While we can point to many factors as being key to NEAHs past failures the biggest factor is a very simple one.
Price. Fuel cells for the advantages they provide are very expensive, and this is what keeps many companies from purchasing them as a power solution.
Telecom companies alone buy thousands of Diesel generators which need air permits, use diesel mainly and are noisy and pollute. Yet they are purchased over fuel cells mainly because of price. Relion only sold to Sprint because of DOE assistance programs which were subsidies to spur uptake.
NEAH at its death bed, has made a strategy change late in the game to develop a "battery" instead, in order to create something that is marketable. This is a wide shift but a needed shift.
My current bet and not a large one at that, is that if they can come up with a battery that is at least twice as good as existing, they can finally begin selling a product.
As for funding, think about it, would you want to fund NEAH currently with only some maybe very expensive fuel cells to offer ? I wouldn't, the past failures there are very telling. However if they have a Reliable power dense battery that is affordable then the potential changes.
They will not have verifiable, solid performance information on their battery until they get the deconstruction analysis done by the DOE ( actually by Argonne, but paid for by the DOE). This will give them a leg to stand on.
So my gamble is that they can last long enough for the DOE project to happen, maybe be able get a loan if they can secure a contract with Artilium Africa and be able to break into the battery business.
This is not a case that if they had something they would be successful now orhave a contract in hand, they claim to have a product that is better than most existing, nobody believes claims like that without proof.
JMHO
Bill
