Bye-bye grid, here's cheers to progress.Causing quite a stir on the green front Sunday, Bloom Energy unveiled their fuel cell technology that's intended to replace the grid.

Sadly, the Bloom Box doesn't play mix tapes, but it can power your blu-ray. Boxes have been powering a Google data center for 18 months, so your last search was partially carbon neutral. As was your last eBay score, 15% of their campus runs on five industrial Bloom Box cubes.

One of the box's cells, coated on both sides with
secret sauce.It's pretty simple, even if you're not a rocket scientist: a constant cycle of fuel combining with oxygen to create electricity.

Originally intended to create oxygen for NASA on Mars, founder and CEO K.R. Sridhar reversed the flow of oxygen for the Earthly version. Going from blow to suck, methane or other hydrocarbons (natural gas) are fed into the cell and heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius.

eBay's set-up at their campus in San Jose. More
efficient than their solar efforts.One fuel cell powers one light bulb. Average American house? You're looking at two stacks. How about your neighborhood Starbucks? 64 stacks.

In the first nine months, eBay has cut energy costs by $100,000. With business units currently costing $700,000 to $800,000 (government subsidies and incentives knock up to half off the sticker price), and home units claimed to cost $3,000, I'm pretty confident they'll recoup the $400,000,000 investment in no time.

The box, in it's naked glory.Questions about efficiency, final costs, and hardware longevity have skeptics reeling, but that's just a good foundation for building drama, and competition, in Silicon Valley. They're unveiling more details on Wednesday at their headquarters.

Still unknown are its carbon emissions, patent details - some questioning the laws of thermodynamics, and of course, "the secret sauce on the cheap."

Everyone's favorite pseudo-mad scientist.I put my money on a flux capacitor being the reason for secrecy, after all, I'm pretty sure Doc would power his lab with two Bloom Boxes.

Here's the 60 Minutes unveiling...