A.J.: I can't imagine that ERC has any interest in the boondocks like Antartica. The market will be mainline utilities on the coasts.
Electrical generating capacity is not keeping up with the long term growth in demand because of all the uncertainties connected with deregulation. What utility would want to put up a big power plant, costing many hundreds of millions or billions, with no assurance of getting any return on investment? At the same time, hardly a month or so goes by without some nuke being closed down for good. A few years from now there will be brownouts and blackouts, but by then it will be too late to put up a large conventional plant - no one wants them nearby, so lawsuits tie them up for years. If all goes will, ERC will be able to supply the need with small (2 mW) plants produced on a production line that any utility can buy and hook up to the grid anywhere they want, even in the middle of a city, because they are so clean and quiet.
ERC won't have to raise massive funds - the $16,000,000 in projected needs from the latest 10-K would give it capacity to do over $100,000,000 per year in business at good margins. If at that point it wanted to expand to be able to do a billion a year, then that would require a lot of money, but since the stock would be well into triple digits in that scenario, the funds shouldn't be hard to get. And, like I said in a previous post, the $16,000,000 figure has been coming down steadily, and I expect it to get much smaller by the time it is finally needed. |
