About 10 years ago, I forwarded a website to a friend of mine from grade school via our Yahoo! email addresses (back when Yahoo! was #1) and said “Check out this website. It’s called ‘Google’ and it’s really great. You can find things so easily.” My friend remembers that message to this day. None of us could know that Google would become such an important part of our lives. I got that same feeling as I sent emails to friends and family about Bloom Energy. Their press conference on Wednesday gave me chills as the leaders of some of the largest companies in the world (Google, Wal-Mart, Coke, eBay, Cox, etc) who collectively employ over 4 million people worldwide and have over $500 billion in revenues every year, took turns showering praise on this secretly developed fuel cell technology that seems almost too good to be true. While we’re still some years away from having Bloom Servers in our homes, the thought of this technology helping to solve many of our energy and climate change problems is exciting to say the least.

Being the largest polluters, the benefits to the US, China, and India are obvious. But you have to consider how the many developing and underdeveloped countries will benefit too. Rather than go through their own “industrial revolutions,” burning coal and trees for power, etc, Bloom is presenting a technology that bypasses all that waste and carbon release. That will mean better living conditions, cleaner environments and healthier people.

One of our central themes is to celebrate the companies that are creating new technologies and businesses that will save the planet. If (and that’s a very big “if”) Bloom can reach its goals, we might look back on this moment 5 or 10 years from now and think, “wow, that was when it all changed.” My fingers are crossed and I hope yours are too!

Here is a good explanation of how the Bloom Server works.