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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.
In other news Elon Musk doesn't understand being poor.
You have a lot to do.
Someone has to be first.
Battery technology has only recently become good enough.
It does involve removing the entire power grid, and rebuilding. They would have wanted to keep the infrastructure they already have.
Someplace else on the whole damn earth has done it by now. Kauai has.
As far as I know currently available lithium batteries still wear out after 1,000 cycles and slightly more for LiFePo4. There have been lots of breakthroughs but nothing for mass production. So if they go for this they'll have to buy a massive pile of new batteries every 5 years or so? Doesn't seem like a great solution
Who cares! It's Friday!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
However, it might be better to let people do it who did that before elsewhere. Including sub terrain cables, like in the EU, which do not fail when there is a hurricane.
It's not about being easy, it's about being cost effective.
If you already have a lot invested in the equipment and infrastructure of using petroleum for your energy needs, it's a large financial outlay to invest in a whole new technology that you don't necessarily need (even if the long-term benefits are clear).
However, since Puerto Rico is now in the unfortunate position of having to rebuild much of their infrastructure anyway, and having to spend a ton of money to do so anyway, there's hardly any reason NOT to spend it on new technologies that save money in the long run... and also reduce dependence.
=Smidge=
How about potassium ion? There's even research in Silicon based batteries, and I doubt we'll run out of that any time soon.
There's not enough lithium on the planet to produce the batteries required to do this on a country sized scale:
That's why he's going to Mars
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
What's preventing them from building a subterranean power grid? If we can put fiber optic cables on the floor of the ocean, we can put power lines underground and expose them above ground in certain areas. Leaving the critical lines protected and the "last-mile" lines above ground for easy work.
Such an exaggeration. The amount of lithium used in batteries is minimal. Plus there are other (better) chemistries than lead batteries for cars. Edison used nickel-iron batteries in his electric car for example. Not to mention NiMH.
Never let a disaster go to waste. $$$$$$$
Agreed. And last I heard, there was research into making the large batteries needed where volume & weight is no object (as would be the case for these static batteries) out of cellulose, aka wood fibers! https://link.springer.com/arti... As you mention, the amount of lithium needed is minimal, the insulating layer between the electrodes within the battery is a larger problem, however.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Presumably because he's a busy man with at least three companies to run and he can't be made aware of and try to solve every possibly problem on earth.
But when large highly talked about events happen people tend to learn new information about them and act on it.
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'."
Battery technology has only recently become good enough.
Battery tech has been 'good enough' for 50 years, just not cost effective. Its still costly.
It does involve removing the entire power grid, and rebuilding.
Which would cost even more.
No, "the Tesla shareholder" would be saying, "Sell more batteries!" Scale of production is what reduces battery prices.
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
Because though their grid was in a shambles, it existed and was 'good enough' for the locals.
Now that it's effectively gone and they have to build something to replace it, it's a good time to look at options. There's not much cost savings in reusing the old grid.
And becoming less so... At some point we get to a point where it becomes cost effective. Musk is claiming that this point is now.
Yes. Hence doing this when the grid has already been destroyed means that it's more cost effective.
Before, the cost of existing infrastructure was zero. Now the cost of that infrastructure is the rebuild cost. It makes sense to explore more cost effective alternatives.
Are the expensive power generation facilities destroyed? No.
Just the wires between houses need to be replaced.
Another hurricane will probably destroy Elon's solar and wind so they will have to start over.
The expensive power plants are still there, mostly paid for, and ready to be connected to the wires.
The wires between houses need to be constructed in either scenario.
Bermuda can take a direct hit and keep on truckin'. Hurricanes are very powerful, but it's still possible to design around them. They are certainly easier to cope with than large earthquakes, and you get a lot more warning.
Trouble is that, to paraphrase JM Keynes, the sun can not shine for longer than any practical, affordable, battery bank can hold out. For applications where you can't turn off the juice occasionally, you really need a nuclear/hydro/fossil fuel backup with wires connecting the generation to the users. And you need to pay to maintain that generation and distribution grid even if you don't use it all that often.
If you try to visualize a system using only wind/solar/waves and "batteries" -- as solar/wind advocates often do -- you'll end up with a system that doesn't always work. And by the time you've appended the stuff you need to make the lights come on reliably when folks throw their light switches, you're going to end up with very expensive electricity.
It's not that there aren't some applications, e.g. pumping water to "reservoirs", running air conditioning, where wind/solar can work fine today. It's that the high reliability and low costs US/Canadian electricity users are used to are VERY difficult to replicate with current "green" technology.
BTW - What's green about huge stacks of Lithium-ion batteries?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Its going to cost $x to rebuild the grid with what was there before.
Its going to cost $y for this solution from Tesla.
If the difference between $x and $y is low enough that it makes sense to go with the Tesla solution (because it can most likely restore power to some parts of the island faster, because it will probably require a lot less rebuilding after the next major hurricane and because it may reduce power bills for residents) then they should do it rather than just rebuilding the old solution.
Someone's got to do it - either the government pays the old electric companies to do it, and they go ahead and fix up whatever old crap they have (or maybe they'd get new stuff in, we don't really know), or else the government pays Musk, who definitely puts in new stuff, which arguably should have a lower running cost than anything that preceded it.
I wouldn't really call this 'preying on the weak' - it's not like the people in PR are going to pay directly for this - it'll come federally, and then possibly get paid back by raising the price of electricity. If Musk is true to his word, he'll be able to make the power so cheap, that even with some paying back added to the price, it'll still work out cheaper for the people in PR.
'bashing' Musk (or indeed anyone else) is a bit unnecessary - he's saying he's got a way to help. I haven't really heard anyone else stepping up and saying "we can fix this" - have you? If so, who? How are they better than Musk?
What the island needs is wind farms. The trade winds are quite strong and blow almost constantly. They would also take up far less land than solar farms.
Give every house its panels and batteries and you don't need 'infrastructure'.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
I think for 3.4 million people, you'd need several nuclear power plants. Remember that every few years, the plant goes down for many weeks for refueling and maintenance. We can't just ship everyone on the island to Manhattan until the plant comes back up. Also, the plants take a long time to build and recent projects in the US, Finland, France have had substantial problems with big time cost and schedule overruns.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Solar panels seem especially vulnerable but everything would have to be robust and capable of being secured or removed to minimize damage until a hurricane passes.
It's a good thing he tested on smaller islands first. Now we know the weight of the batteries won't cause Puerto Rico to tip over like Guam.
Puerto Rico could easily meet it's power needs with wave power. They have multiple sources of renewable power on the island so I'm not sure why the focus is just on solar.
~X~
1) Despite the name, there just isn't that much lithium in a lithium-ion battery
Just the other day I read the following figures: "Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) 70kWh Model S battery pack contains 63Kg of lithium, equivalent to the amount of lithium in 10,000 cellphones"
Granted, this was in the same advertorial that claimed: "Lithium brine deposits are estimated to contain 66 percent of the world's 14 million metric tonnes (MT) of Lithium" so I am inclined to take their figures with a pinch of salt (no pun intended). After all, combining both of their numbers means there's only enough lithium on the planet to 'power' 220 million electric cars. Oops!
One also imagines that the effort involved in extracting lithium from seawater increases (and the extraction rate decreases) as concentrations decrease. It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few years, especially once one (and more) of Elon's Gigafactories come online.
Are the expensive power generation facilities destroyed? No.
Irrelevant. The fossil fuel generation systems are extremely expensive to run. About 2/3rds of the utility's costs are just fuel.
Now they need to invest in rebuilding the damaged grid. They can choose to build it like the old grid and carry on paying for increasingly costly, dirty fuel, or they can build a better one with some renewable generation and battery storage.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Trouble is that, to paraphrase JM Keynes, the sun can not shine for longer than any practical, affordable, battery bank can hold out.
This has been untrue for some time now, especially in places where energy costs are high due to fuel being expensive. Practical batteries have existed for over a decade, and costs are now making them a cheaper option than fossil or nuclear.
Practically you would want some wind turbines instead of just solar, but building a suitable size/cost battery is not the issue now. The old major barrier is the need to rebuild the grid to be more suitable, and this disaster presents an opportunity to do that at no additional cost over what would be needed to go back to the old ways.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Perhaps if the US just got rid of the Jones Act... Fuel would be cheaper along with everything else. What the Jones Act has done to PR is made mainland shipping companies richer and PR poorer. I don't know if solar/wind would be cheaper overall for PR, they get a great deal of both, but at least get rid of the big Jones anchor around them. I can see one problem with solar/wind is when the next hurricane hits, the panels are going to be destroyed along with any turbine blades. That must be factored into the cost of wind/solar.
I think PR and all Caribbean Islands prone to hurricane strikes need to rethink infrastructure, from burying electrical lines in conduits to requiring all habitable structures to be made of reinforced concrete. And, while I think one of solar power's greatest potential is for providing electricity to more remote areas of the world -- such as islands -- I have to wonder how well rooftop solar panels or large solar farms would stand up to category 4 and 5 hurricanes.
I believe the solution Musk is proposing would also include large lithium-ion batteries, which when damaged can short and ignite the highly reactive lithium. Another possibility is that the battery can heat to the point of thermal runaway, where the contents exert pressure on the battery, potentially producing an explosion.
So, it's a grand gesture by Musk, but not one without its own set of potential issues.
The hospital ICU can buy enough power bank batteries to last longer than any predictable solar/wind outage. The data center can buy its own back up power, even use a dirty diesel engine genset. Who cares?
You do not design a system for the outliers. If you do, every doorway must accommodate 7' 8" tall people, every five seater car must accommodate 2000 lb of passenger weight... Hospital ICU and data centers are users well above three or four sigma over mean. Their needs should not be the primary design consideration. They need a solution that does not increase the cost of mean + 2 sigma users appreciably.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Let's wait until he's finished his South Australian battery before we give him a new job; he may not even meet his 100 day goal with that.
He's made wild claims before, and the Tesla Model 3 production rate forecast didn't go too well now, did it?
Why would it take removing the existing grid? Do what they did on the island of T'au in American Samoa - install the solar and batteries, and then just shut off the diesel generators. Keep them there in case the battery storage isn't going to last through several days of clouds, and turn them off when the sun shines again.
Why would you need to rip anything out that isn't broken beyond repair, completely obsolete, or entirely redundant?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
There's not enough lithium on the planet to produce the batteries required to do this on a country sized scale:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
I find it hard to follow an article which straight up mis-references its own source to the tune of 10%, and its source which mis-references the supply system for a material by quoting hard rock mining which makes up just a percentage of lithium production as it is more expensive than simply extracting from a spring. Mind you even quoting somewhere between 30-40Mt is nothing compared to the 290000Mt of lithium that could potentially be extracted from seawater.
We won't *ever* run out of lithium. The price may just waver a bit as the economics and technologies around extraction change.
Jones act only prevents shipping from US mainland to PR on non US ships. PR can still directly import oil from west africa on foreign hulls. In fact PR should get into the refining business and then ship the refined gas to the manland. That way the pain of the Jones act comes on the mainland consumers.
**Life is too short to be serious**
It's not that there aren't some applications, e.g. pumping water to "reservoirs", running air conditioning, where wind/solar can work fine today. It's that the high reliability and low costs US/Canadian electricity users are used to are VERY difficult to replicate on an island over a thousand fucking miles from the mainland.
Fixed it for you.
Nope, no sig
I'd take issue, AC, with "other technologies". For example:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
https://www.greentechmedia.com...
Straight up alkaline, abundant base materials, and the same technology can also be used to make other kinds of batteries. Bill Joy is Not An Idiot, although he did miss the chance to make Sun Microsystems' SunOS into Linux before Linux got off of the ground (and in the process, put the hurt on Microsoft) back when he had a perfectly good 386 Unix and nobody else did. Outside of that one mistake (and sure, it was a doozy) he isn't likely to be pulling a scam or anything like it. This is technology that is probably going to work, and will be commercialized (I'm guessing) in a lot less than five years if early mass-marketable prototypes work as well as the early demonstration cells do. Joy is talking about dropping the cost of house or car batteries from the current $500-ish/MWH to under $100/MWH, maybe as low as half that. And if you follow /. and other science sites, you must be aware that there are advances constantly being made in battery technologies that can, and almost certainly will, revolutionize energy storage within the next few years ASIDE from this one. Synthesis of different advances may yet make zinc oxide batteries work (which would be huge all by itself).
TESLA'S hype may not measure up to reality, but overall the reality is that battery technology is already cheap enough and robust enough to make houses that run well over 90% of the time fully off grid, houses that can run for one to two days on limited sun including AC, at an investment that amortizes in roughly 10 to 12 years at typical power prices. At PR prices of $0.20/KWH it would be more like 7 or 8 -- that is well above the national average. 8 year amortization is actually damn close to being a no-brainer, provided that you install hurricane-proof cells on hurricane-proof houses in a hurricane-prone part of the world, something that one really should do ANYWAY because it doesn't do anyone any good to build a house and have it blow away in a storm.
What Musk proposes is far from crazy, and could conceivably be one of the most cost-beneficial solutions -- but probably NOT if one buys it from Musk himself, as his prices for solar roofs and batteries are at least 50% higher than market average and kicks amortization back up to the 12 year plus level of not obviously worth it. If Joy's batteries come through with 1200+ recharge cycles at $60/KWH (and maybe fronted by supercapacitors to buffer daytime utilization and extend this still further) it will drop the amortization time for solarizing a house to five years at the up-front cost of a cheap car and with the loan repaid entirely by money saved on electricity. Well within five years all of this is going to happen no matter what happens with oil and coal and Paris accords or the like, driven by the simple fact that it will be the cheapest way to get power in 2/3 of the word. Power companies are already building solar as fast as they can afford to because for them, economies of scale already make it a no-brainer (they don't need batteries, for the most part, and can feed the energy straight into their grids to reduce fuel costs at their fuel based plants and avoid having to build expensive GW-scale new plants to keep up with demand).
It will be interesting to see whether or not centralized power generation and distribution survives my lifetime (at this point, likely to be somewhere between 10 and 20 years, small chances of 30 or more). I expect to put solar on both of my houses well within the decade not to save the Earth but to save money, sooner if batteries get cheaper faster and cell prices keep coming down or if meter prices for electricity go up. I'm waiting for
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
With Musks's batteries, the wires that need to be "reconnected" to the power generating facilities can be smaller - hence cheaper - because the batteries will take the local load during peak times, and recharge during off peak.
So, by distributing batteries accross the island, the grid can be smaller, and handle multiple sources, inclusive of oil, solar and wind.
Yeah, okay. You don't need to remove it. You can just replace it, but (assuming the hurricane destroyed the actual power stations; which I'm now uncertain about) there's not really a good business case to decommission a working power station and building a new one. If you are buildng a new one then it makes sense to consider alternatives.
The source of the energy is only part of the problem. If you rebuild the same distribution system, you're going to end up with the same problem. The power lines need to be buried and that costs a lot more money than stringing wire on poles.
The wires between houses need to be constructed in either scenario.
One of the benefits of on-prem solar is that the generation is distributed. So no, the two scenarios are not equivalent in terms of distribution (wires).
Before, the cost of existing infrastructure was zero. Now the cost of that infrastructure is the rebuild cost. It makes sense to explore more cost effective alternatives.
But much of the grid is still usable, just needing repair. The best bang for the buck would be to strategically bury select distribution line.
I don't know how big an area the Tesla solution can service, but I see no reason why you wouldn't break it into cells with some limited ability for adjacent cells to share power. You'd ultimately end up with a heavily fault-tolerant power grid, mostly enabled by the small cell size due to drastically smaller scale and increased number of power production facilities.
Because you'd still have wires going everywhere, you can also use them for data transmission. Hell, with proper foresight, you could set it up to support future expansion of broadband over power lines.
Finally, while it's likely they're just going to string up more wires on new poles... I'd suggest this is a great opportunity (regardless of what they use for power generation) for the government to build some infrastructure and employ a lot of ditch diggers to bury the new wires.
"BTW - What's green about huge stacks of Lithium-ion batteries?" Not spewing combustion products into the air. Recyclable/Reclaimable. Over the last 10 years, they've improved dramatically in energy density, longevity, and cost. And as slashdoters should know, they're still well under their theoretical potential.
From an engineer's POV, creating energy on demand is insane. We only do it because storing it has been too expensive. We SHOULD be aggressively pursuing practical energy storage solutions, not denigrating progress and clinging to the status quo. And since you like economics, try this:
Economies of scale: The cost of a full scale, mass market product = its marginal cost.
The marginal cost of wind and solar = $0. The marginal cost of oil, coal, and natural gas??? Solar panels today already last 25-30 years and their capital costs is MUCH less than any new power plant. Wind turbines are competing with nat gas today on levelized costs, thanks to scale. Most of the cost of wind turbines is in their construction, so larger turbines are more cost effective. Battery prices have plummeted by 400% in the last decade and are forecast to continue. Doubling the lifetime of a battery isn't like trying to double the efficiency of a heat engine (limited by carnot). As we understand the reactions better, it's very likely that we'll develop batteries that last practically forever. We have some today that can cycle 10,000 times (25 years at one full cycle per day). So if you see where this is going, these systems have virtually no marginal cost, their capital expenses are falling and their lifetimes are increasing. Coal, nat gas, etc. are at their limits.
Now, if you want to talk about nuclear fusion, ...
Yes, because poor-to-begin-with, hurricane-ravaged, probably-hungry and traumatized people are great at suddenly being physically fit enough to work long hours digging trenches? Sure. Keyboard critics (probably sitting in their parent's comfortable basement) always think everything is so easy.
I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
The period after a tragedy is no time to talk about solutions. Thoughts and prayers only, please.
Oh I see Elon had some mod points.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
63kg of lithium carbonate equivalent, not 63kg of lithium. Historically, lithium carbonate prices are $5-10/kg, although due to the rapid scaleups in battery production taking the slack out of the market, they're currently averaging around $15/kg (aka, under $1k for the aforementioned 63kg-carbonate pack). Seawater lithium carbonate costs are estimated at $20-30/kg.
Note that we're not even considering the supply from recycling at this point.
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
Not likely. Their grid is over 60 years old and has not really been upgraded, which is part of the reason why it was taken out. Need to upgrade it, which is very likely easier and cheaper by simply restarting.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Nice thought, but their is not just down, but wiped out. Not only is the wiring on the ground, but many of the cheap poles we're knocked over. Otoh, if they start fresh, put in a single high voltage line down the middle and then divide into say 4 grids, each with their own batteries, solar, they can then have redunacy in their system.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
BMW Series 5 sales:
Is wave power ready for practical use? Are there any commercial installations already working?
Shiny new infrastructure is what they need at this point. The old stuff is trashed!
A distributed system is ideal for an island, especially when hurricanes can blow everything to bits so often. In this case, two storms wiped out the whole grid.
Now the island has the chance to put power distribution lines for the island's grid underground since they are likely to get big hurricanes more often now, due to climate change.
With a bit of engineering foresight, the solar arrays could be designed with a "hunker-down" mode to better survive the high winds, especially for critical facilities. Solar installations can be designed to withstand 150+ mph winds with minimal damage if need be.
The cost of solar is comparable to the fossil fuel based systems, and critical facilities like hospitals and airports could be up and running again very quickly (using backup panels stored in a safe place) even if the rest of the grid was knocked out.
PlaynBass
You're assuming that the corporate-controlled Congress even cares about those people. What they want is their money. The fossil fuel companies that have a stranglehold on our economy don't want any forward-looking technology until they've finished gouging all USA for every penny they can get out of the old stuff.
PlaynBass
While I am a bit rolling my eyes at it too, there is a logic.
Currently, they only have grid power.
I don't think anyone is saying they won't have grid power with on-grid power plants, as is traditional.
It would not be a bad idea to *also* have batteries and distributed solar power generation.
As it stood, the grid got destroyed, all power gone save for a handful of generators.
If they had both, then the grid got destroyed *and* probably a lot of solar capacity also destroyed, but there would probably still be little spots of power generation that survived and could do a lot of good compared to zero power surviving.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Not likely to be feasible for the private solar capacity.
However, it is likely that some capacity would survive, so while not everyone would have their power, there might be enough spotty power to greatly improve conditions compared to total loss of grid.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
PR can still directly import oil from west africa on foreign hulls
That would require PR to have oil refineries.
Guess what PR doesn't have? And guess what there's virtually no economic incentive to build in PR, because there's lots of them on the mainland?
Even if Puerto Rico could afford such tech ( which it can't ), who is going to pay for those battery updates / replacements / maintenance going forward ?
I would also be curious to know how well those solar panels do in a Category X hurricane. We don't see a lot of installs here because the area is also a hurricane zone. Hell, most things become projectiles when introduced to a 130mph wind.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to install $$$ panels that will potentially become $$$ projectiles next hurricane season.
Let's face it, Tesla isn't breaking any production records here. So, your Model 3 may be a long time coming.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/0...
We're talking price/value here. By your definition something is overpriced if it isn't sold at break-even production costs or lower.
He should not just be talking about it. He should be doing it now... Today.
Lithium is fairly abundant but it is very widely distributed and there are few sources of high-quality "ore". Lithium brines contain 100-300ppm lithium. These are a good economical source of lithium, but the brines are fairly scare. Seawater contains about 0.2ppm lithium. It is not (currently) economical to recover lithium from seawater, but seawater is abundant. Lithium in the earth's crust is estimates to be about 20ppm (about half as abundant as copper, about twice as abundant as lead). If you removed the "water" from seawater, the resulting solids would be about 10ppm lithium. Given the mass of the worlds oceans and the mass of the earths crust, these trace amounts become very significant.
Also keep in mind that these ppm numbers are bases on mass, and lithium is a very light metal. A kg of lithium has a much larger volume than a kilogram of copper or lead.
Lithium can also be recovered from used batteries. The lithium is not "used up" in the process.
The bottom line is that there may be production issues and cost variance for lithium in the short term, but we will never "run out" of lithium to make batteries.
This would be an *excellent* moonshot.
Same as going to the moon is a great thing--but the *real* benefit is all we learned about organization, science, and technology (and sociology) along the way.
Go ahead.
I'm not a power guy, but I am an engineer (PLCs mostly).
I work for a small engineering firm and have for 20+ years. We've got talented folks that can help.
Where should I have my boss send the resumes?
So. Show me some shit.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Yes. One thing though. Current laws and regulations assume a centralized power distribution system with power distributed through a "tree" to users at the terminal nodes. As we've found with attempts be Google to run fibre, getting access to any portion of the existing infrastructure can run into a lot of obstruction. It'll probably be greater with power which is physically dangerous and probably really does require some regulation to prevent electrocution of passersby, pets, kids, fire, police, etc, etc, etc.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Good question. Lot's of wave power projects announced in the past ten or fifteen years. Very few completed. Probably are a few in place and delivering power, but when I spent a few hours a couple of years ago searching for data on just one working wave power facility, I couldn't find one. Not one.
BTW, an Australian company called Oceanlinx did build a couple of fairly serious facilities a few years ago. Both of them sank. It's not clear they ever produced enough power to establish a track record, and the company went into receivership in 2014.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
"We SHOULD be aggressively pursuing practical energy storage solutions"
Of course we should. And we (humanity) actually are. Really. DARPA alone funded about 50 projects last year. Lots of researchers and engineers in universities and companies in the US, EU, Japan, China, etc are working on various "battery" projects. Lots of money to be made from better energy storage.
Trouble is that people are impatient and want decades worth of R&D done no later than the end of November at the very latest.
Then there are the folks who think no R&D is necessary because the problems are already solved. Trying to confront them with reality is like arguing with a Sportsfan, Jihadi or Libertarian.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Yes, like all of the solar panels that blew away at the San Fermín plant? Oh wait...
Solar plants, like all plants, survive what you engineer them to survive.
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
I can't understand those numbers without a car analogy.
Because solar is the cheapest and the quickest to install.
A wind turbine is usually not bought of the shelf, if you order some now it might take a year until you get it. You need qualified people and equipment to set it up.
And: Elon Musk is in the solar business already, but not in the wind business.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why don't you google what the most common elements are on earth?
Before making an idiot out of yourself?
Ah .... you posted anonymous ... never mind then.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
5 series is a mid-size luxury, while model S is a full-size luxury. Direct competitor is 7 series.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We SHOULD be aggressively pursuing practical energy storage solutions, not denigrating progress and clinging to the status quo.
I agree. One storage solution I'd like to see given more money and publicity is the US Navy project to produce aviation fuel from seawater. The Navy sends out these large oilers carrying just gobs of JP-5, what is effectively just kerosene. For logistics and safety reasons they've standardized their ships, aircraft, generators, even the field cooking stoves, to run on JP-5. If we can scale up this process from just a lab experiment to something that can produce fuel at meaningful rates we can have nuclear power plants that produce this fuel for the community to power trucks, aircraft, generators, and cooking stoves. If the nuclear plant needs to be shutdown for any reason then we can have tanks of the fuel it produced to make up for the loss of it's power.
Put a nuclear power plant on Puerto Rico and the island should never have to worry about having a shortage of fuel again. To those that think a nuclear power plant would just melt down and render the island uninhabitable for eternity I say ask the Navy how to build a nuclear power plant, I'm quite sure they've never had a meltdown. In fact, put the power plant on a ship. If the weather is looking bad then pull up anchor and sail for calmer waters until the storm passes.
Now, if you want to talk about nuclear fusion, ...
Fusion energy does not exist today, fission energy does. You can talk about fusion all you like, the rest of us would like to actually solve the problem with fission now.
The marginal cost of wind and solar = $0. The marginal cost of oil, coal, and natural gas???
In other words the same marginal cost of nuclear power. Looks like solar power has it's own non-zero marginal costs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Solar panels today already last 25-30 years and their capital costs is MUCH less than any new power plant.
I'd like to see some data on that. We've seen hundreds of nuclear power plants last 40 years without issue, and we expect many of them to last 80 years.
Saying we can't build a nuclear power plant in North Dakota because of a tsunami that hit Fukushima is idiocy. Nuclear power is cheap, safe, clean, reliable, and plentiful. We're running the nearly non-existent risk of another Fukushima or Chernobyl (because we don't build nuclear power like that any more) against the near certainty of catastrophic global warming. Solar is expensive and unreliable. If we compare solar to nuclear then it's not as safe (comparing deaths to energy produced) or as green (CO2 released to energy produced).
Talking about fusion and solar power gets us no where. Fission gets us energy we can use today.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I will put my freezer, fridge and the wi-fi router on a long lasting battery. Before cost effective batteries, the ICU determined the minimum level of service that should be guaranteed by the grid. With batteries, easily 80% of the load can accept low grade power with 99% up time and tolerate power outages lasting a day or two. Now ICU, data centers and freezer need to pay for their demands unsubsidized by millions of others.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Burying power mains is ungodly expensive compared to above ground, and it takes much longer to install - how much longer should Puerto Ricans wait to get electricity and how much more will they be willing to pay for that electricity?
Ken
You are assuming Musk isn't in this just for himself. He fucks over all of his workers and investors and customers every single second of every single day. Look at the brand-new nuclear power plants that were to be built in the mainland USA for 9 billion, already over budget to the tune of 21 billion, despite a payoff of nearly 3 billion from the manufacturer. Yes - billion is the correct scale for each of those numbers. Now, that is with decades of development of the new nuclear reactors, and the cost overruns are from changes in engineering plans, but for a brand new project with no proven working model costs are subject to even greater variance. If Musk can say "1 billion" but know it will cost 100 billion in reality he will do it, and the project will just get shut down the same way around the 30 billion mark, with PR fucked over as much as by the hurricanes.
The wires between houses need to be constructed in either scenario.
I'm not sure you understand how PV and batteries work...
> Man has product to sell, says his item is the one.
Shades of MONORAIL [a.k.a. TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY]
Friend... either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated the suggestion of 'solar 'n storage'! Well, ya got trouble, my friend! Right here in Puerto Rico! Why sure I'm a solar fan, certainly mighty proud I say.... I'm always mighty proud to say... I consider that the hours I spend cultivatin' the little solar patch on my roof golden.
Helps you cultivate self-sufficiency it does, and a keen eye for conservation. It takes judgment, brains, and gumption money to score in the personal energy game, but any boob kin shove a tiny bit 'o power onto the grid when the conditions are right. But the power companies call that sloth. They call it 'negative load'. The first big step on the road to the depths of deg-ra-Day-- I say! First, subsynchronous resonance from a passing cloud, then a phase whammy, then stressin' Northbound South and Eastbound West, slap-a-doodle backflash jigglety pop. An' the next thing ya know, your local energy co-op is doing a no-op and the money's flowing backwards too, some big out-a-town Jasper is undercuttin' the power plant that serves your bread an' butter, but only when it suits 'im. He's gonna suck yer plants dry puttin' folks out 'o work, then swallow you whole!
'Cause energy's not a trottin' race, see? Not this great industrial country! Ne'er has been! Where a little from here and a bit from there lights up everywhere, you take care! It ain't a race when they call the shots and some stuck-up slickers get in your knickers 'an plant Enron stickers on your electric bills to make your blood boil? Well that's night soil, I should say!
Now, friends, lemme tell you what I mean. Ya may have one, two, three, four, five, six plants in your state. Gigawatt plants that mark the difference between a gentlemen and a bum, 'cause they bring jobs with a capital 'J' from bonds with a 'B' that rhymes with 'P' that stands for PAY! And pay they will unless they're fritter'n away their time spinnin' at idle 'cuz solar is waxing at noontime, waning at suppertime, dropping out in the rain and ice storms too! Wind is worse! The grid is cursed! Between time, disaster time, who's left holding the ball? That my friend is YOU 'cuz your power plants are sufferin' as subsidies are flowin' and solar fat cats are strummin' the grid like a money makin' banjo in its time of need. And the microgrid folks demandin' retail from power companies that could get it wholesale... what greed!
Now you can't fault the Sun, folks, for not shinin' at night, growin' dandelions in Winter. But it can't cook your electric dinner or pump yer city water or treat yer waste with haste! Show me a man who flushes into the City, thinks he's sittin' pretty with his solar lights ain't hardly bright enough to read by! How did we come by, forgive me, such fools? They're tools! Wearin' fancy duds may as well been knit from coal, countless other things massive energy brings. And that's trouble, Oh, yes we got lots and lots a' trouble. I'm thinkin' of the kids in the schools warm through the Winter, big buildings here and there, night lights everywhere, 'cause we've got energy to spare and haven't a care! But now Puerto Rico's laid bare!
Wires and poles on the ground all around! Not a pretty sight, you should cross yourself 'an hope it will never happen to you, but what to do? Gotta put 'em up agin, no doubt about it. But here comes trouble, folks, trouble's come to Puerto Rico. Trouble with a capital "T" And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for Powerwall!
Now I know all you folks like the scent of Musk, but I'm gonna be perfectly frank, his ideas stink. He may have the future in a bottle but that future looks like snake oil. Would ya like to know what kinda co
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Good point. However, using a distributed power system, and concentrating on putting the largest installations near the critical systems (Hospitals, etc) would limit the number and length of underground mains. Neighborhoods could be largely self-sufficient, requiring fewer above-ground transmission lines overall, which could be designed for the 150+ mph winds.
PlaynBass