Tesla, As An Example, May be Small Enough But Chrysler is Not Small Enough To Survive With No Sales
February 4, 2009
Chrysler sales plunge 55 pct; GM, Toyota also down | www.forbes.com
The UAW never foresaw this situation, so it has made the fixed cost for an OEM car maker so high that the company simply cannot survive without sales. In the distant past glory days of the OEM American automotive industry the managers could face down the union and try to "break the union" by locking it out until the men might literally begin to starve. Then we got, deservedly so, the Union, unemployment compensation, and pensions, healthcare and life insurance, and even social security. The bosses then took another tack; they simply gave the workers whatever they asked for and passed the costs on to their customers. There was no competition then; there was a monopoly as Mr. Tucker found out and later Mr. DeLorean found out also. Now we have competition keeping the prices down and the Unions asking for more and more, so are we at the end game? No siree now the benevolent government is sudsidizing a new round of "bankrupt the country" by supporting near zombie companies.
Ford's Management Is Far More Competent And Engineering Savvy Than GM's
February 3, 2009
Ford to build plug-in in 2012 It is to make 5,000 a year; utilities are to test version of Escape | www.freep.com
Boeing is holding up the rollout of its next generation fuel efficient "Dreamliner" because it isn't yet a fully integrated system; i.e., some of the parts are not yet finalized. They have been designed, delivered, and installed, but they didn't perform as requested, so they have been sent back for redesign, redelivery, and restesting in actual conditions. General Motors, as if by contrast, took the word of a few academic battery researchers, just a couple of years ago, that, since theoretically a battery based on lithium ion chemistry should outperform all other battery technologies based on higher atomic weight elements such as nickel and lead, they should simply announce that such a battery "would" be built and installed in a car made by them. It, the theoretical construct, would then become a game changer. No one at Boeing could possibly be dumb enough to bet their company on such airy-fairy nonsense. It took a GM to do that. Ford is now doing as Boeing would do.
February 2, 2009
James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic - Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’, ‘Was Never Muzzled’, & Models ‘Useless’ | wattsupwiththat.com
Respected and credentialed scientists have begun to speak out on anthropogenic global warming as an example of poor science, at best unproven and at worst wrong or even fraudulent.
There May Well be A Good Reason To Keep GM, Chrysler, And Ford Alive Through The Worldwide Recession
January 28, 2009
44% Say Global Warming Due To Planetary Trends, Not People | www.rasmussenreports.com
I have not been shy about expressing my opinion that GM and Chrysler need to go bankrupt immediately if they are to have any hope of surviving. The question is: What, of value to anyone, might survive a GM and Chrysler bankruptcy? The answer is that there is still time to salvage the engineering skills and continuity from a century of designing, engineering, and building nearly a billion motor vehicles.
Still dark clouds on stainless
January 27, 2009
Spain's Acerinox threatens job cuts on weak demand | uk.reuters.com
Considering the negative economic situation worldwide it's difficult to see how, in the next two weeks, things could really change.
Fuel Cells For Cars With Current Technology Are a Non Starter Due To Natural Resource Limitations
January 22, 2009
Handed the Keys to An Alternative Future | wheels.blogs.nytimes.com
The fuel cell in the Honda Clarity is the source of electricity for the electric motors that drive the car. The fuel for the fuel cell is hydrogen gas, which can be plentifully produced either by the simple electrolysis of water or by chemical processing of natural gas or ammonia both of which chemicals are widely distributed throughout our society. Why then is no one moving to create a hydrogen production and distribution system so that fuel cells of the type used by the Honda Clarity can be mass produced? It's simple; there isn't enough platinum to make such a move practical now or ever.
January 21, 2009
GM to spend $30 million on Volt battery plant | www.reuters.com
LG, the Korean conglomerate, will save a great deal of money by having its lithium-ion batteries, chosen as OEM equipment for the Chevrolet Volt, assembled and tested in the USA. General Motors, the end-user of the LG batteries, will be able to forego what it cannot do itself; i.e., build a factory in the USA to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells. GM has neither the technology nor the money for such an undertaking. GM brings to the table high priced, inexperienced, UAW labor, but when the cost of building a battery factory and developing a technology is factored in then it turns out that the USA has become the low labor cost country and that GM and LG are both getting bargains.
January 19, 2009
Jack Lifton: The Technology Metals Age | seekingalpha.com
Recycling of municipal trash is today , in the Western world, is primarily just a political ploy focused on household trash, which when undifferentiated (unprepared as the scrap industry calls it) has no intrinsic value. In countries like the USA all of the big money in recycling such trash is made from the pickup, transportation, landfill, burning, or overseas shipping fees. Nothing at all is made from the recovery of metal values from such scrap. It is a gigantic scam perpetuated by those who collect all of the fees. Any special metals, either precious or technology, are recovered in low labor cost countries, if at all, by processses which are uneconomical and dangerous under Western rules and regulations. Industrial recycling is by contrast often and mostly too narrowly focused. Ferrous scrap, for example, is processed almost solely for its iron (steel) content, and the value of contained minor metals is usually overlooked or, worse, wasted. This cannot continue.
More Public Relations Double Talk About Lithium Ion Battery Production in Michigan
January 13, 2009
GM unveils battery plan, may need more loans | www.forbes.com
We are now to believe that the greatest destroyer of corporate wealth in American business history, The General Motors Corporation, will, without any money or technology of its own, be singlehandedly creating the core of an "American" lithium ion battery industry by inviting the Korean Electronics Company, LG, to make lithium ion battery cells in Korea and bring them to Michigan for assembly into 'packs' large enough to power a Chevrolet Volt. Michigan's governor can hardly contain her enthusiasm and neither can the Corporate Wealth Destroyer All-Time-Champion, "GM's Rick Wagoner, who on his watch has overseen GM's market capitalization decline by 95% while he also ignored completely the electrification of cars until just recently when he devised a plan to jump start GM's alternate energy power train agenda by going two steps ahead of Toyota without the background, experience, or skill of that competitor. Is the result to be the further erosion of American industry?
Absolute Nonsense From Korea About The Global Lithium Supply
January 12, 2009
Lithium for Second Battery Will Dry Up in 16 Years | english.etnews.co.kr
The claim that there is insufficient lithium accessible to support the electrification of small passenger carrying vehicles is false. The claim is made most likely for the purpose of affecting the price of shares in lithium mining ventures or the price of lithium metal or lithium chemicals.
Chesapeake Energy bites the natural gas bullet
January 25, 2012
Flurry of newbuild drilling rig deliveries in 2012 may dampen rig rates
January 20, 2012
Talisman joins the ranks of cautious E&P companies
January 12, 2012
Early signs of caution begin to cloud frontier exploration and production
January 4, 2012
It's too early in the game to write off Shtokman
December 8, 2011