Lots of publicity this week. Rather sceptical discussions both at Ars and at The Guardian. The New York Times however writes

Mr. Sridhar contends the Bloom boxes, with reasonable maintenance, will have a 10-year life span.

This is the information every geek wants to know, and it’s not on the Bloom Energy website - not even in the data sheets. As a result, the Guardian and Ars reporters think it may all be hot air.

But perhaps Dr Sridhar understand something that most geeks don’t. That maybe, to the lay person, 10 years doesn’t sound so great for an 800 kilodollar piece of equipment - even if it’s a break-through engineering achievement. That what sounds great is that you have Colin Powell as a director, that Google was your first customer, and now you have Ebay and Walmart. That Mayor Bloomberg is recording you a video with congratulations. It’s a better sales talk.

It’s that, or hot air.