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25 comments on Open thread

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ericy on September 11, 2005 - 5:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I have seen you talk about zinc-air fuel cells before.  While this seems interesting, could you comment on how mature this technology really is?  

In looking at the www.electric-vehicle.com website, they talk how this technology is being used in Europe and how they are starting field trials with a city bus.  The website gives a lot of optimistic marketing talk about how great it all is, but they obviously don't list any potential gotchas or problems that might need to be solved before widespread adoption.

I have seen talk of a different company that is making diesel-hybrid vehicles, and they seem to be getting some traction with finding customers.  I haven't seen much about this company though.

Are there cities and/or fleets that are considering adopting this technology that you know of?

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Engineer-Poet on September 11, 2005 - 7:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There are a number of companies doing interesting things with zinc-air, but the one I know the most about is Electric Fuel (http://www.electric-fuel.com).  I've been using a lot of their figures from their electric city bus tests.

Power Air Corp. purchased a bunch of LLNL patents for refillable cells, but they don't seem to have a web site.  Here's a press release about them.

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ericy on September 11, 2005 - 8:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hmm, I meant www.electric-fuel.com in my previous post.

All this being said, the company seems to be under stress financially.  The stock price is below 1$ on the NASDAQ, which means they are in danger of being delisted.  In addition, it seems that in their most recent quarter they posted a loss, which may explain why the stock is in the toilet.  Their revenues were up, but they had to writedown of some stuff in a division unrelated to the fuel-cell division.

more info here

I have worked for startups and small companies, so I am sympathetic to the position they are in, and I know what they are probably going through.  Hopefully they will pull through it all.

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porsena on September 11, 2005 - 8:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The bus company where I live took delivery of six hybrid diesel buses starting last spring.  These buses operate similarly to a Prius, with a normal start from rest being on electricity only and the diesel engine blending in as the speed or power demand increases. The hybrid drive system, made by GM, has two electric motors with energy captured during braking. the diesel engine is from Allison.  Further info at http://www.bctransit.com/regions/vic/news/newsreleases/pdf/vic-nr528.pdf

With an incremental cost of C$300,000, the payback period was thought at time of purchase (2004) to be ten years.  It's presumably less now.  

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Captsteve on September 12, 2005 - 5:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Another company that is developing tech for alt. fuel is www.fuelcell.com they make and distribute deisel/hydrogen generators Its a neat concept packaged in a compact unit

not sure about fuel consumption rate though...

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25 comments on Open thread

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