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Technology Stocks : FCL - FuelCell Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (86)	12/10/1997 7:49:00 AM
From: Sid Turtlman	Respond to of 407

Zeuspaul: The reason I am so enthusiastic about the hybrid technology is that it eliminates a lot of the hurdles you mentioned about pure battery powered vehicles. The fact of the matter is that an internal combustion engine is efficient and clean at highway speeds. It is moving the car from zero to 20 or 30 mph that uses up the fuel and dumps the pollutants into the air. While a pure battery powered car could do it all, you then end up with the infrastructure problem--recharging stations, etc. The hybrid eliminates that problem because the gas engine charges the batteries as you are driving above the speed where they kick in. The infrastructure problem is severe with fuel cell powered cars, unless the work being done on gasoline reformers is successful. (By that I don't mean, do they work?, but can they work cheap enough?) Otherwise someone is going to have to pay to have methanol or hydrogen tanks installed in massive numbers before people will want to buy the cars, a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Over on the Ballard thread yesterday I posted a link to the story in the current issue of Business Week about the hybrid that Toyota put on sale last week. Worth reading.

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (86)	12/10/1997 8:06:00 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 407

Zeuspaul; At first glance it looks good, but the batteries are costly and with driving every day that tekes 30-70% out and then recharges in three years you have 1000 charge/discharge cycles. This is near the limit of many battery types, and beyond some more exotic ones(like silver cells, 100 C/D cycles max) The battery for your vehicle would exceed the car weight, and is just on the edge for flat terrain in a temperate climate where no heating/air conditioning is needed. To push the Lexuses out of driveways you need to match their price performance ratio(or outlaw them, or run out of oil(never)). Hybrids, fuel cells and flywheels stand a good chance of taking 20-30% of the market over the next 20-30 years. It will be harder in San Francisco and Anchorage where hills and weather exert extra loads on the system. Cars can be better insulated to need less heat/cooling in the body and the transparent areas, and tighter fitted to avoid air loss so body heat is retained(watch the window fogging). Note your simple charging station will need to have enough KW HR capacity to recharge you and all the hundreds of others beside you in the 3-8 hour time you leave it there. The sum of these will be quite a bit, same for home. 30HP is 20KW(+,-) at 100% efficiency, so each hour drive will need 20 KW HR plus inefficiencies to replace it. However it is doable, and at say 20 cents per KW HR would cost $4 a day to recharge, and another $1.50 at home for your off peak charger to do it at night. I see fuel cells and flywheels winning here. The fly wheels are very good and getting better. look here and search for flywheels, amazingly good. Best for bigger vehicles, but they have small ones for wheelchairs. llnl.gov The Lawrence Livermore National Lab Bill