Continued from Part One. The Costliness of Catalysts To date, the use of PGM catalysts have made the up-front cost of fuel cells and the refurbishment of the devices over their life far too expensive to be widely adopted, but Acal Energy in the UK has developed a low-cost liquid catalyst that can be continuously [...]

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Fuel cells are one of those technologies we have covered before, usually citing some manufacturer who is fan-faring a new technology purported to be game-changing for the cost structure of the hydrogen fuel cell market. So far, fuel cells are used predominantly in specialist applications such as submarines and space vehicles, or in remote areas [...]

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Like gold, the silver price has risen since the start of this year after hitting a one-year trough in December, leading some to suggest that silver is set for a rebound on the coattails of gold. Source: Kitco But while there has always been a link between the two, silver’s more lackluster performance of late [...]

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Metal Miners Becoming Auto-Miners? Rio Tinto’s Big Bucks Say So

by Taras Berezowsky February 21, 2012 Commodities

Source: robotics.youngester.com Here at MetalMiner, we (ok, we meaning me) are fascinated by the extrapolation of automation to the historically invasive, dirty and dangerous — yet necessary and extraordinarily lucrative — coal and ore mining industry. Of course, as automation has been going on in automotive production for decades, so has extracting coal and ore [...]

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Copper: Stock Rising, Bulls on Sidelines

by Stuart Burns February 21, 2012 Commodities

Copper seems caught between the fear factor of Greek default and the prospects for Chinese physical demand. Copper prices have jumped 15 percent since the beginning of the year, but Chinese buyers have largely avoided the spot market. LME Spot Copper Price Source: LME As a result, the FT reports, stocks at Shanghai Futures Exchange [...]

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Does Move to Iron Ore Spot Pricing Help Steel Buying Organizations?

by Lisa Reisman February 21, 2012 Ferrous Metals

In a world of commodity volatility, some might think at first blush that the recent move by Vale to move 80 percent of its iron ore to spot pricing from quarterly contracts would only add volatility to steel supply chains. In actuality, the move to spot pricing ought to create far more price risk mitigation [...]

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Metal News and Views: February 20-24, 2012

by Taras Berezowsky February 20, 2012 Ferrous Metals

Here are some industrial metals industry-related stories we’re keeping an eye on this week: China’s State-Owned and State-Controlled Enterprises Source: BBC On the heels of Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, the SOE issue takes center stage. From TradeReform.org: Congressman Pete Visclosky testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission during [...]

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Manufacturing Still Leads US Economic Growth – Lasting Trend?

by Taras Berezowsky February 20, 2012 Commodities

As far as the metals industry (and specifically the steel industry) are concerned, a lot of the numbers and reports we’ve been seeing point to an improved — although, some may argue, still not much-improved — 2012, economically speaking. The Conference Board recently released the latest update of the Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the [...]

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