eBay Installing Bloom Energy Fuel Cells

The City of San Jose has granted eBay permission to install five fuel cells from Bloom Energy that will generate up to 500 kilowatts of power, according to the San Jose Business Journal.

That's a slight increase for eBay. Earlier, eBay was reported to be buying four 100-kilowatt units. So maybe the order was upped. (Bloom's fuel cells are 25-kilowatts each and you tie four together for 100 kilowatts.)

eBay and Bloom, of course, aren't commenting. Bloom's website is still the same smarmy blank it has been for months. It plays corporate/new age music and shows pictures of the urban skylines and the earth from outer space. If you want to know where and how the company has burned through hundreds of millions, it's a great metaphor.

In the meantime, here are some of the other Bloom deals out there:

• East Tennessee will be the location of a 100-kilowatt demonstration fuel cell developed by Bloom that could be a precursor to the potential siting of a manufacturing facility in Tennessee.

• Its first 100-kilowatt unit went to Google.

• The units run on natural gas which gives them about 48 percent efficiency overall. Smaller natural gas fuel cells are already being marketing in Japan.

• Some have said that Bloom is having production problems, but we can't confirm it.

• The San Francisco Airport is currently evaluating a Bloom Energy fuel-cell unit.