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

To: Randy Ellingson who wrote (2580)	5/12/1998 5:41:00 PM
From: Sid Turtlman	Respond to of 5827

Randy: There are several different kind of fuel cells out there. Ballard makes PEM cells, which run very cool and can be made very compact. That is a big plus for cars, but the coolness is actually a big disadvantage for stationary power. ERC makes a different kind of fuel cell called molten carbonate, which runs very hot (about 1300 F). This allows it to use natural gas directly without requiring a reformer to extract the hydrogen from the fuel first. Reformers consume a lot of energy, heating the natural gas up to somewhere around 1800 F and then cooling the hydrogen down again so it doesn't melt the PEM membrane, burning off carbon monoxide along the way so that it doesn't poison the membrane. Molten carbonate fuel cells don't have any membranes. ERC's fuel cells are much more efficient than Ballard's, even without counting cogeneration, which ERC can use and Ballard can't. That means that ERC's will create much more electricity from a given amount of fuel, and give off fewer emissions per amount of electricity produced. In terms of the efficiency of the first commercial units, ERC should lead at at least 48% to 35%, and ultimately maybe 58% to 40%. With cogen ERC's figures can go a lot higher. These numbers are a function of chemistry and physics. The molecules and atoms don't know or care who Ballard's partners are. Most Ballard fans would like to believe that ERC doesn't exist, and ERC has no intention of ever putting a molten carbonate fuel cell in a car. But for stationary power, ERC is the one to beat. For more info, see the news release that I cited in my earlier note to Hawkeye.