Institutions might have been selling, but retail is buying the dip:
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
LG Energy Invests $451M to Mass-Produce Tesla 4680 Battery Cells
LG Energy is set to invest $451 million in the mass production of Tesla 4680 battery cells. The manufacturer plans to start mass production of the new cells next year.
www.tesmanian.com
If anything to divert some tiny amount of solar energy into electrical and shade some pavement and car paint.
Fried eggs anyone? How about with potatoes and bacon next time? Welcome to Arizona!
Gigapress
Trying to be less wrong
Suppose we want a regional grid interconnecting the greater Seattle metro area, which encompasses the densely populated areas of the Puget Sound including Bellevue, Tacoma, Everett and other satellite cities and towns. The region has a population of around 4.20 million inhabitants depending on where you draw the boundary. Could all energy be supplied locally with just solar?
This is an extreme example of a hypothetical local power grid because, unfortunately for us, energy usage peaks in the dead of winter while we barely get any sunshine, and also we have a lot of tall trees and many parks and wildlife reserves surrounding the populated areas.
From November through January, we average 20 rainy days per month, plus more days that are cloudy but not raining. Insolation around the Winter Solstice is merely 1.3 kWh per square meter per day, about 6 times worse than the peak in July when we have long sunny days.
If we convert only 10% of the incoming solar energy to electricity on average with 20% efficient panels after accounting for shading, panel spacing, cell aging, suboptimal rooftop angles, grime on panels, etc, then we only collect 0.13 kWh/m^2/day where solar is installed.
If we want ~100 kWh per day per person in order to electrify everything, we need 100 kWh / 0.13 kWh/m^2 = 769 m^2 per capita of solar installs.
769 * 4.20M people = 3.2 billion m^2 = 320k hectares
The rectangular map section shown above is 620k hectares, which in mid-winter receives ~8 TWh of insolation per day. By this math, we need 320/620 = slightly more than half of it to have solar panels in order to supply all power locally. That is probably a bit out of reach, but if all areas currently covered in buildings and pavement receive solar panels, then we're most of the way there.
The shortfall could be made up by:
As @MC3OZ pointed out last week, HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) wires could make sense if put underground. If Boring Co can make utility tunnels for about $4M per mile, the 100-mile tunnel would cost only about $100 per person in Seattle to build. I'm not sure how much the rest of the transmission hardware would cost.
If it's even possible for the Puget Sound region to be self-sufficient with solar energy, it's almost certainly possible everywhere else that people live, especially in hot areas where peak energy demand occurs in the summer when the sun is out.
Also, much of the energy consumption in winter is from heating, which is almost entirely gas in Seattle and it doesn't need to be electrified directly. With synthetic gas made from solar and piped in using the existing pipeline infrastructure, then we could probably avoid needing to transmit electric power across the mountains to power the Seattle area.
This is an extreme example of a hypothetical local power grid because, unfortunately for us, energy usage peaks in the dead of winter while we barely get any sunshine, and also we have a lot of tall trees and many parks and wildlife reserves surrounding the populated areas.
From November through January, we average 20 rainy days per month, plus more days that are cloudy but not raining. Insolation around the Winter Solstice is merely 1.3 kWh per square meter per day, about 6 times worse than the peak in July when we have long sunny days.
If we convert only 10% of the incoming solar energy to electricity on average with 20% efficient panels after accounting for shading, panel spacing, cell aging, suboptimal rooftop angles, grime on panels, etc, then we only collect 0.13 kWh/m^2/day where solar is installed.
If we want ~100 kWh per day per person in order to electrify everything, we need 100 kWh / 0.13 kWh/m^2 = 769 m^2 per capita of solar installs.
769 * 4.20M people = 3.2 billion m^2 = 320k hectares
The rectangular map section shown above is 620k hectares, which in mid-winter receives ~8 TWh of insolation per day. By this math, we need 320/620 = slightly more than half of it to have solar panels in order to supply all power locally. That is probably a bit out of reach, but if all areas currently covered in buildings and pavement receive solar panels, then we're most of the way there.
The shortfall could be made up by:
1) Dynamic energy pricing affecting consumption patterns
2) Using panels with higher efficiency than 20%
3) The 10% conservative estimate of net power collection being too pessimistic
4) Batteries for a few weeks of storage
5) Keep at least one of the existing transmission lines that go across the mountains to the desert where there's lot of cheap land, sunshine and wind
As @MC3OZ pointed out last week, HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) wires could make sense if put underground. If Boring Co can make utility tunnels for about $4M per mile, the 100-mile tunnel would cost only about $100 per person in Seattle to build. I'm not sure how much the rest of the transmission hardware would cost.
If it's even possible for the Puget Sound region to be self-sufficient with solar energy, it's almost certainly possible everywhere else that people live, especially in hot areas where peak energy demand occurs in the summer when the sun is out.
Also, much of the energy consumption in winter is from heating, which is almost entirely gas in Seattle and it doesn't need to be electrified directly. With synthetic gas made from solar and piped in using the existing pipeline infrastructure, then we could probably avoid needing to transmit electric power across the mountains to power the Seattle area.
Think about how much power it takes your car to cool off from 140 degrees or keep cool when it's 90 degrees in the sun. Also, way pavement absorbs and radiates head making cities warmer even into the evening.If anything to divert some tiny amount of solar energy into electrical and shade some pavement and car paint.
Fried eggs anyone? How about with potatoes and bacon next time? Welcome to Arizona!
Shading areas in sunny areas is bonus efficiency.
Seattle has access to a fair amount of hydro power already. You could also have a large solar installation on the eastern side of the Cascades where there is far less rain/ clouds.Suppose we want a regional grid interconnecting the greater Seattle metro area, which encompasses the densely populated areas of the Puget Sound including Bellevue, Tacoma, Everett and other satellite cities and towns. The region has a population of around 4.20 million inhabitants depending on where you draw the boundary. Could all energy be supplied locally with just solar?
View attachment 816216
This is an extreme example of a hypothetical local power grid because, unfortunately for us, energy usage peaks in the dead of winter while we barely get any sunshine, and also we have a lot of tall trees and many parks and wildlife reserves surrounding the populated areas.
From November through January, we average 20 rainy days per month, plus more days that are cloudy but not raining. Insolation around the Winter Solstice is merely 1.3 kWh per square meter per day, about 6 times worse than the peak in July when we have long sunny days.
If we convert only 10% of the incoming solar energy to electricity on average with 20% efficient panels after accounting for shading, panel spacing, cell aging, suboptimal rooftop angles, grime on panels, etc, then we only collect 0.13 kWh/m^2/day where solar is installed.
If we want ~100 kWh per day per person in order to electrify everything, we need 100 kWh / 0.13 kWh/m^2 = 769 m^2 per capita of solar installs.
769 * 4.20M people = 3.2 billion m^2 = 320k hectares
The rectangular map section shown above is 620k hectares, which in mid-winter receives ~8 TWh of insolation per day. By this math, we need 320/620 = slightly more than half of it to have solar panels in order to supply all power locally. That is probably a bit out of reach, but if all areas currently covered in buildings and pavement receive solar panels, then we're most of the way there.
The shortfall could be made up by:
1) Dynamic energy pricing affecting consumption patterns2) Using panels with higher efficiency than 20%3) The 10% conservative estimate of net power collection being too pessimistic4) Batteries for a few weeks of storage5) Keep at least one of the existing transmission lines that go across the mountains to the desert where there's lot of cheap land, sunshine and wind
As @MC3OZ pointed out last week, HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) wires could make sense if put underground. If Boring Co can make utility tunnels for about $4M per mile, the 100-mile tunnel would cost only about $100 per person in Seattle to build. I'm not sure how much the rest of the transmission hardware would cost.
If it's even possible for the Puget Sound region to be self-sufficient with solar energy, it's almost certainly possible everywhere else that people live, especially in hot areas where peak energy demand occurs in the summer when the sun is out.
Also, much of the energy consumption in winter is from heating, which is almost entirely gas in Seattle and it doesn't need to be electrified directly. With synthetic gas made from solar and piped in using the existing pipeline infrastructure, then we could probably avoid needing to transmit electric power across the mountains to power the Seattle area.
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On Scarcity
I found it interesting that while I’ve been out uprooting stumps and smoothing our roads, there has been a lively discussion on a topic fundamental to economics.
“Scarcity” is an economic construct, needed as basis to develop an understanding of why humans - animals and plants, too, but that is far afield from this discussion - behave as they do.
A Scarce good, whether product, service, commodity or attribute, like solitude, companionship, moderate temperatures, high temps, low temps, sea view …. ANYTHING at all that more than one person might desire, is, by this construct, a scarce good.
Some of these, by tradition and feasibility, historically have not been tradeable - clean air may be considered an example. But as human society developed, and became more and more the masters of rather than mere inhabitants of their natural world - poor masters indeed, one may argue - even sunlight itself takes on many of the characteristics of a scarce good.
We individually and collectively develop patterns and methodologies for prioritizing which scarce goods we desire over others, and from that prioritization we develop means - usually called payments- to sort them out and obtain them, either by direct trading or by fiat (money, eg) with someone who has different different priorities.
So. To the economist, effectively everything is a “scarce good”. An important distinction from the lay understanding of that word. Effectively, only Mule and Belladonna came close to this, ‘tho several others weren’t too far off.
I found it interesting that while I’ve been out uprooting stumps and smoothing our roads, there has been a lively discussion on a topic fundamental to economics.
“Scarcity” is an economic construct, needed as basis to develop an understanding of why humans - animals and plants, too, but that is far afield from this discussion - behave as they do.
A Scarce good, whether product, service, commodity or attribute, like solitude, companionship, moderate temperatures, high temps, low temps, sea view …. ANYTHING at all that more than one person might desire, is, by this construct, a scarce good.
Some of these, by tradition and feasibility, historically have not been tradeable - clean air may be considered an example. But as human society developed, and became more and more the masters of rather than mere inhabitants of their natural world - poor masters indeed, one may argue - even sunlight itself takes on many of the characteristics of a scarce good.
We individually and collectively develop patterns and methodologies for prioritizing which scarce goods we desire over others, and from that prioritization we develop means - usually called payments- to sort them out and obtain them, either by direct trading or by fiat (money, eg) with someone who has different different priorities.
So. To the economist, effectively everything is a “scarce good”. An important distinction from the lay understanding of that word. Effectively, only Mule and Belladonna came close to this, ‘tho several others weren’t too far off.
Article has a mistake.LG Energy Invests $451M to Mass-Produce Tesla 4680 Battery Cells
LG Energy is set to invest $451 million in the mass production of Tesla 4680 battery cells. The manufacturer plans to start mass production of the new cells next year.
a 4680 has 5X the energy capacity of a 2170, not 5X the energy DENSITY (I wish though. That would be incredible
Just get a Rivian truck to hold you over, goes for 135k in auctions
Gigapress
Trying to be less wrong
Those dams and reservoirs are pretty bad for the environment though. They fragment the river ecosystems, impact nutrient flow, and severely restrict salmon migration, among other problems. Salmon are a critical part of the food chain in the Columbia River Watershed. It would be better in the long run if we removed at least some of the dams.
I had mentioned that as a possibility at the end of the post, but the idea is to eliminate the cost and reliability concerns of long transmission lines, which is starting to be more expensive than generating the solar power in the first place. Much preferable to generate most of the power with panels located 1-100 meters away from the load.
The main purpose was to show how even in location with a chilly, dark winter, limited available rural land outside the city, and relatively high population density, a local solar grid is theoretically feasible, especially if heating needs are met with synthetic gas piped in from factories in sunnier places.
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I know someone here has done this calc.
My BIL in the TX energy business was describing the impossibility of the US grid being able to absorb the charging requirements of 100% private car/truck fleet. My calculations say it would take 25% of current US energy production.
What I couldn’t find was an “agreed to” number for energy reduction based on reduced requirement for crude/gasoline production/supply chain.
I seem to remember that Elon gave number that said from a vehicle mileage standpoint, it was equivalent. But I also remember there was a lot of pushback.
Any updates?
My BIL in the TX energy business was describing the impossibility of the US grid being able to absorb the charging requirements of 100% private car/truck fleet. My calculations say it would take 25% of current US energy production.
What I couldn’t find was an “agreed to” number for energy reduction based on reduced requirement for crude/gasoline production/supply chain.
I seem to remember that Elon gave number that said from a vehicle mileage standpoint, it was equivalent. But I also remember there was a lot of pushback.
Any updates?
bballshinobi
Member
I suspect any situation where power use is going to be tight based on today's math, means it will fall quite short in the future. As I expect energy use to go up significantly.
I do agree about the dams, and one of the long term benefits of extensive solar power should involve dismantling dams. (I like your other post about supplementing water shortages with pumped, desalinated water as well).
Huge fan of everything solar, on buildings. Farming is not compatible with solar. Period. People try all sorts of economically subsidized schemes to force it, it is not compatible. In farming you are converting energy. In solar you are capturing energy. We don’t lack for farmland, rather the converse. Create evs, scrap ethanol production (a scam), further work on biological nitrogen fixing solutions to replace energy intensive N fertilizer synthesis.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
I'm surprised this pacific NW crowd isn't mentioning wind, both onshore and off. Locations like Seattle could probably be even easier 80%+ wind/storage.
Gigapress
Trying to be less wrong
The Pacific Northwest (as well as Northwestern Europe) is likely to be relatively less affected by the global trend of increased power consumption compared to sunnier places. There's just not much sun here in the winter and not much space unless we cut into wildlife reserves.
Solar can get super cheap but if transmission is still $30/MWh then that puts a floor on how low the total price can get. Maybe as @MC3OZ suggested, Boring Co can make underground HVDC infrastructure more affordable, in which case this problem is largely mitigated. Another big problem is the conversion stations that convert DC to AC. There have been innovations in this are though and we're not limited by physics yet.
If HVDC gets cheap enough, then in many regions it may not be worthwhile to spend to put solar panels in metro areas on buildings and over paved surfaces instead of just having utility scale solar farms in rural areas. HVDC could have negative implications for Tesla's Solar Roof.
Interesting that you bring up Eastern WA. We're almost the exact opposite of the Puget Sound region as we get a lot of sunshine and very little rain, plus the wind blows a lot and we have a bunch of hydropower right now.<snip>
5) Keep at least one of the existing transmission lines that go across the mountains to the desert where there's lot of cheap land, sunshine and wind<snip>
Amazingly, they're just starting to wake up to solar power over here. A Canadian firm called Innergex has just applied to build a 3,500 acre farm near Sunnyside that will output 470 megawatts (enough for 70,000 homes and only 16,000 people live in Sunnyside) with batteries, so people are waking up.
But what really surprises me is that the vast and empty Hanford reservation has not yet been used for a solar farm. At least a third of the 586 square miles could be used and you have the combination of the Department of Energy, Energy Northwest, Bonneville Power, and most importantly, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory all there. They could easily build one of the largest solar farms in the nation on the east side of the reservation north of WNP-2 and it could provide a huge contribution to Puget Sound's energy needs year long, along with meeting most of the Tri-Cities needs. In addition, the Midway Substation is located in Vernita, just north of the reservation, so the grid needed already exists!
This sounds like a great marriage to me and while I've sent letters to all four organizations and had the concept printed in the local paper, so far it's been to no avail. I urge you to consider this potential solution in your plan to power Puget Sound with renewable energy. People smarter than me, like yourself, need to take a long hard look at the viability and potential of this proposal... it's too big to ignore.
According to studies I’ve read, a fully electrified vehicle fleet would add something like 30% additional electric power demand. But there is no major problem for two reasons. First, it’s going to take a long time to replace the entire vehicle fleet, (even after most new car sales are EVs) and power capacity is continually added. Second, many people will charge at night when demand is low.
Here’s a quote from the executive summary of the study linked below.
Government report on EV grid integration
Despite this flat energy generation growth within the last decade, the U.S. electric power system added an average dispatchable generating capacity of 12 GW per year, with years that exceeded 25 GW when including intermittent resources. In an unmanaged charging scenario intentionally chosen as an illustrative worst case, 12 GW of dispatchable generating capacity is equivalent to the aggregate demand of nearly 6 million new EVs. This accounts to 1 to 3 times the projected EV market growth through 2030…
It’s “obvious” to many people that the grid will collapse if all cars are EVs. But 99.99% of them have never actually looked into the question quantitatively. Ask your BIL to show you his math
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Exactly @Ogre! See my reply to @Gigapress above, we're thinking along the same lines. At the Hanford reservation, there is easily a minimum of 50,000 acres available that will never be used for anything else, not easily viewed, and it's DOE owned, eminent domain not required, with a National Laboratory working on renewable energy and the operator of WA state's only nuclear plant at it's doorstep!
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation helped us win WWII and Chernobyl basically started the cleanup there... the similarities between the N reactor and the Chernobyl reactors caused N reactor, the last reactor at Hanford to produce Plutonium (and Uranium 233) to be closed . Let's use the land available there now to help us win perhaps the biggest challenge the Human race has ever faced, Climate Change.
Renewable Rocks!
thesmokingman
Active Member
It's insane when we think about crypto in terms of fraud and crossing the $1 Billion mark since 2021.
Bitcoin Leads Crypto Fraud As FTC Confirms $1 Billion Milestone
Bitcoin leads the way in crypto scams as over 46,000 people report losing more than $1 billion.
www.forbes.com
I'm really hoping for a relief rally after Powell talks on Wednesday. I just can't see a .75 increase with a second negative GDP quarter coming (which means recession). The Fed doesn't need to slow down the economy anymore. It's going to go down the toilet without anymore interest rate hikes. I'm really hoping he says that they are reducing the number of rate increases, and maybe stopping them all together. 
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