Slashdot Mirror
Elon Musk Says Tesla Could Rebuild Puerto Rico's Power Grid With Batteries, Solar (electrek.co)
After Puerto Rico was hit by hurricane Maria, Tesla quickly started shipping hundreds of its Powerwall batteries there to try and get power back on to some houses with solar arrays. Now, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to say that Tesla could rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid with batteries and solar on a bigger scale. Electrek reports: Puerto Rico's electricity rates were already quite high at around $0.20 per kWh and reliant on fossil fuels. After it was pointed out that Puerto Rico's destroyed grid is an opportunity to build a better one, Musk wrote on Twitter: "The Tesla team has done this for many smaller islands around the world, but there is no scalability limit so it can be done for Puerto Rico too. Such a decision would be in the hands of the Puerto Rico government, PUC (Public Utilities Commission), any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of Puerto Rico."
Musk is referring to solar and battery projects that Tesla recently deployed on other islands, like Tesla's visually stunning Powerpack and solar project in Kauai. Those projects power grids for much smaller populations, but Musk has always said that it's scalable to support much larger islands, like Puerto Rico, and ultimately entire continents, which are just like big islands to a certain degree. The thing is that those systems are still reliant on power lines for larger communities and devices, like solar panels and wind turbines, that are still subject to problems with natural disasters. The advantage of Tesla's solution is that it has the potential to be distributed, which increases the odds of at least some systems staying online or bringing some back online quicker.
Musk is referring to solar and battery projects that Tesla recently deployed on other islands, like Tesla's visually stunning Powerpack and solar project in Kauai. Those projects power grids for much smaller populations, but Musk has always said that it's scalable to support much larger islands, like Puerto Rico, and ultimately entire continents, which are just like big islands to a certain degree. The thing is that those systems are still reliant on power lines for larger communities and devices, like solar panels and wind turbines, that are still subject to problems with natural disasters. The advantage of Tesla's solution is that it has the potential to be distributed, which increases the odds of at least some systems staying online or bringing some back online quicker.
1) Despite the name, there just isn't that much lithium in a lithium-ion battery - and thus battery manufacturers can pay significantly more and not profoundly affect battery prices.
2) "Reserves" figures are based on a given A) exploration level, B) production tech level, and C) market price point. A) has historically been low, B) hasn't had reason to advance much, and C)... well, see point #1.
3) Growth in reserves with respect to 2A is roughly linear, while it's exponential with respect to 2B and 2C.
As an example of extremes: there's approximately 2,4e17 kilograms of lithium in Earth's oceans. Yes, producing from seawater with current tech (see 2B) costs a few times more than producing from land-based lithium sources per kilogram, so it's not commercially done. But battery manufacturers certainly can afford to pay those prices. And because of that, it's essentially impossible for them to run out of lithium. There can be temporary shortfalls due to production scaleups, but no long-term barriers.
(Not that they would go straight to seawater lithium; there's lots of land-based sources far larger than current "reserves" that would be turned to first)
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
Part of the treaties that formally attached Puerto Rico to the US requires a vote every 10 years as to whether or not they want to 1) stay how they are, 2) become a state, 3) seek independence.
The last vote was in June. Become a state got 97% of the vote.
However, anything but option 1 requires Congress to do something. And I really don't think the current Republican Congress is interested in adding some safe Democratic seats to Congress.