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Technology Stocks : Fuel Cell Investments

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To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (99)10/5/2000 3:40:44 PM
From: Krowbar  Read Replies (1) of 280
 
Jack This guy should be embarrassed that he calls himself an advisor. He needs to become a student first....

<< Then the issue of why contractors will want to install fuel cell heating units will have to be addressed. Residential developers will not pay contractors any more to install a fuel cell "furnace" than to install a regular furnace. If contractors can make just as much money installing a natural gas furnace, there is no incentive for them to install fuel cell units.

This is a real issue that has always held back progress in the residential construction industry. Concrete block construction is inefficient, expensive and of inferior quality to almost all alternatives. Yet it is still a very major type of construction method because contractors do not always make more money using the alternatives. >>

I have been in the construction industry for 40 years, and I haven't seen a cement block house built by a builder in that time. Block is properly used for basements, but not the house proper. He says it's still a major type of construction. I guess we're living on different planets.

Replacing furnaces? Huh? Has anybody told him that the primary purpose for a home fuel cell is to produce the electricity for that house? The waste heat from the fc unit can easily heat the water, and any excess after that is done can be used to augment the heating of the house, but that doesn't mean it's a furnace any more than the engine in your car is a furnace.

<< And if fuel cell "furnace" prices are above the cost for conventional heating units, they simply will not have a chance. This is because developers will in all likelihood decide that they will not be able to recoup the extra cost in their new home selling prices. The mass market of home buyers does not pay extra for energy saving or environmentally friendly features. If it did, triple-glazed windows, heat pumps and extra insulation above minimum building code requirements would sell. They do not sell and developers do not put them in their construction. >>

Wrong again. I completed a 77 unit patio home development last year, and the buyers were more than happy to pay the added cost of more efficient heat pump units. They understand that the added cost will be easily made up by lower electricity costs.

You can safely put this "analyst" on ignore.

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