hey look, ad hominem!

For the record, that's high school chemistry, and I'm not writing off the potential of the startup. If they can bring costs down, this has potential wherever you'd normally have a backup generator, or wherever co-generation is efficient.

I do call BS on their green claims, just as I'll call BS on the developing countries bit.

Slandering a startup with a substantial amount of funding whose clients apparently include Google & eBay through knowledge you have from a fluff article is the height of arrogance and lack of self-awareness. It's disrespectful commentary like yours that gives thoughtful skepticism a bad name.

Sorry, but when you throw out the word "bullshit" after spending 5 minutes analyzing the work of people who seem to genuinely want to make a positive difference in the world, you deserve ridicule. I stand by my reply and will take the karma hit since I see negative folks like yourself as poison to a community of entrepreneurs like HN.

People who have run startups know that the know-it-all who learns about their company in a 5 minute overview and says with authority "bullshit" are the types of people you quickly remove from your life since they are not going to provide any valuable, honest criticism.

Actually I'd say this has potential to replace power plants by localizing power generation. Most of the energy savings is probably from not having to transfer electricity through long distances. Localization usually has the trend towards more efficiency, as it is evident also in food production.