Beacon Power Corp. (BCON)

All Comments on BCON

  • commenter
    intelligents
    peculator
    Aug 29 09:24 PM
    My Website
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    That article about "six alternate energy stock that could go to zero" is nonsense. I am not going to say the person who wrote that article is an idiot but he or she is going to look very foolish on Beacon. If Stockpikr was confident in the analysis that was presented why did they pull the author's name? I read the article when it first came out and I believe the author was James Altucher (feel free to correct me if I am wrong).

    The last thing Beacon should be judged on is the fundamentals while the company has been developing its technology. The company is just now on the verge of commercializing its technology so of course the past fundamentals aren't very good.

    Another thing that shorts/detractors like to mention is possible dilution. The company may have to raise money through a stock offering but a lot of small upstart companies have to raise money to grow their business. This is normal.

    Beacon Power is headed no where but up and the shorts and dectractors are going to look pretty bad in the not too distant future (considering that they don't pull their name and hide).     Reply
  • commenter
    good spin
    Aug 29 03:33 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    I read that article too. Did you notice how he says nothing about why the burn rate went up? It's because they are moving into production. That costs money. How about the fact that the DOE selected them as of one of 16 finalists for government funding out of a field of over 140 applicants. No mention of that fact... I suspect that "The Street's" review was not an unbiased one. In fact, I believe they pulled the name of the author off the article the same day it was published. That doesn't inspire much confidence. I find it kind of funny how the stock has been under a great deal of short pressure but institutional ownership just keeps going up. To date the only revenue has come from government demo projects. You can't use that to compare quarter to quarter numbers. Real revenue starts this year and you will be wise to be into this stock before those numbers are announced... Reply
  • commenter
    BlueDog
    Aug 28 08:01 PM
    My Website
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Phillip, I'm curious how you respond to The Street's review of BCON. I pulled this off an article entitled "Six Alt-Energy Stocks That Could Go to Zero":

    "Beacon Power (BCON): Beacon Power makes energy storage devices that use the flywheel-based technology. The financials at this company are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Recently, Beacon reported a first-quarter net loss of $5.29 million, vs. a net loss of $3.09 million a year ago. Revenues for the first quarter plunged sharply to $20,000, vs. $393,000 last year. That’s a drop investors shouldn’t ignore.

    The company continues to dilute shareholders by issuing new stock to raise capital. If the company was accelerating revenues at the same time, then the new stock issues wouldn’t be such a problem. However, that just isn’t the case with Beacon. The company’s burn rate of $5 million per quarter and only $25 million in cash on hand is another serious red flag. That only gives them enough cash to operate for a year and forces them to raise more money to survive. The short sellers are leaning on more than 17% of the float in this stock, and I think they will be right.

    The financials on Becaon speak volumes: market cap $117 million, revenues of $1.02 million, EBITDA of -$16.24 million and quarterly revenue growth of -94%. There’s no “beacon of light” at Beacon Power. I am giving this stock a one-way ticket to zeroville."

    Source: www.stockpickr.com/pro.../

    Thanks,
    BD
    Reply
  • commenter
    good spin
    Aug 28 03:25 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Link please daniela as what you said is uncorrect. Beacon has zero debt and 16Mil cash as of the last report. In addition they were just given a 5Mil loan by the state of Mass that they have not tapped. The poster stating that they do not have a touchdown system is incorrect. The gen 2 and 3 flywheels have been certified to withstand earthquakes and the current gen 4 demonstrated a complete loss of mag lift followed by an uneventual spindown as part of it's final validation. I recommend that anyone with questions contact Chet Lyons at Beaconpower.com rather than blindly taking comments like these at face value. Reply
  • commenter
    daniela
    Aug 28 01:48 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    What a cheery report...how irresponsible! Please people, read annual report. Company has no client. Wait a minute--at the end of this year they will generate (ready for this?) 11,000 dollars profit! Company is swimming in debt and are warning to stockholders they will issue more securities to cover its debt. There is no prospect in 2008 or 2009. Maybe in the future when they will have actually client. Reply
  • commenter
    dfsmshsm
    Aug 28 12:12 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Beacon still has to engineer a touchdown bearing system for this product to supplement the magnetic bearings they use now. I suspect a product without touchdown bearings would be destroyed in a serious earthquake, so the product isn't ready for commercialization yet. Also, they are going to need more money, so they will be selling stock and will possibly dilute the value of the stock to do it. My impression is that their product isn't intended to supply power for more than a few seconds at a time (if that), which is why they refer to their market as the one for frequency regulation. I own shares of the stock. Reply
  • commenter
    THofler
    Aug 27 11:42 PM
    Grid-based Energy Storage: Birth of a Giant [view article]
    I'm sure there are lots of cool things that can be done to smooth power on the seconds or minutes time frame, but the important issue is the multi-hour storage possibilities.

    I think pumped hydro-power is really the only realistic one & that is very limited by geography & environmentalists & other fish freaks.

    Solar power is only strong for a few mid-day hours. Wind power can be strong at any time of day with the exception of sun-rise or thereabouts.

    While the dependability of wind is poor in small geographic areas, this problem can be largely mitigated re-destributing power over a large geographic region. T.B. Pickens' "wind corridor" is a huge region. The wind is likely blowing somewhere. This requires a high capacity grid that covers the whole corridor & beyond. (We need better grid infrastructure anyway.)

    The remaining wind dependability issues can be bridged with nat. gas turbine peakers (& hydro/geo-therm/nuke power). I think this is appropriate use of nat. gas, unlike our main power plant here in central coast CA, that burns nat. gas 24/7.     Reply
  • commenter
    Medclean
    Aug 26 11:00 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Has anyone notice the land space needed for the 20Megawatt flywheel plant? Their battery storage competitor like ALTI has tested the 2Megawatt storage system and required only about 2 container size space. Only time will tell if the flywheel technology will be widely adopted.
    Good investing!!!     Reply
  • commenter
    good spin
    Aug 26 08:00 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Beacon Power will not be selling flywheels, it will be selling frequency regulation services. This is a market that is going to be over 1 Billion Dollars in the USA alone. Currently, almost all frequency regulation is provided by generators that bid into the market to provide this service. They do so by ramping their generators up and down to attempt to match supply with demand. It has been done this way from the dark ages of electrical generation. It is also highly inefficient and destructive to the generators. Additionally, it is a major source of pollution. Frequency regulation is a very lucritive market that is now opening up to technologies such as Beacon Power that can provide faster, better, and cleaner frequency regulation. A good analogy is that it's like moving from an analog to digital grid. Studies by the DOE show that flywheels are 100 time faster than conventional regulation and may be able to replace traditional regulation on a 1 for 2 basis. We shall see. Beaconpower.com has lots of great info under investor links. Reply
  • commenter
    william
    taylor
    Aug 26 01:48 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    I believe Beacon has adequate patent protection so that they will have to be bought out at a premium. Time will tell. It always does! Reply
  • commenter
    searcher
    Aug 26 01:40 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    When and if the market is big enough to support a profitable company the low barrier of entry will admit much bigger players who likely will eat their lunch. This is a great sentiment trading vehicle, however. Reply
  • commenter
    User 214700
    Aug 26 12:41 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    They would sell to any energy producer who can not produce a steady energy supply. Excess supply would be stored in flywheels to be used several hours later when demand reached it peak. (Theoretically)


    On Aug 26 10:28 AM User 251141 wrote:

    > How will Beacon make money off this setup? Who will they sell this
    > storage to?     Reply
  • commenter
    User 214700
    Aug 26 12:29 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Punch presses have used this technology for more than 75 years. A punch press is used to press parts out of sheet metal. Some parts like car sheet metal parts (Fenders etc.) require 500 tons or more of pressure to stamp part from flat sheets of steel. Electricity cannot supply this much power in one second. What they do is get a flywheel spinning and then when flywheel is engaged it can stamp parts out of sheet metal with over 500 tons pressure in one second. My father saw a flywheel come off a machine and said it went thru 2 cement walls and went down the street and was finally stopped by a third cement wall. So you can see the amount of energy stored by a flywheel. Reply
  • commenter
    william
    taylor
    Aug 26 12:29 PM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Beacon's flywheels have virtually no carbon footprint. The utilities and the government likes this. Battery systems have a large carbon footprint and limited life cycle. Grid management is essential as fossil fuel plants now have to constantly be fired up to maintain power requirements and avoid uneven distribution. This is not only expensive but wasteful and time consuming. Flywheels engage in seconds. I have seen Beacon's plant and was impressed with it and the folks running the company. There are no guarantees that some other tech will knock them out of the box but I am betting on them to succeed. If what they propose works then they will make plenty of money as they will own the systems and have a constant revenue stream from each installation. Reply
  • commenter
    David Lentz
    Aug 26 11:49 AM
    Beacon Power: My Top Stock Pick for 2008 [view article]
    Penny stocks can frequently jump from 1 to 4 (and back again), simply based on internet hyping (like this, perhaps?).

    Looking at BCON's financials (balance sheet, income statement, cash flow -- readily available from any/all of Google, Yahoo, the SEC, and the company web site), I see nothing that would lead me to believe they are poised to make the leap upward. Losses continue to increase, unabated, with no hint of a turn for the better.

    Sure, flywheels are a nice technology for storing energy, and they might become a lot more popular if we get a huge tax incentive for people and businesses to shift to wind or solar power, or if the national power grid becomes increasingly unstable, and people/companies decide they must have more stable electric power.

    Otherwise, their major use is as backup power in corporate UPS systems, and must compete against batteries in that area. Flywheel energy storage offers a more cost-effective alternative to batteries+diesel generators when the cost of diesel fuel becomes prohibitive. Given the low amount of diesel fuel consumed by the typical corporate UPS facility (as utility power mostly works), it seems unlikely that this will drive BCON sales through the roof, as batteries+diesel generators are a much cheaper alternative to BCON's products.

    There are hints that utilities might move to solar or wind farms on a large scale, and might therefore be expected to be potential customers of BCON, storing wind energy from off-peak times for later use during peak demand periods.

    Solar tends to produce peak output during peak energy consumption periods, so it is of lesser value, unless one gets nearly all of one's energy from solar. That occurs only in the case of households, so far as I can tell. And in case anyone has been living in a cave for the past year, housing is not experiencing any large inflows of capital these days.     Reply

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