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

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] Trump Is Obsessed With Oil, but Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World

": a big Diesel loco can produce 4 MW each."

>...Spike, do you have any idea of what it would take to connect those locomotives to the grid?

I wasn't proposing to connect them to a grid.  That is the strength of that idea.  The power would only be used to run microprocessors.

>...Some of them even make DC...

DC is what we want for microprocessors.  We want to push a lot of current up to a small voltage.

>...There are reasons, particularly economic, why oil was phased out of power production 40 years ago.  If you want more power rapidly, the least expensive way is gas turbines burning natural gas.  That's what Musk did in Memphis to the dismay of the locals...

Gas turbines are good too.  

Where I was going with it is that the big Diesels are available now, and the demand for power is now.

>..."Coal plants can be brought online faster"

>...I don't know if the skills exist here anymore...

Coal plants are not at all complicated.  All the equipment to make those go are with us.  The turbines are the same regardless of what heat source is boiling the water.

>...Might get the Chinese to build them if you absolutely insist on coal and can get the permits.

Keith

Keith I really think we can figure out how to make coal fired boilers.  That technology hasn't changed much in 100 years.  They filter the soot out of the exhaust now, and I think they neutralize the NOx, but the process can be fired up quickly enough I would think.  There may even be idled coal burners which can be fired up.  I toured on in Trona California which I think is currently idle because of California emissions restrictions, which do not apply in Nevada.

What I don't know is how the SCOTUS Chevron Decision of June 2024 would impact the process.  One might think it would speed it up.

spike