GLG News by Mining Experts

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

Peugeot Expands Use of Rare Earth Based Batteries with First Diesel Hybrid

August 6, 2009

Analysis of:Peugeot preparing to launch its first diesel-powered hybrid | www.4wheelsnews.com

French car maker, Peugeot, has matched its long history of making and marketing diesel cars with the solid performance history of , reliable, and long lived nickel metal hydride battery packs, such as those made and used by Toyota in the Prius "full" hybrid, to introduce the first diesel hybrid powered car to enter the global marketplace in mass production. Did Peugeot engineers and marketers choose reliability over hype?

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

Toyota Is Closing A Unionized Former GM Plant That Toyota Doesn't Need

August 5, 2009

Analysis of:In a First, Toyota Is in Talks to Close a Plant | www.nytimes.com

The reporting of this event completely misses the point. NUMMI, New United Motors, Manufacturing, was created when Toyota was much weaker and GM was strong. It was used by both companies to learn from the other's manufacturing engineering technology. Forty years ago GM decided and published a prediction that the US car market would grow to 28 million units a year by 2000. Then GM and the rest of the world's OEM automotive industry began to try to build the capacity to fit this fantasy.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

First Solar's Cadmium Telluride Thin Film Technology For Solar Energy Conversion For Sustainable Energy Production May Have Reached The Limit Of The Production Rate For Its Critical Natural Resources

July 12, 2009

Analysis of:Strategies for investing as inflation looms | www.latimes.com

There are three material based technologies for the production of sustainable energy by the conversion of sunlight to electricity by thin-film photovoltaic devices:   1, Amorphous silicon, 2. Cadmium telluride, and 3. Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide There is no shortage possible of silicon, but there are limits to both the rate of production of cadmium, tellurium, indium, gallium, and selenium and the total amount of each of them that can be recovered altogether. Today we're going to look at The tellurium (Supply) Conjecture.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

General Motors Must Buy Its Platinum And Rhodium For US Consumption From a Foreign Country. Is It Fair For Stillwater Mining To Criticize This Practice As An Outsourcing Of Jobs?

July 10, 2009

Analysis of:GM petitions bankruptcy court to break contract with Stillwater Mining | www.helenair.com

The USA does not produce, nor does it have, sufficient resources of any of the platinum group metals, PGMs, to meet the demands of the American domestic OEM automotive industry for the catalytic converters that must, by law, be fitted on any vehicle or device utilizing an internal combustion engine fueled by hydrocarbons if the emissions from the operation of that device exceed a legally defined minimum. The only domestic producer of the metals palladium and rhodium is the Stillwater Mining Company located in Stillwater, Montana. The Stillwater Mining Company is owned by the Russian nickel and palladium producing giant, Norilsk.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

G.E. Follows Toyota and Nissan to Expoit Michigan's Strengths and Expose Michigan's Glaring Weakness

June 29, 2009

Analysis of:GE Picks Michigan for R&D Center | www.adnkronos.com

General Electric has decided to come to Michigan to employ out of work automotive manufacturing engineers and researchers at bargain prices. "GE said it is looking for specialists in developing composites, machining, inspection, casting and coating technologies for its aviation and energy businesses. The auto industry employed many engineers with expertise in these areas." The Michigan mainstream media seems to believe this will bring jobs for the daily growing army of unemployed low skilled automotive workers who haunt Michigan's I-75 corridor between Detroit and Bay city; there are 100s of thousands of such workers with at most a high school education. Michigan has no aviation and little energy business. GE's products would clearly be intended for other states and other countries, and few such businesses can be expected to come to Michigan to recruit low skilled workers. Will GE pledge to only hire Americans and to build manufacturing plants in Michigan also???

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

Plug-In Hybrids Are Vastly Over-Rated As a Revenue Generator In The Near Term, The Next Decade Will See Them As Loss Leaders At Best.

June 8, 2009

Analysis of:Toyota: Plug-in Hybrids Will Have Limited Appeal | wheels.blogs.nytimes.com

The numbers simply do not add up for the plug-in hybrid powertrain. It is too expensive for what it offers with today's technology: 1. Short driving range, 2. High cost, and 3. Unknown long term reliability, durability, and battery life. It is coming to market only to make politicians look as if they are doing something about dependence on imported fossil fuels and the reduction of so-called global warming carbon dioxide.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

Rare Metals As Key Raw Materials Are Finally Noticed By The European Union But Not Yet By The Somnolent US

June 4, 2009

Analysis of:EU worries about access to key raw materials | www.euractiv.com

A world wide competition for developing and owning sources of the technology metals is underway. The United States alone of the great economic powers is ignoring this competition.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

The Thorium Renaissance: Will China Leap Ahead of The USA And The West On The Green Road to Thorium Fuel Cycle Using Nuclear Reactors?

June 2, 2009

Analysis of:ANNOUNCEMENT——2009 International Workshop on Thorium Utilization for Sustainable Nuclear Energy (TU2009) | tu2009inbaotouchina.blogspot.com

China is soon holding the first public workshop on the utilization of a non-proliferative thorium fuel cycle in civilian nuclear reactors since the late 1960s. Now as in the 1960s Atomic Energy of Canada's exisitng CANDU reactors are being tested, both by AECL and, apparently, by Chinese users of the CANDUs, to see how they would perform if retrofitted to use a thorium fuel cycle. Norway, Russia, and The USA are also looking at thorium fuel cycles and designs for reactors based on them. Some of these studies are continuations of ones that were first performed in the 1960s. The USA, for example, had several experimental thorium fuel cycle utilizing reactors then. China has a substantial amount of thorium produced annually as a byproduct of her global-class rare earth production in the Inner Mongolian Bayanobo region. China currently imports uranium for her existing and planned new power reactors for civilian use. China would have no import reliance at all for thorium.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

Only New North American Rare Earth Production Could Make It Possible For Toyota To Save General Motors. Will The Anti-Mining Lobby Allow The Curse Of Lithium To be Lifted By The Wizards Of Lanthanum?

May 25, 2009

Analysis of:Toyota denies report on possible GM hybrid deal | www.forbes.com

The Japanese press is reporting that Toyota is studying the idea of licensing its current (full) hybrid power train to collapsing General Motors. I'm sure that this supposition is true, but would such a move be possible? As the supply situation for the critical rare earth metals, lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium stands today, with all of them coming only from China,  the answer is an emphatic "No!" The proven, durable, reliable, long lived nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries used by Toyota and manufactured in-house by Toyota depend critically for their operation on the above named metals  as do the brushless DC electric drive motors also used by Toyota to construct the Prius hybrid and the Toyota and Lexus hybrids it makes today. There would be only one way for new supplies of the critical rare earth metals to be generated, but it would take a political act of courage by the Obama administration.

Jack LiftonCo-founder and DirectorTechnology Metals Research, LLC

Let's All Stop Pretending That The Moribund General Motors Knows More About The Passenger Car Market and About Automotive Engineering Than Toyota.

May 20, 2009

Analysis of:Volt Birth Watch 141: Toyota Laughs at the Volt, Indirectly | www.thetruthaboutcars.com

Toyota has been working on the electrification of mass produced cars through the use of hybrid power trains and the in-house development and manufacturing of batteries for at least fifteen years. Toyota adopted the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery and the hybrid power train using it in the late 1990s after the NiMH battery had been in development for a decade by its original inventor, Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., and by nearly all of the Japanese battery makers, such as Panasonic and Sanyo. Toyota entered into a j/v with Panasonic to manufacture and continue the development of the NiMH battery as it, Toyota, began to manufacture the Prius NiMH using hybrid and let the market beta test the power train. The Prius was so successful that Toyota bought out Panasonic's interest in the j/v and took it in-house to preserve competitive advantage. GM rejected the hybrid concept and watched as Toyota swept the field to become the "green' car maker.

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