70% of the time.
Obviously, Exxon is in no risk of going out of business competing against a car that starts 70% of the time, and this is very experimental (precisely the type of long-shot gamble that should be funded by DARPA), but just for kicks, let's game plan this as if this were a bona fide technology.
What is the net economic benefit with this technology? Here's a rough guess. Calculated Risk provides a nice little graph here. The stoppage in petroleum imports would be about $300-$400 billion to the US economy, or about 2% of the GDP. That's a difference between a recession and a non-recession.
Of course this means the world demand for palladium, the metal needed for this contraption, would shoot up like crazy. In the case, the biggest beneficiary would be US, South Africa and Russia:
The red dots correspond to Zimbabwe, which given its complete lack of property rights, such mineral wealth more likely than not is a curse.
So what does the market think about this technology? Meh. The spot market price for palladium actually declined on Monday, so it does not seem to be sold.
1 comment:
We have viable "regular" nuclear alternatives which we should be perusing other than cold fusion. Yes it's all nice but cold fusion (or even an old school Tokamak reactor) is really a dead end until we can get a grip on M or String theory. Or until doc hits 88 mph and comes back with Mr Fusion.
New Thorium and plain old Uranium power plant (and micro power plants) are in the works that will have an immediate contribution to the power grid (besides wind, wave, geo, solar photovoltaic, solar furnace geostationary microwave)
For now Palladium's best use is on catalytic converters. Unless of course it gets stolen from your car.. ever try to get a replacement cat from a GM dealer... $400 bucks. Fuck GM.. screw the bailout.. freaking Wankers.
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