DRich

Why I'm Thrilled by Axion Power's Financing Transaction

jpal, me and my 3,000 shares (avg. price $1.52) are "thrilled" that this company and the technology, that I believe to be a winning one, have the money it'll take to expand beyond a pilot line and survive to compete. None of these storage sector businesses are going to be skyrocketing until world economies start to recover. My guess, and my investments, figure that will happen in 2011. If you need momentum before that, watch CNBC and chase the soup 'd jour.
I'm certainly no "insider" and I'm more than willing to take this temporary hit for the sake of survival.

Rapid Transition to Grid Enabled Vehicles Not Possible or Desirable

By "expensive", I mean margin expansion. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I just can't see it.

Rapid Transition to Grid Enabled Vehicles Not Possible or Desirable

Marketquant, I've been studying Toxco and it's recycle process for about a year now. I'm convinced that it works, but only to a certain point. It's first a very expensive process that doesn't appear to return any more than 80% back to a remanufacturing ready state for raw material. Good, though I'm not convinced that it will ever compete with mining. Even scaled up over a decade of ever increasing supply, I don't see it as economically viable to ROI what investment bankers would view as good risk/reward. Just my opinion.

I believe that other technologies will emerge soon. That's my hope. I would think that a better structured product life cycle chain will develop over the next decade. I'd be happy to trade it as does unfold, even as I don't fully believe it to be the end all for motive, grid, or any other purpose. It would still be big. I'd be more inclined (and have begun) to invest long term in the build-out of CNG infrastructure for HEV's. To me, the infrastructure of Li storage & CNG are about even right now. Both have good opportunities with about equivalent risk of fail to become mainstream. With my limited money I'm going to stick with investing in cheap existing technology and trade the emerging unproven ones.

Rapid Transition to Grid Enabled Vehicles Not Possible or Desirable

Marketquant: At present there are no "slaughterhouses" that can turn a profit (or even exist outside a lab). I've been looking and can only find processes looking to start-up at a minimum of 5 years out. Not an investible scenario, but fun to keep watch for over the horizon. Quite a quandary.

Lithium Ion Batteries and GEVs: False Gods for the New Millennium

John, please clarify the line item "Vehicles enabled per year" data. I'm pretty sure that you took existing/short term projection of battery manufacture and distributed it over the number of vehicles each requires. I can see it now & before it boils down to a pissing contest, I'd just like "The Master"'s take.

This should stir a hornet's nest & be a very entertaining comment section.

Rapid Transition to Grid Enabled Vehicles Not Possible or Desirable

John,
I'm more & more convinced, as time goes by, that NG is being overlooked for the simple reason that to build-out the infrastructure would cost non-governmental capital outlays and require hiring Americans to install it. We are valued customers but not thought so highly as employees.

Rare Earths: A China Price

Now, wouldn't this be a violation of WTO?

A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments

User 481086,
Welcome to the discussion. As your questions point to, you've got a lot of reading to do. If this storage "thing" has peeked your interest, the following web address you'll find fascinating. It's the archive of Mr. Peterson's work.

seekingalpha.com/autho...

It's a lot to take in, but it's the best source of intelligent discussion out there. IMHO. By all means read the comment sections too.

According to Treasury Spread Model, No Chance of a Douple-Dip Recession

I'd be willing to think that this is more than a CYA data point if it extended out to "guess" the future and the next occurrence. Using lagging data to predict the past is just useless blather.

A123 Systems IPO Meets with Great Success

Don,
I know you have to defend your turf, but you rise to the bait too quickly.

Toyota Tests and Rejects Lithium-Ion Batteries for the Prius

I saw a diesel/electric Golf at the Geneva auto show last year that I had been following the development of for about 8 years. I was really excited to se that it was all the way to production phase. Tooling, scheduling, delivery dates (summer/fall 2009). They were even willing to take my order for it right there & then. But Noooooo! Six months before scheduled roll-out it was canceled with the explanation that it was too expensive to produce (margin problems, I guess), yet they had gone all the way through to tooling. You might have the car in the EU, but no way for the US unless it could be built here. Pissed me off.

VW is probably going to a leader in EV's of some sort, but my experience has put me squarely in the "believe it when I see it" and I'm mad enough that it had best be state of the art and competitively priced if & when it does arrive.

Looks Like We're All Communists Now

MOVIE STARS PAY GOES UP & DOWN BASED ON BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE .... BANKERS NOT SO MUCH!

PHEVs and EVs: Plugging into a Lump of Coal

Atta-Boy John!!!

PHEVs and EVs; Plugging Into a Lump of Coal

I'm no fan of the PHEV, but from a Wall Street/DC perspective the concentration of the problem seems to be the one that is preferred (at the moment). The PR campaign that is being waged leads me to that conclusion. I'd much prefer shoveling resources toward the most economically efficient way of reducing oil consumption, but at present that is not where the money and political will is being spent in the USA. Politics likes the flashy part of PHEV and Wall Street likes the money being spent on something that doesn't, presently, threaten the overseas investments made.
It will, apparently, take the demonstration of the high cost of PHEV in the market to knock this idea into the 'common wisdom'. I see a justifiable political argument for the concentration of pollution, a cynical capitalist reason to sell it. In the end, I believe when real numbers of consumers start spending it will be toward efficiency.
My 'hope' is that when the tsunami hits, the USA has spent enough wisely to rebuild a competitive industrial base and done the storage systems research to be more that just a consumer nation.

PHEVs and EVs; Plugging Into a Lump of Coal

John,
I don't think that shifting the CO2 from road to power plant is such a bad first step. Concentrating the problem might just make abatement economically viable for some new technologies (at least I'm investing that way) such as the demonstrated use of algae or sequestration.