PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VIASPACE Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: VSPC - News) -- Dr. Carl Kukkonen, CEO of VIASPACE and its Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Corporation (DMFCC) subsidiary made an invited presentation at the Batteries 2008 Congress in Nice France October 8-10, 2008. Dr. Kukkonen gave an update on small and micro fuel cells to the battery expert audience, and also presented the VIASPACE BA-1000 battery tester and the VIASPACE battery packs for electric bicycles. Dr. Kukkonen was chairman of the Congress session on fuel cells.

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Fuel cells have the potential to replace rechargeable batteries in many applications because of their longer operating time and instantaneous recharging which is achieved by adding more fuel. A rechargeable battery needs an electrical outlet and several hours to recharge. In practice, most applications are optimized by a hybrid solution involving fuel cells for long operating time and batteries to provide high power for shorter periods of time.

In his presentation, Dr. Kukkonen reported that Toshiba has announced plans to produce commercial direct methanol fuel cell powered devices in 2009, and that Medis has recently introduced a fuel cell powered battery charger into the marketplace. He also reported that Sony came out of stealth mode to reveal its work on direct methanol fuel cells with a fuel cell/battery hybrid designed to power Sony's small portable audio, video and game devices. PolyFuel has reportedly developed the most compact direct methanol fuel cell for a notebook computer, and Samsung is focusing on fuel cell reliability and stability. As previously stated by Samsung, DMFCC is working with Samsung on fuel cell cartridge projects.

At the Congress, Avicenne reported that the rechargeable battery market in 2007 reached $8 billion with lithium ion batteries contributing $6 billion and growing at 20% per year. Portable electronics remained the largest segment for rechargeable batteries, but the transportation segment represented by hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and all electric vehicles including electric bicycles was projected to grow significantly in the future. Hybrid electric vehicles today use nickel metal hydride batteries, but lithium ion batteries with their higher energy storage capability were viewed as essential for plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles.

Lithium ion batteries with nickel cobalt manganese cathodes were singled out by Toda Kogyo of Japan as an attractive option that combined high energy density with excellent safety. VIASPACE lithium polymer batteries use these materials. The VIASPACE electric bicycle battery packs received significant attention.

Dr. Kukkonen stated, "Portable electronics is the bread and butter of the rechargeable battery market today and will remain so for quite a while. However the conference buzz was on electric and hybrid vehicles. A notebook computer uses eight lithium ion cells, an all-electric car will use the equivalent of 4000-7000 cells. This new emerging market for hybrid cars is being targeted by many companies. I believe that VIASPACE has found a significant and rapidly growing niche market in batteries for electric bicycles. Our products are being tested by several companies now."

About VIASPACE: Founded in 1998 with the objective of transforming proven space and defense technologies from NASA and the Department of Defense into hardware and software solutions that solve today's complex problems, VIASPACE benefits from important patent and software licenses from Caltech, which manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, please see http://www.VIASPACE.com, or contact Dr. Jan Vandersande, Director of Communications at 800-517-8050, or IR@VIASPACE.com.

This news release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements relate to future events or our future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Such factors include the risks outlined in our periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-KSB, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007, as well as general economic and business conditions, the ability to acquire and develop specific projects and technologies, the ability to fund operations, changes in consumer and business consumption habits, and other factors over which VIASPACE has little or no control.