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Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

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Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#161

Post by 3pt14159 »

bradleysmith wrote: post #128
3pt14159 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exxon is sitting on a resource that will soon be replaced with a more efficient one: electricity. It is much, much, much cheaper to produce electricity in coal or nuclear plants and charge cars to run on the road than it is to refine gasoline and pump it into cars. Google is sitting on top of the most amount of information ever collected by any profit-seeking organization ever. Skate where the pucks going man.

This is a very cut-and-dry explanation that sells Exxon's future value (and our reliance on petroleum products) way short. Production of electricity is more efficient than production and refinement of fossil fuels. BUT, Expenditure and distribution of that energy as electricity is less efficient for use as a transportation fuel (as I understand it; correct me if I'm wrong!). This is particularly true for heavy-load t…

It is more efficient to generate power in a power plant, transmit the energy, then drive a car with it.

This is especially true when you take into account cheaper electricity at night, and regenerative breaking.

The expensive part right now is the upfront cost of lightweight batteries, and the small economics of scale.

But battery technology is continuously improving, so is economics of scale, and electricity production from non-fossil fuel sources.

I'm not saying Exxon is dead, I'm just saying that it is insane to ignore what is right in front of us. If gasoline doubles in price once more (in real terms) then the internal combustion engine is over.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#162

Post by 3pt14159 »

valtih1978 wrote: post #148
3pt14159 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact electricity driving cars is so much more efficient that you could burn gas in power plants and it would still outpace crude internal combustion engines.

How does it make coal or atomic energy more efficient than oil? You get electricity by burning them. When you burn either coal or oil, you loose 70% of energy. Then, you loose delivering the electric power and charging the accumulators. Finally, you have losses in the electric car. You are left with at best 10% of what the coal has supplied. Oil is higly concentrated energy. It could provide you 30% of the energy it…

Because you only use the explosive power of gasoline when you use it in a car and because you idle much of it away. The savings from transmission and charging do not account for the biggest waste of energy: lack of thermo use in internal combustion engines.

I speak about efficiency per unsubsidised dollar which is generally a rough correlator for usable work per input fuel.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#163

Post by valtih1978 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #162
valtih1978 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it make coal or atomic energy more efficient than oil? You get electricity by burning them. When you burn either coal or oil, you loose 70% of energy. Then, you loose delivering the electric power and charging the accumulators. Finally, you have losses in the electric car. You are left with at best 10% of what the coal has supplied. Oil is higly concentrated energy. It could provide you 30% of the energy it…

Because you only use the explosive power of gasoline when you use it in a car and because you idle much of it away. The savings from transmission and charging do not account for the biggest waste of energy: lack of thermo use in internal combustion engines. I speak about efficiency per unsubsidised dollar which is generally a rough correlator for usable work per input fuel.

What?

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#164

Post by waps »

valtih1978 wrote: post #31
saryant wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech companies would not exist for very long without those oil companies.

The oil does not go into gadgets. All the oil goes into your car, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPS1y81b1Bw

Look around your room. If you don't have any food lying there, everything you see is made of oil. The carpet on the floor, is manufactured using oil, and the paint, the only part you really see is oil. Same for walls. Every gadget you see has a plastic shell, made from oil. LCDs have lots of components, the majority made from oil. If you look at a TV, all you see is oil. Synthetic fabrics are made from oil, and everything we wear is at least 10% synthetic, more likely 80-90%, and again, the paint used is going to just be oil. Laptops are near 100% oil (the entire shell + the lcd is, so all visible parts are).

Even in microchips. Everything but the actual silicon and contact pins is oil. The casing, the print, the holder, the cooler, ...

The only exceptions I see in my room is the glass of the window (made from silicon and production energy comes from coal), and a glass. Oh, and some leftover spaghetti.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#165

Post by jfoks »

prayag wrote: post #88
brudgers wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google disappeared this weekend, we'd wake up Monday morning and our Android phones would still work, a few people would miss Play and the worst part would be listening to people complain about Bing search and everyone else's maps. If Exxon disappeared I'd be in line at the pump filling up gas cans in addition to the tank and on my way to stockpile canned goods, potable water. and buckshot.

This is exactly how we should value companies. Depending on the chaos it would cause if they disappeared tomorrow.

With your reasoning, for example, the private prison companies would be valued incorrectly high (as do the companies that make the green lights for traffic intersections, the doors to stores, the electric power company, the wireless/phone/cable company, any company with any kind of monopoly, etc). What you're forgetting is to weigh for the difficulty to replace the company with another (that in some cases may already exist and only needs to move into the now vacant market).

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#166

Post by wlesieutre »

jmathai wrote: post #69
wlesieutre wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says someone with no more insight than the rest of us on what's going on internally at Apple. Recent hires and job postings suggest that they're angling for the wearable electronics market, and I would bet they'll be years ahead of the Pebble of Galaxy Gear when they do announce something. Would people prefer that they be like Google, with piles and piles of R&D projects that go public, get users, and are shorty aban…

I honestly wish they'd never bought Grand Central, at least it would have improved in the last several years. Or more likely Grand Central would have been acquired by someone else or shut down. I was a Grand Central user and while Google Voice hasn't lived up to all my hopes and dreams it's a pretty kick-ass service.

I suppose part of my problem is that I'm using it on iOS. Still no iOS 7 update, and there are some really braindead interface decisions in the client.

My personal favorite: Text conversations get new messages from the bottom. But when you open the app, it doesn't automatically load new messages. How do you get them? Pull to refresh. At the top of the conversation.

Yup, scroll up past several pages of messages to get to the start, pull to refresh, then go back down to read the new texts. Brilliant.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#167

Post by 3pt14159 »

valtih1978 wrote: post #163
3pt14159 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you only use the explosive power of gasoline when you use it in a car and because you idle much of it away. The savings from transmission and charging do not account for the biggest waste of energy: lack of thermo use in internal combustion engines. I speak about efficiency per unsubsidised dollar which is generally a rough correlator for usable work per input fuel.

What?

When you use liquid fuel in an engine you are taking advantage of the fact that the fuel converts into a gas quickly and thus increases the relative pressure enough to transfer momentum to the piston head which ultimately powers the drivetrain.

In an electric power plant, this is only part of the equation, the other part is that you also use the excess heat to drive a glycol or water / steam turbine system, recovering much more energy from the fuel.

This makes up for the losses of electricity in the lines. furthermore, nuclear power is by far the safest and most energy efficient source of power. Cheaper, safer, and far more environmentally friendly than a distributed gasoline delivery and combustion system.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#168

Post by valtih1978 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #167
valtih1978 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?

When you use liquid fuel in an engine you are taking advantage of the fact that the fuel converts into a gas quickly and thus increases the relative pressure enough to transfer momentum to the piston head which ultimately powers the drivetrain. In an electric power plant, this is only part of the equation, the other part is that you also use the excess heat to drive a glycol or water / steam turbine system, recoverin…

This makes the heat distribution a joke. In the urban sprawl you use gas to heat the building and water. Do not try to cheat me. At first, heat power plants can "recover" the heat only when you have vertical cities in the cold regions. Then indeed you can supply the heat as byproduct to the city. However, the car infrastructure assumes that you have a horzontal city (aka urban sprawl). You loose much more in the electric transformations that I have described than "recover" from these conversions. How safe is nuclear, you may ask Bellarussians. The Japaneese managed to contaminate a the immense Pacific ocean with a single nuclear plant!

"I think you should do some reading, then. The basic problem is the ever-growing pile of radioactive waste that no-one can get rid of. And as we keep seeing, no-one can effectively contain it either. http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2396/accou... -- What do you think is he talking about? I have not yet considered the costs of uranium mining.

Now, you propose to replace all fossil power (which is 90%) by atomic, you'll have the disasters 10 times faster. Do you know when we have the peak Uraneum? Squash that peak moment and you'll know that we have no more than 20 years of nuclear fuel.

So, who do you try to cheat? The electric cars are only compatible with sustainability when you they are used only for special services (e.g. ambulance or agriculture but biofuel can be used there) rather than by general population.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#169

Post by prayag »

jfoks wrote: post #165
prayag wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how we should value companies. Depending on the chaos it would cause if they disappeared tomorrow.

With your reasoning, for example, the private prison companies would be valued incorrectly high (as do the companies that make the green lights for traffic intersections, the doors to stores, the electric power company, the wireless/phone/cable company, any company with any kind of monopoly, etc). What you're forgetting is to weigh for the difficulty to replace the company with another (that in some cases may already…

I was being sarcastic. It's really hard to do that on the internet.

Re: Google Passes Exxon to Become Second-Most Valuable U.S. Company

#170

Post by valtih1978 »

waps wrote: post #164
valtih1978 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil does not go into gadgets. All the oil goes into your car, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPS1y81b1Bw

Look around your room. If you don't have any food lying there, everything you see is made of oil. The carpet on the floor, is manufactured using oil, and the paint, the only part you really see is oil. Same for walls. Every gadget you see has a plastic shell, made from oil. LCDs have lots of components, the majority made from oil. If you look at a TV, all you see is oil. Synthetic fabrics are made from oil, and every…

I have told you that chinees consume much less oil but produce much more than US citizen. The oil is consumed by consumer, not by producers.

The notebook is tens of times cheaper than car alone (needs tens of times less materials/energy to produce). It consumes tens of times less energy, which can be not oil whereas cars are addicted to oil. These are cars that deplete the oil and without it you won't have the gadgets.

You neither cannot think not read. You seem to be an ideal consumer. You do everything (and all you do is twisting, comparing incomparable) to have no gadgets in the future.

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