Tag: images

Tesla Energy

A fitting memento on the day when Tesla announces plans to bring 50 GWh / year of li-ion battery online (current world production is 27 GWh): The Tesla induction motor has been called one of the 10 greatest inventions of all time.
2015-03-10: Check out this site visit at the first Gigafactory. When complete, it will be the largest footprint manufacturing building in the world. The scale can be deceiving; this 2-story structure is 24m tall.

2016-10-28: The powerwall is extremely impressive. The difference between wantrepreneurs like “secret” and actual ones is off the scale

Musk didn’t waste anybody’s time. He used that time to present a problem of critical importance (eliminating humanity’s use of fossil fuels), explained how it can be addressed, and offered a plausible solution in the form of a new product — one that’s priced within reach of a lot of people and available to order. Amazingly, all of those things are actually pretty rare to see in one show. Tesla’s presentation was inspiring, and Musk wasn’t selling some fancy scifi trinket that has the benefit of Star Trek nostalgia. Dude was selling a battery.

2019-06-07: Tesla has a big lead for dry batteries

Tesla cars have been able to last for 1.6M km but starting in 2020 the battery packs will be able to last for 1.6M km. Currently, the battery packs last for 500-800K km. Most non-electric cars only can last 160-320K km. Tesla will start using battery domination in 2020 with significantly longer lasting and higher energy density batteries. This will enable Tesla to use a mix of better prices and higher performance to win electric cars, electric trucks and with electric taxis.

2019-10-15: They’re investing in their battery manufacturing

Tesla bought Hibar Systems, a world leader in the development of battery manufacturing technology. Hibar is truly unique in its capability to provide the world’s leading manufacturers with innovative advanced automation solutions that are engineered specifically to suit their production automation requirements ranging from simple single station bottle filling systems to sophisticated high-speed assembly systems running in excess of 1000 parts per minute. This unique capability is made possible through Hibar’s vertically integrated structure.

2019-11-30: Over time, their batteries can get 3x cheaper

Lithium Ion batteries can get 3x cheaper than current average prices of $180 per kwh to $50-60 per kwh.

2020-10-02: By doing all this, they’re speeding up the industry by decades.

If Tesla achieves the goals of Battery Day then they bring forward the electrification of transportation and energy by decades. BloombergNEF projected lithium-ion batteries to halve their cost by 2030. Tesla plans to halve the cost by 2023. Half of what Tesla would do in 2030 and 2031 would surpass the cumulative projection of energy storage installations by 2040.

2020-10-21: They’ve, as of late 2020, achieved 5m km lifespans. This is enough charge cycles to last 25 years, longer than the cars, so the batteries can be reused for other applications, and can do other functions like grid storage.

If batteries become 2x cheaper over 7 years and 120 Gigabattery factories are made then combustion engine cars are replaced and Tesla is worth 50x more than today.

Victorian Calling Cards

Victorian calling cards were a social grace, with their own detailed guidance for design and use (Archive.org web view of Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home, by Emily Post, 1922). Calling or visiting cards ranged from basic engraved cards to rather elaborate pieces with flaps and frills, hand-tinting and transparent images, though men typically had more sparse cards. Men also could use acquaintance cards to politely declare their interest in a young lady, with text and/or illustrations.

Space junk

remember the premise of gravity?

Japan’s space agency will launch a space trawler that will drag a giant aluminium and steel net while orbiting Earth, hoping to bag itself some space junk.

there are 100m pieces of space junk.
2014-04-10:

Asteroids and comets that cross Earth’s orbit pose a credible risk of impact, with potentially severe disturbances to Earth and society. Numerous risk mitigation strategies have been described, most involving dedicated missions to a threatening object. We propose an orbital planetary defense system capable of heating the surface of potentially hazardous objects to the vaporization point as a feasible approach to impact risk mitigation.

including immediate applications like getting rid of space debris as you scale it up.

2014-05-03:

Abandoned artificial satellites. Tanks jettisoned from shuttles. Refuse generated during space station construction. This junk, space debris, is traveling around the Earth at speeds approaching 8 km/s. This is a story of 2075, a time in which this space garbage has become a serious problem. This is Planetes, a near-future hard scifi story that focuses on a small group of debris collectors who are part of a larger company. Both the original manga and the anime adaptation set small personal stories and dramas in the realistic context of near-future space exploration, complete with radiation sickness, impacts of growing up on the moon, and of course, the dangers of space debris.

2015-11-03: this is why we need giant lasers to vaporize that shit.

2019-04-24:

There are 130m tiny bits of debris floating in orbit that, due to their high velocity, can cause catastrophic damage to space vehicles and satellites. Researchers are developing a compact orbiting device to semi-autonomously seek out the debris and catch it in a net.

Robot enforcers


In Kinshasa, traffic congestion is a serious problem. Few drivers bother to obey signs, lights, or even human traffic directors. It was a snarled free-for-all. Until the robots showed up. Isaie Therese designed and built 2 2.5m, classic Robbie the Robot-style automatons to take over traffic-directing duties, and the plan is working.

this will be interesting to watch as the novelty wears off and the robot overlord has to smash a few things for “encouragement”