Alternate Energy Corporation Calls Chip Taylor

Alternate Energy corporation sued Russell Rothman, the inventor of its original Hydrogen generation technology, claiming that his technology never worked and that Rothman had previously sold it to someone else. We've previously discussed the incongruities around AEC's glowing statements about Rothman's technology to the press and its investors and its in court statements that the technology never worked.

But what of the claim that Rothman had sold the technology previously? Whom to? One of the parties appearing for AEC claiming that Russell had previously sold the technology to him is Lewis (Chip) Taylor. It's curious that Chip Taylor and AEC would both buy the same invention and not know that they had done it, given the close relationship between them.

On April 23, 2003, months before AEC announced any Hydrogen related activities, it announced that it had signed an agreement with Select Molecular Technologies.

In addition, Mr. Blaine Froats, Chairman of AEC stated, "AEC has signed a letter of intent with Canadian based Select Molecular Technologies, Inc. (Mississauga, Ontario) to explore a sharing of technologies to create a new and novel method of generating electricity for the retail consumer. This will involve the use of a newly developed fuel cell and storage battery." Mr. Froats continued, "Select Molecular Technologies Inc is a private Canadian company that is associated with Mega-C Technologies and Mega-C Power. Mega-C Power, is a technology leader in the field of next generation high efficiency and environmentally friendly batteries".

Additional announcements regarding the business plans and operations of AEC will be forthcoming.

A similar announcement is made again on 2003-07-10

Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC) recently announced it has signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Mississauga, Ontario-based Select Molecular Technologies, Inc. (SMT) to "explore a sharing of technologies to create a new and novel method of generating electricity for the retail consumer."

"This will involve the use of a newly developed fuel cell and storage battery," said AEC chairman Blaine Froats. "[SMT] is a private Canadian company that is associated with Mega-C Technologies and Mega-C Power. Mega-C Power is a technology leader in the field of next-generation, high-efficiency and environmentally friendly batteries."

AEC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Environmental Products Group, Inc., a leading provider of products produced from recycled plastics.

It goes without saying that nothing ever came of these announcements. But it's worth looking into the parties involved. SEC filings from Axion Power provide the following history. Mega-C Technologies was formed in 1999 by C&T Co and a group of investors led by Chip Taylor to commercialize battery technology owned by C&T. In 2001, Mega-C Technologies sublicenced its rights to the C&T technology to Mega-C Power. In 2003, the sales by certain shareholders, including Chip Taylor, of Mega-C Power stock became the subject of an Ontario Securities Commission investigation. Subsequently the company was unable to raise capital and sold its rights to the C&T technology to Axion. Select Molecular Technologies is run by Chip Taylor, as outlined in NEDELJKO ULEMEK vs Lewis Taylor.

So AEC announced in April and July of 2003 that they were making plans with Chip Taylor controlled companies. Later in July 2003, they announced that they had licensed Hydrogen generation technology from an unnamed source, and began making many pie-in-the-sky claims for that technology. How is it possible that Taylor didn't ask AEC if they were working with Rothman back in 2003? It's difficult to believe that AEC did not know back in the fall of 2003 about Taylor's claim that Rothman had sold his process to Taylor. Yet the first that AEC discloses this to its investors is April 1st 2005.