I couldn’t agree more with you. I’ve been reading a lot about Bloom in the last few days, and couldn’t really understand the hype about this. After all, fuel cells are not a source of energy, let alone renewable. They just provide a more efficient way to turn chemical energy into electricity. They should therefore be filed under the “energy efficiency” folder, which is just one bit of the energy issue. More interesting would be to see fuel cells helping create the smart grid, by balancing out renewable sources inputs through electrolysis storage, thus generating power on demand when utilities or private owners need it.

A promising, but not Colin-Powell-backed example comes from italian company Electro Power Systems, with its “Electroself” fuel cell. I find this more interesting than a fossil fuel based, 60% efficient Bloom Box.

http://www.electrops.it/electroself.html

One thing is for sure, Bloom Energy’s marketing skills match their engineering efforts, to say the least. Hopefully, the hype will give visibility to the overall concept, rather than just to their wildly inflated claims.