Free Republic

Fuel cells deserved to hit the headlines this week, but not the way that it played out. The big splash came thanks to CBS News' 60 MINUTES and heavy hyping of a stationary fuel cell developer emerging from stealth-mode development. More surprising, and of real significance, was a projection yesterday by Pike Research that fuel cell-equipped vehicles will go commercial in just 4 years. The problem with Bloom Energy's Bloom Box stationary fuel cell is that, despite 60 MINUTES' assertion that it might be the holy grail to free Americans shackled to a coal-fired grid, the company has yet to...

In the boardroom at Bloom Energy, a single picture hangs on the wall: a satellite image of the world at night. Clusters of bright lights mark the industrial centers, and thin white lines trace connecting passageways such as the U.S. Interstate System and the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In between, huge swaths lie in shadow. Standing almost reverently before the image, K. R. Sridhar, the CEO of Bloom, points to the dark areas—places where electricity isn’t accessible or reliable. “This is my motivation for everything,” he says. To improve the lot of the more than 2 billion people living in those dark...