Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2011

Ballard Power Systems making inroads in Germany as Germans avoid nuclear power.

Ballard Fuel Cell Products Provide Backup Power Solution for German City Council Headquarters5:30PM ET on Thursday Jun 2011 by CNW Group

--  Reaffirms benefits of clean fuel cell energy for
        uninterruptible power supply

Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD) (NASDAQ: BLDP) announced that its FCgen(®)-1020ACS fuel cell stack is the power source for a ten kilowatt (kW) backup power system deployed by Heliocentris Energy Solutions AG, specialist in environmentally-friendly energy storage solutions. A total of eight 1.2 kW Heliocentris Nexa 1200 fuel cell systems - using Ballard stacks - provide extended duration backup power to critical information technology services at the City Council headquarters of Meiningen, Germany.

The direct hydrogen system is hybridized together with lithium-ion batteries and deployed for indoor use. This replaces an uninterruptible power supply system using lead-acid batteries, which has proven insufficient for long power outages. This installation is the latest in a series of field trials demonstrating capabilities of the Heliocentris solution to industrial customers having requirements that include remote monitoring stations, emergency power supplies and auxiliary power units. Heliocentris also designs fuel cell training systems for the educational market.

Backup power solutions based on fuel cell technology deliver a number of advantages over conventional batteries and diesel generators, including higher reliability across a wide range of operating conditions, lower maintenance costs, longer operating life as well as reduced size, weight, installation footprint, noise signature and environmental impact. Ballard's FCgen(®)-1020ACS fuel cell stack enables all of these advantages with its compact and cost-effective air-cooled design.

The trial in Meiningen is being supported by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development as part of the National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Innovation Programme (NIP). NOW GmbH National Organisation for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology is in charge of coordinating the NIP.

About Ballard Power Systems Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD) (NASDAQ: BLDP) provides clean energy fuel cell products enabling optimized power systems for a range of applications. Products contain proprietary esenciaTM technology, ensuring incomparable performance, durability and versatility. To learn more about Ballard, please visit www.ballard.com.

Further Information Public Relations: Guy McAree, +1.604.412.7919, media@ballard.com Investor Relations: Lori Rozali, +1.604.412.3195, investors@ballard.com

SOURCE: Ballard Power Systems Inc.

Public Relations: Guy McAree, +1.604.412.7919,media@ballard.com Investor Relations:
Lori Rozali, +1.604.412.3195,investors@ballard.com

Ballard Customers 2011:

Customers

More than 100-megawatts (100 MW) of Ballard fuel cell stacks, modules & systems have powered clean energy solutions for customers in a variety of countries on five continents. A few examples follow -

Backup Power
	Dantherm Power is Ballard’s direct channel into the rapidly expanding wireless telecom backup power market, deploying 2kW and 5kW direct hydrogen DBX systems in mission-critical applications for such customers as Wind Mobile. Read more...
	IdaTech integrates Ballard fuel cells into its methanol-based ElectraGen™ ME systems for backup power applications with such customers as Hutchison Telecom. Read more...

Distributed Generation
		Deployment of a Ballard 1MW CLEARgen™ system will enable Toyota to satisfy peak power needs at their office complex in Torrance, CA. The system will be fuelled by hydrogen produced from steam-reformation of renewable bio-gas generated at a landfill. Read more...
		A Ballard CLEARgen™ system will convert by-product hydrogen from bleach production into clean load-following electricity at a K2 Pure Solutions plant in Pittsburg, CA. Read more...
		FirstEnergy Corp. and Ballard are testing a 1MW CLEARgen™ system – designed to produce enough electricity to power more than 600 homes. Read more...

Material Handling
		Plug Power has deployed over 1,200 GenDrive^TM systems, exclusively using Ballard fuel cell stacks, with such customers as WalMart, Sysco, BMW, Coca-Cola, Central Grocers, FedEx and Wegmans Read more...

Bus
	BAE Systems is a pioneer in the development and deployment of hybrid drive propulsion systems for diesel hybrid transit buses. Leveraging its extensive knowledge of hybrid drives, BAE Systems has integrated Ballard fuel cell modules for operation in buses with such customers as Sunline Transit Agency. Read more...
	TuttoTrasporti is the largest Brazilian integrator of hybrid transit buses … and, a TUTTO hybrid system incorporating Ballard fuel cell modules is currently operating in Sao Paulo under a UNDP/EMTU program. Read more...
	Van Hool is the 4th largest bus manufacturer in Europe, offering a complete range of buses for public transport in international markets … integration of Ballard fuel cell modules into Van Hool hybrid buses, for operation by the HyNor Oslo Buss group in the greater Oslo area, is in process now. Read more...

Monday, June 6, 2011

Ballard fuel cells to power German auto giants new push!

Image via Wikipedia

Canadian Fuel Cells to Power German Autos2 hours ago by CNW Group

Daimler has announced that it will outfit its hydrogen fleet with fuel cells produced in Canada. Global engagement in this industry is steadily increasing. In Germany, initiatives like the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) already have the biggest automakers worldwide onboard.

Both Toyota and Honda recently joined the likes of BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, GM and Ford in the CEP. Chemical companies involved in hydrogen production and other stakeholders are also involved. Germany Trade & Invest is holding an investor event on June 7 in Vancouver to highlight business opportunities for international companies in Germany's budding fuel cell industry, especially in the growth regions of eastern Germany.

"Germany's economy is booming and the fuel cell industry is on the verge of a major breakthrough. International companies and government initiatives have created the optimal conditions for companies to prosper, especially in Germany's high-tech eastern regions," said Dr. Juergen Friedrich, Chief Executive of Germany Trade & Invest in Berlin.

Daimler, in a joint venture with Ford and Ballard Power Systems, has created a subsidiary called the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation (AFCC). At its site in Burnaby near Vancouver, fuel cells for the B-Class F-CELL and the Citaro FuelCell Hybrid city bus will be made. Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt, CEO of AFCC, along with Geoff Budd of Ballard Power Systems, will highlight the latest developments and business opportunities in Germany at the June 7 event. Alongside some of the auto industry's top players,

Germany has simultaneously created an excellent framework for investors with generous public programs to support the further development and implementation of fuel cell technology. Funding of EUR 700 million has been made available so far - the biggest program of its kind in Europe. Last month the federal government announced a further EUR 200 million for research in storage technologies including fuel cells.

Germany already features over 300 companies and 65 research institutes specializing in fuel cell technology as well as 70 percent of Europe's fuel cell fleet. Germany Trade & Invest is the foreign trade and inward investment promotion agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. The organization advises foreign companies looking to expand their business activities in the German market. It provides information on foreign trade to German companies that seek to enter foreign markets.

To view this news release in HTML formatting, please use the following URL: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2011/06/c9652.html
SOURCE: Germany Trade and Invest
SOURCE: Auto News

Germany Trade & Invest Andreas Bilfinger Email:andreas.bilfinger@gtai.com T:
+49(0)30-200099-173 F: +49(0)30-200099-111

Thursday, December 16, 2010

European Union downplays divisions leading up to meeting. Spanish credit downgrade hinted.

Reuters
7:49 AM, E.T. | December 16, 2010

European leaders sought to paper over deep divisions on how best to resolve the debt crisis ahead of a summit on Thursday, and Spain and Portugal came under renewed pressure to get their finances in order.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had settled a dispute with Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the Eurogroup of countries, over the idea of issuing euro area bonds, but differences still looked likely to arise at the summit.

"Jean-Claude Juncker and I had a long telephone conversation and cleared up the issue a while ago," Merkel said in an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper published on Thursday. "With so much at stake, the emotions sometimes get involved."

Juncker, who is a strong advocate of issuing so-called E-bonds, which Merkel says are unnecessary and would dent Germany's credit standing, also said the disagreement was resolved, but has hinted he could raise the proposal anyway.

He said he regretted "dissonances in public" which had given financial markets more cause for concern, and said he was focused on trying to achieve unity ahead of the two-day summit, as well as getting Spain and Portugal to improve their finances.

"They would do well... to present in detail structural reforms to be introduced beyond the plans of consolidation already announced," he told Corriere della Sera.

DOWNGRADE THREAT
Ratings agency Moody's warned Spain on Wednesday that its debt could be downgraded, saying it was worried about its high debt funding needs, indebted banks and regional finances, although it did not expect Madrid to have to follow Greece and Ireland in seeking an EU bailout.

Spain's Treasury paid just slightly less than expected for long-term bonds on Thursday in a key test of investors' appetite for euro zone peripheral debt and a day after Moody's said it may cut the country's rating.
Portugal on Wednesday announced extra measures to cut red tape and bolster structurally slow growth, in a move to convince EU officials and financial markets it is doing enough to stave off the pressure to seek EU financial aid.

EU leaders will gather at 1500 GMT on Thursday for the end-of-year summit, having spent most of 2010 desperately trying to stem a contagion that has consumed Greece and Ireland and now threatens Portugal, Spain and others.

Apart from agreeing to make a small change to the EU's treaty to set up a permanent system for handling financial crises after 2013, they are not expected to take other concrete decisions, inaction that could be interpreted as weakness and exploited by financial markets unconvinced by the euro zone.

Throughout 2010, EU leaders have struggled to show unity and clear communication in handling the crisis, either putting forward half-formed or contradictory proposals, or not agreeing quickly enough on the right course of action.

Repeated statements of unity at half-a-dozen summits have sometimes not been backed up by action, leaving markets skeptical and piling more pressure on the euro and debt yields.

TREATY CHANGES, ECB CAPITAL
As well as approving the change to the EU treaty, demanded by Germany and backed by France over the opposition of several other member states, EU leaders are expected to discuss how they can improve the current temporary financial safety net -- a 750 billion euro ($1 trillion US) joint EU/IMF loan facility.
One possibility is to increase the size of the fund, while another would involve making it more flexible in terms of the loans it can make, including the possibility of credit lines.

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said the EU's portion, 440 billion euros, could potentially be doubled to fend off the threat of renewed market pressure on Portugal and Spain, and Spain has also backed the idea of a larger fund.While that may be discussed, EU sources indicate that they do not expect a concrete decision on enlarging the fund. The European Central Bank holds the second day of a regular, non-rate setting meeting on Thursday, when it is expected to agree to ask euro zone member states for more capital, a move to lower its risk profile as it helps tackle the crisis.

That issue may also be discussed among EU leaders on Thursday, when they will be joined by ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet. The ECB has come under pressure to step up its bond-buying program to help those countries struggling to fund themselves in volatile and punitive market conditions.

As well as fears about the debt situation in Portugal and Spain, which has approximately 275 billion euros of sovereign and bank debt expiring in 2011, there are increasing worries about other euro zone member states, including Belgium.

Underlining concerns about the euro zone economy and the strength of its recovery, the dominant services sector expanded at a much slower pace than expected in December, although the manufacturing sector is growing faster than forecast, figures released on Thursday showed. Switzerland, one of the euro zone's largest trading partners, kept interest rates on hold on Thursday, partly a reflection of the euro-area's difficulties, which have offset strong Swiss economic growth this year.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Terrorism, Vigilance and the Limits of the War on Terror

Image via Wikipedia

By George Friedman
The U.S. government issued a warning Oct. 3 advising Americans traveling to Europe to be “vigilant.” U.S. intelligence apparently has acquired information indicating that al Qaeda is planning to carry out attacks in European cities similar to those carried out in Mumbai, India, in November 2008. In Mumbai, attackers armed with firearms, grenades and small, timed explosive devices targeted hotels frequented by Western tourists and other buildings in an attack that took three days to put down.

European security forces are far better trained and prepared than their Indian counterparts, and such an attack would be unlikely to last for hours, much less days, in a European country. Still, armed assaults conducted by suicide operatives could be expected to cause many casualties and certainly create a dramatic disruption to economic and social life.
The first question to ask about the Oct. 3 warning, which lacked specific and actionable intelligence, is how someone can be vigilant against such an attack. There are some specific steps that people can and should take to practice good situational awareness as well as some common-sense travel-security precautions. But if you find yourself sleeping in a hotel room as gunmen attack the building, rush to your floor and start entering rooms, a government warning simply to be vigilant would have very little meaning.

The world is awash in intelligence about terrorism. Most of it is meaningless speculation, a conversation intercepted between two Arabs about how they’d love to blow up London Bridge. The problem, of course, is how to distinguish between idle chatter and actual attack planning. There is no science involved in this, but there are obvious guidelines. Are the people known to be associated with radical Islamists? Do they have the intent and capability to conduct such an attack? Were any specific details mentioned in the conversation that can be vetted? Is there other intelligence to support the plot discussed in the conversation?

The problem is that what appears quite obvious in the telling is much more ambiguous in reality. At any given point, the government could reasonably raise the alert level if it wished. That it doesn’t raise it more frequently is tied to three things. First, the intelligence is frequently too ambiguous to act on. Second, raising the alert level warns people without really giving them any sense of what to do about it. Third, it can compromise the sources of its intelligence.

The current warning is a perfect example of the problem. We do not know what intelligence the U.S. government received that prompted the warning, and I suspect that the public descriptions of the intelligence do not reveal everything that the government knows. We do know that a German citizen was arrested in Afghanistan in July and has allegedly provided information regarding this threat, but there are likely other sources contributing to the warning, since the U.S. government considered the intelligence sufficient to cause concern. The Obama administration leaked on Saturday that it might issue the warning, and indeed it did.

The government did not recommend that Americans not travel to Europe. That would have affected the economy and infuriated Europeans. Leaving tourism aside, since tourism season is largely over, a lot of business is transacted by Americans in Europe. The government simply suggested vigilance. Short of barring travel, there was nothing effective the government could do. So it shifted the burden to travelers. If no attack occurs, nothing is lost. If an attack occurs, the government can point to the warning and the advice. Those hurt or killed would not have been vigilant.

I do not mean to belittle the U.S. government on this. Having picked up the intelligence it can warn the public or not. The public has a right to know, and the government is bound by law and executive order to provide threat information. But the reason that its advice is so vague is that there is no better advice to give. The government is not so much washing its hands of the situation as acknowledging that there is not much that anyone can do aside from the security measures travelers should already be practicing.

The alert serves another purpose beyond alerting the public. It communicates to the attackers that their attack has been detected if not penetrated, and that the risks of the attack have pyramided. Since these are most likely suicide attackers not expecting to live through the attack, the danger is not in death. It is that the Americans or the Europeans might have sufficient intelligence available to thwart the attack. From the terrorist point of view, losing attackers to death or capture while failing to inflict damage is the worst of all possible scenarios. Trained operatives are scarce, and like any strategic weapon they must be husbanded and, when used, cause maximum damage. When the attackers do not know what Western intelligence knows, their risk of failure is increased along with the incentive to cancel the attack. A government warning, therefore, can prevent an attack.

In addition, a public warning can set off a hunt for the leak within al Qaeda. Communications might be shut down while the weakness is examined. Members of the organization might be brought under suspicion. The warning can generate intense uncertainty within al Qaeda as to how much Western intelligence knows. The warning, if it correlates with an active plot, indicates a breach of security, and a breach of security can lead to a witch-hunt that can paralyze an organization.
Therefore, the warning might well have served a purpose, but the purpose was not necessarily to empower citizens to protect themselves from terrorists. Indeed, there might have been two purposes. One might have been to disrupt the attack and the attackers. The other might have been to cover the government if an attack came.

In either case, it has to be recognized that this sort of warning breeds cynicism among the public. If the warning is intended to empower citizens, it engenders a sense of helplessness, and if no attack occurs, it can also lead to alert fatigue. What the government is saying to its citizenry is that, in the end, it cannot guarantee that there won’t be an attack and therefore its citizens are on their own. The problem with that statement is not that the government isn’t doing its job but that the job cannot be done. The government can reduce the threat of terrorism. It cannot eliminate it.

This brings us to the strategic point. The defeat of jihadist terror cells cannot be accomplished defensively. Homeland security can mitigate the threat, but it can never eliminate it. The only way to eliminate it is to destroy all jihadist cells and prevent the formation of new cells by other movements or by individuals forming new movements, and this requires not just destroying existing organizations but also the radical ideology that underlies them. To achieve this, the United States and its allies would have to completely penetrate a population of about 1.3 billion people and detect every meeting of four or five people planning to create a terrorist cell. And this impossible task would not even address the problem of lone-wolf terrorists. It is simply impossible to completely dominate and police the entire world, and any effort to do so would undoubtedly induce even more people to turn to terrorism in opposition to the global police state.

Will Rogers was asked what he might do to deal with the German U-boat threat in World War I. He said he would boil away the Atlantic, revealing the location of the U-boats that could then be destroyed. Asked how he would do this, he answered that that was a technical question and he was a policymaker.

The idea of suppressing jihadist terrorism through direct military action in the Islamic world would be an idea Will Rogers would have appreciated. It is a superb plan from a policymaking perspective. It suffers only from the problem of technical implementation. Even native Muslim governments motivated to suppress Islamic terrorism, like those in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria or Yemen, can’t achieve this goal absolutely. The idea that American troops, outnumbered and not speaking the language or understanding the culture, can do this is simply not grounded in reality.

The United States and Europe are going to be attacked by jihadist terrorists from time to time, and innocent people are going to be killed, perhaps in the thousands again. The United States and its allies can minimize the threat through covert actions and strong defenses, but they cannot eliminate it. The hapless warning to be vigilant that was issued this past weekend is the implicit admission of this fact.

This is not a failure of will or governance. The United States can’t conceivably mount the force needed to occupy the Islamic world, let alone pacify it to the point where it can’t be a base for terrorists. Given that the United States can’t do this in Afghanistan, the idea that it might spread this war throughout the Islamic world is unsupportable.

The United States and Europe are therefore dealing with a threat that cannot be stopped by their actions. The only conceivably effective actions would be those taken by Muslim governments, and even those are unlikely to be effective. There is a deeply embedded element within a small segment of the Islamic world that is prepared to conduct terror attacks, and this element will occasionally be successful.

All people hate to feel helpless, and this trait is particularly strong among Americans. There is a belief that America can do anything and that something can and should be done to eliminate terrorism and not just mitigate it. Some Americans believe sufficiently ruthless military action can do it. Others believe that reaching out in friendship might do it. In the end, the terrorist element will not be moved by either approach, and no amount of vigilance (or new bureaucracies) will stop them.
It would follow then that the West will have to live with the terrorist threat for the foreseeable future. This does not mean that military, intelligence, diplomatic, law-enforcement or financial action should be stopped. Causing most terrorist attempts to end in failure is an obviously desirable end. It not only blocks the particular action but also discourages others. But the West will have to accept that there are no measures that will eliminate the threat entirely. The danger will persist.
Effort must be made to suppress it, but the level of effort has to be proportional not to the moral insult of the terrorist act but to considerations of other interests beyond counterterrorism. The United States has an interest in suppressing terrorism. Beyond a certain level of effort, it will reach a point of diminishing returns. Worse, by becoming narrowly focused on counterterrorism and over-committing resources to it, the United States will leave other situations unattended as it focuses excessively on a situation it cannot improve.

The request that Americans be vigilant in Europe represents the limits of power on the question of terrorism. There is nothing else that can be done and what can be done is being done. It also drives home the fact that the United States and the West in general cannot focus all of its power on solving a problem that is beyond its power to solve. The long war against terrorism will not be the only war fought in the coming years. The threat of jihadism must be put in perspective and the effort aligned with what is effective. The world is a dangerous place, as they say, and jihadism is only one of the dangers.

"Terrorism, Vigilance and the Limits of the War on Terror is republished with permission of STRATFOR."

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Friday, June 24, 2011

Ballard Power Systems making inroads in Germany as Germans avoid nuclear power.

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Monday, June 6, 2011

Ballard fuel cells to power German auto giants new push!

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Thursday, December 16, 2010

European Union downplays divisions leading up to meeting. Spanish credit downgrade hinted.

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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Terrorism, Vigilance and the Limits of the War on Terror

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