Douglas Johnson wrote in
:

George wrote:


*AND* you missed the point of my reply entirely. We know nothing about
the "magical fuel cells" which are the topic of this thread.

Did you really expect 60 minutes to bore their audience with technical
details?

I don't trust 60 Minutes to give an honest story.
They have lost their credibility.(Bush memos and Dan Rather...)

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:29:51 -0700, Robert Neville
wrote:

wrote:

Did you read the San Jose Mercury article posted here?

Yes.

Then you will have noted that low temp hydrogen fuel cells are not what's being
discussed in this thread.

It didn't say that in the article. It also pointed out that there are
many types of fuel cells and all are related.

Were you aware that the Bloom fuel cells can run on a wider variety of
fuels, as well as the ones the low temp cells are limited to?

Do you have these mental problems every time someone comes out with a
new car model? Claim it's all hype, and BS, despite the fact that
there are millions of cars already on the road?

Jim Yanik wrote:

I don't trust 60 Minutes to give an honest story.
They have lost their credibility.(Bush memos and Dan Rather...)

I don't completely trust any news organization, by itself, to give an honest
story. Not CBS, NBC, Fox, or whoever. I've been personally involved in a
number of incidents that later made the news. More often than not, I wasn't
sure they were talking about the same thing.

But on the other hand, just because someone has said something false, it does
not mean everything they say is false. If it is something important, check it
with other sources. In the case of the Bloom story, it appears to be fairly
accurate, even if told with a bit of wide-eyed awe.

-- Doug

wrote:

Do you have these mental problems every time someone comes out with a
new car model? Claim it's all hype, and BS, despite the fact that
there are millions of cars already on the road?

No. But I do have an engineering degree and have been a practicing aerospace
engineer for over 20 years. I'm also reasonably well educated and capable of
discerning thought. There are basic thermodynamic laws involved here and my BS
detector starts flashing bright red when a company looking for investors to bail
out the venture capitalists conveniently glosses over what I know to be serious
engineering problems that companies like GE and Siemens have failed to overcome,
despite investments of billions of dollars.

The icing of the cake for me is when the lead VC for Bloom happens to be the
company that hyped "it" as being the invention of the century and wouldn't
release any details for months. You remember "it" don't you? Or maybe I should
use its official name - the Segway.

Robert Neville wrote:

wrote:

Do you have these mental problems every time someone comes out with a
new car model? Claim it's all hype, and BS, despite the fact that
there are millions of cars already on the road?

No. But I do have an engineering degree and have been a practicing aerospace
engineer for over 20 years. I'm also reasonably well educated and capable of
discerning thought. There are basic thermodynamic laws involved here and my BS
detector starts flashing bright red when a company looking for investors to bail
out the venture capitalists conveniently glosses over what I know to be serious
engineering problems that companies like GE and Siemens have failed to overcome,
despite investments of billions of dollars.

Doesn't sound like the venture capitalists are looking for relief;
"According to Green Chip Stocks, John Doerr – the billionaire venture
capitalist that is currently backing Bloom Energy’s invention – says
there aren’t any plans in the immediate future for an IPO. They
report:

Doerr said it’ll be nine years before they think about an IPO, even
though it has “substantial revenues and orders.” According to Doerr,
there is simply more “capital required to grow a great green company.”
"

The icing of the cake for me is when the lead VC for Bloom happens to be the
company that hyped "it" as being the invention of the century and wouldn't
release any details for months. You remember "it" don't you? Or maybe I should
use its official name - the Segway.

Yeah-- the loser. He even thought Netscape, Google and Amazon could
amount to something. He's even snowed Forbes Magazine into putting
him on their Midas List. They probably just watch too much network
TV.

Healthy skepticism is good. But you're way over the top on
negativity here. Is it just because of 60 Minutes?

Jim

Douglas Johnson wrote in
:

Jim Yanik wrote:

I don't trust 60 Minutes to give an honest story.
They have lost their credibility.(Bush memos and Dan Rather...)

I don't completely trust any news organization, by itself, to give an
honest story. Not CBS, NBC, Fox, or whoever. I've been personally
involved in a number of incidents that later made the news. More
often than not, I wasn't sure they were talking about the same thing.

But on the other hand, just because someone has said something false,
it does not mean everything they say is false. If it is something
important, check it with other sources. In the case of the Bloom
story, it appears to be fairly accurate, even if told with a bit of
wide-eyed awe.

-- Doug


CBS and 60 Minutes have major credibility deficits.
60 Minutes is famous for editing it's product to depict what they wish to
depict.
And CBS too FAR too long to dump Rather.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

On Feb 24, 11:01*am, George wrote:
On 2/24/2010 10:40 AM, wrote:





On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:18:54 -0600, *wrote:

wrote:
...

Your objections have been pretty much along the lines that fuel cells
couldn't work. Reality seems to disagree with you.

My objection is simply that there's much hype and little fact.

Fuel cells _do_ work; they aren't magic.

These are some novel concept that hasn't been documented as to how; what
is the energy and/or material balance, etc., etc., etc., ... *The
previous NASA-supported work from which these apparently evolved also
work; they're known but don't have anything close to the performance
claimed on this innovation.

Simply no solid data from which to judge just what level of innovation
is really present inside those unlabeled black boxes.

When that revelation of reproducible data occurs, _then_ they'll have
something (or not)...

Hydrogen Fuel cells are CURRENTLY installed and working successfully
in many places. Sure seems like there is plenty of reproducable data.

Of course there is and there is a very good reason why current fuel
cells are typically used on space craft etc and not much more. But this
thread is about magical fuel cells using unstated and unreviewed
technology.

The only thing we know about their *"magic fuel cells" at this point is
marketing hype. There is exactly nothing to form any sort of conclusion.
As soon as they produce data that can be peer reviewed they are in the
same class as the magic weight reduction pills or super oil additive or
whatever other "magical" thing is being hyped.



I think that is being a bit overly negative. They have passed a lot
more scrutiny than some company hyping diet pills, which typically has
NO scrutiny at all. Kleiner-Perkins is a well known venture capital
company that has backed some of the most successful startups in
history. Those include Sun, Amazon and Google. Before they hand
over $100mil, and knowing it's going to take another $300mil more, I
can assure you that they have done their due diligence. And with
their access to the best and brightest scientists and engineers, I
would be comfortable that it's a lot sounder than a diet pill scam.