Why Palladium Is Suddenly a More Precious Metal | Hacker News Reader

Why Palladium Is Suddenly a More Precious Metal

bloomberg.com

99 pointshhs84 comments

I consulted for an automobile manufacturer that was looking to acquire a new catalytic converter start-up.

One of the main reasons for their interest was the fact that this new catalytic converter used 30% less palladium than the next leading product.

The other was because of the looming fleet fuel efficiency requirements. If the total fleet fuel efficiency was below the target, the companies would get fined for emissions on a mpg basis. You could also earn additional revenue if your cars had better mileage than were necessary since credits were tradeable.

Other things that were considered included mileage improvements/savings that could potentially be used to differentiate between competitors since catalytic converts could also improve fuel efficiency.

>> since catalytic converts could also improve fuel efficiency.

For curious, I think this is because fuel economy and complete/proper combustion are directly at odds with each other. Better MPG means nastier exhaust, so a better catalytic converter will help clean that up. OP?

Sorry, why do you think that?

More complete combustion would result in more CO2, H2O, and energy. The by products from incomplete combustion are the ones we want to limit - CO, C, various N and S compounds etc.

Not always. Nitrogen oxides are due to higher temps which is more efficient. In order to meet emissions standards, you often take a hit in efficiency (or at least drive-ability).

Makes a lot of sense, thanks.

The more efficient the combustion, the hotter it is, and the more NOx is formed. Nothing to do with incomplete combustion. Nitrogen doesn't combust.

Makes sense - it's not incomplete combustion but rather atmospheric contamination that allows for NOx products, and the amount of those is dependent on heat of combustion. Thanks!

There's a not insignificant amount of nitrogen in the fuel itself, as well.

What startup is this? That seems really cool

This impacts me in a somewhat strange way: usually palladium is cheaper than platinum, so when making platinum/palladium prints you can use more palladium both for controlling tone and to spend less on chemicals.

What kind of prints are those?

It's a kind of siderotype, a iron-based (even if in this case the end result doesn't actually involve iron in the paper) photographic printing process.

All the detail you might ever need from the excellent work of Mike Ware: https://www.mikeware.co.uk/downloads/Platinomicon.pdf

That's interesting; is the use case professional photographers selling high quality prints?

I think that in practice it's more a technique practiced by somewhat technically-obsessive advanced amateurs, but it's a valued process for high-end commercial prints, too.

The process has beautiful gradation and extreme archivial resistance with correct paper choice (but despite what you might read about it it's not the absolute best at that, because platinum is a catalyst for reactions that you don't really want to happen in your print over long timespans - the best would be the even more niche chrysotype process).

Personally I'm dialing in my approach to eventually make combination platinum / cyanotype prints (I use digital negatives, one of the issues with these alternative processes is that you can't enlarge, so they need either large format film or a digital intermediate).

Photographic platinum prints. Palladium has different properties that may be desirable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_print#Palladium

This would explain the recent increase in catalytic converter thefts

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49767195

In Oakland, where I live, thieves have been targeting old generation 2 Priuses most often. I finally got my 2005 updated for the modern world with a CarPlay stereo and backup camera, and now I have to worry about it getting hacked apart by one of these scumbags in the middle of the night, as happened to my neighbor. They just saw the cat off with a sawzall. The cost of fixing the car afterwards is maybe 10 times the amount of cash the thieves get for the metal, and often more than the car is worth. It’s killing safe low pollution cars that still have years of life in them. Before this all we had to worry about was the hybrid battery failing every 100,000 miles or so.

Go to a local mechanic, and have a protective plate bolted on. The thieves carry just enough tools to cut a catalyst off a typical car. If yours isn't typical, they won't bother with it.

Just turn your head when you back out lol

> The cost of fixing the car afterwards is maybe 10 times the amount of cash the thieves get for the metal, and often more than the car is worth.

Why should the thieves care about that?

> It’s killing safe low pollution cars

They are not much better than any other cars. All cars are polluters and killers.

It's pretty disingenuous to talk about prius as if they are equally bad to all other vehicles.

Whatever device you typed that on is just as much of a polluter as some cars.

Indeed. Someone I know has had theirs stolen twice.. last month. I've just had a catloc (anti-theft) fitted last week, let's see what good it'll do.

Glad we're moving to EVs and away from this nightmare.

i have a lifted truck but i'm cheap so i just wrapped a length of chain around the cat, secured with shitty padlocks i had laying around. doesn't actually have to be secure, just look like enough of a PITA to remove that the thief moves on.

I cut mine out of my trucks and put a straight pipe in. Sold them myself. Only able to do that in a state that doesn't regulate citizens to poverty.

> Only able to do that in a state that doesn't regulate citizens to poverty.

Which state is that, out of curiosity? I'm going to feel just a little better if I can support changing those regulations someday, knowing how callously some people treat negative externalities

Pretty dick move to pollute and make your exhaust annoyingly louder. You should really reconsider.

Context: I did this, and it was stupid as hell. I could smell and taste my exhaust at stop lights.

> I could smell and taste my exhaust at stop lights.

I'm sure his estate sale will probably discount his truck when it's sold.

Pollution concerns aside, your valves are timed and the manifold ports are shaped to work with the back pressure provided by a working cat.

If you didn't compensate for this during the modification you've likely cut the working life of you head(s) by half.

>ports are shaped to work with the back pressure provided by a working cat.

This is a 100% urban legend BS myth.

There's a partial exception for two-strokes where if you tune the system right you get a resonance wave that lets you pack a little more mixture in on the intake/exhaust stroke. Literally no 4-stroke ICE benefits from back-pressure in any way. It's just that sometimes the things done to reduce back-pressure (small exhaust pipes being the primary one) seem like they would increase it and vice-versa hence the urban legend.

Edit: Who the heck is downvoting this? This is how ICEs work. Google it if you don't believe me.

I've heard similar arguments about government regulated safe disposal requirements of used motor oil, old paint and unused pesticides. How dare the government not allow us to just dump that down the drain or pour it into the local creek.

Besides being an idiotic asshole move, what you did is illegal in every state because it violates the Clean Air Act.

it is good practice to keep emissions equipment in place. this way you can avoid paying to replace your cats if you have to move to a state that tests/inspects. it also reduces the amount of air and noise pollution that people in your community experience.

My rural community of 380 people don't experience a lot of air and noise pollution.

If I need to replace them, I know where I can buy them used. Plus, I don't have to replace them if someone else removes them unasked.

Problem: thieves steal mandatory cats

One solution: Less government meddling, make cats not mandatory

Second solution: More government meddling, i.e. actually do something about the thefts

It absolutely blows my mind that people out there think #1 is the better solution

I grew up in Los Angeles during the worst decade of pollution it ever experienced and suffered serious childhood asthma as a result. The decrease in smog after catalytic converters were invented and required in new cars was significant.

After the changes, my ability to breathe improved drastically, and I know I’m not alone. I, for one, strongly support reasonable environmental regulations as a result.

https://www.kcet.org/history-society/how-los-angeles-began-t... is a great history of those times.

>i.e. actually do something about the thefts

When that time comes I'll change my position on the matter.

It is, however, a federal crime.

So rather than waiting for someone to steal it.....you stole it yourself?

How exactly does cutting the catalytic converter out of your truck keep you out of poverty?

I don't agree with his sentiment, but some people find it unfair that California basically requires every car sold in the US to come with a $1000 part to control pollution. The argument is that California regulations shouldn't set the price of cars in Mississippi.

I am quite literally astonished to learn today that there is any first world country where catalytic converters are not required equipment.

Cats are required everywhere, but in CA they need to contain much more precious metals to meet the state standards than they would for just the national requirements. Most automakers choose to standardize on CA emissions standards nationally.

> The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is stricter on their regulations. CARB requires more precious metals and rigorous testing which is why they cost more than EPA catalytic converters.

https://autoquarterly.com/best-catalytic-converters/#Federal...

Not only are they required but CA requires $pecific ones with their CARB seal of approval. I had an older car from outside CA that never needed to comply with CA’s rules. When I moved to CA I tried to do the right thing by installing a working cat and tuning my car so it did not pollute. Got it to blow clean as a whistle but the state still failed me because it wasn’t one of their expensive approved devices. Ended up having to sell it out of state because CA labeled my car as “tampered.” You cant win with these guys.

Aren't catalytic converters installed to meet federal emission standards? They might not be explicitly mandated, but in practice you can't meet the standards without one. In which case it's just a factually false statement.

California standards are harder to meet than federal.

OK, but can you meet federal standards without a catalytic converter?

You need a catalytic converter that meets a special requirement in CA. There are in fact cars with catalytic converters sold in other states that will not pass smog test in CA without upgrading the catalytic converter. They’re not all the same.

That really proves how oftrn "unfair" is narcissistically defined as "bad for me with no regard to the larger system even in its effect on them".

The reverse of say California not being able to define limitations because they have too many people that would agree it becomes a logistical standard would be a bizzare illogic and pretty hypocritical.

Yeah and if it weren't for those pesky Californians and their regulations we would be free to use leaded gasoline like true blue-blooded Americans.

Indeed, because toxic gases generated in one place can by no mechanism pollute another. And if while standing under this tree in the rain I get wet, I will simply move to another tree and be blissfully dry.

I can’t believe people are stupid enough to think california regulations set the price of cars in other states, because they literally don’t.

The biggest markets set the price for the smallest

Tough luck? Sounds like people complaining about big government requiring them to have catalytic converters want big government to regulate markets so they don’t have to have catalytic converters.

Quite impressive cognitive dissonance.

They do, because of market size effects and standardization.

Automakers, textbook writers, etc cater to the largest state they serve (or the lowest common of several large markets), then distribute the same version to multiple locations.

In the case of cars, which have to adhere to California regulations to be sold in California, that can drive up the price in other markets due to expensive parts required for compliance and auto-manufacturers standardizing.

It’s also more constructive to explain why people are wrong (eg, why you think car regulations one place can’t impact the price in others) than just call them stupid.

California isn’t doing anything to anyone else. The sellers are making choices, and the market is doing what it does and allocating resources accordingly.

The Supreme Court's interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause disagrees with you.

How does it disagree? How do California’s state laws prevent a product from selling in other states?

The way interstate commerce clause is used is to give federal government ability to intervene, not another state government.

As though requiring the ownership of a five-figure polluting death trap simply to live and work isn’t its own form of wealth-based oppression.

Downvote me all you want but let’s not miss the forest for the trees: you wouldn’t need to have an expensive car part if you didn’t need a car that has to have expensive parts.

Sadly batteries are attractive to thieves, too, to be dismantled to cells and sold. They are just more inconvenient to extract, usually whole car is stolen.

Just drive a car with very low ground clearance. Problem solved?

No, not solved. They will just use a jack. And since they don't care about damaging the frame they can employ it very quickly.

Not in a world where jacks exist...

In Portugal it's common practice to remove them on purpose right after it needs to be changed.

Why? Because it's cheaper and there's no proper testing/regulation. It's sad.

Don't you have the "EU-control" every two years to make sure the car doesn't pollute too much?

That is the case in Norway at least and we're not even part of the EU fully.

The machines used to measure emissions don't have the capacity to identify particles that were supposed to be filtered by the particle filter.

Wait, so this also means the sale value of these cars has increased too?

Not really by enough to matter unless it's somewhere in the range of being worth more as scrap than as a car. But if that's the case then I'd think so.

Not electric cars.

off topic, but gosh, Bloomberg you have the worst charts I have ever seen on the web!

The first chart in the article is particularly bad: there are no labels! It maps two data sources (unlabelled other than one being red and the other blue!). The axis are.. unlabelled. I can infer that the horizontal axis is time (from the dates underneath), but the vertical axis is just some monotonically increasing number (I assume it's "price", but just from context offered by the article, I don't know if it's in dollars or cents or euros)

As palladium has a stock to flow ratio of about 1 year, its price is too volatile compared to gold/silver to be a useful long term store of value.

https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-w...

Automobile’s catalytic converter is not the only use case. Palladium is also used in the many chemical processing applications (as catalyst). Imagine those big reactors filled with this precious metal and you’ll appreciate how expensive it can get.

My wedding ring is made of palladium. It's about 10 years old. I don't know if they're still making jewelry out of it today.

Same here and it seems the raw material has lost value in 10 years.

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=XPD&view=10Y

You’ve got the 2 backwards.

You get about a quarter as much palladium as you did per dollar than you did 10 years ago.

Yes here is the correct chart: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XPD&to=USD&view=1Y

thanks hn, I know what ETF I'm buying some of tomorrow

The price has been rising steadily since August. I think by the time you read about it on Hacker News, the smart money has bought already, and the price of the ETF is as likely to go down as up from here.

i knew this comment would be made, we'll see what happens in a few months :) (Note: I haven't bought pall yet, it seems very volatile, if anyone is thinking about it, set your stop loss at minimum 5%)

...because of Arc Reactor and Tony Stark? :)

At this point, does anyone trust Bloomberg for any information?

you don't have to, just look at the chart on $PALL ETF

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