Millennium Cell has just posted improved Q3 results, although still making a loss.

The company calls itself the "Hydrogen Battery Technology Company" and sees its future markets as military, medical, industrial and consumer.

Of particular recent interest here though is the military market, for which they have developed a 30 watt battery pack together with Protonex Technology Corporation.

The U.S. Army is funding the development of a portable 30 watt soldier power product (the "P2").

MC CEO H. David Ramm said "We expect the Air Force to begin field testing early next year and Protonex to begin low volume shipments to support this effort in early 2006".  Mr. Ramm continued, "While the military has clearly emerged as our lead market in the near term, we view the P2 as an attractive replacement for batteries in selected applications in the medical and industrial markets".

This won't be the first time that military investment has made possible a product on consumer markets.

Ahead of the AGM yesterday, London AIM listed Voller Energy Plc issued a very upbeat statement. The group, "believes it is on course to be one of the first fuel cell companies in the world to reach profitability."

Voller also announced the resignation of Chief Technical Officer Mark Turpin after joining the group's technical team in February 2005. 

Hard-headed investors must like Voller's law :

"Consumers will not pay a premium to be environmentally friendly nor will they accept a performance degradation to be environmentally friendly".

I'm not sure it's true though.

Take a look at the Toyota Prius - not only are consumers paying a premium, it's pretty ugly too !