After NASA bailed using his original invention to produce oxygen on Mars, K.R. Sridhar created the Bloom Box. The device is about the size of a refrigerator and uses fuel cell technology to produce clean energy 5x as efficient as solar panels.

Companies like Google and Ebay have been the first to buy the $800,000 boxes, but the Sridhar predicts that the boxes could get down to costing only $3000 and potentially be used to power your home within a few years.

Having done a lot of research on clean and cheap energy for home use, I always felt as if solar panels were the way to go. Installing $30,000 solar panels may be costly at first, but not paying another electric bill has always been a dream of mine.

But now that the Bloom Box as finally been revealed, I’m now switching my decision to fuel cell technology. If the device never needs to be connected to an electric grid and can run for 30 years, the decision is a no-brainier.

As of right now only the super-wealthy can afford the boxes. Then again, laptops and cell phones were once out of reach for the average middle class consumer.