"Last month, 51 percent of the respondents in aWashington Post poll said rising gas prices were causing a serious financial hardship for them or others in their household. It was the first time a majority had said that since the poll began posing that question eight years ago."
Personally, I grew up in the oil patch in the Southwest part of the USA. When I was a kid, the "awl bidness" was not good at all and many people I knew didn't have much money at all. But today, things are obviously going gangbusters. However, I no longer live there and I'm much more in tune with how the millions around the USA are experiencing "serious financial hardship." We definitely need a solution. And it doesn't look like we'll get any leadership from our elected officials any time soon...not that I'm one who thinks we need to rely on govt for everything. It seems very fair to say that on this topic, there's definitely a lack of action in Washington.
21 comments:
The silver lining is the solutions come as a result of these high oil prices.
Called the free market / capitalism.
When the price gets "too" high, people really do find a way to reduce.
And, EEStor and all the others are working to make products to minimize the use of high priced oil.
The economic viability of most of such products is directly related to the price of oil. They are of economic value only if their cost plus the cost of oil is less than the cost of not buying / using them.
It doesn't make economic sense to use "solutions", if their use costs more than not using them.
Did you see that ~.10 drop in today's price of Zenn? That was me dumping most of my shares.
Cheers
I just sold the rest of my Zenn shares - so for nice round numbers. Selling ~2000 shares drove the price down just over $.10. Which should give you some good insight into price support and volatility. In my humble opinion, this is a stock that is difficult to get out of, selling ~10,000 - 20,000 shares on a day like today would send the price down at least 10% or more - In my humble opinion.
I may be a buyer again, IF there is a reason to buy - verifiable proof of something - at this point, Clifford and Zenn are betting their future on a company that sells vaporware. If Eestor were to produce *something* other than rumor and speculation, the stock price of Zenn will almost certainly go up. The price will likely spike up initially, but if Eestor is legit, the price of Zenn should continue to go up - and I will be a buyer at that time.
At this point, Eestor is just some company in Cedar Park, TX wedged in between the Yoga Wellness center and a car insurance company.
My last post on the subject.
5.30
Trade Time: 1:07PM ET
Change: Down 0.25 (4.50%)
As to relief via the (Federal) Government.
There may well be a genuine need for some sort of compassionate welfare program to address the likely cost of heating oil this 2008 - 2009 Winter. $5 / gallon is really going to sting.
I doubt politicians will stand by and see the poorest of us forced out of poorly insulated homes and huddled in communal shelters for warmth.
Other than stuff like that, I'd rather not have a well intentioned Energy Program like Corn to Ethanol! ***NEGATIVE*** energy producer! Higher Food prices; Higher gasoline prices; Higher taxes / deficit; poorer MPG
And now, the corn state Senators will do everything in their power to prolong this insanity, as corn farmers get $6 / bushel, whereas $2 - 3 is very much more the norm.
First rule - do no harm.
For those who weren't around this weekend, I'm reposting my continued due diligence on Lionel Liebman, manager of Program Development – Applied Research at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.
Not only is he all of the above, Mr. Liebman is also an inventor as well. Check out his Patent application for "Single detector receiver for multi-beam ladar systems". This is in the field of lazers:
http://www.freshpatents.com/Single-detector-receiver-for-multi-beam-ladar-systems-dt20060907ptan20060197936.php
He is also listed as an inventor on 4 WIPO Patent applications:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/cgi/guest/search5
Mr. Liebman had this to say about his career at Lockheed Martin:
I went to Lockheed Martin as an electro-optics designer for LADAR systems. Over the last 5 years, I've become the resident optics design and fiber optics technology subject matter expert and have 5 filed patent applications - primarily in areas of fiber optic transceiver technologies. This year I moved into a new role as business development manager for applied research.
Obviously, this is a man who knows how to read a Patent and who would have had the same questions others in the scientific community have had.
Perhaps his background, as both an engineer (on a pretty sweet career path) and as an inventor, will shed more light on the following statements he made to the GM-Volt blog:
Q:What have you seen from EEStor in terms of their technology?
LL:We’ve visited their facility. We were very impressed. They are taking an approach that lends itself to a very quick ramp-up in production...
Q:Do they have something that they’ve tested that you’ve seen which makes you want to work with them?
LL:We haven’t personally tested their prototypes yet...
Q:Are you confident that their technology will offer a greater amount of energy and power density than batteries?
LL:Yes, and at a fraction of the cost.
Q:Do their caps hold 10x the energy at 1/10th the weight of a lead acid battery?
LL:Yes....
Q:Is there a production plan for 2008?
LL:Yes for EEStor. Their approach is when they start manufacturing these batteries, not just the cells, but also the package assembly, they will be in production. If you can get a visit to EEStor they’ll show you their process and everything they’ve got in place to support that.
http://gm-volt.com/2008/01/10/lockheed-martin-signs-agreement-with-eestor/
steve, your post is good.
But not germain to this particular blog "story".
Is there a platform better suited for such a topic, as broad as bariumtitanate, that has so many different aspects and interactive responses?
Know of something more suitable - a different Blog vendor? Other web platforms - Forums? Wikipedia?
Applewood. We all got your point. Now please buy back all your shares so we can dump all of our ZNN stock on you. Thanks!
Nekote,
If B wants to remove my post, that's fine with me. But I haven't notices a rule here that comments need to be fixed to the blog title. At least my post involves technology, patents and experts involved with Eestor, would you not agree that this type of information is more relevant to this thread than, say, how many shares somebody sold or bought of Zenn?
I didn't see you having a problem with that, so why this?
I'm not depressed about the oil situation. I love the idea that EESTOR might kill our dependence on foreign oil.
I love the idea of cleantech, cheap cross country trips, quiet engines, solar, wind... hell, where can I get a treadmill to hook up to my CITYZENN so I can work out and charge my EESTOR esu at the same time...
not a bad idea.
Good point applewood.
I hope everyone understands how relatively small buys/sells can affect a stock like this. Therefore take all info with plenty of salt and do your own DD. There have been and will be posters with the intent of moving the stock price of Zenn.
steve - truly not a problem with your post, in anyway. Just the opposite!
My trouble is the helter skelter mis-mash placement of stuff.
I try to read most everything.
But, can't find it again, later.
I'm hoping to aggitate, ever so nicely and politely, for something better. Partly by pointing out your reply comment that somehow doesn't fit the original blog "article".
I've used Forums and think that could be an answer, but I don't want to be a single track advocate.
Plus, I don't have the breadth, yet, to know of any better / more suitable way to skin the cat.
Hoping others might.
There is no such thing as free market capitalism in the USA.
It is called monopoly capitalism.
And right now the system is on the verge of collapse. The administration delays the inevitable because they know something you don't: it is meant to happen by design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIHYs6x7lPs
Time to wake up.
nekote said...
The silver lining is the solutions come as a result of these high oil prices.
Called the free market / capitalism.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, the "free" market does respond. Necessity is the mother of invention but most free market activity is irresponsible sex with Mr. greedy opportunity.
The free market did not respond as it should have years back when fossil fuels started to block out the sun on our future. We are indeed in a bit of a crisis with energy dependency and environemntal degradation. The solutions will be part government as well as free market. I suspect the macro solutions will involve the government and national standard and laws to allow decentralized harvesting of renewable energy and hookup to the grid. Individuals, private and public corporations will supply the visions, leadership and components (such as eestor). Components such as EESUs and solar panels, wind generators, inverters, EVs require so much integration efforts and standards that we can blow it with a tower of babble of competing interests unless we agree to agree and coordinate the future.
Do we want endless beta-vcr wars when it comes to our National energy security? No, of course not.
The next President knows what he must do.
I'm by no means an expert on stock trading. Do stocks like this with little volume (around 20k shares/day) present a good target for pumping and dumping? I'd have thought that people so inclined would choose a stock with higher volume. After all, how do you cash in?
Stephen
It may have started the trend. Touchy day traders....
ricinro - bingo! Yeah, that's how I see it. The next US administration should do exactly as you outlined, through new legislation, tax incentives, "facilitating" consortiums of companies - possibly in concert with IEEE and other sector-specific organizations - to nail down a coordinated plan ahead. If they don't, I can see the US losing 30 to 80% of the benefits (not just direct financial benefits - lots of possible "intangibles") the country COULD HAVE accrued over the next 3-5 years.
nekote - I've been thinking along those same lines a bit lately myself. Have you given any thought to a possible EESU-triggered deflationary period? Seems to me it's quite possible, especially if the US Gov handles things the smart way as detailed by ricinro.
everyone - I've been spreading out lately into thinking about (i.e. "speculative fiction"/ trying to determine the near-future lay-of-the-land) possible military/space applications.
Most of the truly novel applications in both these fields depend on the MAXIMUM safe power density of a discharging EESU (if they really exist and are as described, of course).
Unfortunately, I can't find this info (or even indirect reference to it) anywhere. I suspect I know why. Anyway, all I've been able to find is related info from the WIPO patent, conviently cut-n-pasted by nekote on July 26, 2008 9:39 AM. Working with the patent info provided, a test load on the "component" of about 280 ohms is derived. I don't know how much of this is internal resistance. Silver-particle based glue, or "conductive ink" as it is more commonly known, is not the world's best conductor, but' it's well established & researched and lends itself well to "printing" applications. For the maximum required current densities in auto apps, I'm sure it's just fine.
It seems to me that it should represent a small part of the 280 ohms, which makes me think that they used a (pure resistive) load for the tests. That leaves me wondering, what if the load is VERY low? In other words, what is the maximum safe "power pulse" you can get out of an EESU as described in the patent? Maybe even more to the point, what's the max if you construct it slightly differently, say by using metal vapour deposition of nickel/copper/silver/whatever on the polished component end-caps? The internal series resistance of the EESU should go down significantly, allowing a truly unbelievable power density on discharge.
Maybe the limiting factor in that case would be the dialectric itself - what's the maximum safe rate of electric field collapse the dialectric can take? Will the crystals "shatter" under the stress? At what rates? I can see the physical EESU innards "banging" like a drum - kind of like magnetostriction in a transformer core - only more intense.
I'm guessing EESTor has a design for an EESU that's more expensive & more difficult to produce, for military/aerospace apps, that go beyond simply making rail-guns & hand-held directed energy weapons practical.
Speculation is fun.
I would REALLY like to know if anybody has come across max discharge info - even other speculation.
Dan
nekote - I believe yahoo groups uses the more-or-less defacto standard phpBB approach, which I think is what you were referring to.
However, I don't think a move (or a separate startup) is practical at this point.
Group behavioural dynamics being what they are, most people will not want the fuss and bother of changing their links, learning a new interface & the peculiar dynamics of a new system, etc, not to mention the fact that several blogs/bb's/groups have already established themselves as "the definitive watering holes" in the minds of most people that would want to participate at this point. These several have also established intrinsic "archives" of sorts.
You're more than welcome to try, though.
Dan
Book-em-Dano,
In the WIPO document.
Toward the end.
The 1,000,000 cycle test that was interrupted every 100,000 cycles to measure parameters, such as permittivity, current leakage, voltage breakdown, ...
Testing of was of a "component" - I believe 10 "elements" stacked together, where each "element" is the 100 layers of capacitors formed on the PTFE coated stainless steel tray that are diced into 6,000 individual "elements". I believe that actually makes for 1,000 of the smallest capacitor, all in parallel.
"The rise time on the charging voltage was 0.5 seconds and the discharge time was 1.0 seconds. The RC time constant was 0.11 seconds for both the charging and the discharging times."
I assume if the higher and higher level conductors can be sufficiently sized, the entire 52.2 KWH can be charged or discharged in under 1 second. I'm afraid to calculate that. I suspect even railroad rails would explosively vaporize at power levels like that.
It takes 31,351 components to make a 52kw ESU. They are only charging one component in this test. So maybe one component will charge to 5.2kw?
ESU = 31,351 components
Component = 10 elements
Element = 100 capacitors
A total of 31,351,000 capacitors in one ESU. Thats amazing in itself..
I think the math is 52.2 KWH ÷ 31,351 .
My calculator says that 1 component, those 1,000 parallel tiny capacitors, collectively store 1.665 WH .
As for there being 31,351,000 tiny capacitors, yea, that is a big number.
But, those 30 million little buggers take up 20 gallons of volume - 74 liters - not nearly the same scale as today's microprocessors.
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