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Technology Stocks : Ballard Power -world leader zero-emission PEM fuel cells -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (2148)	4/3/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: Kayaker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5827

<<Fuel cells will never be cost competitive enough to eliminate centralized generation.>> Well...... I think the first market Ballard should target is hydroponic pot growers. Such folk routinely get busted because the electric company reports the abnormally high useage to the appropriate authorities. I think they (growers) would pay big bucks for a fuel cell to supply power for their business requirements and would be quite happy to disconnect from the central grid. A great untapped market, especially here in BC.

To: yard_man who wrote (2148)	4/3/1998 2:10:00 PM
From: Hawkeye	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5827

Actually, if you do a little research on this you will see that the world is moving away from mega-projects towards a more competitive distributed power environment. The advantages to distributed power include the ability to add incremental capacity at lower cost, improved quality of power not available over transmission lines, and the ability to locate the source of power in places too remote for transmission lines. The biggest headache for power utilities going forward is how to handle what are called "stranded assets" or those mega-projects that have become uneconomic due to competition from alternative energy suppliers who have stolen their customers away by offering distributed power. There is a lot more to this issue than I can go into here but the fact is that most utilities are looking into fuel cells as well as gas turbines for distributed power generation. If you don't believe me, go to epri.com and search for "fuel cell". Or try epri.com

To: yard_man who wrote (2148)	4/3/1998 5:53:00 PM
From: michael a. rowe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5827

Do you know how much electricity is lost due to transmission? Do you know what producing only as much power as you need when you need it is? Do you know what pollution is?

To: yard_man who wrote (2148)	4/3/1998 7:18:00 PM
From: Cascade Berry	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5827

You sound like the "Man from Eniac" - mainframes will never be small enough to fit on a persons desk...etc. etc. The physics is there - the will is there...get ready for the HYDROGEN CENTURY. The age of oil is nearing an end.

To: yard_man who wrote (2148)	4/3/1998 11:30:00 PM
From: smw3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 5827

Barry, You may be the one dreaming...a bad dream. Economy of scale is exactly what we're going to see happening in the very near term. Economy of scale means that DuPont can put out Nafion for 10% of its current cost with every factor of 100 increase in production (Ballard makes its own membrane, but if DuPont can do it, so can Ballard). Economy of scale is the reason ONSI's PC25 is already half the price it was when it first became commercially available 5 years ago. Economy of scale is the very reason why, when fuel cells are mass produced within the next 10 years, decentralized power will be the norm rather than the exception. The fact is and has been for some time, though, that economy of scale no longer applies to power produced in large scale centralized plants. Why in the world do you think you pay a lower base rate residentially, then a higher rate once your consumption passes a baseline benchmark? Why in the world would utilities promote consumer efficiency programs as they have been? Specifically because the costs to them to meet increased demand is greater than the cost of meeting preexisting demand with existing facilities. Count on this: The utilities will move in on the fuel cell industry (no doubt to Ballard's benefit) when the time is ripe...and the time, Barry, is very nearly ripe.