One of my favourite videos ever....not just on your channel but of any I've watched on UA-cam. I am just so excited and optimistic about this. There again, with the parlous political state of the world, this is coming at just the right time as technology will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
16:00 Re: Battery Usage. Were it not from Osborneing Power Walls, the in place capability for V2H, V2G, & S2V, would’ve already been OTAUed to Tesla cars. 23:50 The economics term is “opportunity cost”.
My my, honored to meet someone who had a portable pocket zenith transistor battery powered radio. :) even if you had that before kindergarten, makes you and I almost as old as dirt. 😎
Good discussion and a great description of technology transition development and adoption. It reminds me of my uni days when we were tasked with defining technology development time lines. The description of stack versus flow is perfect to make the case for why we are going through a step change in our energy capabilities.
My parents have been on the same solar panels for close to 40 years, they have gone through 3 sets of batteries though. But still cheaper than paying to bring power to them
Loved the optimistic content. The major problem I see for the prosperity of humanity is How do we overcome the selfishness that rears its ugly head within humanity even in times of prosperity?
That’s always going to be there. The greed. The trick is to use it to the collective advantage by offering rewards for the best results. In the present case it’s a safe environment. Rewards for elimination of pollution and cleaning up the environment. Who pays? The way to cooperation ? Globalize Carbon Quantitative Easing. We are wasting time!
I mean, if you look at the progress of civilization, we kill each other way less than we used to and fundamentally that’s because there’s more to go around. To put a simply greed is a response to fear I am afraid I won’t have enough so I. Respond to this by irrationally needing too much and then defending that and the more people feel safe because resources are abundant the less they will be greedy.
I mean, honestly you have to remember how we knew we are to relative prosperity. Widespread electricity is just about 100 years old refrigeration, etc. I would challenge the notion that humans continue to be greedy in a prosperous situation because we haven’t had prosperous situations on a large scale for very long time, and if you notice when we do, conflict goes down, I mean yes it’s still exists. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but it does go down.
I feel like maybe he was getting audio from the earbuds and not from the big mic in front of his face. I didn't have the energy to listen to this as a result.
The age of super abundance is a time when everyone will have access to the resources they need. This will be possible thanks to the abundance of clean energy that will be generated by solar and wind power. Battery technology will play a key role in this, as it will be used to store and distribute this clean energy.
I wonder if solar and batteries have steep curves because they are both dependent on fairly complicated physics and chemistry. That means that there are a lot of possible chemical/physical solutions, so more possibilities for improvement.
Both solar and wind are on track to fall below $0.02/kWh. While better technology will probably be developed we're reaching the point with the technology we have in hand that 'better' doesn't have tremendous value. Going from $0.01/kWh to $0.005/kWh would not be a significant development.
NREL (I think I've got the correct DOE lab) reports that panels produced post 2000 should lose only 0.5% to 2% per year. Highest loss in places where there are high UV incidence and/or high wind/snow loading. In the sort of benign places most of us live a 100 year old panel could be producing 50% of its original output.
The physical limit of photo voltaic is 100% of the energy of the sunlight so we are currently 20 to 30% of the maximum. The maximum storage of batteries is far more difficult to quantify
I can answer the question about autonomy. At the Stanford Artificial Intelligence laboratory in the late 1960's and early 1970's, there were extensive experiments with autonomous vehicles, using the cameras, visual processing, computers, and computing knowledge of the day. A cart could be convinced to move around a simple track at about 2mph, without concern for collision with other moving objects, and it was sort of made to work. At the time, the common wisdom was that for this to move beyond these simple experiments would require an infrastructure and 100% occupancy of the roads by autonomous, communicating vehicles that would cooperate to make it happen. 40 years later, another Stanford AI team won the DARPA driving challenge through the desert. Clearly the computational and machine learning capabilities of today were necessary before we could contemplate releasing autonomous traffic into the wild. Today, it "sort of" works. Maybe tomorrow, when it works well, is not all that far off. The number of flops required is many orders of magnitude higher than the earlier investigators predicted.
@@MegaWilderness There are a lot of things we could do, but we need to go for the things people are willing to do. Right now, in the US, a portion of the population wants to drive very large SUVs and pickups. We could try to force them not to but there would be resistance and those politicians who create the forcing legislation would probably be voted out and replaced with 'friends of fossil fuels' people. But if we offered them the same sized vehicles which performed better, cost less, and cost less to operate then they'd get their big machines and the planet would enjoy less GHG roasting. A compromise in which the planet wins. Better alternatives is my suggestion.
@@MegaWilderness I don't know how one attributes the desire of some people to drive large vehicles to tax laws. There are no US tax laws that I know of that encourage US drivers to purchase larger vehicles. Vehicle taxes are based on the size/weight of the vehicle. Large vehicles pay more for licenses. Large vehicles do not get a fuel price discount. Europeans, and I assume Norwegians, have long lived with expensive fuel due to taxes on fuel. That, and many narrow street cities built before the age of cars, has led to Europeans driving smaller vehicles. Americans have lived in a country with much cheaper fuel and cities designed for vehicle traffic. Were the government of Norway to pass a law that enough of the people hated I suspect that government would be voted out and replaced. Only with an authoritarian government can abrupt changes be forced on people. Again, I'll suggest looking for solutions that people will embrace. Not solutions that require the strong arm of government to enforce.
Talking about prosperity, until a few years ago clean water was considered the most important thing for civilization, because only with clean water you can grow food, and then worry about health and education. Now we are in a historic change, with electricity and energy becoming even more important than clean water, because with electricity you can desalinate all the sea water that you want.
Desal is likely one of the dispatchable loads that can take advantage of almost free electricity. IIRC the capital cost of a desal plant is low enough so that it doesn't need to run 24/365. Rather than build one plant and run it all the time, paying a lot for electricity at times, build two and run them half the time when electricity is cheap.
Solar panels may operate adequately for 40 years, but they can become obsolete and valueless much more quickly. Panels that I installed in 2005 are only about 40% as efficient as current ones. When I upgraded, I tried for a while to find a buyer, but ended up giving $11K (2005 money) of panels away. Many just get scrapped. I don't suppose things will be as bad in 2045, because I don't think efficiencies are continuing to grow much, but who knows?
Regardless of the reasons, Tony Seba’s name and work deserve more attention and recognition from the mainstream media and the public, as he offers a compelling and optimistic vision of how humanity can leverage the power of technology disruptions to create a better world for everyone. He also provides valuable insights and guidance for entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and consumers who want to be part of the transformation and benefit from the opportunities it creates.
HCD processes - hydrocarbon de-sufurization. If you like ultralow sulfur diesel and gasoline, this is one of a couple process options they use to get that done. Crude contains various levels of sulfur, and refineries employ different processes to de-sulfur. A common one uses cobalt catalyst in the stream. They run the crude through a thermal distillation process which splits it into what are called fractions; fractions then (in a couple of steps) get processed to produce products you can name - like diesel, gasoline, jet fuel. After this fractioning, they de-sulfur the fractions using heat/steam/cobalt catalyst to get the level of sulfur down to allowable limits. The cobalt catalyst is used to extract the sulfur from the crude oil, the sulfur is then converted to hydrogen sulfide which can then be converted into sulfuric acid and used in other industries. The cobalt bed catalyst can be recovered, refreshed and re-used for quite a while.
Best estimates by the leading SMR developer is that they expect to be able to drop the wholesale cost of electricity to around $0.10/kWh. We are closing nuclear and coal plants that need to charge more than $0.04/kWh. And that will drop lower as the cost of wind, solar, and storage drop. Who will buy 10 cent electricity when 2 cent electricity is available? And, don't forget, nuclear needs storage in order to match supply to demand. And nuclear plants need backup generation standing by for when they 'break down'. Those costs are not included in the ten cents.
Listening to a summary like this is exceedingly enjoyable, and impossible to disagree with. I guess the flip side is that, as a member of the choir, I learned something new only in the first five minutes or so, while the rest was a competent recitation of the arguments for and emergence of sustainable energy, with a fair amount of repetition. What needs to be done to increase the size of the choir? How do we get Dr. Know-it-all's subscriber list from 65.2 to 652 to 6520K? I'm not sure we have cracked that one.
Yes, the tech is available, but Govt must also allow independent power producers to sell their electricity. At Fully Charged Live Canada I was told by a solar installer that the BC Govt purposely restricts net metering to avoid competition with their controversial Site C hydro dam. According to him, right now we could have far more solar in BC but the government is preventing this.
Almost 200 years ago, Sadi Carnot discovered the equation describing the maximum thermodynamic efficiency of a “heat engine” I.e. gasoline, diesel, steam, gas turbine, etc. This equation predicts a relatively low efficiency with the materials available to work with then. The same is true for these engines today. Carnot’s equation does not apply to electric motors, which have much higher efficiency BTW.
Heat pumps will die. People have been laughing at me for saying this for the last year. 7 years ago I had Tesla install 4.5K of solar (14 panels) for $15K. Last year I had them add a second 4.5K system (11 panels) for $8K. In six more years will 4.5K be 9 panels and cost $4K? It occurred to me we are already at the point that solar and resistance heat is cheaper than heat pump's cost, complexity, and more likely failures (Elon's best part is no part). Originally I intended to replace my ac and gas furnace with a heat pump when the old equipment failed. When electricity is free, the script gets flipped and what used to be far inferior to a heat pump suddenly vaults to first place thanks to its elegant simplicity. Crazy cheap solar will doom costly heat pumps. Change my mind!
Hear me out. I believe you've taken the wrong interpretation of 'The best part is no part'. The fundamental driver for this is efficiency, specifically used in the context of manufacturing efficiency. If you look at the Tesla Octovalve, it is hugely complex, when you look at the Raptor 3 engines also neat but still hugely complex (even compared to raptor 2). Heat pumps allow for up to 500% efficiency (most today are 400%) and come with >15 year warranties. We are moving from a world of simple cheap items with high lifetime costs to complex initial installations with little to no running cost, and that makes a lot of sense. "You only have to install a solar panel once, and it'll work for 40-50 years" It would be an extremely misguided mission to replace a heat pump with resistive heating, quadrupling your battery storage requirements & energy generation in the process. Heat pumps are designed to keep your living space at a constant temperature, they're meant to never really shut off ideally. There are many reasons for this mould reduction, user comfort, and based on thermodynamic simulations the heat loss is minimal. Who wants to be the guy that's known for beating every issue with a hammer, 4x the solar panel coverage, 4x the battery storage (most household power goes to heating or cooling), just to do the same thing that could be done with a quarter of all that. That also mean supply chain limitations for everyone else if that becomes the path we choose. There's more I'd like to mention on this subject but typing is a pain. In conclusion the point of these modern marvels is entirely in 'doing more with less'.
Point of Clarification: When I said 'Heat loss is minimal' I mean that in comparison to heating just select parts of a house like you would with a boiler, there is little difference compared to heating the whole house.
If you have air conditioning and resistive heating you have two systems. If you throw away the resistive heating and simply make the air conditioner 2-way, then you have one system. Best system is no system.
@amateurwizard I think you have missed my point. To have a heat pump with "400% or higher efficiency", you are talking about a geothermal. The average air to air is going to average out at a COP of 3, which means 3x the efficiency of resistive heat. The heat pump is more complex than a straight AC and the more you run the compressor, the sooner it wears out. The AC and heat side both share the same blower so that's not part of the discussion but a resistive heat unit only has one moving part, the relay, which are one of the more reliable mechanical devices out there, usually still good when the system is junked. As for run time, sizing any heat system is critical for comfort too big a system will short cycle, a properly sized (smaller heat strip) resistive system can run longer and deliver the same benefits you mention. Again, when electricity is free, you have to abandon what used to be iron clad truths.
Many less components in a resistive heat system. Both AC and heat share the same metal case and blower. The resistive system will only have one more moving part, the relay for the heat strip. Those devices rarely fail, most going to the scrapyard still in working condition. With a straight AC unit, you have much more simplicity. A heat pump adds a reversing valve, a second expansion valve or capillary tube, a much more complex control system, and a ton more wiring and piping. The most fragile part of HVACs is usually the compressor. That's what forces system replacement in most cases. Using the compressor in heat pump mode introduces a lot more run time and wears it out faster. Few AC companies want to replace a bad compressor as there is the real risk of debris having been introduced to the system that is impossible to flush out that could ruin the replacement compressor. An AC an resistive heat is by far the "less part".@@juliahello6673
16:00 Re: Battery Usage. Were it not from Osborneing Power Walls, the in place capability for V2H, V2G, & S2V, would’ve already been OTAUed to Tesla cars. 23:50 The economics term is “opportunity cost”.
What a great conversation in a time I've been feeling so down about the future. I'd never thought about how energy could become abundant and almost free and it makes sense why countries like China are racing towards it. It makes me so angry that our awful UK government just announced 100s of new oil drilling licences. They know all this but it doesn't make their donors money and they will lose power in a year. The competing political party plan to create a state owned renewable energy company for the people and this makes sooo much sense.
IIRC, Carter installed a solar water heating system on the White House. I don't think he installed PV panels. The original water heating system wasn't well engineered/constructed and was taken down for reworking. Reagan stopped their replacement. It's not clear whether Reagan stopped replacement for 'ideological' reasons or because security agencies wanted to use the space for additional protection or communication equipment. George Bush the Second had a bunch of PV panels installed on one of the White House buildings. (I'm not a Republican apologist/supporter. Just someone who likes facts.)
Don't forget efficiency is getting cheaper even faster than batteries, meaning fewer, smaller, faster charging batteries can yield equal range in a lighter vehicle. Integrating design will meet cheaper SWB halfway.
My questions with regards to energy are more to do with grid bottle necks and what to do with superpower? If we make tons more energy at peak seasons what will we do with that? What possible industry would be that cyclical where it only requires high energy in summer? Or would it make more sense to have seasonal storage, if so what is the best tech for that because it probably isn't stationary battery packs.
It’s unlikely that ‘tons’ more energy would be produced in peak seasons as it wouldn’t be built if there wasn’t a market for it. As Adam said more locally produced electricity will be used and replenished over days not weeks. For seasonal storage pumped hydro, for shorter term storage other forms of gravity storage and hot salt/sand/brick batteries.
What are the trade-offs between grid solar and rooftoop solar? Including consideration of sun-tracking versus fixed solar farms? I.e. just how decentralized should we make solar? Are suburban solar roofs a good idea, other than as a transitional phase? Also, if local (rooftop) solar makes more sense, what's the trade-off vs city density (dense cities using less energy, e.g. for transport). Should we mostly live in fairly dense cities (assume quality of life isn't a factor - i.e. we make cities much more pleasant, enjoy frequent visits to natural locations outside the city, etc).
Rooftop solar avoids distribution costs for the consumer. IIRC it costs, on average, about $0.05/kWh to move power from a central generator to end users. Plus distributed solar, paired with local storage, can create a more reliable grid. Someone driving into a power pole wouldn't necessarily take down a neighborhood. I don't know the current costs of tracking but it can make sense to face some panels east and some west. Doing so might lower the total output 10% to 20% but it greatly extends the solar day, reducing some of the need for storage. E/W installations might be cheaper than tracking + additional early morning/late afternoon storage. That math will change as the cost of panels, trackers, and storage change over time. I suspect the percentage of us who live in cities vs. outside of cities will change over time. Cheap, self-driving transportation and the ability to work for home will allow some to leave cities. As we remove the vehicle air pollution and noise from cities then others will find it more desirable to live in cities. There's also the case of major freeing of land inside cites as we move to self-driving robotaxis. The need for parking lots and on street parking should greatly decrease. If some of that freed space it turned into urban parks and safe bike lanes then the quality of life in cities will increase. Add in. Global population levels are on the decline. That will factor into the math.
Tom, you have a hard core attraction to paying for your energy from a central planned and controlled, monopolistic ecosystem? Time to unplug from those who control and make margins in every one of your watts used. 😎
@@johnross6314 I don't think anything in my questions would indicate I have some particular attachment to grid electricity. I was just asking open ended questions. But to your question, dense urban areas (those averaging more than 3 or maybe 4 stories) are going to need more than rooftop solar for roughly a current Western standard of living - which probably implies grid electricity delivery. That could be a government function, or corporate, or mixed as it usually is today - but it'll probably be a regional monopoly unless the world undergoes changes radical enough to make the renewable energy transition look like a footnote. And there's the broader issue of achieving on-demand electricity from variable energy sources. Right now the grid is how most solar homes achieve that, even if they have battery storage that meet most of their electricity needs. I could see the possibility of a viable future where many people live with energy variability and no longer rely on a grid for electricity on demand. But most in the developed world don't want to lose reliability of electricity supply, even if it'd maybe be a better world in other ways such as the reduced central control to which you point.
@@tomcraver9659 correct. Those that rent, or have what is a license to part of a property in urban area, mostly dense housing based will need Unity amongst themselves in place enough to augment independent power options….. from a central power collective, or use a broader collective for certain times (due to potential finite limits possible in some high density housing). Those that rent and do not own are at a disadvantage. Those in urban areas with their own not zero line property have plenty of options. Options on their own building and grounds to be fully independent. Now, busy body trolls working for or in the behalf of central monopoly power syndicates, will brainwash this owner option is not possible. If that is not working, infest local .gov, and HOAs to thwart owners from unplugging and installing their own power system.
@@johnross6314 I get your idea of cooperative power solutions, and to the extent that's possible I'm all for it. But renters generally lack the investment capital (or credit) to be able to establish their own solar power, even if they could manage to coordinate on a city-wide scale, which offers its own challenges (else we'd probably already see a lot more of this kind of thing). Property owners might be able to do something - but doesn't that risk them turning into the monopoly power for their own buildings, from the perspective of those renting from them?
It was said that the oil industry needs a source of cobalt, and it is consumed in production. Is this correct, and why would they need it? Anybody know?
"Cobalt plays a vital role in catalysing the removal of sulphur from oil, contributing to a more sustainable society. " That's from a trade association The Cobalt Institute.
There needs to be a deep dive into the latest CATL technologies. There's confusion between "Straight" LFP, LMFP (manganese doped) and M3P With doesn't use Iron (So no "F" in the name) Then there's their structural pack system to consider, which like the Tesla system should improve the *vehicle* Wh/kg.
Lilium jet batteries will be changeable. They can be replaced every 2 years or so depending how much they fly. Therefore the evtol can be upgraded with better battery tech and also old batteries are modular and therefore easy to use them as stationary storages
LFP's will make V2G much more attractive, as they can charge and discharge much closer to their limits much more often, providing more benefits to the grid and more income for the owner. Might even make sense for a utility to subsidize battery insurance for EV owners so they will participate.
Jeez, John, the ads are driving me nuts! I'm listen g to you while I'm cleaning, with ear buds and my phone in my jacket, and every few minutes I'm having stop work to k*ll the effing ads when they blather on for more than 30 seconds. The, it's driving me nuts and detracting mightily from my enjoyment of your channel!
Yep, as Tim said, buy one month of UA-cam Premium to try it out and you probably won't go back to ads. I have saved countless hours of my life by not having to listen to ads and being able to fast forward and reverse without limitation.
You got to go to the gasstation in the first place INSTED of beeing fully charged every morning over night, and then it is kind of 100%. 10 min is a nobrainer, you got to take a break anyway. In a best scenario you charge remotly when driving, and you get paid to charge. But lets get real 10 min charge is very good.
The typical city driver who has no place to plug in where they park may be reliant on a public rapid charger. But most are not likely to need to charge more than 1x per week if they have a 250 mile range EV with LFP batteries.
When. When will we see some of the new battery tech make it into production EVs? CATL's new 4c LFP batteries are where in that cycle? And which car makers will get them?
Didn't CATL say very soon? . And a point of note, CATL is in the latter stages of their factory build *very* close to Tesla Shanghai. Guess who's going to take most of the capacity?
My main fear with electric vehicles is that all of them can be stopped at once with the flip of a central switch, and they can also be confined to a specific area (15 min cities, plandemic etc.) Too much power in the hands of Big Tech!
@@jemezname2259 So, according to you, the manufacturers cannot control what the vehicle does. Dream on, I trust the CCP (who CAN control everything, the owners of the car companies as much as I trust Big Pharma. Just wait.
A paranoid person once said this to me when I was volunteering at an EV display. As I said to her, don’t you think the same thing could be done with ICE cars by stopping oil supply? Most non-Tesla EVs don’t have OTA updates so can’t be remotely deactivated. Also, if you have solar panels your EV makes you far more independent of “the government” than a car that relies on oil supply.
@@TimTheSandmanNZ You have a point , governments are already restricting oil and trying to force people to buy EVs. It's naive to think that all these electric gadgets cannot be controlled, look at China, remember that Google is already tracking our movements, whether our phones are on or off (they update as soon as we turn them back on).
Also, and I know that this won’t work with a truly conspiratorial mind, but I’ve said this many times no one actually has an incentive to stop everything like that. Because if you did, it would really over complicate your life in very unpleasant ways at the very least in the simplest everyone else would not like you And that tends to have consequences also generally if you stopped all the cars, chances are you would have trouble getting anywhere to, and certainly some of the goods in people that you want to have as . A part of your life would also be caught in the morass. We have to remember that we are all caught up in the same system regardless of how powerful we feel within it no one is really incentivized to have huge chunks of it break anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves
Not really. You can floor it as much as you want, and the power will be there. Regen braking is what doesn't work when the battery is cold. But the battery controller takes care of it, you just have to use the mechanical brake more. The only thing you have to actively manage is charging above 90%.
Charging a battery so fast requires several hundred, say 400, kilowatts of power, but existing fast chargers max out at 250 kw and average much less, say 150 kw, so even if the battery can absorb so much power, the existing charging infrastructure can't deliver it. That problem can be solved, but it can't be solved by next year. Even if I can buy a car with this battery next year, I won't be able to add 400 km of range in ten minutes. Fortunately, I don't need to.
Just need battery storage at the charger site. Cheap battery storage is coming. Doesn't make sense to build private vehicle 400 kW chargers until there are EVs that can use 400 kW. However, Tesla is in the process of building its first charger highway for its semi trucks. Nine chargers stretching from their Fremont, CA factory to Laredo, TX. "Each charging station would be equipped with eight Megachargers, with each a capacity of 750 kW". That system would give Tesla the ability to haul between Fremont and GF Austin using their own battery powered trucks. GF Nevada is already in range of Fremont.
@@bobwallace9753 Sure. It's possible in theory to charge at 400+ kw, and the infrastructure may exist for me years from now, but I wouldn't pay a premium for this battery next year because I'd get no value out of it. Companies are building charging networks for passenger EVs right now, and they won't replace or upgrade them any time soon. I live in Georgia, so nine Semi charging stations between California and Texas are worth precisely nothing to me. Your mileage may vary. A Bolt only charges at 50 kw at a public station, and I can live with that. A hundred miles in half an hour covers all of my long-distance driving needs. Rather than promising a charging experience as good as an ICEV's refueling experience, we need to persuade ICEV drivers that the EV charging experience, as it is, isn't half as nightmarish as the EV haters pretend. For many if not most passenger cars, it's fine. If you routinely drive hundreds of miles a day, you're an exception to the rule, and I'd say you should stick with an ICEV a while longer. Even if everyone eventually drives an EV, it can't happen overnight and won't happen for a couple of decades at least.
@@restonthewind Of course it makes no sense to pay for something you can't use. But the question was, more or less, is it possible to build charging stations that can charge at 400 kW rates. Answer: Yes. Tesla is building even more powerful. Do all people need really rapid charging? No. Some people pretty much never drive very far from home. If they go long distances they fly or use another public transportation option. Will Tesla megachargers eventually reach the entire US and probably most of the world? Probably. When Tesla started selling their Model S they build a handful of Superchargers so that people in very limited areas on the east and west coast could drive distances about double their car's range. Soon after they powered corridors that allowed Tesla drivers to drive coast to coast on a single highway route and to drive from SF to LA and from the NYC area to Florida (IIRC). Then they built out from there. Expect the same for their semi-charge system. Those who drive hundreds of miles per day should be the first to purchase EVs. Get an EV with LFP batteries and at least a 250 mile range. Fully charge overnight. Drive about 230 to 240 miles, stop for a meal, and plug in while eating. Charge back up to 80% and drive a couple hundred more miles. Save tons of money.
@@bobwallace9753 I drive 250 miles to visit family a few times a year; otherwise, I almost never travel long distances, and since I work from home, I rarely drive more than twenty miles a day. I occasionally drive 60 miles to Atlanta, but I can easily do the round trip in a Bolt without charging. A 30-minute stop on the way to visit family is no big deal, and I can charge overnight when I'm there. By "hundreds of miles", I meant 400+ miles, like you're on the road for six or eight hours. If your EPA est. range is 300 miles, you'll get 250 miles in practice. You won't (and shouldn't) drive the car literally to zero, so 200 miles between stops is more realistic. One half-hour stop, even 45 minutes, on a long trip is no big deal, but two or three, hour-long stops is. Years ago, I routinely drove from Missouri to Alabama and back every other weekend, 450 miles each way. EVs didn't exist at the time, but a Bolt would have added two or three hours to the trip each way, and the difference between eight hours on the road and ten or eleven is very significant. So much driving is exhausting, and so much deep discharging and fast charging isn't good for the battery. If I could buy a car with an LFP battery with 300 miles of EPA estimated range for $30k, I would, but I can't. There's no sense in pretending that EVs work for everyone at this point. Everyone can't suddenly switch to an EV anyway. People with the best use case can and should go first. By the time most people are buying an EV, a decade from now, affordable vehicles and charging infrastructure will meet their needs. I don't want to ban ICEVs at all. EVs don't need force to encourage adoption, but if we're banning classes of cars, I'd ban the ridiculous electric pickups and large SUVs with incredibly large batteries that legacy automakers are producing now. They're stupidly inefficient, and the battery resources in one of those things could make two Bolts or two Model 3s. Same goes for the Cybertruck. It's not remotely green. It's greenwashing.
@@restonthewind "There's no sense in pretending that EVs work for everyone at this point. " Not if you consider the Bolt to be the only EV choice. The lowest cost Tesla Model 3 has an estimated range of 333 miles according to Tesla. In cold weather or persistent heavy headwinds the range will be cut as it would in an ICEV. LFP batteries can be fully discharged and charged with no harm to the batteries. Charging slows when batteries get about 80% full. So while one might decide to fully charge overnight they could leave with a 333 mile range under normal conditions and drive down to about 10% charge, leaving a bit of safety room. So 300 miles. Bad weather case perhaps 250 miles. Tesla charge from 10% to 80% in about 20 minutes. Less time than most will spend eating lunch. In the range of 200 to 230 miles additional driving. That makes for a probable minimum of 450 miles with one not very long charge stop. One more stop for a charge and a pee and it's somewhere around 650 miles of range in one day. Here's what one needs to ask themselves. Suppose they can arrive at their destination a half hour earlier by driving an ICEV what extra will that cost them over the course of a year. Since they would have to stop for a refill and almost everyone would make a meal stop, perhaps plus a pee stop, it's not clear that arrival time would be meaningfully later. For most there's a false economy in concentrating on charge time during very long trips while ignoring per mile savings. How long will it take the market to flip to EVs? My guess is a lot sooner than your guess. EV sales are growing at exponential, not linear, rates. Prices are coming down. Tesla is opening their Superchargers to all other brands of EVs so the rapid charging infrastructure will not be an issue. The markets in China (largest market in the world) and in Europe are moving to EVs much faster than the US. As buyers move to EVs, ICEVs become more expensive to manufacture. ICEV products lose economy of scale and have to pay more for components. EV prices headed down, ICEV prices headed up. Market switch already underway.
If EVs and true level 5 FSD are achieved, I have to wonder if buses will disappear as a wasteful, clumsy, and centralized 20th-century mode of transportation.
Fairly likely. At least the large capacity city buses that stop every block or so. I think we'll see small and medium sized battery powered self-driving buses doing longer hauls such as groups of commuters from city financial/retail centers to specific suburbs.
@@bobwallace9753 It may result in buses run like trains, as in Curitiba Brazil. An electrified autonomous bus along a predictablle, protected route would take lots of cars off the street.
@@garysouza95 Why do we have buses? I think it's to spread the cost of the driver over more seats. Why not have load-sized vehicles that don't need to stick to fixed routes but provide door to door service when people want to leave and not on some predetermined schedule? Why haul a bunch of empty seats around when a two, four, eight, whatever seat vehicle would mean less mass per passenger mile? Why have vehicles that are frequently stopping and reentering the flow of traffic if a smaller vehicle could go door to door without 'bus stop' stops?
The greatest threat to superabundance is that capitalism thrives on profits made from artificial shortages, restricting access to commodities. We’ve seen it most recently in COVID vaccines, oil & gas restrictions due to Russian invasion, chip shortages, Lithium miners, Lithium processing constraints, grain exports from Ukraine. Historically in OPEC strangling supply of petroleum, the central control of diamond supply. So much opposition to renewables is based on this. The challenge is not technological but political, on the positive side that means each of us in democratic states have an opportunity to vote for change.
I wonder if the transition from horse & buggy to ICE is comparable to the present day. The ability to smoke and make noise in a huge machine is an addiction for far too many people. Their worst fear is that fossil fuels will one day become expensive or unavailable. FUD about EVs barely comes into it.
@@thefish5861 Perhaps. Perhaps not. We are now at approximately the point where it costs less to manufacture an EV than a similar feature ICEV. The Tesla Model 3 sells for just about the same as a BMW Series 3 but Tesla's gross profit margin (GPM, profit per car) is much higher. As other EV manufacturers scale up they will be producing vehicles for less than one can produce an ICEV. Now, let's jump ahead a couple of years. If it costs less to manufacture EVs then competition will make it cheaper to purchase an EV. And it's already significantly cheaper to 'fuel' and maintain an EV. EVs offer a better ride and have a longer useful life. What do you think consumers are going to do when buying a new ride? Pay more for less and then have to pay more to keep that ride on the road? I think not. "The ability to smoke and make noise in a huge machine is an addiction for far too many people." It's about speed and outperforming other vehicle owners. EVs are simply faster than very expensive smoke and noise machines. We're probably a short time away from "smoke and noise = loser". Once a company starts producing an EV that's about as fast as the Tesla S Plaid but looks more like a US muscle car then it's likely all over for smoke and noise vehicles.
Three main areas that can change are solar cells, batteries and semiconductors. I think it’s early days for renewables. The ice technology has nowhere to go. It’s all exciting to see but in Sunny South Africa, individuals in government make kickbacks from coal and are fighting back against evolution. I hope to see the end of them, but it is a stubborn system and I’m getting on.
Wars are a net loss for business. Some companies make money off supplying arms/ammo and some out of rebuilding. But more companies suffer from supply interruptions, infrastructure destruction, and market disruption.
CATL's new batteries basically spells the death knell of solid state batteries... at least at first... due to the energy density being better in CATLs ready to go batteries.
Once a technology gets "good enough' in terms of ability and cost it becomes very difficult to knock it off the top of the mountain. Solid state batteries are not likely to be cheap at first and would need to be produced in large amounts in order to reach economies of scale. Someone would have to eat those losses for some time period and unless solid state batteries offered significant performance improvements the market would not pay higher prices.
I've heard several statements that with a gas car, you have to stand there with your hand on the hose (10:00), while with BEVs, you can leave the car and charger to do their thing while you go in to buy a meal or take a restroom break. But that's not right. Gas car owners don't have to hang on to it. People can use their time while the tank fills to clean the windshield, etc. Then the nozzle turns itself off and they can remove it, and then move the car and go in to the restroom. It IS true that it's wise to stay with the car while the fuel is flowing. I'm looking forward to buying an EV and I hope they get cheaper and take over the market rapidly. But I think we hurt our case if we say things that are so obviously overstated and known by our opponents to be untrue . It just make's it easier for them to reject everything you say.
I live in the deep, conservative south where EVs are usually looed down upon, and I had many debates and arguments about the benefits of EVs. People down here don't get it. ICE has a deep culture here.
who's going on road trips with a LFP Tesla? I pity them. Stopping every 150 miles for 30 minutes. I mean.... its doable, but its not really what youre looking for.@@bobwallace9753
This is the most impactful and largest scale disruption to the history of the world. Never before has so much power and wealth in the world been concentrated in one industry and never before has so much power and wealth to resist change for the bettter existed. Any progress toward free and abundant energy is resisted using media, fud, bribery and politicians. So, lets celebrate the achievements but recognize that the struggle to improve the environment and shared prosperity will require society to demand it.
The fossil fuel industry has already lost and they recognized that some time back. At least the smarter players did. The industries will continue to fight in order to survive as long as possible but they are simply fighting a rear guard action as they retreat and then perish.
Common John, you must have filled up gas for such a long time that you forgot that you can also pump gas while you go to the restroom.. Just saying.. Not that I dont see the benefits of EV over ICE.
The electric car is also a fundamental change technology-wise from the internal combustion engine. Power from the battery directly drives the motor which drives the wheels... for a 90ish percent efficiency. ICE vehicles combust a fuel to drive a piston which drives a crankshaft which drives the transmission which drives the wheels... for a maximum efficiency of 30ish%. So, EVs get both the benefits of experience curves of the battery and the electric drive chain.
The "IMAGINARY" wall people put up that (such a thing is impossible). So they don't even try to go there. The nuclear bomb is a pretty good example of this. Before 1945, nobody even thought to try to "mess" with a nuclear bond. BUT, as soon as the United States showed the world that. Yes, a person can do that. Now, the world does it. (Well, most of it), I mean. "I" personally, don't do that. It does take a little finesse.
Totally agree with your statement. I am hoping that you are wrong and we break free from the evils of the super wealthy that want to control us. Humans have been suppressed since the beginning of time. Religion had a huge part to play and still does. So sad.
The smart ones will transfer their investment (and unfortunately influence) to the multi-generational opportunity afforded by the transition. . I say "unfortunately" because they will no doubt do all they can to both slow the transition and latterly prevent distribution of benefits to others.
Crypto is bringing a different revolution in the world economy.People who are optimistic investors earn consistently……… others will just sit and watch. Already making over $77,000 profits 🤗
I am an optimist - however access to good quality food is not improving - more and more cheap, processed rubbish is being sold - with the resultant negative impact on health.
@@ApteraEV2024 Keep it SIMPLE. Solar on blades massively increases complexity. It also placed the solar in a high abrasion environment. Solar on the pylons.
A friend has been off grid since 1976
Although his system has been expanded, his original panels are still working
One of my favourite videos ever....not just on your channel but of any I've watched on UA-cam. I am just so excited and optimistic about this. There again, with the parlous political state of the world, this is coming at just the right time as technology will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
16:00 Re: Battery Usage. Were it not from Osborneing Power Walls, the in place capability for V2H, V2G, & S2V, would’ve already been OTAUed to Tesla cars. 23:50 The economics term is “opportunity cost”.
What a great video. Adam's optimism is contagious.
I still remember the first time I saw a 6 transistor radio ! Oh man we were rocking !
I bet you were rolling too! 😀
My my, honored to meet someone who had a portable pocket zenith transistor battery powered radio. :) even if you had that before kindergarten, makes you and I almost as old as dirt. 😎
Thanks!
Good discussion and a great description of technology transition development and adoption. It reminds me of my uni days when we were tasked with defining technology development time lines. The description of stack versus flow is perfect to make the case for why we are going through a step change in our energy capabilities.
My parents have been on the same solar panels for close to 40 years, they have gone through 3 sets of batteries though. But still cheaper than paying to bring power to them
If they haven't already, make the next set of batteries LFP. That should easily be the last batteries they are likely to need.
Adam’s ability to explain complicated things simply is very impressive. Super smart dude
Great interview. Very insightful.
Loved the optimistic content. The major problem I see for the prosperity of humanity is How do we overcome the selfishness that rears its ugly head within humanity even in times of prosperity?
We probably can't. We will continue to have to find ways to control the greedy.
That’s always going to be there. The greed. The trick is to use it to the collective advantage by offering rewards for the best results. In the present case it’s a safe environment. Rewards for elimination of pollution and cleaning up the environment. Who pays? The way to cooperation ? Globalize Carbon Quantitative Easing. We are wasting time!
I mean, if you look at the progress of civilization, we kill each other way less than we used to and fundamentally that’s because there’s more to go around. To put a simply greed is a response to fear I am afraid I won’t have enough so I. Respond to this by irrationally needing too much and then defending that and the more people feel safe because resources are abundant the less they will be greedy.
I mean, honestly you have to remember how we knew we are to relative prosperity. Widespread electricity is just about 100 years old refrigeration, etc. I would challenge the notion that humans continue to be greedy in a prosperous situation because we haven’t had prosperous situations on a large scale for very long time, and if you notice when we do, conflict goes down, I mean yes it’s still exists. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but it does go down.
Wow, what a great feel good interview. I want everyone to see this, esp all the skeptics out there..
The septics (😉) will deny the facts.
Good interview.
Too bad Adam audio is so crummy ☹️ Better when both sides record local audio
I feel like maybe he was getting audio from the earbuds and not from the big mic in front of his face. I didn't have the energy to listen to this as a result.
The age of super abundance is a time when everyone will have access to the resources they need. This will be possible thanks to the abundance of clean energy that will be generated by solar and wind power. Battery technology will play a key role in this, as it will be used to store and distribute this clean energy.
Everyone needs to see this video.
I wonder if solar and batteries have steep curves because they are both dependent on fairly complicated physics and chemistry. That means that there are a lot of possible chemical/physical solutions, so more possibilities for improvement.
Both solar and wind are on track to fall below $0.02/kWh. While better technology will probably be developed we're reaching the point with the technology we have in hand that 'better' doesn't have tremendous value.
Going from $0.01/kWh to $0.005/kWh would not be a significant development.
Very good to be hopeful!
I really enjoy listening to Adam Dort!
Thank you very much for this video. Very illuminating even for those of us who tries to stay on top of developments in renewables.
NREL (I think I've got the correct DOE lab) reports that panels produced post 2000 should lose only 0.5% to 2% per year. Highest loss in places where there are high UV incidence and/or high wind/snow loading.
In the sort of benign places most of us live a 100 year old panel could be producing 50% of its original output.
The physical limit of photo voltaic is 100% of the energy of the sunlight so we are currently 20 to 30% of the maximum. The maximum storage of batteries is far more difficult to quantify
I can answer the question about autonomy. At the Stanford Artificial Intelligence laboratory in the late 1960's and early 1970's, there were extensive experiments with autonomous vehicles, using the cameras, visual processing, computers, and computing knowledge of the day. A cart could be convinced to move around a simple track at about 2mph, without concern for collision with other moving objects, and it was sort of made to work. At the time, the common wisdom was that for this to move beyond these simple experiments would require an infrastructure and 100% occupancy of the roads by autonomous, communicating vehicles that would cooperate to make it happen. 40 years later, another Stanford AI team won the DARPA driving challenge through the desert. Clearly the computational and machine learning capabilities of today were necessary before we could contemplate releasing autonomous traffic into the wild. Today, it "sort of" works. Maybe tomorrow, when it works well, is not all that far off. The number of flops required is many orders of magnitude higher than the earlier investigators predicted.
Wow that was incredable...
Or even "incredible" 😉
@@rogerstarkey5390 Or delusional.
While people’ lives have improved alot but our earth pays the price. Time to start healing our planet.
We've started. Now we need to speed things up. A lot.
@@bobwallace9753We can start with reducing the size of vehicles dramatically
@@MegaWilderness
There are a lot of things we could do, but we need to go for the things people are willing to do.
Right now, in the US, a portion of the population wants to drive very large SUVs and pickups. We could try to force them not to but there would be resistance and those politicians who create the forcing legislation would probably be voted out and replaced with 'friends of fossil fuels' people.
But if we offered them the same sized vehicles which performed better, cost less, and cost less to operate then they'd get their big machines and the planet would enjoy less GHG roasting. A compromise in which the planet wins.
Better alternatives is my suggestion.
@@bobwallace9753 This is only because of favourable tax laws. The US should adopt Norwegian taxes
@@MegaWilderness
I don't know how one attributes the desire of some people to drive large vehicles to tax laws. There are no US tax laws that I know of that encourage US drivers to purchase larger vehicles. Vehicle taxes are based on the size/weight of the vehicle. Large vehicles pay more for licenses. Large vehicles do not get a fuel price discount.
Europeans, and I assume Norwegians, have long lived with expensive fuel due to taxes on fuel. That, and many narrow street cities built before the age of cars, has led to Europeans driving smaller vehicles. Americans have lived in a country with much cheaper fuel and cities designed for vehicle traffic.
Were the government of Norway to pass a law that enough of the people hated I suspect that government would be voted out and replaced. Only with an authoritarian government can abrupt changes be forced on people.
Again, I'll suggest looking for solutions that people will embrace. Not solutions that require the strong arm of government to enforce.
Talking about prosperity, until a few years ago clean water was considered the most important thing for civilization, because only with clean water you can grow food, and then worry about health and education. Now we are in a historic change, with electricity and energy becoming even more important than clean water, because with electricity you can desalinate all the sea water that you want.
Desal is likely one of the dispatchable loads that can take advantage of almost free electricity. IIRC the capital cost of a desal plant is low enough so that it doesn't need to run 24/365. Rather than build one plant and run it all the time, paying a lot for electricity at times, build two and run them half the time when electricity is cheap.
@@bobwallace9753 And sell the salt, or use it to extract lithium, or sell the wood from trees growing. Desalination is always a win.
THANKS JOHN ,ADAM … for sharing what comes as NO surprise🤗😳😎💚💚💚
Solar panels may operate adequately for 40 years, but they can become obsolete and valueless much more quickly. Panels that I installed in 2005 are only about 40% as efficient as current ones. When I upgraded, I tried for a while to find a buyer, but ended up giving $11K (2005 money) of panels away. Many just get scrapped. I don't suppose things will be as bad in 2045, because I don't think efficiencies are continuing to grow much, but who knows?
Regardless of the reasons, Tony Seba’s name and work deserve more attention and recognition from the mainstream media and the public, as he offers a compelling and optimistic vision of how humanity can leverage the power of technology disruptions to create a better world for everyone. He also provides valuable insights and guidance for entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and consumers who want to be part of the transformation and benefit from the opportunities it creates.
This guy bears a striking resemblance in appearance to that ex-FBI guy Peter Strzok!
I’d be interested in knowing how cobalt is used in the oil industry.
It’s used to extract sulphur. I can’t be more detailed than that, I’m afraid.
This may answer your question regarding cobolt in oil refining: www.chargesmart.co.nz/post/cobalt-mining
HCD processes - hydrocarbon de-sufurization. If you like ultralow sulfur diesel and gasoline, this is one of a couple process options they use to get that done. Crude contains various levels of sulfur, and refineries employ different processes to de-sulfur. A common one uses cobalt catalyst in the stream.
They run the crude through a thermal distillation process which splits it into what are called fractions; fractions then (in a couple of steps) get processed to produce products you can name - like diesel, gasoline, jet fuel. After this fractioning, they de-sulfur the fractions using heat/steam/cobalt catalyst to get the level of sulfur down to allowable limits. The cobalt catalyst is used to extract the sulfur from the crude oil, the sulfur is then converted to hydrogen sulfide which can then be converted into sulfuric acid and used in other industries. The cobalt bed catalyst can be recovered, refreshed and re-used for quite a while.
The major problem with fission nuclear plants is that every one of them is a custom built job. What we need is factory built small modular reactors.
Best estimates by the leading SMR developer is that they expect to be able to drop the wholesale cost of electricity to around $0.10/kWh.
We are closing nuclear and coal plants that need to charge more than $0.04/kWh. And that will drop lower as the cost of wind, solar, and storage drop.
Who will buy 10 cent electricity when 2 cent electricity is available?
And, don't forget, nuclear needs storage in order to match supply to demand. And nuclear plants need backup generation standing by for when they 'break down'. Those costs are not included in the ten cents.
Listening to a summary like this is exceedingly enjoyable, and impossible to disagree with.
I guess the flip side is that, as a member of the choir, I learned something new only in the first five minutes or so, while the rest was a competent recitation of the arguments for and emergence of sustainable energy, with a fair amount of repetition. What needs to be done to increase the size of the choir? How do we get Dr. Know-it-all's subscriber list from 65.2 to 652 to 6520K? I'm not sure we have cracked that one.
Yes, the tech is available, but Govt must also allow independent power producers to sell their electricity. At Fully Charged Live Canada I was told by a solar installer that the BC Govt purposely restricts net metering to avoid competition with their controversial Site C hydro dam. According to him, right now we could have far more solar in BC but the government is preventing this.
Almost 200 years ago, Sadi Carnot discovered the equation describing the maximum thermodynamic efficiency of a “heat engine” I.e. gasoline, diesel, steam, gas turbine, etc. This equation predicts a relatively low efficiency with the materials available to work with then. The same is true for these engines today. Carnot’s equation does not apply to electric motors, which have much higher efficiency BTW.
Heat pumps will die. People have been laughing at me for saying this for the last year. 7 years ago I had Tesla install 4.5K of solar (14 panels) for $15K. Last year I had them add a second 4.5K system (11 panels) for $8K. In six more years will 4.5K be 9 panels and cost $4K? It occurred to me we are already at the point that solar and resistance heat is cheaper than heat pump's cost, complexity, and more likely failures (Elon's best part is no part). Originally I intended to replace my ac and gas furnace with a heat pump when the old equipment failed. When electricity is free, the script gets flipped and what used to be far inferior to a heat pump suddenly vaults to first place thanks to its elegant simplicity. Crazy cheap solar will doom costly heat pumps. Change my mind!
Hear me out. I believe you've taken the wrong interpretation of 'The best part is no part'. The fundamental driver for this is efficiency, specifically used in the context of manufacturing efficiency. If you look at the Tesla Octovalve, it is hugely complex, when you look at the Raptor 3 engines also neat but still hugely complex (even compared to raptor 2). Heat pumps allow for up to 500% efficiency (most today are 400%) and come with >15 year warranties. We are moving from a world of simple cheap items with high lifetime costs to complex initial installations with little to no running cost, and that makes a lot of sense. "You only have to install a solar panel once, and it'll work for 40-50 years"
It would be an extremely misguided mission to replace a heat pump with resistive heating, quadrupling your battery storage requirements & energy generation in the process. Heat pumps are designed to keep your living space at a constant temperature, they're meant to never really shut off ideally. There are many reasons for this mould reduction, user comfort, and based on thermodynamic simulations the heat loss is minimal. Who wants to be the guy that's known for beating every issue with a hammer, 4x the solar panel coverage, 4x the battery storage (most household power goes to heating or cooling), just to do the same thing that could be done with a quarter of all that. That also mean supply chain limitations for everyone else if that becomes the path we choose.
There's more I'd like to mention on this subject but typing is a pain. In conclusion the point of these modern marvels is entirely in 'doing more with less'.
Point of Clarification: When I said 'Heat loss is minimal' I mean that in comparison to heating just select parts of a house like you would with a boiler, there is little difference compared to heating the whole house.
If you have air conditioning and resistive heating you have two systems. If you throw away the resistive heating and simply make the air conditioner 2-way, then you have one system. Best system is no system.
@amateurwizard I think you have missed my point. To have a heat pump with "400% or higher efficiency", you are talking about a geothermal. The average air to air is going to average out at a COP of 3, which means 3x the efficiency of resistive heat. The heat pump is more complex than a straight AC and the more you run the compressor, the sooner it wears out. The AC and heat side both share the same blower so that's not part of the discussion but a resistive heat unit only has one moving part, the relay, which are one of the more reliable mechanical devices out there, usually still good when the system is junked. As for run time, sizing any heat system is critical for comfort too big a system will short cycle, a properly sized (smaller heat strip) resistive system can run longer and deliver the same benefits you mention. Again, when electricity is free, you have to abandon what used to be iron clad truths.
Many less components in a resistive heat system. Both AC and heat share the same metal case and blower. The resistive system will only have one more moving part, the relay for the heat strip. Those devices rarely fail, most going to the scrapyard still in working condition. With a straight AC unit, you have much more simplicity. A heat pump adds a reversing valve, a second expansion valve or capillary tube, a much more complex control system, and a ton more wiring and piping. The most fragile part of HVACs is usually the compressor. That's what forces system replacement in most cases. Using the compressor in heat pump mode introduces a lot more run time and wears it out faster. Few AC companies want to replace a bad compressor as there is the real risk of debris having been introduced to the system that is impossible to flush out that could ruin the replacement compressor. An AC an resistive heat is by far the "less part".@@juliahello6673
16:00 Re: Battery Usage. Were it not from Osborneing Power Walls, the in place capability for V2H, V2G, & S2V, would’ve already been OTAUed to Tesla cars. 23:50 The economics term is “opportunity cost”.
What a great conversation in a time I've been feeling so down about the future. I'd never thought about how energy could become abundant and almost free and it makes sense why countries like China are racing towards it. It makes me so angry that our awful UK government just announced 100s of new oil drilling licences.
They know all this but it doesn't make their donors money and they will lose power in a year. The competing political party plan to create a state owned renewable energy company for the people and this makes sooo much sense.
Affordable EVs are the key to adoption. 40k plus is for enthusiasts
The flow is the sunlight striking the solar panel.
True, but irrelevant. Solar Flow requires no Human Endeavour or Activity.
IIRC, Carter installed a solar water heating system on the White House. I don't think he installed PV panels. The original water heating system wasn't well engineered/constructed and was taken down for reworking. Reagan stopped their replacement.
It's not clear whether Reagan stopped replacement for 'ideological' reasons or because security agencies wanted to use the space for additional protection or communication equipment.
George Bush the Second had a bunch of PV panels installed on one of the White House buildings.
(I'm not a Republican apologist/supporter. Just someone who likes facts.)
Don't forget efficiency is getting cheaper even faster than batteries, meaning fewer, smaller, faster charging batteries can yield equal range in a lighter vehicle. Integrating design will meet cheaper SWB halfway.
My questions with regards to energy are more to do with grid bottle necks and what to do with superpower? If we make tons more energy at peak seasons what will we do with that? What possible industry would be that cyclical where it only requires high energy in summer? Or would it make more sense to have seasonal storage, if so what is the best tech for that because it probably isn't stationary battery packs.
It’s unlikely that ‘tons’ more energy would be produced in peak seasons as it wouldn’t be built if there wasn’t a market for it. As Adam said more locally produced electricity will be used and replenished over days not weeks. For seasonal storage pumped hydro, for shorter term storage other forms of gravity storage and hot salt/sand/brick batteries.
Reach back earlier. Running a four minute mile. Climbing Everest.
Once someone shows things are possible, others accomplish the same thing.
…what is your life time? Fantastic question
What are the trade-offs between grid solar and rooftoop solar? Including consideration of sun-tracking versus fixed solar farms?
I.e. just how decentralized should we make solar? Are suburban solar roofs a good idea, other than as a transitional phase?
Also, if local (rooftop) solar makes more sense, what's the trade-off vs city density (dense cities using less energy, e.g. for transport).
Should we mostly live in fairly dense cities (assume quality of life isn't a factor - i.e. we make cities much more pleasant, enjoy frequent visits to natural locations outside the city, etc).
Rooftop solar avoids distribution costs for the consumer. IIRC it costs, on average, about $0.05/kWh to move power from a central generator to end users. Plus distributed solar, paired with local storage, can create a more reliable grid. Someone driving into a power pole wouldn't necessarily take down a neighborhood.
I don't know the current costs of tracking but it can make sense to face some panels east and some west. Doing so might lower the total output 10% to 20% but it greatly extends the solar day, reducing some of the need for storage. E/W installations might be cheaper than tracking + additional early morning/late afternoon storage. That math will change as the cost of panels, trackers, and storage change over time.
I suspect the percentage of us who live in cities vs. outside of cities will change over time. Cheap, self-driving transportation and the ability to work for home will allow some to leave cities. As we remove the vehicle air pollution and noise from cities then others will find it more desirable to live in cities.
There's also the case of major freeing of land inside cites as we move to self-driving robotaxis. The need for parking lots and on street parking should greatly decrease. If some of that freed space it turned into urban parks and safe bike lanes then the quality of life in cities will increase.
Add in. Global population levels are on the decline. That will factor into the math.
Tom, you have a hard core attraction to paying for your energy from a central planned and controlled, monopolistic ecosystem? Time to unplug from those who control and make margins in every one of your watts used. 😎
@@johnross6314 I don't think anything in my questions would indicate I have some particular attachment to grid electricity. I was just asking open ended questions.
But to your question, dense urban areas (those averaging more than 3 or maybe 4 stories) are going to need more than rooftop solar for roughly a current Western standard of living - which probably implies grid electricity delivery. That could be a government function, or corporate, or mixed as it usually is today - but it'll probably be a regional monopoly unless the world undergoes changes radical enough to make the renewable energy transition look like a footnote.
And there's the broader issue of achieving on-demand electricity from variable energy sources. Right now the grid is how most solar homes achieve that, even if they have battery storage that meet most of their electricity needs.
I could see the possibility of a viable future where many people live with energy variability and no longer rely on a grid for electricity on demand. But most in the developed world don't want to lose reliability of electricity supply, even if it'd maybe be a better world in other ways such as the reduced central control to which you point.
@@tomcraver9659 correct. Those that rent, or have what is a license to part of a property in urban area, mostly dense housing based will need Unity amongst themselves in place enough to augment independent power options….. from a central power collective, or use a broader collective for certain times (due to potential finite limits possible in some high density housing). Those that rent and do not own are at a disadvantage. Those in urban areas with their own not zero line property have plenty of options. Options on their own building and grounds to be fully independent.
Now, busy body trolls working for or in the behalf of central monopoly power syndicates, will brainwash this owner option is not possible. If that is not working, infest local .gov, and HOAs to thwart owners from unplugging and installing their own power system.
@@johnross6314 I get your idea of cooperative power solutions, and to the extent that's possible I'm all for it. But renters generally lack the investment capital (or credit) to be able to establish their own solar power, even if they could manage to coordinate on a city-wide scale, which offers its own challenges (else we'd probably already see a lot more of this kind of thing). Property owners might be able to do something - but doesn't that risk them turning into the monopoly power for their own buildings, from the perspective of those renting from them?
It was said that the oil industry needs a source of cobalt, and it is consumed in production. Is this correct, and why would they need it? Anybody know?
"Cobalt plays a vital role in catalysing the removal of sulphur from oil, contributing to a more sustainable society. "
That's from a trade association The Cobalt Institute.
Still want warp drive...🤣
😢 it's hard to follow a technical discussion when there are too many commercials!
UA-cam Premium. Don't gotta worry about commercials. 😁
There needs to be a deep dive into the latest CATL technologies.
There's confusion between
"Straight" LFP, LMFP (manganese doped) and M3P With doesn't use Iron (So no "F" in the name)
Then there's their structural pack system to consider, which like the Tesla system should improve the *vehicle* Wh/kg.
Lilium jet batteries will be changeable.
They can be replaced every 2 years or so depending how much they fly.
Therefore the evtol can be upgraded with better battery tech and also old batteries are modular and therefore easy to use them as stationary storages
LFP's will make V2G much more attractive, as they can charge and discharge much closer to their limits much more often, providing more benefits to the grid and more income for the owner. Might even make sense for a utility to subsidize battery insurance for EV owners so they will participate.
Jeez, John, the ads are driving me nuts! I'm listen g to you while I'm cleaning, with ear buds and my phone in my jacket, and every few minutes I'm having stop work to k*ll the effing ads when they blather on for more than 30 seconds. The, it's driving me nuts and detracting mightily from my enjoyment of your channel!
Then pay for UA-cam Premium as I do. No interruption from ads and can download content.
Yep, as Tim said, buy one month of UA-cam Premium to try it out and you probably won't go back to ads. I have saved countless hours of my life by not having to listen to ads and being able to fast forward and reverse without limitation.
Why is Adam Dorr always yelling his message in the microphone? Message is good btw. I love Rethinkx.
That is how Dorr shows his confidence in his message. I like how Dorr emphasizes his points. It shows his excitement. Its works.
Roger Bannister's breaking the four minute mile, for instance.
You got to go to the gasstation in the first place INSTED of beeing fully charged every morning over night, and then it is kind of 100%.
10 min is a nobrainer, you got to take a break anyway.
In a best scenario you charge remotly when driving, and you get paid to charge. But lets get real 10 min charge is very good.
The typical city driver who has no place to plug in where they park may be reliant on a public rapid charger. But most are not likely to need to charge more than 1x per week if they have a 250 mile range EV with LFP batteries.
Renewables bring a massive bonus of energy security and independence for all nations, what's not to like?
I love Adam he provides hopeium but he's got the receipts.
When. When will we see some of the new battery tech make it into production EVs? CATL's new 4c LFP batteries are where in that cycle? And which car makers will get them?
Didn't CATL say very soon?
.
And a point of note, CATL is in the latter stages of their factory build *very* close to Tesla Shanghai.
Guess who's going to take most of the capacity?
@@rogerstarkey5390 I wonder where CATL can make them in the US, and get them to US Teslas.
Unless I misheard, production starts end of this year.
future good story😃
Sooner than you think
My main fear with electric vehicles is that all of them can be stopped at once with the flip of a central switch, and they can also be confined to a specific area (15 min cities, plandemic etc.) Too much power in the hands of Big Tech!
This has nothing to do with evs. Haven't you seen videos of Onstar equipped vehicles being stopped remotely?
@@jemezname2259 So, according to you, the manufacturers cannot control what the vehicle does. Dream on, I trust the CCP (who CAN control everything, the owners of the car companies as much as I trust Big Pharma. Just wait.
A paranoid person once said this to me when I was volunteering at an EV display. As I said to her, don’t you think the same thing could be done with ICE cars by stopping oil supply? Most non-Tesla EVs don’t have OTA updates so can’t be remotely deactivated. Also, if you have solar panels your EV makes you far more independent of “the government” than a car that relies on oil supply.
@@TimTheSandmanNZ You have a point , governments are already restricting oil and trying to force people to buy EVs. It's naive to think that all these electric gadgets cannot be controlled, look at China, remember that Google is already tracking our movements, whether our phones are on or off (they update as soon as we turn them back on).
Also, and I know that this won’t work with a truly conspiratorial mind, but I’ve said this many times no one actually has an incentive to stop everything like that. Because if you did, it would really over complicate your life in very unpleasant ways at the very least in the simplest everyone else would not like you And that tends to have consequences also generally if you stopped all the cars, chances are you would have trouble getting anywhere to, and certainly some of the goods in people that you want to have as . A part of your life would also be caught in the morass. We have to remember that we are all caught up in the same system regardless of how powerful we feel within it no one is really incentivized to have huge chunks of it break anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves
Hey Doc are you a Serenity or Firefly show Fan?
11:20
LFPs are easy to use.
NMC is like an ICE car and thinking about how much you can floor because the engine is still cold.
Not really. You can floor it as much as you want, and the power will be there. Regen braking is what doesn't work when the battery is cold. But the battery controller takes care of it, you just have to use the mechanical brake more.
The only thing you have to actively manage is charging above 90%.
Charging a battery so fast requires several hundred, say 400, kilowatts of power, but existing fast chargers max out at 250 kw and average much less, say 150 kw, so even if the battery can absorb so much power, the existing charging infrastructure can't deliver it. That problem can be solved, but it can't be solved by next year. Even if I can buy a car with this battery next year, I won't be able to add 400 km of range in ten minutes. Fortunately, I don't need to.
Just need battery storage at the charger site. Cheap battery storage is coming.
Doesn't make sense to build private vehicle 400 kW chargers until there are EVs that can use 400 kW.
However, Tesla is in the process of building its first charger highway for its semi trucks. Nine chargers stretching from their Fremont, CA factory to Laredo, TX. "Each charging station would be equipped with eight Megachargers, with each a capacity of 750 kW".
That system would give Tesla the ability to haul between Fremont and GF Austin using their own battery powered trucks. GF Nevada is already in range of Fremont.
@@bobwallace9753 Sure. It's possible in theory to charge at 400+ kw, and the infrastructure may exist for me years from now, but I wouldn't pay a premium for this battery next year because I'd get no value out of it. Companies are building charging networks for passenger EVs right now, and they won't replace or upgrade them any time soon. I live in Georgia, so nine Semi charging stations between California and Texas are worth precisely nothing to me. Your mileage may vary.
A Bolt only charges at 50 kw at a public station, and I can live with that. A hundred miles in half an hour covers all of my long-distance driving needs. Rather than promising a charging experience as good as an ICEV's refueling experience, we need to persuade ICEV drivers that the EV charging experience, as it is, isn't half as nightmarish as the EV haters pretend. For many if not most passenger cars, it's fine. If you routinely drive hundreds of miles a day, you're an exception to the rule, and I'd say you should stick with an ICEV a while longer. Even if everyone eventually drives an EV, it can't happen overnight and won't happen for a couple of decades at least.
@@restonthewind
Of course it makes no sense to pay for something you can't use.
But the question was, more or less, is it possible to build charging stations that can charge at 400 kW rates. Answer: Yes. Tesla is building even more powerful.
Do all people need really rapid charging? No. Some people pretty much never drive very far from home. If they go long distances they fly or use another public transportation option.
Will Tesla megachargers eventually reach the entire US and probably most of the world? Probably. When Tesla started selling their Model S they build a handful of Superchargers so that people in very limited areas on the east and west coast could drive distances about double their car's range. Soon after they powered corridors that allowed Tesla drivers to drive coast to coast on a single highway route and to drive from SF to LA and from the NYC area to Florida (IIRC). Then they built out from there. Expect the same for their semi-charge system.
Those who drive hundreds of miles per day should be the first to purchase EVs. Get an EV with LFP batteries and at least a 250 mile range. Fully charge overnight. Drive about 230 to 240 miles, stop for a meal, and plug in while eating. Charge back up to 80% and drive a couple hundred more miles. Save tons of money.
@@bobwallace9753 I drive 250 miles to visit family a few times a year; otherwise, I almost never travel long distances, and since I work from home, I rarely drive more than twenty miles a day. I occasionally drive 60 miles to Atlanta, but I can easily do the round trip in a Bolt without charging. A 30-minute stop on the way to visit family is no big deal, and I can charge overnight when I'm there.
By "hundreds of miles", I meant 400+ miles, like you're on the road for six or eight hours. If your EPA est. range is 300 miles, you'll get 250 miles in practice. You won't (and shouldn't) drive the car literally to zero, so 200 miles between stops is more realistic. One half-hour stop, even 45 minutes, on a long trip is no big deal, but two or three, hour-long stops is.
Years ago, I routinely drove from Missouri to Alabama and back every other weekend, 450 miles each way. EVs didn't exist at the time, but a Bolt would have added two or three hours to the trip each way, and the difference between eight hours on the road and ten or eleven is very significant. So much driving is exhausting, and so much deep discharging and fast charging isn't good for the battery. If I could buy a car with an LFP battery with 300 miles of EPA estimated range for $30k, I would, but I can't.
There's no sense in pretending that EVs work for everyone at this point. Everyone can't suddenly switch to an EV anyway. People with the best use case can and should go first. By the time most people are buying an EV, a decade from now, affordable vehicles and charging infrastructure will meet their needs.
I don't want to ban ICEVs at all. EVs don't need force to encourage adoption, but if we're banning classes of cars, I'd ban the ridiculous electric pickups and large SUVs with incredibly large batteries that legacy automakers are producing now. They're stupidly inefficient, and the battery resources in one of those things could make two Bolts or two Model 3s. Same goes for the Cybertruck. It's not remotely green. It's greenwashing.
@@restonthewind
"There's no sense in pretending that EVs work for everyone at this point. "
Not if you consider the Bolt to be the only EV choice.
The lowest cost Tesla Model 3 has an estimated range of 333 miles according to Tesla. In cold weather or persistent heavy headwinds the range will be cut as it would in an ICEV.
LFP batteries can be fully discharged and charged with no harm to the batteries.
Charging slows when batteries get about 80% full. So while one might decide to fully charge overnight they could leave with a 333 mile range under normal conditions and drive down to about 10% charge, leaving a bit of safety room. So 300 miles. Bad weather case perhaps 250 miles.
Tesla charge from 10% to 80% in about 20 minutes. Less time than most will spend eating lunch. In the range of 200 to 230 miles additional driving. That makes for a probable minimum of 450 miles with one not very long charge stop. One more stop for a charge and a pee and it's somewhere around 650 miles of range in one day.
Here's what one needs to ask themselves. Suppose they can arrive at their destination a half hour earlier by driving an ICEV what extra will that cost them over the course of a year. Since they would have to stop for a refill and almost everyone would make a meal stop, perhaps plus a pee stop, it's not clear that arrival time would be meaningfully later. For most there's a false economy in concentrating on charge time during very long trips while ignoring per mile savings.
How long will it take the market to flip to EVs? My guess is a lot sooner than your guess. EV sales are growing at exponential, not linear, rates. Prices are coming down. Tesla is opening their Superchargers to all other brands of EVs so the rapid charging infrastructure will not be an issue.
The markets in China (largest market in the world) and in Europe are moving to EVs much faster than the US. As buyers move to EVs, ICEVs become more expensive to manufacture. ICEV products lose economy of scale and have to pay more for components. EV prices headed down, ICEV prices headed up. Market switch already underway.
If EVs and true level 5 FSD are achieved, I have to wonder if buses will disappear as a wasteful, clumsy, and centralized 20th-century mode of transportation.
Fairly likely. At least the large capacity city buses that stop every block or so.
I think we'll see small and medium sized battery powered self-driving buses doing longer hauls such as groups of commuters from city financial/retail centers to specific suburbs.
@@bobwallace9753 It may result in buses run like trains, as in Curitiba Brazil. An electrified autonomous bus along a predictablle, protected route would take lots of cars off the street.
@@garysouza95
Why do we have buses? I think it's to spread the cost of the driver over more seats.
Why not have load-sized vehicles that don't need to stick to fixed routes but provide door to door service when people want to leave and not on some predetermined schedule? Why haul a bunch of empty seats around when a two, four, eight, whatever seat vehicle would mean less mass per passenger mile?
Why have vehicles that are frequently stopping and reentering the flow of traffic if a smaller vehicle could go door to door without 'bus stop' stops?
The greatest threat to superabundance is that capitalism thrives on profits made from artificial shortages, restricting access to commodities. We’ve seen it most recently in COVID vaccines, oil & gas restrictions due to Russian invasion, chip shortages, Lithium miners, Lithium processing constraints, grain exports from Ukraine. Historically in OPEC strangling supply of petroleum, the central control of diamond supply. So much opposition to renewables is based on this. The challenge is not technological but political, on the positive side that means each of us in democratic states have an opportunity to vote for change.
It’s just too bad that inverter that accepts 300-400 Vdc strait from a car battery pack, is not common.
Most are 48 Vdc or lower.
I wonder if the transition from horse & buggy to ICE is comparable to the present day. The ability to smoke and make noise in a huge machine is an addiction for far too many people. Their worst fear is that fossil fuels will one day become expensive or unavailable. FUD about EVs barely comes into it.
I agree and think EV adoption in America will be much slower than is being predicted.
@@thefish5861
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
We are now at approximately the point where it costs less to manufacture an EV than a similar feature ICEV. The Tesla Model 3 sells for just about the same as a BMW Series 3 but Tesla's gross profit margin (GPM, profit per car) is much higher. As other EV manufacturers scale up they will be producing vehicles for less than one can produce an ICEV.
Now, let's jump ahead a couple of years. If it costs less to manufacture EVs then competition will make it cheaper to purchase an EV. And it's already significantly cheaper to 'fuel' and maintain an EV. EVs offer a better ride and have a longer useful life.
What do you think consumers are going to do when buying a new ride? Pay more for less and then have to pay more to keep that ride on the road? I think not.
"The ability to smoke and make noise in a huge machine is an addiction for far too many people."
It's about speed and outperforming other vehicle owners. EVs are simply faster than very expensive smoke and noise machines. We're probably a short time away from "smoke and noise = loser".
Once a company starts producing an EV that's about as fast as the Tesla S Plaid but looks more like a US muscle car then it's likely all over for smoke and noise vehicles.
Three main areas that can change are solar cells, batteries and semiconductors. I think it’s early days for renewables. The ice technology has nowhere to go. It’s all exciting to see but in Sunny South Africa, individuals in government make kickbacks from coal and are fighting back against evolution. I hope to see the end of them, but it is a stubborn system and I’m getting on.
Look how man engages in war then goes back and rebuilds everything torn down and destroyed. That is how corporations make money, no?
Wars are a net loss for business. Some companies make money off supplying arms/ammo and some out of rebuilding. But more companies suffer from supply interruptions, infrastructure destruction, and market disruption.
Great News, thanks. It sadly ignores the colapsing climate. Can U maybe Interview Paul Beckwith on that aspect of the Future? That would be great!!
CATL's new batteries basically spells the death knell of solid state batteries... at least at first... due to the energy density being better in CATLs ready to go batteries.
Once a technology gets "good enough' in terms of ability and cost it becomes very difficult to knock it off the top of the mountain. Solid state batteries are not likely to be cheap at first and would need to be produced in large amounts in order to reach economies of scale. Someone would have to eat those losses for some time period and unless solid state batteries offered significant performance improvements the market would not pay higher prices.
I've heard several statements that with a gas car, you have to stand there with your hand on the hose (10:00), while with BEVs, you can leave the car and charger to do their thing while you go in to buy a meal or take a restroom break. But that's not right. Gas car owners don't have to hang on to it. People can use their time while the tank fills to clean the windshield, etc. Then the nozzle turns itself off and they can remove it, and then move the car and go in to the restroom. It IS true that it's wise to stay with the car while the fuel is flowing.
I'm looking forward to buying an EV and I hope they get cheaper and take over the market rapidly. But I think we hurt our case if we say things that are so obviously overstated and known by our opponents to be untrue . It just make's it easier for them to reject everything you say.
I live in the deep, conservative south where EVs are usually looed down upon, and I had many debates and arguments about the benefits of EVs. People down here don't get it. ICE has a deep culture here.
Hi my name is Paul,I really love your shows.
You can still say LiFePO electric vehicles don't have sufficient range. Certainly that can be said. Don't believe the EPA or Chinese range values.
Please explain how Tesla is selling EVs with LFP batteries and good range.
who's going on road trips with a LFP Tesla? I pity them. Stopping every 150 miles for 30 minutes. I mean.... its doable, but its not really what youre looking for.@@bobwallace9753
This is the most impactful and largest scale disruption to the history of the world. Never before has so much power and wealth in the world been concentrated in one industry and never before has so much power and wealth to resist change for the bettter existed. Any progress toward free and abundant energy is resisted using media, fud, bribery and politicians. So, lets celebrate the achievements but recognize that the struggle to improve the environment and shared prosperity will require society to demand it.
The fossil fuel industry has already lost and they recognized that some time back. At least the smarter players did. The industries will continue to fight in order to survive as long as possible but they are simply fighting a rear guard action as they retreat and then perish.
Great video 🙌 if ypu didn't watch the whole thing. Long story short, we are entering "The Age of Abundance"
Common John, you must have filled up gas for such a long time that you forgot that you can also pump gas while you go to the restroom.. Just saying..
Not that I dont see the benefits of EV over ICE.
The electric car is also a fundamental change technology-wise from the internal combustion engine. Power from the battery directly drives the motor which drives the wheels... for a 90ish percent efficiency. ICE vehicles combust a fuel to drive a piston which drives a crankshaft which drives the transmission which drives the wheels... for a maximum efficiency of 30ish%. So, EVs get both the benefits of experience curves of the battery and the electric drive chain.
Thanks for believing in my transhumanism future with hundreds of years left 😅
New york city mandates TaxiEV by 2030!! Upvoted!!
The "IMAGINARY" wall people put up that (such a thing is impossible). So they don't even try to go there.
The nuclear bomb is a pretty good example of this. Before 1945, nobody even thought to try to "mess" with a nuclear bond. BUT, as soon as the United States showed the world that. Yes, a person can do that. Now, the world does it. (Well, most of it), I mean. "I" personally, don't do that. It does take a little finesse.
too many people lose enormous power and wealth when we solve free energy for all. They cant let that happen.
Totally agree with your statement. I am hoping that you are wrong and we break free from the evils of the super wealthy that want to control us. Humans have been suppressed since the beginning of time. Religion had a huge part to play and still does. So sad.
The smart ones will transfer their investment (and unfortunately influence) to the multi-generational opportunity afforded by the transition.
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I say "unfortunately" because they will no doubt do all they can to both slow the transition and latterly prevent distribution of benefits to others.
Crypto is bringing a different revolution in the world economy.People who are optimistic investors earn consistently……… others will just sit and watch. Already making over $77,000 profits 🤗
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I am an optimist - however access to good quality food is not improving - more and more cheap, processed rubbish is being sold - with the resultant negative impact on health.
We still haven't stopped mining iron and aluminium. There will be no age of abundance until the population numbers fall
WE KNOW , 😉 it All 😅Now(YouKnow) collaboration 💡
Wind Turbine with Blades made of Solar Panels, in the Ocean for Wave , Electric Generator , 😉 💡 ❤
@@ApteraEV2024
Keep it SIMPLE.
Solar on blades massively increases complexity. It also placed the solar in a high abrasion environment.
Solar on the pylons.