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Gold/Mining/Energy : Global Thermoelectric - SOFC Fuel cells (GLE:TSE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dingo who wrote (3042)	8/12/1999 12:16:00 AM
From: Stephen O	Respond to of 6016

I found the following on the Ballard thread on Yahoo. Military Fuel Cells... by: Gaudisso 5396 of 5397 The DOD has long seen the potential of fuel cells as an efficient and strategic (as you point out) means to power tanks, trucks, jeeps, troop carriers, ships, field electronics, etc. Imagine the benefits of a fuel cell driven and deadly silent submarine! They've been working for years on hybrid power units combining internal combustion engines for power and fuel cells for reliability and stealth using, you guessed it, clean diesel fuel to power BOTH. But why again diesel fuel? 1) The storage, supply and transport infrastructure for diesel has been in place for the last 60 years and all military engines (except for our military aircraft and nuclear Navy ships) run on it. 2) Diesel fuel has a higher energy density than gasoline, and diesel engines are more efficient and get better mileage than equivalent gasoline engines. Diesel engines will always provide the core power of the military machine. 3) Diesel fuel contains twice as much hydrogen as methanol and is not nearly as hydrophilic. Methanol doesn't store nearly as well as diesel fuel. Why would the military have ANYTHING to do with methanol when sulfur and aromatic free FT diesel can power BOTH conventional internal combustion engines and future fuel cells? As far as the DOD is concerned, methanol powered fuel cells are a technological dead end. Why is Ballard going down this path?