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SMaturin

SMaturin
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  • Why the Plunge in Silver Is No Surprise and How to Play It Now [View article]
    This is illogical as an argument.

    You are saying don't buy silver because it is in a bubble, but here are silver stocks you should consider.

    "If you are still not convinced that silver has reached bubble-like valuations, take a look at the most popular articles for the past several days on Seeking Alpha. More often than not, silver is the subject in the top 5 most popular articles every day. You can see that here."

    And two of those articles are written by you. Is that the way you prove a point?

    "Look how many articles I've written about silver. That proves it's in a bubble. And by the way, buy these silver stocks."
    May 5 08:28 AM | 18 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Gasfrac Energy: Fractured Dreams And The U.S. Potential [View article]
    Mikejones (or bhanes, or whoever you are today)-

    If you can provide a credible explanation of how gelled LPG is "like putting a bomb down a well" then please do so. It is no more explosive than the petroleum that is pumped back out.

    If you cannot back up this nonsense with facts, you are cordially invited to crawl back under your bridge.
    Apr 17 08:44 AM | 16 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • A Valuation Model For Arena's Belviq [View article]
    The trader bots will have to pry my shares from my cold dead hands!

    Excellent discussion, thanks.
    Aug 2 11:37 AM | 13 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Mercedes Ben [View article]
    Is he nefarious or is he delusional?

    I prefer Ben Lightyear. "To infinity and beyond!"
    Sep 14 08:35 AM | 12 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Don't Catch Recovery Fever [View article]
    Peter,

    Please correct your decimal points. The official CPI-U was 0.4% for February, not 0.04.

    http://1.usa.gov/rFGzWe

    Despite Americans using *less* gasoline the price is up 12.6% in the past year. Despite the very mild winter, fuel oil was officially up 8.9% y/y in February. Food is up 4%, despite all the "hedonic adjustments" the BLS can find to apply.

    The "deflation" of concern to the Bernank is what has happened to the inflated housing and stock markets created by his helicopter policies. He does not live in the real world of buying gasoline and substituting pink slime for steak.
    Apr 5 10:27 AM | 11 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Plug-In Vehicles: Weighed In The Balance, And Found Wanting [View article]
    You cannot shift the "paradigm" of the laws of thermodynamics. To believe such is delusional. Engineers and rational folks with some scientific education recognize this. Politicians and the lotus-eating fans of John Lennon never will.

    The whole argument of beandog and all the greenie nimbys, who want their toys subsidized by Joe Lunchbucket and me, hammers home Bastiat's famous dictum:

    "Government is that great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else."
    Sep 28 10:36 AM | 11 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Is Gold a Bubble? [View article]
    I have a problem with your "history" of gold beginning after FDR confiscated the gold of every American in exchange for $20.67/oz and then immediately raised the price to $35.

    How can you possibly think your readers would accept that as the beginning of gold history? Are we idiots?

    What happened to the previous 10,000 years of gold's history as real money which liars and thieves could not counterfeit?
    Apr 29 02:55 PM | 11 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • How Wind And Solar Power Are Polluting The Commons [View article]
    Another comment that is refreshingly unconcerned with the vulgar exigencies of objective reality.
    Oct 22 07:17 PM | 10 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Buffett Disses Gold [View article]
    “Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?” Mr. Buffett asks.

    The fallacy in this argument is the notion that an investor can only pick pile A or Pile B.

    There are rational reasons to pick some from one and some from another. But that does not make a good sound bite and the logic of hedging is far beyond the ken of the 99%.
    Feb 9 03:34 PM | 10 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Understanding The Grid-Scale Energy Storage Boom [View article]
    crockrocks,
    I think it is important to read the referenced article and understand that this argument may be about comparing apples to oranges.

    The Sandia article is about "modular energy storage," meaning large scale grid-based systems. In such cases, the weight and size of the storage medium have much less importance than the total cost and life cycles. Lithium is light in weight and relatively energy dense compared to other technologies, making it ideal for portable electronics and competitive for mobile/vehicular applications. But the cost premium for lithium technology over lead-acid, lead-carbon, or Zn/Br makes it less competitive for stationary grid-based applications.

    Li-ion has its place in our world, in our cell-phones, tablets, laptops, and exotic vehicles. But it is unlikely to compete with cheaper but heavier technologies on our rooftops and stationary solar or wind installations.

    Being a cheerleader for any single technology is foolish. The gist of John's excellent articles is to help us figure out which technology may become profitable in which markets. Most of us here at SA are looking to make money in investing, not to promote unprofitable political agendas.
    Dec 23 10:39 AM | 10 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Stop-Start Realities And EV Fantasies [View article]
    Jobs knew how to gain market share.

    Musk knows how to gain limelight share.

    Big difference.
    May 22 12:58 PM | 9 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Are EV Dreams Going Up In Smoke? [View article]
    "The only thing I can conclude from the story is that mitsubishi's quality control works."

    Actually, I think you mean "Mitsubishi's Risk Management works."

    Quality control is to keep things running smoothly. Parked and unplugged EV's are not exactly running smoothly.

    Risk Management is to keep things from blowing up.
    Mar 28 07:43 PM | 8 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Will Gold And Silver Continue Their Run Up? [View article]
    We may have to wait for the Pan Asian Gold Exchange to get fully up and running next year before we see the true price of PM's emerge in the futures exchanges and spot markets.

    Five millennia of gold and silver as the true money, that which no ruler could debase, is the tradition that the Chinese and Indian emerging middle class will use to build their security in these uncertain times.

    Then JPM and the plutarchs will have trouble playing their manipulative games to suppress the prices. Central banks the world over will be net buyers, and the price will resume its inevitable rise.
    Oct 14 01:18 PM | 8 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • The Empire Strikes Back Against the Silver Price Rebellion [View article]
    Oh crap! Is it too late to buy some of your nutmeg futures from you?
    May 1 03:02 PM | 8 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Are EV Dreams Going Up In Smoke? [View article]
    Because the failure mode is so dramatic and so hard to predict, even though rare, it is going to remain expensive to minimize the risk. Active microprocessor electronics monitoring every cell could be one solution:

    Can Signal Processing Stop Battery Fires?

    http://bit.ly/13uZiPM

    <<Sensing systems may, in fact, be able to detect bad batteries that have already passed factory tests. These parts suffer from an internal short circuit, a defect that is difficult to identify. As a private consultant to lithium-ion battery manufacturers and device makers that use those batteries, Brian Barnett, vice president of the Lexington, Mass.–based technology-development company TIAX, has examined many case studies of lithium-ion problems. “Frequently, the level of destruction was too great to determine what transpired,” he says. “However, when you could find a cause, overwhelmingly we discovered proof that there had been a foreign metal particle that had got into the cell.” What was particularly worrisome was that in “a couple hundred incidents, it showed that none of them occurred in the first three months,” he says. Many internal short circuits, in other words, cannot be detected at the factory.

    The contaminants were often tiny shards of crimped, scraped, or flaked metal of various sizes that could be as small as tens of micrometers, Barnett says. Battery manufacturers already have many tricks—including using strong magnets and shrouded cutting areas—to keep contaminants out of battery assemblies. But, he says, the persistence of rare but catastrophic battery fires from cells made at even the best lithium-ion factories in the world suggests that some baseline level of contamination exists—and has to be rooted out in other ways.

    Further experiments and computer models of these metal particles in lithium-ion batteries also revealed a likely mechanism for time-delayed thermal runaways. If the metal shard is near the cathode, Barnett says, the battery’s voltage oxidizes the contaminant particle, which is often iron, copper, nickel, or zinc. And the resulting nanoscale charged particles can then migrate across the battery’s microporous separator. The contaminant particles then reach the anode.

    “At the voltages of the anode,” Barnett says, “you have a process that’s not so different than electroplating....It plates out. And when that process happens progressively over time, you get a metal deposit. It’s shaped largely like a dendrite. It starts to fill the holes in the separator, eventually making contact with the cathode. And it’s only at that moment when you get a short.”>>
    Mar 28 06:59 PM | 7 Likes Like |Link to Comment
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