Fuel cell energy

The vast majority of modern energy sources require fuel combustion in the process. Fossil fuels are the most common fuels using this principle. This inventor, K.R. Sridhar, is supposed to launch his company's, Bloom Energy, new fuel cell based generator called the Bloom box in the next couple of days. The main website is even having a countdown to product launch. What is so spectacular about this new product? I will discuss that below.

Fuel cells are nothing new. They are basically electrochemical cells that work similar to batteries. The main difference is fuel consumption occurs in the fuel cell creating exchangeable electrons and protons for the anode and cathode, respectively. Several issues with fuels cells have prevented their widespread use:
1) The catalyst are expensive making electricity production cost prohibitive.
2) Hydrocarbon fuels (carbon based) foul the cathode leaving hydrogen as the only source of fuel. Hydrogen is not found in elemental form in nature. Significant amounts of energy is required to obtain hydrogen even before the fuel cell has energy output.
3) The low energy density often makes the exercise a mute point in practical terms.

The inventor claims one of these boxes (however big that may be) can power a house? I am skeptical. The inventor once worked for NASA where he developed an oxygen generator that was scrapped from space flights. My guess is this oxygen generator is being used to increase the production efficiency of the best currently available fuel cell technology. This is in comparison to more traditional fuel cells obtaining oxygen from the surrounding environment. The new fuel cells would work better with pure oxygen, but the technology still faces the three hurdles above.

I am skeptical. It seems like a bunch of hype. Unless other significant improvements were engineered into the box, this is going to be a flop. What is driving the coming out party is the $400 million investment by venture capitalists. Time to deliver goods or lose the funding.