[ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
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>>…And wind turbines and solar energy farms are certainly forms of energy production…

 

>…Sure.  So why go on about batteries?  Those who write articles should focus on the means to charge the batteries.  They should also offer a complete picture: the environmental impact of energy storage over the life cycle, the cost over the life cycle, etc.  spike

 

 

Politics should be out of energy production and storage.  We in California learned a hard lesson on that, with a ballot measure to require California’s power supplier to buy 30% of its power from a company producing renewable power.  The company told us that the upper practical limit for renewable was around 16%.  Above that, the power gets ever much more expensive.  

 

The opposition offered Washington state and Oregon as counter examples, for they generate over 50% of their power by renewable sources, and oh how shall we cope, other states are AHEAD of mighty CALIFORNIA, swoon, details not available, not upon request, not even upon stern demand, pay the bill and go away. 

 

After all is said and done, turns out… the power company was telling the truth.  When that measure passed, power was about 17 cents.  Now it is about 41, and it is still rising, for a reason the power company really doesn’t want to talk about, but I will, if anyone wants to know: in California, if an apartment dweller stops paying his utility bill, the power company will usually not turn off his power, for good reasons.  The cost goes to those who do pay.  Over time, more and more apartment dwellers are discovering they don’t need to pay those bills.

 

Deetz cheerfully available on request.

 

Now with the singularity upon us, decarbonizing power production is irrelevant.  Now it is all about who controls AI, and how to provide it with sufficient power to control it.  To kill us all and generate unimaginable wealth, you know, the kinds of things AI does so well.

 

There’s no need to fool ourselves: AI in the hands of humanity already IS a weapon.  In the culture wars raging in the USA and Europe over immigration, AI is already being used as a powerful weapon, already is forcing free speech on countries which aren’t sure they want it and those sure they don’t want it.  But there is no practical or plausible defense really, unless you want to turn off the internet, as Iran is trying to do now, and being subverted by Mr. Musk’s accursed Starlink.  

 

The British government, having created Amelia, is seeing her turned it into a powerful memetic weapon in the culture war.  I hear Sweden was inspired to create its own version of Amelia, and by the end of this week, good chance the rest of Europe will have their version too.  All that AI Amelia-generation requires electric power.  Coal is still the power source which can be built in the least time with the least money.  Greenland is still and ideal place for that, for it has the fewest land-use restrictions.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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