[Vwdiesel] Pallidium and Platinum Prices and Diesel Catalysts

[Nate Wall]

I was just checking precious metal prices and came
accross this on the monex.com site:

"For the second week in a row Palladium stole the show
among the Platinum Group Metals by breaching the $300
price level. Some of the rumors of an industrial
switch from Platinum to Palladium have started to come
to fruition. In a Reuters article on April 2nd it was
reported that diesel engines will account for about 50
percent of the new car market in Europe within the
next 5 years, and that there will be huge increases in
the demand for diesel vehicles coming out of China
over the next 20-30 years. Until recently, Platinum
based catalytic converters were the only alternative
for diesel vehicles. Umicore (a large Belgium-based
metal fabricator) has found a way to replace Platinum
with Palladium in diesel emission control systems and
plans are reportedly being made to implement this
process on a large scale. Should this occur, some
analysts have speculated that the two metals' prices
could meet somewhere between $300 and $900. Platinum
saw a dip of $25 from its weekly high of $917 on the
news coming out of Umicore, and Palladium went up as
high as $315 an ounce. The weekly lows for the metals
were $889 and $283, respectively."

--Nate
--- Erik Lane <erikjlane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> oh yeah, i did some testing a little while back on a
> 1/4 mile STEEP hill near here. i ran 3 different
> cars
> - a 2000 VW Jetta GL TDI, a 2000 VW Beetle GLS 2.0L
> gasser, and a 1981 VW Jetta 1.6L diesel.
> 
> i ran each car down the hill multiple times, with
> different starting speeds, and repeating some speeds
> to make sure that i was getting correct times cause
> i
> was surprised.
> 
> i thought that they would be simliar results between
> the different cars, and that might have affected the
> outcome, but it's still impressively close. there
> was
> only 1 mph difference at the bottom of the hill
> between all three cars! the gasser was the slower
> one
> at the bottom each time so yes, it was very slightly
> better at engine braking, but that one mph is so
> insignificant in my mind that i wouldn't even bother
> with it. the two diesels were the same, even though
> the cars were so different in age, engine size, and
> weight of the body.
> 
> so that's what i found, which even surprised me.
> 
> i just wasn't sure i should get this whole topic
> started again or if anyone else would care that
> much.
> :)
> 
> erik
> 
> --- "H.Hagar" <h_hagar at prcn.org> wrote:
> > Some time ago one of you said that your Bunny did
> > not seem
> > to slow down , when you took your foot off the
> > pedal.
> > 
> > I stated  that         IMHO    it was a Bosch pump
> > problem.
> > 
> > Today I  did  the testhill test that I said I
> would
> > do.
> > 
> > VW diesels works just fine as a brake.   Hell I
> > thought the Bunny was
> > going to stop deads to nails ---half way down the
> > hill.
> > 
> > IMHO    lots of retarding from engine. ---    Val 
> > Christian  next time you hit
> > your testhill  hows about it ???.
> > 
> > Hagar .
> > 
> > PS:   The testhill is where I test the Turbo   and
> > all  ---going up the hill.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Vwdiesel mailing list
> > Vwdiesel at vwfans.com
> > http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/vwdiesel
> 
> 
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