We first got excited about the Bloom Box during last week’s Monday Morning post-60 Minutes Discussion (something we do every week, which predominantly consists of mocking Andy Rooney).

The Kleiner Perkins startup officially launched their new off-grid fuel cell technology after 8 years of veiled secrecy and 400 million VC dollars. Powering the likes of Google, Ebay and Walmart, the Bloom Boxes are striving to get to scale and lower their whopping $700,000 – 800k price tags. Co-founder and CEO J.R. Sridhar hopes to drive the price down to $3000 and install his boxes in household backyards.

“Customers like Wal-Mart believe in doing the green thing but they absolutely believe in the bottom line,” says Sridhar. “The technology had to pass the muster and the muster simply was the rate of return on the investment.”

Right now, Bloom Boxes are powered by natural gas or biogas from landfills, but in the future, Bloom hopes to integrate its patented link to roof top solar units, “that’s the killer app,” Sridhar adds.

The coolest part may be their stance on raw materials: only use substances found in abundance. This helps Bloom bypass fuel cell technology’s biggest hiccup, the need for rare elements to be used as catalysts for low-temperature reactions. Bloom uses beach sand and ink to make its cells, which will also help lower its production costs at scale.

Read more on Grist and check Bloom Energy’s website here