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Crisis and Opportunity’s “Breakthrough technology turns air, sunlight, coal, even water into precious gas”

Deciphering DeHaemer's "How to Make 10 Times Your Money on the Energy Mega-Shift"

[ed note: We got a lot of questions about this pitch after we solved a different DeHaemer teaser yesterday, so we’ve brought it up for all to see again. The stock spiked up in the Spring, a few months after this article first ran back in January, but has come back down to a bit below the price it was when DeHaemer was first teasing the stock. We have not looked at the stock since or researched what caused the move up and back down, but the ad does not seem to have changed at all. What follows has not been edited or updated since it first appeared on January 28.]

—from 1/28/14—

It sounds, of course, very exciting — the spiel is an ad for DeHaemer’s Crisis and Opportunity newsletter, which is a fairly pricy $500 number that tends to focus on smaller companies and on stocks in war-torn or otherwise scary parts of the world. This one, however, is quite a bit more mundane — it’s a technology company that he says can turn sunlight and water and air into natural gas, solving the world’s energy storage problems.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Or, as he puts it:

“A technology that can convert air, sunlight, coal and even water into gas is the equivalent of a cure for cancer!

“What’s that worth?

“A lot. Maybe the biggest windfall ever.

“…. the company was able to convert air into gas.

“That’s right… the same air you and I breathe.

“This company was able to turn it into gas and transport it through a natural gas pipeline.

“This gas can be used to turn on your lights and heat your home, among countless other things.”

That’s hyperbole, of course, but there’s a bit of truth in there … and plenty of cash out there for the companies who can solve energy problems. What’s the problem DeHaemer is talking about?

Well, I won’t make you sit through the whole presentation, but the basic idea is that this company can solve the problem of energy storage for renewable energy.

Renewable energy is sometimes cost-effective these days, depending on where and how it’s produced, and it’s obviously important to lots of people and is in high demand. Many consumers will pay more for energy they feel better about, and technology improvements should continue to make solar, wind and other renewable energies more efficient in the decades to come.

But storage is an unsolved problem — the wind doesn’t blow all the time, the sun doesn’t shine at night, batteries are expensive and short-lived and many other storage solutions, like pumped hydro (you pump water up hill, then run it back downhill through a turbine when you need to generate electricity), are inefficient and take up a lot of space or just haven’t been economically feasible (like Beacon Power’s flywheels, which are in use in two plants to help regulate the electric grid but weren’t profitable enough to keep Beacon out of bankruptcy — Dehaemer actually teased those folks too, though that was back in 2007 when they were riding a bit higher, and when he was penning a different letter for a different publisher).

So really, what this company is doing is converting wind (“air”) or sunlight into electricity, which happens all the time, but then instead of that electricity just feeding into the electric grid this company uses their technology and that electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen (the process is called electrolysis). That hydrogen is used either as a fuel itself, as in fuel cells, or can be pumped into the natural gas network (and/or turned into synthetic natural gas through methanation).

Here’s a bit more of the hype, in case that basic stuff got a little too boring:

“You see, this company has been working on this breakthrough for many years.

“It has patented (145 patents and patent applications in all) and perfected the technology.

“And when all is said and done, it can supply all of the energy America could possibly want for just $0.02 a kilowatt hour. That’s the equivalent of filling up your car for just $0.57 a gallon.

“It works by converting air, sunlight, coal, and even water into gas.

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“It’s clean, cheap, and abundant.

“You can even transport this gas right through existing natural gas pipelines โ€” so there’s no extra infrastructure costs to move it, because the pipelines already exist.

“And get this: Since air, sunlight, coal, and water are essentially limitless in supply, this energy will never run out… ever.”

Then, thankfully, we get a few clues about the actual company that DeHaemer is teasing — I’ll extract a few of those clues for the Thinkolator here:

“Their annual revenue has jumped to $40 million from $19 million in 2009.

“And they have a backlog (sales for this company’s technology that’s already been booked) of over $53 million.

“The most recent customer to adopt their technology was the nation of Germany. Germany is the sixth largest energy consumer in the world. They licensed this company’s technology to build a two-megawatt power plant facility in Falkenhagen. Two megawatts can power more than 2,000 homes.

“The power plant went live this past August. For Germany, this is just the beginning of a major rollout of this company’s power generation technology….

“Enbridge โ€” a $33 billion company that owns and operates the longest oil and gas pipeline systems in the world โ€” invested millions into this company last year. In return for millions invested, they now own 13% of what I think is about to become an energy giant….

“Another ‘big name’ investor in this company is General Motors (GM).

“GM โ€” the second largest automobile manufacturer in the world with annual sales of $152 billion โ€” owns a 5% stake. Like Enbridge, GM knows that the millions of dollars it has invested in this company could return hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in the years to come….

“That’s why the company’s stock is up about 100% in a year.

“However, it still trades for less than $19 a share… and has a total market valuation of less than $250 million!”

So what’s our secret stock? As you can imagine, with that nice pile of steaming clues it didn’t take the Thinkolator long to identify our target — this is Hydrogenics Corp. (HYGS).

Hydrogenics has long been a hydrogen company with a good story, creating hydrogen systems and pushing for fuel cell adoption, but their story turned sour a few years back (coincidentally, that’s about when the last promise of hydrogen fuel cell cars fell out of favor with the first reliable hybrid and electric cars), but they have indeed had a bit of a recovery lately on the strength of both renewed interest in hydrogen fuel cells for transportation and telecommunications, and, more recently, on the pilot projects of their “power to gas” systems like the operational project in Germany that DeHaemer is teasing today.

The stock is slightly above $19 now, right around $21, but the market cap is under $200 million still and they have enough cash to keep going for a while. They are not profitable, but they do envision themselves becoming profitable fairly soon — they don’t think they need a capital infusion ore increase in production capacity to reach profitability. And they have some strong partners in E.on in Germany and Enbridge in North America (and Hyundai and GM).

The “power to gas” division is not their biggest one, but it’s a very appealing story (which is no doubt why DeHaemer’s publisher is using it, probably successfully, to catch the attention of new customers). The company describes the advantages of their system pretty nicely here:

“One of the unique characteristics of the Power-to-Gas solution is that it leverages the inherent advantages of the natural gas system. It provides the means to both store and transport energy. By storing hydrogen or substitute natural gas in the existing natural gas pipeline network and its associated underground storage facilities, the stored energy is not restricted to the site of generation. In effect the natural gas system serves as a โ€˜Power by Pipesโ€™ alternative to the transmission grid to alleviate network congestion and transport energy. Separating the storage and discharge of energy results in a higher overall integrated energy system efficiency”

I haven’t seen any information about the efficiency of the system — about how this “gas storage” system for electricity compares to grid storage or batteries or simply to the current system — but it does seem like it could make for a nice and tidy way to turn solar power or wind power into baseload “always on” power if that electricity is turned into natural gas that can be stockpiled and burned in a nat gas turbine. How much it costs versus actually producing the natural gas and burning it, I don’t know. They do have the large project in Germany, which is for 2MW but is apparently scalable and started operations over the Summer, and a second plant in Hamburg is apparently underway … and they also are selling self-contained systems to essentially provide local baseload power from renewable energy in the form of “micro-grid storage,” as with this order they announced just recently.

This is one of those companies where the one-year chart looks like an awesome breakout company, the five-year chart shows us a recovery from a several-year lull, and the ten-year chart shows a completely collapse of a market darling. Consolidation-adjusted, the stock was around $200 not much more than a decade ago, three or four bucks in 2010-2011, and is now back above $20 (there was a 25:1 share consolidation or “reverse split” back in 2010 so they could stay on the Nasdaq — the stock was down in penny range for a while before that). The same is true for most of the hydrogen fuel cell companies that have survived, stocks like Ballard Power (BLDP), FuelCell (FCEL) and Plug Power (PLUG) — I can’t say that I remember a specific catalyst to all of those companies collapsing in the early-to-mid 2000s, but they were all darlings for at least a little while at the same time that the internet bubble was preparing to burst … and they’re all down 80, 90 or whatever percent from their long-ago highs.

But Hydrogen is certainly capturing our fancy again — hydrogen cars are being pushed again by a couple carmakers, with baby steps taken on building up hydrogen fueling stations again, and that has helped the fuel cell companies this year (there’s a good Washington Post piece on hydrogen fuel cars at the DC auto show here), and Hydrogenics has shown some life in building up their backlog of orders a little bit … heck, there’s even one analyst who thinks they’ll be profitable next year (perhaps he’s dating the CEO’s daughter or is just more optimistic than others, I don’t know).

And HYGS is making some progress, it appears — they think that they can keep gross margins stable and become profitable once annual revenue hits $50 million, which might not be more than a year or two away if all goes well, and they have enough cash to at least get through another year like last one without having to sell shares. That’s on the strength of backlog for telecom backup power systems from their partner Commscope, as well as a big order still working its way through for propulsion power cells (for a secret customer) and some hydrogen generation orders (for systems that use electrolysis to produce hydrogen where it’s needed — like in industry, or at hydrogen fueling stations). Here’s how the CEO put it on their last quarterly call:

“… let me just reiterate that Hydrogenics remains on track to attain the goals led out since 2012, the company is now at inflection point with our energy storage and power systems operations coming to represent a much larger share of Hydrogenics’ overall business, we remain on track to become profitable at the 50 million revenue run rate, and at a 30% gross margin and weโ€™re well on way this milestone achievement. We have what it takes to support rapid growth, scale up our operations and diversify our business space but we still anticipate full year revenue to be up over 30% this year versus 2012.”

And … that’s about all I can tell you about HYGS from my few minutes scanning their information. They’re still small, the story is really cool, particularly the energy storage capabilities, and they still think they’ll reach profitability fairly soon … if the hydrogen “story” really takes off again they could certainly be a beneficiary, as they have been with their parade of positive news over the last six months, but keep half an eye on those 2004-2006 charts for the hydrogen companies before you fall too much in love with stories like these, until some kind of sustainable profitability is reached they’re very much at the whims of shifting tides of sentiment.

What do you think? Ready for the next wave of hydrogen companies? Think HYGS is good fuel for your portfolio? Let us know with a comment below.

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Fred Jaocbs
Fred Jaocbs
January 28, 2014 4:45 pm

I caught the Hydrogenics connection as well. I’ve been looking for some hard energy conversion numbers, since water electrolysis is not a very efficient way to regenerate hydrogen, and then to burn it again to regenerate heat (or electricity in a fuel cell)? How efficient can that be especially when considering the expensive input (with the already low efficiencies of windmills and solar cells)? Can anyone follow up with the calculation of the $0.04/kw number that was mentioned?

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meassassin
March 7, 2014 3:35 am
Reply to  Fred Jaocbs

Congrats to anyone who didn’t get talked out, and are up 50% in Month.

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Larry Sinatra
Guest
Larry Sinatra
May 18, 2014 3:12 pm
Reply to  meassassin

Regrets to anyone burned by the apparent pump and dump.

Carbon Bigfoot
Guest
Carbon Bigfoot
January 28, 2014 4:47 pm

I’ve read about this pipe dream elsewhere. …” This story might be cool”… but as a retired chemical engineer it is at best two decades away from any production capability.
Hey folks move on—save your money–invest elsewhere.

dealerdeb1
April 30, 2014 8:07 am
Reply to  Carbon Bigfoot

My question is and I’m not a scientist nor an engineer is what happens in a crash? Does the Hydrogen explode? And if so how is that going to be safe?

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gard
Guest
July 10, 2014 2:16 pm
Reply to  dealerdeb1

Of course it explodes, Remember Challenger

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Daniel Hunt
Member
Daniel Hunt
July 10, 2014 6:31 pm
Reply to  gard

Not to mention Hindenberg…

mark G
Guest
mark G
July 12, 2014 4:19 am
Reply to  Daniel Hunt

Hindenburg burned because of aluminium oxide paint and
electrostatic discharge ,bit of a trap for beginners that ,
we tend to forget the millions of safe comfortable ,miles
flown by them all round the world . also note BMW have
been using liquefied hydrogen ,and have demonstrated that
they couldn’t ignite it when they destroyed its containment
vessel .

John Harris
Member
John Harris
July 11, 2014 1:27 pm
Reply to  dealerdeb1

Well gee gasoline burns up lots of vehicles pretty totally too if the tank gets ruptured in the crash (and the tank can explode too if the car gets burning first from brakes or tires catching fire.). The idea is to make the tank strong enough to survive most crashes, and for liquid hydrogen the tank has to be pretty darn thick to contain the pressure. So not a scientist but I would guess that the hazards may be similar. But take heart – with the google car you won’t get in many crashes.

gard
Guest
November 21, 2014 7:46 pm
Reply to  John Harris

If I’m not mistaken Hydrogen doesn’t exist as a liquid at room temp. It must be kept at very low temps. to stay liquid. That’s why they vent it to let it evaporate and keep it verrrry cold. And if they destroyed it’s containment vessel then gaseous hydrogen would have immediately combined with any oxygen around and go Boom. Challenger proved that.

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archivesDave
archivesDave
November 21, 2014 8:50 pm
Reply to  gard

So who says it has to be pure hydrogen?
When I was a young lad, one evening I made a solution of lye
and H2O in a pop bottle. I then added some aluminum foil
to the mix and promptly placed a balloon over the bottle.
Low and behold it quickly expanded the balloon.
Tying it off, I secured a thin strip of newspaper to it,
lit fire to the end of the strip and let the contraption
quickly ascend into the nocturnal darkness.
About three hundred feet up…KABOOM!
Boy, did I arouse the neighborhood attention.

Malotti
Guest
Malotti
November 13, 2014 1:10 pm
Reply to  Carbon Bigfoot

Well then how come soo many auto companies are developing fuel-cell cars ??
Like they are going to be on the consumer road next year.

Klaus Kaiser
Guest
November 13, 2014 4:52 pm
Reply to  Malotti

@Malotti
Because they are taking advantage of (= “ripping off”) governments (= taxpayers) with promises they cannot keep.
See my earlier links. The same promises were made 15 years ago.
Where are these cars then claimed to be “drive out of show rooms” by 2001 ???

Klaus Kaiser
Guest
January 28, 2014 4:48 pm

You might like to read my articles on hydrogen as energy carrier:
1) Hydrogen, fuel of the future? (1999), available at
http://www.terrabase-inc.com/Hydrogen.pdf
2) Hydrogenโ€“Powered Cars โ€” A Pipedream (2013), available at
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55864
3) Wind + Limestone = Gasoline (2010), available at
http://ezinearticles.com/?Wind-+-Limestone-=-Gasoline&id=6157604

ventureshadow
ventureshadow
January 28, 2014 4:56 pm

There are so many horses in the fuel cell and hydrogen stable, it is hard to decide to bet, much less which to bet on. Here is a concise overview:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1912671-12-hydrogen-and-fuel-cell-stocks?source=yahoo

I’ve heard that hydrogen can keep giant airships aloft so they can sail thousands of miles, and that it can be used for bombs of some sort. Good luck with those things, too.

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john
Member
john
January 28, 2014 5:15 pm

It’s amazing how these stocks are touted AFTER they go up $10..a share..the dump will come some time!!!

Jose A. Suarez
Guest
January 28, 2014 9:06 pm
Reply to  john

My physics teacher back in 1967, in Toledo, Ohio was Frank Archambeau. Are you relatred?

jonomalley
Member
January 29, 2014 1:12 pm
Reply to  Jose A. Suarez

FYI you replied to the wrong guy, Jose. Frank’s is just below this one.

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arch1
January 28, 2014 5:15 pm

If you can generate electricity for less than$.001 per kwh it would possibly be
feasible to produce hydrogen thru electrolysis & then in turn convert it to methane
(natural gas). the need for that is that it is extremely difficult to store hydrogen.
Conversion cost of methane from hydrogen is roughly $.70 of product for $1.00 of cost.
Pencil that out & see if you think that is market ready.

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machanhubby1
Member
machanhubby1
June 6, 2014 7:28 pm
Reply to  arch1

The methanization of hydrogen is really about the Fisher-Tropsch process. Do a search on it and you can study it. Hitler used it in WW2 to turn his coal into diesel and gasoline. You can read about it in a book by Jerome Corsi called The Great Oil Conspiracy (or something like that). It’s pretty mind blowing – BUT the bottom line is that a lot of pressure and high temperature are needed to methanize hydrogen, and that costs a lot of money, which is why no one is doing it now commercially – HOWEVER, that process may be happening naturally deep inside the earth, way below the timeline when dinosaurs, et al, roamed the earth; and where the pressure and high temperature exist constantly. This idea is one of the postulates in Corsi’s book. His thinking is that this “natural” methanization could be the primal source of all the new shale gas/oil being “discovered” now, bubbling up from deeper inside the earth. After all, methane has been discovered on one of Saturn’s moons, Titan. As far as we know, there have never been dinosaurs on Titan. You may want to check out the book.

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david 'archivesDave' clumpner
david 'archivesDave' clumpner
June 7, 2014 3:24 am
Reply to  machanhubby1

Please refer to this Wiki article on abiotic and abiogenic oil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
The theory was first proposed back in the 17 th century and substantiated in the 20th century with further documented research by Gold, the Russians, Jerome Corsi, and Lindsey Williams. William’s book, ‘The Energy Non Crisis’ was first published in the ’70s
and Corsi’s book, ‘The Great Oil Conspiracy’ came out last year I believe.
Other fascinating research documenting that methane is universally distributed was published a few yrs ago in journal Nature:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22abionic+oil%22+%22journal+nature%22&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=%22abionic+oil%22+%22journal+nature%22&sc=0-15&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=f701b86a45274ffca4a79304212df65a

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takeprofits
Irregular
January 28, 2014 5:41 pm

I looked at the same information Travis did, but was not convinced initially that this is yet ready for “prime time” perhaps prejudiced by my following Ballard as a Canadian company for many years and it basically went nowhere. I was somewhat startled however when about 2 months ago BLD began appearing on my “Daily Alerts” with some regularity with price increases as high as 9% in a single day and on my Jan. 13th sheet it shows it @ $2.72 being up 92% in the past 3 months and 306% Y/Y pretty impressive gains that certainly caught my attention .Does this mean that the fuel cell market is finally coming into its own? Can’t say for sure, but HYDROGENICS sure makes it interesting to contemplate. By comparison, the same day I posted the BLD statistics HYGS was also up 9% and for the quarter was up110% and 231% y/y so given its price, Ballard would seem to be the better buy, profitable or not, speculation can make nimble traders a lot of money. Not ready to label either company a buy without more research of the sector, but it certainly could stand another look, and a watch list for a good entry point.

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don_x
January 28, 2014 5:41 pm

Impractical futuristic pipe dream. Not for me.

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SR
Guest
SR
January 28, 2014 9:55 pm
Reply to  don_x

As a practising chemical engineer in the fossil energy busineesss for 30 + years I am very skeptical of the economic claims . As stated by others, the energy cost to create hydrogen by electrolysis is very high; this is why nearly all industrial hydrogen is produced by steam methane reforming at a conversion efficiency of roughly 70 per cent. I do not see how how using electricity to make hydrogen to make natural gas would ever make sense in the U.S. especially with low cost gas from cracking. If anybody is interested I can show the conversions and costs tomorrow

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silverfox77
March 6, 2014 7:18 pm
Reply to  SR

SR,
I am interested. You may be right about America using this technology, but understand we are not the only people in the world. I would greatly appreciate the conversions and costs, if you would spare me your time. I am a retired aerospace engineer and worked only with pyrotechnics and explosives in my career. My college education was BSME and I never worked in that field in my entire career. I used my intuition and foresight to utilize the energy from these chemical reactions to do work. My systems were used to put us on the moon and to save military personels lives. Many things can be put by the wayside as economically unfeasable because some people cannot think outside the box.
Hoping to here from you SR.
Respectfully,
Carl Wright

John Harris
Member
John Harris
January 28, 2014 5:47 pm

A national(or worldwide) push to build out newer style nuclear plants (that are safe and even use existing nuclear waste for fuel, and make no such waste that we don’t know where to store as a result) could bipe out these guys in a heartbeat. It could replace all coal and gas fired plants and turn those giant wind turbines into obsolete junk being not cost efficient enough to even maintain. If we are serious about slowing down climate change from CO2 emissions Nuclear power is indeed the only form of power generation we currently have that can produce the huge amounts of energy we need (which is increasing despite all conservation efforts), is constant, not subject to wind or sun or needing storage, that could actually replace all the coal and gas fired plants world wide within a decade. If we are serious about climate change – nuclear is the answer and the only answer I can fathom that will actually save us from warming. We can built them in a decade all over the world if we as humans see the light and do it. Of course fuel cell cars and trucks may be part of that answer, powered by hydrogen made from nuclear power so there may be something for this company, but energy storage I doubt will be needed if we build out nuclear power as we need to. That of course is a big if because the big money in coal and gas do not want to see that happen, and continue to deny climate change and good lord people on the right wing actually believe them.

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archives2001
archives2001
January 29, 2014 4:08 am
Reply to  John Harris

Let’s solve the Fukushima calamity first!
This whole thing is being swept under the radar if
you do a little research.

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Phil Nelson
Guest
Phil Nelson
February 1, 2014 1:41 am
Reply to  John Harris

The newer style nuclear plant, are you referring to the thorium liquid salt reactors?

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ted
Member
ted
July 16, 2014 12:54 am
Reply to  John Harris

Just a drive by the wind farm on the way to LA from Phoenix will show you that wind is already not cost effective enough to maintain the turbines.

Factualist
Guest
Factualist
January 28, 2014 6:01 pm

This is a pipe dream, if not deliberately fraudulent.
1. Water electrolysis cannot compete on cost with steam reformation of methane (i.e., natural gas) as a source of hydrogen. Using expensive electricity from renewable sources makes it worse.
2. Using electricity to make hydrogen, storing it at high pressure or cryogenic temperature (-423 deg F), then using it to make electricity again is a grotesquely inefficient and expensive way to store electricity.
3. Existing natural gas pipelines are generally unusable for hydrogen because its low density means that much larger diameters are needed to transfer the same energy.
4. Hydrogen-powered cars are a dead issue because witricity (google it) will allow electric cars to pick up power directly from the highway. Electrolytic hydrogen is a grotesquely complex and expensive way to transfer energy from the power plant to the wheels of a car.

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ted
Member
ted
July 16, 2014 12:57 am
Reply to  Factualist

Yes it will go boom in an accident, leaving a large hole where the intersection was.

Gary W
Guest
Gary W
January 28, 2014 6:22 pm

I think the hydrogen car will remain a dream, because for one thing, electric cars are much farther ahead, and secondly, Tesla is amazing technology, available now. Using existing pipelines for energy storage and retrieval seems cool, but who owns them, why would they give them to HYGS, and at what price? Patents only go so far. I’ll pass.

gardner555
Member
gardner555
January 28, 2014 6:40 pm

I kick myself.. saw HYGS at 8 and passed on it.. early last year. Seem to remember that they are building several plants in Germany for/ or in competition with Siemens. Utilities grid often gets power at night from windmills for zero cost. This would be a way to store or use this power. Sure at zero cost power.. someone has to be able to make some money.

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Quincy Adams
Guest
Quincy Adams
January 28, 2014 8:10 pm

Any of you planning to travel by divisible? I’ll also pass.

ET
Guest
ET
February 2, 2014 12:29 pm
Reply to  Quincy Adams

Compared to airplane travel today with seats that are close to being a straight jacket…I will take the dirigible!

Quincy Adams
Guest
Quincy Adams
January 28, 2014 8:13 pm

Try again: any of you planning to travel by dirigible?

midorosan
midorosan
January 28, 2014 10:52 pm

I loved divisible wanted to add it to my bucket list, reading the comments it seems it is in good company along with the rest of the fantasies.

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arch1
January 29, 2014 5:59 am
Reply to  midorosan

Is it time for new musical group such as, weavels, to introduce song “We all
travel in a yellow divisible/zeppelin ?

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archives2001
archives2001
January 29, 2014 6:55 am
Reply to  arch1

Just don’t name it Hindenburg…
OTOH, it certainly proved to be ‘divisible’!

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sooku
Member
July 10, 2014 6:11 pm
Reply to  archives2001

LOL

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jamespaul108
jamespaul108
January 28, 2014 10:54 pm

Why have GM and Enbridge bought stakes? Because of HYGS’s other businesses?

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rog
Irregular
rog
January 28, 2014 11:02 pm

Implied in the pitch was that hydrogen could be stored in the natural gas infrastructure. I doubt that this is true. Natural gas (mostly methane) can be liquified by lowering the temperature to about -164 degrees C. Hydrogen can not be kept as a liquid at any feasible temperature or pressure (boiling point – 252 degrees C), so it cannot be stored or transported as a liquid. Hydrogenation of coal to liquid fuels has been around a long time. If it were economical, you can be sure that the big oil or coal companies would be using it already. Does anyone know if HYGS has a “newer, better” coal to liquid process?

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arch1
January 29, 2014 5:48 am
Reply to  rog

I believe hydrogenation of coal to liquid fuel is being done or will be done in Louisiana
using natural gas instead of hydrogen as feedstock at lower cost to produce diesel fuel.

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meassassin
January 29, 2014 2:54 am

I haven’t seen it mentioned, or perhaps just not clearly, that part of the cost is offset by using electricity that “has no where to go”. The problem with all energy creation methods, particularly Nuclear, is scaleability. Surely we’ve all seen the hundreds of idle windmills. Idle simply because the grid does not need the power, so they are not running. When Steam (coal/gas/Nuke) plants are operating, you can’t just shut down a boiler or immediately crank one up, or scale them to quickly to meet demand. So the units that CAN be scaled back are. Hydro plants often have only 60 or so percent running at any given time. Because they are scaleable, they are scaled. Its been a few years since I’ve looked into it, but I seem Ito recall quite well that our grid, at any given moment, is more than half turned off, and that turned off portion is first the renewables that are the only scaleable models. Scaleable being the only ones that can be simply ‘switched’ on and off easily. Since excess hydro/solar/wind can NOT be easily stored, they are switched off in favor of leaving the steam plants cranked up. I think most feasible hydrogen proponents are banking on letting the hydro/solar/wind plants run at half or better capacity at all times, and use up the excess grid juice to crack hydrogen, and mush it in to NG. Thus storing electricty in Gas Tanks, instead of Battery Banks.

So is it possible? Perhaps. Certainly it requires a bit of thought. Who wouldn’t rather use the most abundant resource in the Universe, One that when burned, simply turns into water. A process that can be repeated forever with no loss, except the renewable, ecological, solar/wind/hydro electricity?

IMHO of course.

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arch1
January 29, 2014 5:37 am

Zero cost power means German taxpayers are subsidizing it. I,m unfamiliar on wind available in north sea project at night but wind usually dies when there is no solar input.

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ted
Member
ted
July 16, 2014 1:24 am
Reply to  arch1

I spent 7 years running the electric grid in Phoenix and 18 years as manager of the Arizona Power Authority. There are times when there is excess power available but not generally any more from water power as it once was. An example would be Nuclear power. It is base load because of the economics of the system. So other forms of generation would be shut down first if not needed, the most expensive first until the least expensive is last on the line. The cost of everything is included in these calculations, at one time not all the costs were included, such as increased maintenance from running the equipment as opposed to putting it into standby. When we say “immediately crank up” it can have different meanings. Only water power (of the large generators) can move quickly. GasTurbines take time to get up from cold and steam can take many hours to get on line. Steam is the slowest to respond to changes because temperature changes in massive equipment have to happen slowly or it will ruin the equipment. Water power is used intelligently to regulate the system and is very limited as base load, in fact should not be used at all unless needed. Of course if you are Bonneville dam all bets are off because it is run of the river. When the water comes you generate, when it does not you don’t.

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ted
Member
ted
July 16, 2014 1:30 am
Reply to  arch1

The wind on the coasts comes from the temperature differential between the land and the water. When the land is heated in the day, The wind blows from the ocean to the land and at night the land cools faster than the water so it blows eventually from the land to the water.

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Bart
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Bart
January 29, 2014 5:44 am

Some information about the power plant in Germany is here: http://www.eon.com/en/media/news/press-releases/2013/8/28/eon-inaugurates-power-to-gas-unit-in-falkenhagen-in-eastern-germany.html
Basically the idea is to use wind power to turn water into hydrogen when the grid is full. (instead of turning off the wind turbines). I personally think this could work very well in the area where the power plant was installed.

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arch1
January 29, 2014 10:56 am
Reply to  Bart

Just because something could work doesn’t mean it,s a good idea. Example: the rat cat fur
process feed rats to cats,harvest their fur,feed skinned cats to rats,= no feed costs
genetically engineer cats with snake dna so they skin themselves. It could work,,,no?

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canonfodder
canonfodder
January 29, 2014 11:50 am
Reply to  arch1

Careful now Frank! The protectionist anti-fur people may be listening.

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