[FanWriter45]

On Wed. Febuary 24, at approximately 10:00 am, California time.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n

That's when they make their official announcement, and their Inital Public Offering of stock.

Say goodbye to our dependance on fossil fuels.

[MagaditH]

I didnt notice anything different?

[DNA-1842]

Dependence on fossil fuels? As far as I can tell, that is continuing... It just means that there won't be so many wires. The fossil fuels would still be needed to supply power to the boxes...

[jerhanner]

Sweet! God bless Cali, leading the way as usual. I wish Aaahnold could run for president.

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by jerhanner

Sweet! God bless Cali, leading the way as usual. I wish Aaahnold could run for president.

If Ahnold became president, I would put the movie "Demolition Man" up in a shrine for prophecy. LOL! (J/K)

[tannerwaterbury]

If he became president, I would file a lawsuit, since he isn't American BORN.

[radoskal]

Unfortunatley our dependence on fossil fuels isn't simply a matter of not having alternatives, hell there are plenty of alternatives already. It's a matter of lack of political will and deeply entrenched business interests mostly.

[horatio]

I don't get it, this neat little thing is supposed to generate electrictiy by burning gas and oxygen, or? Sounds very much like fossil fuel to me.
I also fail to see the benefits of a decentralized supply of electricity, the general trend is to networks, not independence.
We don't have wells in the backyards of our houses anymore, we have a water system, we don't have all our computer stuff on our own PCs, we use the internet for data storage and even computing on a server.

[Akula2ssn]

It's an interesting device, though its impact on fossil fuel dependence is a bit dubious to me. Yes it is apparently capable of using alternative fuel sources, but at the same time they say it can use fossil fuels. So I'd say what kind of fuel it uses is based more on what fuel is cheaper and more readily available for people to use fossil fuel or renewable. If it runs just as well on alternative fuels as it does on fossil fuels then it might make the transition to alternative fuels easier in the distant figure if it gains wide spread use earlier. The ability to run such cells on fossil fuels, or derivatives there of, isn't necessarily a bad thing for the eco-minded. Natural gas, which is traditionally viewed as a fossil fuel, is also produced in great quantities on a human time scale, whether your talking about that can of beans you might have eaten or an urban landfill. Some former landfills produce so much that the fire hazard has forced some municipalities to actually pipe the natural gas coming from them to facilities where it's just burned off, sometimes without even using such energy for productive means.

The real breakthrough, if that, appears to be more on making fuel cells closer to being on available commercially.

Also to be accurate, it doesn't appear to "burn" fuel in the sense of combustion. Rather like any other fuel cell it converts the fuel into electric current through the reaction between the reactants. Where as combustion engines burn fuel to generate heat, not electricity. The heat is then converted to mechanical work (such as through the use of a piston or a turbine). That mechanical work is then used to create an electrical current by means of electromagnetic induction (typically through a rotating armature inside a magnetic field). This isn't to say that fuel cells don't create heat, there is some energy lost through heat during the reaction in the fuel cell. Either way, the waste products of consuming the fuel can be the same or they can be different depending on the fuel used. The main difference is that since the fuel cell does not run on a thermal cycle the way a combustion engine does, the fuel cell doesn't have the same constraints that combustion engines do. Theoretically these kind of cells have greater fuel efficiency than combustion engines. Of course the efficiency is also affected by the application of the cell and the type of cell and so forth.

The idea of powering entire self contained communities with this kind of technology isn't new though and is probably quite viable, though I'm not sure about doing it doorstep by door step rather than just having all the cells at a central location is the best idea. Germany and Holland have already been producing submarines that run off of fuel cells. The US Navy has also been experimenting with powering shore facilities with fuel cells.

[DNA-1842]

Originally Posted by tannerwaterbury

If he became president, I would file a lawsuit, since he isn't American BORN.

Just out of curiosity: Why does it matter that much? If a person seems like the right person for the job, and keeps the interests of your country in mind etc... Then why should he get that discrimination. Again, I'm just being curious.