So what’s the deal on these sketchy-looking investment ads for ‘blue gas’ as a potential ‘Tesla killer’?

Ever heard of blue gas? If not, don’t feel bad. Until yesterday, I had never heard of it either. The term was entirely new to me when, as I was setting up a new section for press release feeds on the AutoNewsblaster website, a sketchy-looking ad for blue gas, seemingly hyping a new alternative fuel technology touted as a potential “Tesla killer,” popped up on one of our pages.

At first I didn’t look into what organization created the ad, since I didn’t click on it—we publishers know that clicking ads served to your own site is a big no-no that can get you demonetized.

Nevertheless, I was curious, and my speculation was that “blue gas” might be some hyped-up term related to the replenishment of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. So I dug a little further.

I took a look at a Google AdSense report that allows publishers to review ads being served to their sites. The option is available to block ads that publishers may for some reason find undesirable.

It didn’t take long to find the ad that I saw that was served to our site yesterday. Here’s a capture.

When I opened up the page linked to the ad’s destination URL, things started getting really, um, interesting.

The destination URL linked to a website called Profitable News, which touts itself as the publisher of “The World’s Most Profitable Content.”

Hmmm.

And note the first selection on the top navigation menu: “Free Money.”

Yup. That’s always a sure sign of high credibility.

Now, let’s look at what their article on blue gas has to say. Starting with the headlines, it’s clear that they’re making some pretty big claims. Growth of 90,900 percent? Yeah, that would be one heck of an ROI. Where can I sign up? Oh, I see—they’re asking me to enter my email in the box below to get an “in-depth dossier on this new discovery and the tiny tech stock behind it.”

I think I can see where this is going.

An ICANN whois lookup on the domain profitablenews.com shows that it’s registered to It’s Today Media, with a Nevada mailing address, who appear to be a digital marketing firm. I’m not sure I would want to do business with a digital marketing firm that apparently doesn’t even know how to set up security on their web server so that their site won’t get triggered with a “Not Secure” warning in Google Chrome.

Yeah, this is all starting to look more and more credible.

The Contact Information page on the website of It’s Today Media indicates that, notwithstanding the Nevada mailing address of the profitablenews.com domain they own, they’re located not in Nevada but in Baltimore, Maryland—making this whole situation seem more and more like a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma.

So I did some additional research to see if I could shine a little more light into this apparent rabbit hole.

And I wasn’t surprised to see that the websites that rose to the top of the Googles with a search on “blue gas” as an exact-phrase term also seem pretty sketchy. But I’ll share the picture I’ve been able to piece together so far regarding just what blue gas is and what they apparent hype is all about.

Unsurprisingly, the first hit on Google was from Wikipedia. But when I took a closer look, it was quickly clear that it wasn’t about the topic I was looking for. The Wikipedia article was about “Blau Gas,” not “blue gas.”

Now, granted, blau is just German for blue, but this Wikipedia article refers to what seems to be an older technology, invented by the German engineer and chemist Hermann Blau, who lived from 1871 to 1944.

Blau gas, according to Wikipedia, is similar to propane and manufactured by “decomposing mineral oils in retorts by heat and compressing the resulting naphtha until it liquefied.”

Yeah, that’s all a little above my organic chemistry paygrade too.

Now, the second article that showed up on Google seemed a little more on point. It was published by Space Coast Daily, a local news website covering the region of Florida surrounding the Kennedy Space Center.

The owners of the Space Coast Daily website bill themselves as “a close-knit group of highly experienced, highly motivated, innovative people who want to make a positive impact in the community and on the rapidly changing media landscape.”

Sounds like a good plan to me.

Unfortunately, though, that grand vision doesn’t seem to quite jibe with the article (unattributed to a specific author, and perhaps a paid post?) that they published about the supposedly Tesla-killing technology known as blue gas.

According to the rather poorly written article, blue gas is “a liquid hydrocarbon fuel, which is made of basically carbon monoxide and oxygen.” The article also claims that vehicles powered by this mysterious new alternative fuel technology emit only water and heat.

So, yeah—I guess that’s pretty green.

What’s most interesting, however, is that this article too includes a link—maybe a paid link?—to an “investment” website called StocksReviewed that, again, looks pretty sketchy and makes some claims about blue gas that I find questionable.

Rest assured that, if you visit that site, you’ll be greeted with lots of pop-ups.

An ICANN lookup on the stocksreviewed.com domain name did not reveal location information but referenced an outfit called NameCheap as the registrar.

Yeah, you can’t make this stuff up.

So what does the article on StocksReviewed have to say about blue gas?

Well, for one thing, it references a presentation by investment pitchman Jimmy Mengel, managing editor of an investment website called The Outsider Club, asserting that blue gas technology will spawn a “$2.5 trillion [yes, it said trillion] industry that will, in turn, create approximately 30 million jobs and mint a large number of millionaire investors.”

Now, the $2.5 trillion figure seems immediately suspicious if you consider that, according to Statista, “the total revenue of the United States’ oil and gas industry came to about 181 billion U.S. dollars” as of 2018.

SMH.

By now, my head was really starting to hurt.

This is a mighty deep rabbit hole about an alternative fuel technology that supposedly has revolutionary potential yet doesn’t seem to be garnering coverage in news sources that most people have ever heard of.

But I did begrudge reading the article on StocksReviewed to the bitter end, because it promised to reveal the identity of this “tiny tech stock” that supposedly is building blue gas into a “Tesla killer.”

According to StocksReviewed, it’s Ballard Power Systems (BLDP), a company that touts itself as “a leading global provider of innovative clean energy and fuel cell solutions.”

As of market close on Friday, January 29, 2021, Ballard Power Systems Inc. was trading on the NASDAQ at $34.17. So, yes—they have established enough credibility to become a publicly traded company. At that price, they certainly aren’t a penny stock, but perhaps they are not yet in Tesla-killing territory either.

Ballard does indeed seem to be an entirely legitimate energy technology company. But get this: I can find no occurrences of the keyword “blue gas” on their website.

Ugh. A rabbit hole indeed.

Nevertheless, Ballard is involved in the fuel cell space, offering “multiple air-cooled  and liquid-cooled PEM fuel cell stack platforms to power mobility and stationary applications.”

And, apparently, they have raised a bit of a ruckus on the energy tech stocks market of late. As I initially suspected when I first saw the blue gas ad, the excitement is indeed around hydrogen.

According to the investment blog Seeking Alpha, “Last year was a blockbuster year for Ballard Power Systems as its market capitalization grew from just under $2.5 billion to $10.5 billion,” in the context of a year in which hydrogen stocks soared “on the back on fervent investor euphoria for all things green.”

But the future picture, according to Seeking Alpha, might not be so rosy. After questioning the level of upside hydrogen-based energy technologies will have in the face of continued advances in the battery technology that powers EVs, their article closes with a prognostication that “current fervent investor euphoria will likely morph into dread.”

Even so, maybe Ballard Power Systems is making stuff with potential to rival Tesla’s battery EVs. And maybe there is something to this “blue gas” stuff.

But, for now, I’m not going to look any further. If blue gas really does turn out to one day be “a thing” in the alternative-fuel vehicles market, I’m sure that, instead of sketchy web ads, some credible press releases will start showing up in my inbox, and the technology will start getting attention from some better-known news outlets.