The journalists at CBS appear to have made a big stink about a little black (er...gray) box called a Bloom Box. Developed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, The Bloom Box is a modular fuel cell capable of producing electrical power on a small scale at high efficiency using natural gas.

The company's employees reportedly spent ten years of their lives developing this thing. I do not know what kind of innovations in materials and construction they may have developed and cannot criticize that aspect of the product. I am willing, however, to criticize the insane amount of hype which the media has generated. The articles have exploded over Web sites over the past few days, and having read some and scanned through others, some fairly outrageous claims are being made.

Essentially, they made another fuel cell - the same technology that Sir William Grove demonstrated in 1839, the same technology which Ballard Power Systems, Fuel Cell Energy, and others have been selling for decades, and the same technology in the mythical cars Honda has been advertising on TV for years now. They may have made a more robust fuel cell, cheaper fuel cell, etc. But nonetheless, it is a fuel cell.

• It does not create electricity from thin air.
• It does not necessarily use renewable resources.
• It burns NATURAL GAS, the same gas people are familiar with for heating their homes. CH₄ + 2O₂ -> 2H₂O + CO₂, the same chemical reaction which takes place in the all-familiar gas forced air furnace and gas range burner.
• There are emissions. Water and Carbon Dioxide, the same emissions that make up the majority of power plant, car, truck, and home heating exhausts. These are also the emissions of human beings, but we do not run on fossil fuels, at least not directly.
• It has the capacity of increasing efficiency through cogeneration, provided that facilities are installed for recovering the waste heat - e.g. for domestic hot water, space heating.
• It is not an energy storage device.
• It does not defy the laws of physics (specifically thermodynamics and conservation of matter/energy)
• It will not reduce "resistive" losses in energy transmission. There is resistance in gas pipes just as there is resistance in electrical wiring. It takes energy to move gas around just as it takes energy to move electricity around.
• Running the Bloom Box on methane from manure/sludge digestion, landfills, etc. is possible. So long as every last molecule of sulfur is removed beforehand, as sulfur is notorious for bringing a slow death to fuel cells and catalysts. Landfill gas will also tend to have chlorine compounds and other nastiness in it, that's why the big LFG plants use boilers and steam to generate power as it is even too harsh for diesel engines.
• Companies like eBay, Google, Walmart, etc. are willing to pay big bucks for this because using such a box to power their data centers means that they can do away with big and expensive uninterruptable power supplies and diesel generator sets required as a backup to the grid power used now.
• Using the Bloom Box to produce a "methane-like fuel" from the water and CO₂ exhaust is brain dead, senseless, stupid, et. al. Turn natural gas into electricity, heat, water, and carbon dioxide, then go and reassemble it all back into natural gas. All while adhering to the Second Law of Thermo and making money at the same time? Rube Goldberg would be happy.

Currently the consumer economy requires the energy equivalent of filet mignon - electricity and liquid fuels - to survive. In my opinion, those who make the world run on 60/40 ground beef - low-grade heat and light from the sun - will be the ones who win the prize. They probably will not become rich enough however to be able to afford the $5000 office chairs of dot com fame, let alone sustain consumerism.