Five (More) Small, Unknown Companies That May Change the World – #1 C.En
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
Editor’s Note: In keeping with its mission to be solely a news source, this EnergyTechStocks.com special series is presented for information purposes only.
Posted: March 10, 2008
Last fall EnergyTechStocks.com ran a highly-read series of stories about 12 small, unknown companies that may change the world. Special Report — 12 Small, Unknown Companies That May Change the World. As many of these firms start to make their mark, a number of new companies are emerging that also appear to have the potential to change the world. Although each is still privately held, all should be on investors’ radar screens, because their new technologies and business plans look like they could pay off.
First up: C.En. Never heard of it? Join the crowd. Short for “Clean Energy,” C.En is an Israeli-based venture that reportedly has developed what Reuters described as a safe and lightweight hydrogen fuel tank for automobiles. While it’s still early days for C.En, the company conceivably could have a game-changer on its hands.
Probably everyone has heard about the promise of the “hydrogen economy” – an economy built on clean, plentiful hydrogen gas. Many experts believe that only a world economy based on hydrogen will be truly sustainable. The underlying and, for the most part, still unrealized value of fuel cell companies is that the fuel cell will likely be the principal power source of the hydrogen economy.
Among the problems facing the dream of the hydrogen economy, none are bigger than the issue of safely storing hydrogen gas on board motor vehicles. In an interview last month with the Jerusalem Post, C.En’s head said his firm can build a 60-liter tank weighing no more than 50 kilograms (Kg) that can power a car up to 600 kilometers. “Our company’s breakthrough,” Moshe Stern told the Post, “is in accumulating hydrogen in a glass material that is very small, only a few microns.”
According to the Post article, Stern says that his company’s tank also solves the other big problem standing in the way of hydrogen-power vehicles, namely, transporting and distributing the gaseous motor fuel. His tank will be like a battery that will be replaced, not refilled, bought at an automotive store, not at a gas station.
With the median age of passenger cars in the U.S. at 9.2 years, according to a recent report by R.L. Polk & Co., however good C.En’s hydrogen gas tank may be, its commercial impact could be a ways off. Then again, as EnergyTechStocks.com recently reported, Honda is making an all-out push to introduce hydrogen-fueled vehicles in the near future. There’s a real tug-of-war underway between General Motors and Toyota, both of which are betting on plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, and Honda, which appears to be betting on fuel cell vehicles. Should the tide turn toward fuel cells, C.En might really benefit.
Coming tomorrow, March 11 – A company central to the development of carbon trading
