we can maximize the use of those calories."

10:30

Q: How is this different from existing fuel cells? TJ Rodgers (founder and chief executive officer of Cypress Semiconductor) says: Oxygen ion goes through a membrane, and it's the movement of oxygen through the cell that create the power. It's a completely different technology. It's much more robust. It doesn't require the more expensive metals as old style fuel cells do.

10:31

Q: Is this the next google? A: John Doerr--"I hope so"

10:33

Q: What makes this cost competitive with the grid? A: Sridhar says it needs to be like a feeding bottle. We need a subsidy in the early days, then we need to get out of it so we can help the economies that can not provide that. Every large coal mine that happens, and the rights to that. They were all subsidized--so the conventional power you get is not market price power. It's subsidized. It's unfair to compare an emerging technology to that paradigm.

10:33

Doerr says: 15 years ago we didn't have Internet. Today it's a trillion dollar economy. That compares well to the scale of people who need electricity on the planet.

10:34

Cost was more than 25x what it is today just a few years ago.

10:36

SF Chronicle asks: If a utility goes out, would that qualify as the [regulated product submission]? A: It would qualify if it runs on a renewable fuel source.

10:37

Q: How much do the units cost? A: Units cost $700-800,000 (before subsidy) Funding is in the $400 million ballpark from "a variety of investors"

10:39

Q: What's the most popular fuel? A: Sridhar says natural gas is the most popular. Many people want bio-gas, but it's unavailable. The beauty is that those customers can get this system now and not worry about whether it will work with other types of fuel down the line.

10:41

Q: The box does not include any outboard equipment to deliver biomass fuel. Correct? A: Rodgers says you just pour a concrete slab, they deliver the box, and the customer plugs it into the natural gas line. As for other types of fuel, you have to build that infrastructure yourself.

10:41

Q: Are you going to license the technology? A: Sridhar says "stay tuned."

10:42

Q: Are you hiring people inside or out of the country for production? A: Sridhar says the majority of the jobs are here in Califonia.

10:43

Q: How green is the tech itself? A: Sridhar says metal and sand that go into the boxes are recycled and reused. Bloom has also tried to reduce the chemicals needed to create these cells.

10:44

Q: (from former CNET'er Michael Kanellos)- can this system work in reverse? A: Sridhar: Our current system is not made to run like that. We have proven that entirely before to get patents on this.

10:45

Q: Could this be used in a car? A: Sridhar: this tech is not meant to be in a car. The combustible engine is a beautiful thing. And if you can put hydrogen in there, why is everyone not doing that? primarily b/c of the cost involve in that infrastructure and safety. We've taken a stationary approach here.

10:46

Q; When you change fuel sources do any settings need to be changed? A: Sridhar says the change requires no special tweaking. The box figures out what you're putting into it and keeps on working. In "about a day."

10:48

Q; What temp do these boxes run at? A: 800 degrees Celsius, which is about 3x hotter than the inside of your car. And 2x cooler than the hottest part of your home furnace. We've built it so that you never get near that though--obviously.

10:49

Q: (to Colin Powell) Is the military using this? A: Powell says I'm talking to some of my old friends about this, but I have no part in the current military planning. Though it would be "incredibly useful" to the military since right now troops have to drag around heavy, loud generators that show up on heat maps. Powell says they would paint the Bloom Box camouflage.

10:50

Alright folks, that's the end of the Q&A, and the event. Thanks for tuning in!

10:51

[Comment From Jeff Hall]  When will CNET have the video up?

10:51

Soon. Our video folks are heading back to edit it.

10:52

[Comment From SolarDave]  Where can we find the video once done?

10:53

http://cnettv.cnet.com

10:54

 

 

 

Writer: Josh Lowensohn

Bloom Box press briefing

Close  

 

  English

  简体中文

  Dansk

  Deutsch

  Español

  Français

  Italiano

  日本語

  Nederlands

  Norsk

  Português

  Русский

  Svenska

Close