Congrats Danielle.
Thank you!
Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Khosla fund LightSail Energy in $37M Deal
131–135 of 135 posts
Re: Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Khosla fund LightSail Energy in $37M Deal
#132Congrats! The ideas behind this are amazing, and I'm happy to see some folks really trying to make a difference in this market even in the wake of some nasty history (albeit not your own).
Thank you!
Re: Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Khosla fund LightSail Energy in $37M Deal
#133Awesome! Fingers crossed for a 2014 ship date!
Our fingers would be crossed too, were we not using them for engineering ;-)
Re: Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Khosla fund LightSail Energy in $37M Deal
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's one thing to say that the FDA stands in the way of progress in medicine, however what regulatory framework would you suggest be put in its place to protect consumers if it was removed? I would argue that the break is not on technological progress, (I could scarcely imagine it possible that 10, or even 5 years of current progress could be achieved in 1, as you imply) - but in the practical application of these ad…
Two thoughts for your consideration. 1) Opt-out. Allow anyone to opt-out of the FDA. That is, allow terminal patients/early adopters/test pilots to voluntarily buy products from companies before the FDA certifies them as safe and effective. For example, people might decide that they will use drugs that have cleared Phase I trials and proven safe , and use their own judgment for whether the drug is effective . Essenti…
That's interesting, thank-you for jumping in with a reply.
I don't disagree with pt 1, but feel that multiple regulators or regulatory aggregates can complicate the process and allow a lot of trash in... At the moment (and I must say I come from Australia so I don't fully understand the intricacies of the FDA, but we have a similar body here; and I am involved in Medicine so that is where this next bit of perspective comes from) having a single body in charge of approved treatments also serves a role of keeping the trash out. By this, I mean alt-med and all the rest of it.
For example, what would stop a total charlatan from coming to market, using all the tricks of personality and promotion that alt-med treatments do today, but in the absence of a single body meant to represent society's best interests to say 'this is fraud', winning the favour of, for example, cancer patients, taking their hard earned, getting good reviews, and then the patients dying?
It's hard enough to stop this kind of thing from happening even now, but in the absence of a single regulator/presence of multiple agencies the scammers can slip through the cracks, their clients die so there aren't any bad reviews, and they build nice houses and piles of money.
I would also hate to be a Doctor in this environment; it is hard enough being a GP in this day and age with Dr Google suggesting treatments and diagnoses to patients and more and more patients presenting with reams of paper fresh from the internet insistent that they have some deadly tropical disease; Under this system we would have patients presenting with serious conditions insisting that they want this treatment over that one because they read a review online saying this or that.
Food for thought anyway. I agree that something needs to be done and think it is a bit of a minefield trying to work out how to strike the right balance of regulation whilst also reducing red tape
Re: Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Khosla fund LightSail Energy in $37M Deal
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your calculations appear be within an order of magnitude of correct :-) One other way to think of the number of shipping containers needed: actually the average american home uses 30 kwh/day. At our target energy density and efficiency we've been attempting to reach 30 kwh per m^3. 1 m^3 is approximately the internal volume of a refrigerator. So each home gets 1 fridge worth of storage. Not so bad ;-)
> Your calculations appear be within an order of magnitude of correct Being within an order of magnitude is absolutely fantastic for a quick set of calcs with unverified data pulled out of various 'net sites! So, about 6,000psi for 1m^3 ? I was just looking at this: http://www.nuvair.com/storage-storagetank.shtml Their NUVT6000 tanks will do it. Specs: Outside diameter: 9.4in Height: 52in Weight (empty): 195lbs. Air…
You are of by a factor of ten: 108,000,000/34,000,000,000 = 108/34,000 = 0.003-ish m^3, or 3 liters of gas to produce those 30kWh. That is in line with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline, which claims 9.7kWh/l. So, the volumetric difference between battery and gas is 30, not 3. If it were only a factor of 3, as in your calculations, I think all cars would be electric by now.