Energy Idea for Mars Yields a Clue for Powering Data Centers<br />And with a recent deal for Dr. Sridhar’s company, Bloom Energy, to install generators at a dozen data centers in California<br />and New Jersey for Equinix, a leading operator, it is poised for a major expansion.<br />Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, said data centers could become an important market for fuel cells<br />because the industry “appears to want to be more environmentally sensitive but more reliant on their own resources.”<br />Part of the environmental appeal lies in their efficiency.<br />Equinix tested the Bloom cells at a data center in San Jose for 18 months before committing to the<br />current arrangement, in which it will buy the energy under a 15-year power purchase agreement.<br />“It’s not like a jet engine.”<br />The innovations at Bloom stem from Dr. Sridhar’s work on NASA’s Mars exploration program<br />when he was director of the Space Technologies Laboratory at the University of Arizona.<br />At that temperature, when natural gas mixed with steam flows over one surface of the cell while oxygen flows over the other, a reaction results in the release of electricity, steam<br />that is recycled through the process and carbon dioxide.<br />The aim of the deal, financed by a subsidiary of a deep-pocketed electric utility, Southern Company, is not only to create a reliable energy source for a power-thirsty industry,<br />but also to help validate a technology that has struggled to gain mainstream acceptance.
