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Strategies & Market Trends : Commodities - The Coming Bull Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: craig crawford who wrote (185)	6/10/2001 8:20:21 PM
From: craig crawford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1643

Think Zinc John C. Dvorak, Forbes Magazine, 06.11.01, 12:00 AM ET forbes.com Zinc-air's beauty is in its density. The technology, invented during World War I by Parisian Charles Fery, relies on immersing zinc in a solution of potassium hydroxide, which then oxidizes upon contact with air. The electrons released can be harnessed as electricity. You can get about 110 watt-hours out of a pound of zinc. Lithium-ion rechargeables hold up to 60 watt-hours per pound. A lead-acid car battery holds only 20. Zinc-air's earliest use was for powering telephone lines where a slow drain was acceptable. The most common use today is for running hearing aids. A Teflon casing permits a modest amount of air to pass through, allowing the battery to last a week. Use by bus fleets, which can replenish fuel cells in a central location, makes more sense than use by the general public. The idea of setting up a national network of "zinc stations" sounds impractical. That problem may be solved by developing a totally enclosed rechargeable fuel cell. At least two privately held California companies, the Carlsbad-based Metallic Power and Livermore-based Power-Air Technology, hope to achieve this soon. Not knowing what this stuff will cost doesn't stop the talk of grandiose schemes. Power-Air, for example, dreams about fueling scooters in China, creating backup systems for homes and amusement parks, powering fork lifts and buses in Mexico and China. Meanwhile it hasn't sold a thing. Zinc-air technology has a bright future, but we need to see more real products.