Another Passing Fad? Hydrogen -- August 19, 2024

Locator: 48464H2.

Hydrogen is tracked here. What a debacle.

Link here to The WSJ.  

Is this foreshadowing "big truck hydrogen"? Daimler is heavily invested in hydrogen.

From the linked article:

Startups promising to power planes, ships and trucks with clean fuel are sputtering before they get off the ground, showing how hard it will be to wean many industries off oil and gas.

A company backed by United Airlines that raised hundreds of millions of dollars to turn trash into jet fuel appears to have shut down. Another, backed by Airbus, JetBlue and GE Aerospace, that was working on using hydrogen to power planes went bust.

Chevron, BP and Shell, meanwhile, are scaling back projects to make biofuels from cooking fats, oils, greases and plant material.

 “The excitement of the early days has not lived up to the hype,” said Andy Marsh, chief executive of Plug Power, a startup that recently opened one of the country’s first plants making green hydrogen, a potential replacement for fossil fuels in industries such as steel making and chemical production.

The poster child for hydrogen energy:

The Moment The Industry Switched From Emphasis On Chips To Emphasis On Systems On A Chip -- August 19, 2024

Locator: 48463TECH.

What is this all about? This is the moment the industry switched from emphasis on chips to emphasis on systems on a chip, where Apple leads in personal computing. 

Tech is tracked here.

Chips tracked here.

AMD:

The earlier post this morning about the HP OmniBook powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU and the Qualcomm Andreon GPU is a focus on chips and assembly.

Apple and AMD are now focusing on systems on a chip. Among the big names, Apple was first with systems on a chip. Previously discussed at length.

Don't Mention The Mileage -- GMC's Yukon SUV -- August 19, 2024

Locator: 48462MILEAGE.

Link here. 

US Debt In Perspective -- August 19, 2024

Locator: 48461DEBT.

Tag: debt; sovereign debt;

Link here. 

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GDP 

Link here. Estimates sinking fast. Just a few weeks ago, the estimate was 2.8 and then fell to 2.4, and now sits at 2.0 for 3Q24.

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Phil Donahue

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Cramer's First Hour

Starts off with magnificent 7, of course.

Apple: poised to win in AI. But that's already priced in.  Currently trading at around $211.

Boring: a fairly boring Monday morning for Cramer's first hour.

SBUX: link here.

HPQ: watch the ticker today. Says HP AI rolling out more slowly than forecast. 

HP's OmniBook X 14 -- you can do better -- Verge. Link here. August 15, 2024. QCOM's Snapdragon. The writer still prefers his company-provided 13-inch MacBook Air. Both are similarly priced. The Air has the new M2 and M3 chips. [HP: even steals the Apple "book" name. It gets tedious.]

From the linked Verge article:

The freshman class of Windows Copilot Plus PCs has its battery champ, and it’s even a few hundred dollars cheaper than Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop. But it’s also business-class boring, with a middling screen and subpar trackpad.

HP’s new OmniBook X 14 is one of the first laptops with Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor. Like most of the ones we’ve seen so far, it’s a thin and light machine aimed at productivity tasks and stuffed with AI fluff. It starts at $1,150, with a 14-inch LCD screen, 12-core processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD — with an optional upgrade to a 1TB drive for $1,200, though it’s often on sale for less. [GPU: Qualcomm Adreno.]

Most of the other Windows laptops we’ve seen with these new Arm chips have bright, beautiful screens and other creature comforts. The OmniBook, on the other hand, is a near-clone of the HP EliteBook Ultra, a machine built for high-volume office deployment, and it shows.

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The Book Page

Three links today.

The Killer Shrews, link here.

British governesses and literature, link here. Considering the source, I was expecting more. Disappointed.

Book bars gain momentum in NYC, link here.

Manic Monday -- August 19, 2024

Locator: 48460B.

GM: to cut 1,000 salaried jobs.

AMD:

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $76.97.

Monday, August 19, 2024: 47 for the month; 103 for the quarter, 429 for the year
40390, conf, WPX, Missouri River 25-26HW,
39901, conf, Liberty Resources, Alvin E 158-95-18-19-2MBH,

Sunday, August 18, 2024: 45 for the month; 101 for the quarter, 427 for the year
40237, conf, WPX, Missouri River 25-26HC,
39902, conf, Liberty Resources, Alvin E 158-95-18-19-2MBH,
39795, conf, Enerplus, Sapphire 148-95-03B-10H,
39254, conf, Hess, SC-4WX-153-98-3130H-6,

Saturday, August 17, 2024: 41 for the month; 97 for the quarter, 423 for the year
40416, conf, Kraken, Fasching 15-22-27 4H,
40389, conf, WPX, Missouri River 25-26HW,
24360, conf, Grayson Mill, Knight 35-26 2H,

RBN Energy: federal bill would streamline energy project permitting, judicial review. 

The permitting process for energy projects can drag on for years, resulting in multiple state and federal hurdles, environmental studies and judicial reviews. This is true not only of traditional energy projects involving oil and gas but also renewables like wind and solar and long-distance transmission, which are seen as key elements of the energy transition. Legislation proposed by a pair of influential senators aims to help move these projects along every step of the way but getting Congress to agree on anything — especially during an election year — figures to be a formidable challenge. In today’s RBN blog we examine the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.