Energy generators in homes and businesses

[Luz Ramirez Pascual]

Making electricity in central power plants is so 20th century. K.R. Sridhar has a better idea: Create energy on the spot, right where it's consumed. His startup, Bloom Energy is developing a fuel cell that could kick-start the distributed-energy industry.

The problem with today's centralized approach is its vast inefficiency. In coal-and gas-fired power plants, almost 2/3 of the energy produced by converting fuel into kilowatts escapes as heat. Another 8%, on average, dissipates as the electricity travels over transmission lines to get to your home.

Sridhar's plan is to use solid-oxide fuel cells - a concept that has been kicking around since the 19th century but is now becoming practical with advances in the ceramics.

Bloom's cells, still in development, are constructed around a ceramic core that acts as an electrode. At high temperatures, fuel on one side attracts oxygen ions on the other. As these ions are pulled through the solid core, the resulting electrochemical reaction creates electricity. Bloom Energy's biggest hurdle is cost. The company needs to get the price of the machines below $10,000 a piece.

Such a fuel cell can run happily on almost any hydrocarbon fuel - ethanol, biodiesel, methane, natural gas. Though it consumes hydrocarbons, Bloom Energy's fuel cell does not require combustion and therefore produces half the greenhouse gas emissions of more conventional energy sources. One of its by-products, in fact, is hydrogen that could be used in a different type of fuel cell, the hydrogen-powered version imagined for propelling cars.

Ultimately, Sridhar sees his fuel cells as a leapfrog technology that could find a market in developing countries that haven't yet built an electrical grid. He imagines local entrepreneurs, armed with one or two of his machines, renting out electricity to a whole village. Lighting up the world one village at a time - there's nothing niche about that ambition. More info? Visit: http://www.bloomenergy.com/