Hawkeye: I agree with you that the Barron's article might have been better. For example, left unchallenged was Ballard's assertion that it might turn into the black from operations in the year 2002. That is two years before Daimler and Ford introduce fuel cell powered cars, if they ever do, and at least five years before Daimler or Ford expect to start making any money from the vehicles (and I don't believe they will allow their supplier Ballard to make much money until they do.) The submarine market is tiny, and the buses won't be out until 2004 either, so the projected profits presumably come from stationary power.
But Ballard virtually no chance of any significant profits in that market, because its PEM fuel cells are inherently inferior in that application. They waste too much of their energy processing natural gas to create the hydrogen that they need, and they don't run hot enough to allow cogeneration.
The best Ballard has shown it can do in stationary power is 31% efficiency, which is well under the 36% or so that gas turbines can do, and turbines will probably always be a lot cheaper to buy. I believe that Ballard has claimed that someday it might get up to 40%, but that is way below what Energy Research is doing right now:
biz.yahoo.com
ERC reported 43% efficiency, with that number being weighed down by various elements only there for the demo, so that translates into 47-50% efficiency for the commercial design. There are some other advances on the drawing board that might get the number up as high as 58%, and that is not even counting cogeneration, which could add substantially to that figure. Higher efficiency means lower fuel expense and lower emissions of all kinds.
The stationary fuel cell market could be huge, and it is ERC's for the taking, not Ballard's. Not needing a reformer and creating plenty of heat in addition to electricity gives ERC's type of fuel cell a very big edge.
While I can't rule out your assertion that Barron's is anti Ballard because it is jealous that Canadians have come up with a new technology, it doesn't seem likely. Americans have plenty of technology companies and are hardly insecure.
If anything, being Canadian has probably helped Ballard's market cap. If it were American, it would be just one more money losing development stage company with high hopes for the future. In Canada such an outfit is much less common. So Canadian investors who want to own a home grown tech stock with big potential do not have as many to choose from. And the stock is in demand from Canadian index funds, as well, which wouldn't be the case were it a US company.
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