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Microcap & Penny Stocks : MECHANICAL TECHNOLOGY (MKTY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (259)	7/11/1999 3:28:00 PM
From: Fisherman1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542

Bill, I could not have said it better myself! Welcome to the board and I totally agree with you .PS MKTY is now part of the Russell 2000 since June 30th 1999 which: 1. creates buying by the index group of funds 2. makes MKTY available for a lot of small cap funds

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (259)	7/11/1999 6:23:00 PM
From: billkirn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542

Bill, You have made some good observations concerning MKTY and ERC. I do own them both. We might find an analogy with the computer industry, where distributive intelligence has taken over from central intelligence. There might be a little movement back to central intelligence as the internet evolves. If we use the microprocessor, RAM memory and microcomputer development as a guide, it has taken about 25 years from the first microprocessors to our present situation. It has taken about 20 years from the first useful commercial microcomputers to our present situation, and the direction has been strongly distributive. If this model is used, it should take about 25 years before the majority of homes generate their own power. The ultimate for home owners would be to produce electrical power from the sun to power electrolyzes, producing hydrogen for the fuel cell stack, and inverters to produce 60hz power. We might even move back to dc powered appliances. Ideally, the excess power generated in the south western states could be sold to the power grid if there is one. Here is an interesting link: humboldt.edu I would expect the common thread of this independent and distributed power production evolution will be hydrogen. Even the evolution towards huge capacity hard disks might indicate the time line for cost effective hydrogen storage. From 10 megabytes,(I think it cost about $2,000) IBM PC in 1981, to 14 Gigabytes in 1999 ( about $1,000). Over three orders of magnitude in increased storage capacity over about 20 years. This strongly indicates the time line we can expect. Can we find the Intel, Compaq, Dell, Microsoft in this new industry? Bill Kirn

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (259)	7/11/1999 7:36:00 PM
From: Sid Turtlman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 542

William: "The gist of what you seem to be saying is that ERC's superior fc technology will ultimately triumph." I am sorry it came out that way to you, but that is not what I was trying to say. First of all, nobody knows at this stage who will ultimately triumph in the stationary power fuel cell world. Much is still up in the air. Secondly, even if ERC did not exist, and even if there were no such thing as high temperature, higher efficiency fuel cells like carbonate and solid oxide, I still think there is plenty of reason to be skeptical about the prospects for small fuel cells installed in each house, as opposed to larger units used to generate power for the grid. I have given many reasons in previous posts, which I won't repeat, but one that I don't think I mentioned that is a killer is the fact that one can get away with installing much less capacity to handle the peak power needs of a group of homes, than one would need if each home has to handle its own peak needs. This is because not every home is using its peak requirements all at the same time. Given that the biggest stumbling block to fc usage will be its high initial cost per kW, serving the same number of homes with much less capacity investment makes a lot of sense. So even if all fc's were PEM, I think larger units, such as the 250 kW ones that Ballard and others are working on make more sense than 7 kW units that Plug Power has. Given that there are other fc technologies out there that are much more efficient than PEM at what should be the same or lower cost per kW, they make even more sense. That is the kind that ERC makes. So while neither I nor anyone else knows yet knows who will succeed, as a speculation the odds make ERC seem the better bet. Its market cap is still well under $100 million, whereas Plug Power's is around $1 billion. What has kept ERC's cap so low is that it hasn't made any deals with "strategic partners" yet, intentionally so. The idea was to develop the technology to the point where all the technical issues were solved before making any deals; that would prevent excessive dilution prematurely. Investors, not unreasonably, believe that they can't figure out on their own who will be successful, so use the number or quality of strategic partners as a proxy for likelihood of success. It was only after Ballard signed a deal with DCX that its stock started rolling, and the same was true of MKTY after its GE deal. The fact that the GE deal was lopsidedly in GE's favor passed unnoticed - just being in bed with GE was good enough for MKTY investors. What I am suggesting is that ERC appears to be at the stage that Ballard and Plug were prior to their outside endorsements, with a plausible chance that such things will be coming soon. One difference is that ERC has a finished technology - the only remaining issues are business ones. Another is that it has kept its share count extraordinarily low, so should it do what it takes to be worth the $1-3 billion values that the Ballard and Plug have been accorded, the impact on the stock price could be staggering. Does that mean that in the long run ERC will necessarily succeed? Absolutely not. But as a speculation it seems a lot more attractive than others who also may not succeed, but have a massively larger market cap.