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Technology Stocks : Energy Conversion Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wily who wrote (3939)	8/17/1999 7:31:00 PM
From: Michael Latas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8393

Not hardly! Staking a claim on new battery technology is one thing. Bringing it into market successfully is an entirely different matter. Please note, they never did make any reference to NiMH technology. What they are hopeful of doing is replacing alkaline disposable batteries and nicads. As they stated, alkaline batteries were invented back in 1860 and continue to do exceedingly well. Nicad was the first rechargeable consumer batteries and have dominated their niche for over forty years. ECD is already eating into the nicad market successfully. Both technologies are controlled by very formidable mfgr's who pretty well have a stranglehold on the market. Whatever success they may eventually have will be far from an overnight sensation. They will have to climb a very steep and treacherous mountain as anyone who has been with ECD for any period of time knows. He also states that over 60 trillion primary batteries are used every year. That's right, Licht stated 60 trillion batteries! That's shear hogwash! There are six billion people in this world. How many batteries per year do you think each man, woman and child uses per year? Figure it out and you will see what I'm talking about. Licht destroys whatever credibility he may have had with that statement. Rest easy. Regards.

To: wily who wrote (3939)	8/21/1999 12:41:00 PM
From: Ray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

Wily, your concern over the impact on ENER of the "super-iron" based batteries has not yet received due consideration. This is a very interesting development and has substantial portent for ENER. I received my copy of Science this week; and after reading the super-iron article I want to post some information that we should all be aware of. Bear with me -- the news is not all bad, that is for sure. First, I want to clear up some misconceptions. Based on the news article Wily posted, Michael Latas wrote: <<Not hardly! Staking a claim on new battery technology is one thing. Bringing it into market successfully is an entirely different matter. Please note, they never did make any reference to NiMH technology. What they are hopeful of doing is replacing alkaline disposable batteries and nicads. As they stated, alkaline batteries were invented back in 1860 and continue to do exceedingly well. Nicad was the first rechargeable consumer batteries and have dominated their niche for over forty years. ECD is already eating into the nicad market successfully. Both technologies are controlled by very formidable mfgr's who pretty well have a stranglehold on the market. Whatever success they may eventually have will be far from an overnight sensation. They will have to climb a very steep and treacherous mountain as anyone who has been with ECD for any period of time knows. He also states that over 60 trillion primary batteries are used every year. That's right, Licht stated 60 trillion batteries! That's shear hogwash! There are six billion people in this world. How many batteries per year do you think each man, woman and child uses per year? Figure it out and you will see what I'm talking about. Licht destroys whatever credibility he may have had with that statement. Rest easy.>> Actually, Michael, the news article misquoted Licht. The Science article states "Capacity, power, cost, and safety factors have led to the annual global use of approximately 6ž10^10 alkaline or dry batteries, . . ". Then, the global per person yearly average use is about 10 batteries. To me, this is still an amazing number -- but it is at least reasonable. Also, Licht does mention NiMH technology and recognizes its importance. Further, his view is not limited to "alkalines" and "nicads". Michael, I certainly agree with your "very steep and treacherous mountain" observation. This expresses an important truth about the development of successful batteries. However, Licht is a genuine expert and has a good grasp of the problems that occur in practical batteries. For example, he and his team investigated and rejected quite a few other promising materials before settling on "super-iron"; and they have apparently been successful in stabilizing the super-iron by, in part, using pure material (super-iron degradation is catalyzed by Nickel or Cobalt). IMO, Licht and his team understand the "mountain" well. They show this in several places in the article, as in the concluding remarks: "In the primary-battery studies, the AAA cell configuration has been used only to provide a clear comparison to existing optimized electrochemistries. The engineering of MnO2 into a conventional cylindrical cell is an ongoing process which has taken many decades. Engineering studies of the new Fe(VI) cathode will also be an ongoing process. Further research probing, stabilizing, and releasing the substantial storage of other Fe(VI) cathodes will be needed. For example, a composite high-capacity Fe(VI) cathode containing several Fe(VI) salts also exhibits efficient discharge in the high-current domain, and, as in the K2FeO4 and BaFeO4 cells in this study, generates significantly greater energy capacity than in conventional alkaline batteries. " Thread: Do not jump to conclusions before reading my next post, which will include some very interesting quotes from the Science article. Ray