Julie Howard
The Idaho Statesman

A mysterious technology touted to end reliance on fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources was unveiled in Boise Thursday, but its cloak-and-dagger public launch left attendees puzzled and curious.

Revealed were these details:

• This technology “breakthrough” utilizes a fuel cell that consumes nothing but water to generate energy. Using the amount of water an ordinary bathtub can hold, this fuel cell unit will produce enough energy to last a household more than 20 years. The unit produces no byproducts. No residential retrofits are required — the unit uses existing electrical wiring and natural gas plumbing. The unit has no moving parts and is silent.

• The unit is code-named The Edison Device. The secret team that developed the technology operates under the name The Genesis Project. Only brief statements and repeated references to the need for confidentiality were made by three members of two entities set up to market and license the technology.

• Nejhla Shaw, a former New York Life Insurance sales supervisor, is president of World Energy Management, which is the licensing representative for the Edison Device. Her son Darren Shaw, who previously owned a wireless communications company in Arizona, is CEO. Another son, Charles Shaw, is corporate counsel for Genesis World Energy, the technology development, production and supply arm of The Genesis Project.

The list of details not revealed about the project was longer.

Among the questions the Shaws declined to answer were: What are the names of those involved in the privately funded consortium?

Where did the research take place, and what are the locations of a residential home and industrial facility said to be fully operational using the Edison Device? How much was invested in research and who provided those funds?

While the Shaws are from New Jersey, they said Boise was selected as the unveiling site because some of the researchers and components of the device were made here.

“Boise is the birthplace of the project,” said Nejhla Shaw. “Eighteen months ago a group of visionaries sat here and brainstormed, and the most important components were assembled here.”

More than 400 people were involved in the project, which took about two years to develop, said the Shaws.

The key component of the technology is a fuel cell that separates the hydrogen and water molecules in water through a series of electro-chemical processes.

The hydrogen can then be burned cleanly as a replacement for natural gas or other traditional forms of fuel, and also be recombined with oxygen in a separate cell to generate electrical current.

“It´s incredibly interesting,” said Shirl Boyce, vice president of economic development for the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce, who was invited to view the technology launch at the Boise Centre on the Grove. “I can´t respond to a business model or anything else about them. I can´t say a lot more than that.”

Idaho Power did not have a representative at the launch, but a representative Thursday said the technology was potentially revolutionary.

“If this is legitimate, then it would revolutionize the energy industry,” said Dennis Lopez, a spokesman for Idaho Power, after he perused the group´s Web site (www.GenesisWorldEnergy.org).

Lopez said new ideas for generating electricity aren´t uncommon and the utility´s parent company, IdaCorp, has a division that is focused on developing fuel cell technology.

“Our fuel cell division has a number of fuel cells being tested by the military and others,” said Lopez, but he added he isn´t familiar with anyone who has developed a process that uses solely water — and nothing else — in a fuel cell.

“Using just water without any other resource would be a major breakthrough. I´m sure if they have a working model we could look at, I would assume any utility would be interested in seeing it.”

That´s just the sort of interest the Shaws are hoping to generate.

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Julie Howard
jhoward@idahostatesman.com or 373-6618

Edition Date: 12-06-2002

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