For educational use only

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000913/n12458663.html

Wednesday September 13, 10:53 am Eastern Time

FEATURE-Metal power touted as alternative to scarce oil

By Richard Valdmanis NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Worried by soaring fuel bills? Inventor Dr. Sadeg Faris believes that zinc, the same element found in super vitamins, holds the power to light the world's cities and replace expensive and notoriously dirty fossil fuels.

With crude oil prices roaring to heights not seen since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Faris, president of Reveo Inc., a private research company based in Elmsford, N.Y., says this is an ideal time to share a vision he hopes can become reality as soon as 2002.

His company, he says, has ironed out a cheap, efficient, and environmentally-friendly method of extracting energy from zinc and has set up a series of demonstrations this autumn, showing how the metal can power cars, the electrical grid, and everything from cell phones to stereos.

``We imagined the ideal fuel, and this is as close as anyone has come,'' Faris said.

While the effort may appear far on the fringes, it is part of a growing trend toward alternative energy that began when oil prices started hurdling to new heights on restricted supply from producer group OPEC.

Since OPEC (the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) initiated its oil output cuts in 1998, oil prices have more than tripled to about $35 a barrel, a post-Gulf War high, highlighting global dependence on the OPEC cartel and adding weight to environmental arguments against fossil fuels.

So far the major benefactors of the rush toward alternative energy have been publicly held fuel-cell companies, such as Ballard Power Systems (Toronto:BLD.TO - news) (NasdaqNM:BLDP - news) and Plug Power (NasdaqNM:PLUG - news), but smaller companies like Reveo have also seen a flourish of interest.

Reveo, which hopes to go public at some point, says it has received more than $70 million for its metal fuel project from big named firms like Niagara Mohawk Power and has enough financing to last at least another a year. It also expects that its demonstrations will ensure another round of funding.

``The demonstrations are our priority now, since that is what will make our story real,'' Ashar Khan, Reveo's vice president of corporate development, said. ``This technology will speak for itself.''

TIN FOIL FANTASY

Sitting around a table at Reveo's offices in Elmsford, Douglas Welsh, the business development manager for Reveo's subsidiary EVonyx, clipped two wires to a piece of tin foil and connected them to a wheel with the word ``REVEO'' on it.

The wheel began spinning wildly, powered by the foil.

``When people wrap their sandwiches in this stuff, they have no idea that it holds energy,'' Welsh said as the wheel spun. ``You could operate a cell phone for hours with this.''

The technology in its simplest form uses three basic components (an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte membrane) to take energy out of metal -- Reveo's choice being zinc.

The technology does not produce or require heat, it is scalable to power everything from promotional wheels to cars to tall buildings, and the only by-product is metal oxide -- an innocuous solid material that can be easily reconverted to metal and recharged.

While the technology has been worked on since the 1980s by a number of companies, including the world's largest automaker General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news), the billions of dollars in research and development failed to bring it to market due to low power density, low efficiency and short charge life.

EVonyx, however, claims to have improved the technology over the past two years, and says it has now gotten to the point where metal can run a car at highway speeds for more than 700 miles on a single charge.

The company said that it will test the car in the coming weeks, driving a metal-fuelled car from Detroit to New York. In the meantime, it says it is in talks with an Asian company to manufacture metal-powered components for about 100,000 mopeds.

``We haven't signed on the dotted line, but things are progressing well,'' Welsh said, adding that he could not name the firm.

The company said that after its demonstrations, it hopes to engage in talks with major automobile manufacturers, though no discussions had started.

``That's definitely on the agenda, though,'' Welsh said.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), September 14, 2000