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CFU - Ceramic Fuel Cells

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This would be one of the concerns with CFU. Will it become the Betamax of the fuel cell world? Technology does not need to be overtaken. A cheaper, similar version with the right marketing just has to get up and going.
 
The Bloom Box interview was quite inspiring and always good to have a couple of high profile cutomer installations. The cells used in the Bloom Box are presented to be very low cost in materials - I wonder why the actual generator is so expensive. Although it was mentioned that the aim was to get costs down to around $3K - now that would be something.

The AFC offerering doesn't seem to be too much of a threat due to the fuel input being hydrogen.

The input tarrifs and Government assisted purchases is what is really going to push along the acceptance and excitement in this market.

There is going to competition in any market and truthfully I don't see it as a bad thing. It creates awareness of the offerings and it certainly has the potential of being a huge market.

CFU has a point of difference, the BlueGen is a hot water heater as well and is so much smaller than the Bloom Box. CFU also have a patented process for refining their ceramic material and have a side line market in selling the material.

CFU's cash burn is a little concerning, selling one BlueGen a month is not going to cut it. Going by the financials, I wouldn't be surprised if CFU will need to do a cap raising before the end of the year.
 
Agree with roland,

The publicity on Bloom box may be a good thing, You have to remember most people don't know what a fuel cell is.

I saw the 60 minutes presentation shortly after it air-ed and it created a massive amount of articles and links on the web. half of the postings seem skeptical about the Bloom Box and the other half seemed really interested although they were unaware of the fuel cell technology.

I hold CFU and my first thought was CFU has just been over taken by a better product.... although I watched the video again and it just seemed like one of those late night infomercials where the presenter feeds the sales man's sales pitch.

for instance he held up the actual fuel cell about the size of half a loaf of bread and tells everyone this is enough to power a home... then in the background all the other components that go with it make the device the size of a fridge! probably twice the size of Bluegen.

We can't really compare the products yet because the company hasn't officially released any information to the market but on Wednesday (I believe) they will open their website to the public with more details on what cards they are actually holding. One thing this company does have going for it is it has a lot of money 400 mil apparently.

Interesting times and I would recommend everyone check out the 60minutes Bloom Box and decide for yourselves
 
The Bloom Box offical press release

news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20000091-248.html?tag=rtcol;txt

It went live at 8:30 PST, A question was raised in the Q/A which I thought was interesting:

Q: How is this different from existing fuel cells?
TJ Rodgers (founder and chief executive officer of Cypress Semiconductor) says: Oxygen ion goes through a membrane, and it's the movement of oxygen through the cell that create the power. It's a completely different technology. It's much more robust. It doesn't require the more expensive metals as old style fuel cells do.

if it is so cheap to make why are they selling it at 700k - 800k, seems pretty expensive to me. Anyway it looks like they are aiming to market this as distributed power stations.
 

I sent CFU an email to see if we can get a comment out of them

I don't really expect a response, but you never know
 
I did get a response from CFU.

Andrew Neilson
Group General Manager - Commercial
CERAMIC FUEL CELLS LIMITED

I am just waiting on permission to post up the response.
 
OK, I have permission to post up the response.

For the mods and copywrite watchers....:






I have also attached the PDF document that Andrew sent through.

Happy Reading!
 

Attachments

  • Small.Cap_CFU.pdf
    411.4 KB · Views: 44
Good work Roland,

I am pretty impressed that they are willing to comment and replied so quickly... bit of an ASF exclusive

It is true that the think lacking at the moment from getting this fuel cell market moving is publicity. These PR stunts from Bloom Box wouldn't have come cheap, I am happy for them to spend the money on eductaing the masses whilst CFU continue to publish factual achievements.

Also Interesting what Andrew Neilson had to say about scaling the technologies up and down.

Interesting times.
 
Thanks Roland,
I've also had good experiences with CFU's correspondence and my father has also contacted them about using one of their larger units in their new environmentally friendly school buildings and from what I recall the feedback from CFU has been helpful.

They seem like a great bunch of people who take the time to correspond and inform as best they can, which is more than I can say for many companies..........keep up the good work guys

I'd say it's put some investors minds at ease and they(CFU) may benefit from a press release or at least a market update to ensure investors have accurate information given recent events.


Oh and by the way there's something funky going on with the links provided in your quotes

cheers
 
Another story on the wire:

From the Guardian in the UK a few hours ago.

Link is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/25/bloom-box-innovation


At least Bloom has gotten us in the news. The real stories will of course be looking at the technology and getting through Bloom's hype, this will spot light CFU as well. - all good
 
unflashy Australians ? Huh!
I like it,
Oh it does sooo sound like us dont you think ... cobber!:

Great work Roland, thanks for the articles and news. Certainly some good exposure for CFCL.
 
excellent work roland this is a stock in my long term portfolio bought last year at 7.6c no reason to sell this product has a niche market to fill
 
latest on Blue Gen..going to the land of fine chocolate..didn't expect it to move the SP much ..and it hasn't. ...just more of the same

From the company website:-

CERAMIC FUEL CELLS EXPANDS INTO SWITZERLAND
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited [AIM/ASX: CFU], a leading developer of high efficiency and low emission electricity generation units for homes and other buildings, has expanded its European operations, with the sale of a BlueGen power and heating unit to Swiss utility Cosvegas.
Cosvegas supplies natural gas to more than one hundred municipalities in Switzerland.
From mid 2010 Cosvegas will operate a BlueGen unit in Lausanne, Switzerland to evaluate the technology for further deployment in Switzerland.
The order from Cosvegas follows recent orders for BlueGen units from other major utilities in Germany and The Netherlands, including E.ON Ruhrgas, EWE, RheinEnergie, Alliander and Gasterra. Ceramic Fuel Cells has also made BlueGen sales to customers in Australia and Japan. Ceramic Fuel Cells is also operating fully integrated power and heating products with leading energy companies E.ON UK in the United Kingdom and GdF Suez in France.
About the size of a dishwasher, each BlueGen unit can produce twice the electricity needed to power an average home, with the surplus electricity sold back to the grid. BlueGen also produces heat, which makes enough hot water for an average home. BlueGen units can generate electricity more efficiently than the current European power grid, significantly reducing a home’s carbon emissions and cutting energy bills.
Ceramic Fuel Cells has achieved electrical efficiency of 60 percent, far higher than any other technology in the rapidly expanding market for small scale power and heating generators. When heat is recovered from the electricity production process, total efficiency is up to 85 percent – twice as efficient as the average among current European power stations.
By generating power close to where it is used, Ceramic Fuel Cells’ products can meet the future demand for electricity without the need for huge investments in electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure.
ENDS
 

IMHO, I can't foresee much movement in the SP untill they receive a substantial order to boot the German Factory with some 10,000 units which is currently the maximum number that can be produced in one year.
CFU have lots of units on trial in various countries, so untill they prove their worth, we won't see much movement. Just how long these countries need to prove success or otherwise is unknown.
One should imagine a few weeks or even months.
 
The news keeps on coming.The market seems to have given this release a lot more cred than the previous one.. SP up 20% at this moment.

Perhaps the Japanese might be the kick that is needed to tip the balance and get CFU moving forward

CERAMIC FUEL CELLS FORMS PARTNERSHIP WITH MITSUI & OSAKA GAS
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM/ASX: CFU), a leading developer of high efficiency and low emission electricity generation units for homes and other buildings, has formed a partnership with leading Japanese companies Mitsui & Co. and Osaka Gas.
Mitsui & Co. has ordered a Ceramic Fuel Cells BlueGen gas-to-electricity unit, to be tested and demonstrated by Osaka Gas at its testing facility in Osaka.
Osaka Gas is a leader in developing and selling home power and heating products in Japan.
Since 2003 Osaka Gas has sold more than 56,000 co-generation products to residential customers. These products use internal combustion technology to generate up to 1 kilowatt of electricity with an electrical efficiency of 22.5 percent. In mid 2009 Osaka Gas began marketing a co-generation product based on PEM fuel cell technology, which can generate up to 0.75 kilowatts at an electrical efficiency of up to 35 percent.
 

Quite encouraging news, considering the access to yet another big market.

What I like about this, the Japanese companys appear to have already sold similar 'units' in the past with much less efficiency. If their sales are supported by ongoing demand then surely they will be impressed by the improved efficiency of the bluegen unit, which also has greater output capacity. Not sure of the inital purchase cost comparison or if either company sells excess back to the grid.

To answer an earlier query by noco on how long countries need to prove the viability of the unit; I suspect the answer is several months. It appears tests need to prove ongoing long term performance, from what I recall from the past news on the product.
 
Finally took the plunge a couple of days ago. The rest of my portfolio is long term growth. Hope this technology works out. The sp should get another boos soon when the European's give regulatory aproval.
 
robusta said:
Finally took the plunge a couple of days ago. The rest of my portfolio is long term growth. Hope this technology works out. The sp should get another boos soon when the European's give regulatory aproval.
Click to expand...

Looks like you timed it well, CFU had a very good day today. I'm still $0.02 behind.

The CE approval is another stepping stone. I'm just wondering how long it is going to take the utilities that have a BlueGen, to give it the thumbs up. One would think it reasonable to run the unit until the cells need replacement, that would at least, benchmark the consumable side of the BlueGen.
 
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