Every so often a new device comes along that seems innocuous, but then transforms the way we live. Almost any antique store is filled with such items: bed-warming stones, scrubbing boards, porch milk boxes....

And where would we be without remote controls or cell phones?

Bloom Energy, one of the most hyped companies ever to sprout up in Silicon Valley, may be on the verge of changing the way we power our homes and offices.

KR Sridhar, Bloom's CEO, has been tight-lipped about his company's invention - which is hard to do when you've pulled in more than $400 million in venture capital. Analysts and reporters want to see what you've got, and holding your cards too close can signal that you haven't perfected your invention.

Sridhar is now in the middle of a full-court press tour with his Bloom Box, wafer thin ceramic plates stacked together that produce clean energy in the form of electricity. Sridhar's vision, he said in an interview last Sunday for "60 Minutes," is to see houses all across the country with a Bloom Box in the back of the house. The boxes are less conspicuous than an air conditioning unit or a satellite dish.

And Americans would essentially power their own homes and offices, circumventing the national grid.

Pie in the sky hoopla?

It doesn't look like it. Sridhar has already tested his Bloom Box using major US firms like FedEx and Google as pilot cases. And he's made believers along the way.

His devices are made of ordinary sand, which is abundant around the globe. The units are odorless and soundless. They don't even vibrate.

If he's successful, we may see RG&E signs in those antique stores.