Investing and finance thread

[Bob In PA]

Worse, IMO it might be very easy for even semi-knowledgeable people to convert a fuel cell into a weapon. Bob

[MightyGiants]

Bob. It's very difficult for me to find any dilithium crystals. 🤣🤣🤣

Bill

Those crystals were used to covert the energy produced by the matter/anti-matter reaction into useful energy, if anyone is interested in following along with the pseudo-science 

[MightyGiants]

Worse, IMO it might be very easy for even semi-knowledgeable people to convert a fuel cell into a weapon. Bob

Bob,

I am not sure you are using the terms correctly.  A fuel cell takes air/O2 plus hydrogen and creates electricity.  It's pretty harmless and benign (although it will contain valuable metals, much like a catalytic converter).  I think you are referring to the hydrogen storage vessel, which really doesn't have a common name, at least not yet, or at least that I am aware of.  A hydrogen pressure vessel could theoretically be used as a weapon.   Tanks that store hydrogen chemically would be safer and far less dangerous, although the challenge with media storage is it would take longer to refuel since the hydrogen would need to be absorbed into the storage media.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Being an old farm boy and having the old "Johnny Poppers" (two cylinder John Deere' tractors..a wide front "A" and a narrow front "B") that ran on either diesel or gasoline and made the sound "pop, pop, pop, pop..etc", when driving it. I have been alive long enough to witness the incredible evolution of gas powered engines. And that's nothing compared to people who lived early in the 20th century witnessing the single cylinder engine and steam engines take over literal horses powering travel. I've often thought of how my grandfather in his lifetime was alive when Wilbur and Orville Wright flew a kite like plane at Kitty Hawk...then came the canvas laden bi-planes of WW1...then the turbo-jet engines used at the end of WWII...to jet planes carrying passengers...to flying to the friggin moon and back - all in his lifetime   

The evolution of telephones even faster. My parents used a phone with a crank handle when I was a baby. They were on a party line of 8 neighbors. Their phone number was "two longs and a short". The phone rang in all the neighbors' houses, but you only answered if it was your ring sequence. If you wanted to call someone outside your party line, you cranked the handle with one long ring taking you to the operator who would then plug a wire from your party line and link it a socket of the other party line, etc., and commence ringing their sequence. Then came the dial phone with a real handset (but in my case, still on a party line, but not everyone's phone rang when being called). Then lo and behold, push button phones and no party lines. Then wireless phones in the house so you didn't have to stand next to a wall when someone called. Then answering machines and holy cow, caller-ID so you could screen calls. It all hit me like a brick one day about 10 years ago when I was fly fishing in the Delaware River in the rolling hills, the only sound was the rippling of the river and nary a house in sight when my cell phone suddenly rang in my pocket. I answered it and it was my brother-in-law who was stuck in traffic on his scooter in Tel Aviv. I had a moment afterwards of Eureka type mind-blown thinking. My phone was half the size of a pack of cigarettes and I'm in water up to my waist in the middle of nowhere easily speaking and hearing someone talk to me from the other side of the planet and it was crystal clear. It really made me think about how far (and fast) communication had come in my lifetime. Dittos with computers and the internet

The point: technology evolves because of the sheer genius of combined human engineering at all levels. The more engineers involved, the faster the evolution as they build on each other's findings and successes. What we are witnessing is the infant stage of an energy source that will be refined over and over with new ideas and Eureka moments pumped into it until one day, hydrogen engines will be commonplace and the day will come when people find humor at the gasoline and diesel powered engines we use en masse similar to the way we view the steam engines of our forefathers

It might take longer than we like, but you can bet the ranch it is going to be the wave of the future. It's just hard to see at this stage of infancy, but never underestimate the genius of humans

[Jolly Blue Giant]

The Enterprise ran on the reaction of anti-matter with the matter.  Fuel cells are a means of converting the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity. 

I think the one thing not touched upon in the link I provided is the safety issue.  We have pretty much figured out how to store 20 gallons of a flammable liquid that produces explosive vapors.  Storing a highly explosive gas like hydrogen safely will prove a challenge as well.

The article I posted talked about storing hydrogen at 10,000 PSI, which is incredibly high pressure.  So not only do you need a very strong storage vessel, but it will be challenging to transfer gases under such high pressure.

I've wondered the same thing. Of course, having a tank full of flammable gasoline under your moving vehicle can also explode. I don't know about stored hydrogen, but I'm pretty sure Toyota and others working on projects have done their research if nothing more than a FMEA analysis which is a standard tool used by all engineers and quality techs during the invention of new products

I've also wondered what the climate change would be if millions of cars and trucks in the future are running on hydrogen and the exhaust is water vapor which could presumably saturate our breathing air with extreme humidity...a blessing in super-dry Arizona, not so much in super-humid Florida 

[MightyGiants]

@Jolly Blue Giant

I think over the last 30 or 40 years, most of our advancements have been driven by the incredible revolution of electronics which was similar to the advancement in mechanical advancements we witnessed at the start of the industrial age.  That's not to say we haven't advanced in the mechanical and material realms, but it has been considerably slower.

Think about it, many futurists of the 1960s predicted flying cars.  Yet, due to the energy requirement and the safety hurdles required, we are nowhere near true flying cars.  On the other hand, few in the 60s predicted we would be carrying around devices in our pockets that allowed us to communicate with anyone in the world or look up information on any conceivable topic.  Consider that after the interstate highway system was completed, we are no quicker going from NYC to LA than we were 40 years ago (maybe worse due to traffic), yet we can communicate between those cities in ways almost unimaginable back then.  Plus, if you are driving, the vehicle is much safer, more fuel efficient, and a bit more comfortable.   Many of the mechanical advancements in cars are the result of electronic control systems.


I say all that to say that the issue with hydrogen storage is very challenging, and while there may be a breakthrough development, I anticipate a slow grind with incremental improvement.

As for burning hydrogen, when you burn fossil fuels, you get water and CO2, so I don't think the humidity would be drastically worse.   The other thing, if I remember my education correctly, liquid gasoline is not highly flammable/explosive; it's the vapors that are dangerous.

[Bob In PA]

Bob. It's very difficult for me to find any dilithium crystals. 🤣🤣🤣

Bill

Bill: I'll check with Elon Musk to see if he has a few extras he can spare. LOL

[Bob In PA]

Bob,

I am not sure you are using the terms correctly.  A fuel cell takes air/O2 plus hydrogen and creates electricity.  It's pretty harmless and benign (although it will contain valuable metals, much like a catalytic converter).  I think you are referring to the hydrogen storage vessel, which really doesn't have a common name, at least not yet, or at least that I am aware of.  A hydrogen pressure vessel could theoretically be used as a weapon.   Tanks that store hydrogen chemically would be safer and far less dangerous, although the challenge with media storage is it would take longer to refuel since the hydrogen would need to be absorbed into the storage media.

Rich: You're right. I tried to take a linguistic short-cut in an area where there are no shortcuts. Bob

[MightyGiants]

Like I said before, the future should be in plugin hybrids.  This article makes some good points about this idea:

plug-in hybrids use smaller batters
most people's daily trips tend to be less than the range of plug-ins (especially if they bump that up to 50 miles)


Unfortunately, the downside is that people tend not to plug their cars in each night which negates the huge advantage of this technology.


https://www.axios.com/2022/08/31/plug-in-hybrids

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Like I said before, the future should be in plugin hybrids.  This article makes some good points about this idea:

plug-in hybrids use smaller batters
most people's daily trips tend to be less than the range of plug-ins (especially if they bump that up to 50 miles)


Unfortunately, the downside is that people tend not to plug their cars in each night which negates the huge advantage of this technology.


https://www.axios.com/2022/08/31/plug-in-hybrids

My brother bought a new car a few months ago that is a plug in hybrid. He has a unit in his garage to plug it in at night and it's all set by his computer. It recharges his battery for pennies on the dollar. He keeps a full tank of gas and in general, is getting close to 80 miles a gallon and his electric bill has gone up just a few dollars a month so he's happy as a clam with it. Of course, the car cost a whole lot out of the gate so there's that

[MightyGiants]

I just got a notice that American Express is bumping up the dividends on my online savings account to 1.75%

If any of you still keep money in federally insured savings accounts, I would suggest you look at online alternatives like American Express.  They are federally insured like brick and mortar banks but they pay higher interest rates

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Electric Vehicles vs. HFC vehicles

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4538235-lithium-shortage-creates-catalyst-for-plug-powers-green-energy-dominance?mailingid=28908033&messageid=2800&serial=28908033.5719&source=email_2800&utm_campaign=rta-stock-article&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&utm_term=28908033.5719

[MightyGiants]

Electric Vehicles vs. HFC vehicles

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4538235-lithium-shortage-creates-catalyst-for-plug-powers-green-energy-dominance?mailingid=28908033&messageid=2800&serial=28908033.5719&source=email_2800&utm_campaign=rta-stock-article&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&utm_term=28908033.5719

I scanned the article, the thing I found troubling is that the article didn't even mention the issue with storing hydrogen in vehicles

[MightyGiants]

Inflation numbers were much higher than expected, it's not going to be a pretty day for stocks

[DaveBrown74]

Inflation numbers were much higher than expected, it's not going to be a pretty day for stocks

Nope. Pretty disappointing to see the core inflation number getting worse like this. Market was obviously expecting better. Agree today is likely to be quite ugly, but if there is any relative positive here it's the fact that, market expectations aside, the headline CPI number (8.3 in today's release) has now been lower than the previous month in two consecutive months. That has not been the case to this point.