[ExI] The Futurism of Elon Musk

[Dylan Distasio]

On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 11:25 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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> *From:* spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>
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> Sure, we have power shortages now, particularly at sunset on hot days,
> but… there is a solution to that, and Mr. Musk will sell it to us.
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You wouldn't need a solution if your state faced the reality of its energy
needs and balanced them appropriately against the unreliability of a
heavily "green" solar/wind grid.   Whenever I hear a green speak against
nukes (not you, I realize), I know they don't take climate change
seriously themselves or have zero understanding of the amount of power
actually needed to end up zero emissions and still actually produce enough
power for our needs overall.   California has made a conscious decision to
deprioritize carbon based sources and unfortunately its residents are
paying the price.  I realize the bulk of the grid is not alternative even
in CA, but enough of it is that there is not going to be enough peak
capacity if ANYTHING else goes offline at the same time, like a NG fired
plant.   There is not enough redundancy from traditional carbon based
sources (or nukes).


> So… Mr. Musk offers a nifty (expensive but hip) solution called the Power
> Wall.  It is little more than a bunch of Tesla batteries that is part of
> your house.  It has its own high capacity inverter and all that, so if (eh…
> when) the power goes out, no problem, your good old Power Wall keeps all
> your stuff (except the AC) going right on as if nothing happened, and if
> you really have a lot of money it can even run your AC.
>

The Power Wall is a cool idea, but the energy density unsurprisingly sucks
compared to hydrocarbons.  One Wall is not cheap and has a relatively small
13.5kWh capacity.   That's not going to last very long if you are trying to
power a well equipped household during a heat wave.   I'm sure it's fine
for in home solar in an area where that makes sense combined with grid to
smooth things out overnight, but I don't think it's too much to ask in a
supposedly first world country to have a reliable electrical grid to avoid
needing these in every home.

Outside of the noise and attempting to get gas into it without spilling
any, I marvel at the miracle of the old fashioned portable generator.  I
bought one during Sandy, and had to break it out during Isaias when our own
sucky local utility Eversource was somehow caught completely off guard by
it and it took 6+ days to restore power here on the East Coast in my
neighborhood.  I have a Generac GP5500 which was enough to keep things
going and comfortable, with room to spare for the neighbor to power his
fridge and charge his devices.   At some point, I'd like to splurge to have
the generator connection wired to the circuitbreaker so I don't have a
rat's nest of extension cords strewn throughout the house to deal with
though, in addition to having to manually wire the boiler temporarily into
a cord for hot water.

Anyways, I'm all for what Musk is trying to do outside of his hucksterism
in general and around self driving cars in particular with his
overpromising on existing technology that could easily get someone killed.
I'm a fan of his overall, but he's got a bit too much of P.T. Barnum about
him than I would like.

It would be great to have a quantum leap in battery technology though
despite the incremental progress continuing to be made with lithium ion.
 That would be a game changer.
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