341–350 of 590 posts
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You're all over this thread, shitting on Tesla. Why? No, I don't want to hear what you're already thinking about typing. I want you to ask yourself why. I don't actually care (you're some stranger, we'll probably never talk again) -- but you should.
That attack was really uncalled for. I'm a Tesla fan, but it gets tiring how only enthusiastic comments are allowed in certain threads on HN.
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Or anyone who lives on Earth with a vested interest in limiting carbon emissions.
I think I'd want to see an environment impact assessment of manufacturing the batteries.
"The share of the total environmental impact of E-mobility caused by the battery (measured in Ecoindicator 99 points) is 15%. The impact caused by the extraction of lithium for the components of the Li-ion battery is less than 2.3% (Ecoindicator 99 points). The major contributor to the environmental burden caused by the battery is the supply of copper and aluminum for the production of the anode and the cathode, plus the required cables or the battery management system."
The copper and aluminium foils that make up the electrodes of the battery dominate. Both these metals are highly recyclable. Not much Li-ion recycling goes on currently as there's lots of different battery shapes + sizes, and there haven't been the economies of scale. I would imagine that whatever technology Tesla have standardised on, there will be (possibly closed loop) recycling plants.
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Some people (like me) are simply unwilling to keep using carbon-based sources of energy. At some point it just feels awful to be contributing to such a terrible problem. I'm counting the days till I can sell my worn out petrol car and get an electric car. If I had a home and dollars, I'd want one of these batteries.
I feel like a backup generator is the last place where I would make my decisions based on the environment. I mean how long is it actually going to be active? Also batteries aren't exactly environment friendly either.
What I'd love to see is a ROI calculator that: * uses my zip code to figure out what my non-peak costs might be. * allows me to optionally calculate solar energy capture (so I can see what impact having solar would be, given the average sunny days in my area) * takes into account the wear and tear average cold weather would have on the lifetime of the batter and the payback period. For example, I live in Michigan, an…
Also, what is the environmental impact of the manufacture of LI batteries at this scale? Lithium mining, processing, assembly, delivery... we can't just ignore that.
What I'd love to see is a ROI calculator that: * uses my zip code to figure out what my non-peak costs might be. * allows me to optionally calculate solar energy capture (so I can see what impact having solar would be, given the average sunny days in my area) * takes into account the wear and tear average cold weather would have on the lifetime of the batter and the payback period. For example, I live in Michigan, an…
My tweet from a few days ago: It would be poignant if Tesla (the company) decentralized power generation & storage considering free energy was Tesla's (the man) dream
Everyone has known what this announcement was going to be for a month.
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I feel like a backup generator is the last place where I would make my decisions based on the environment. I mean how long is it actually going to be active? Also batteries aren't exactly environment friendly either.
That may well be how you feel, but lately I feel like any burning of petrol is just disgusting (though I still do it as I cannot afford alternatives at the moment). I want to completely divest from fossil fuels, even for intermittent use. That's as much for the social value of saying "yeah I don't use fossil fuels and it's great" as it is for the environmental impact. I want to try all this tech to be an early adopte…
I'm going to install a 9kW solar grid on my roof in the next couple of months - capital cost is ~$40K USD. Without the Power Wall, I'd be selling power back to the utility at around $0.10 / kWh, and buying it back at $0.09 / kWh in the evenings. The Power Wall will also let me endure grid outages as well (you can't run your house on your solar panels directly). I'm really curious about what the end-user cost is going…
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You missed an additional subset of users. I live in an old neighborhood that experiences power outages and fluctuations once or twice a year. This is fantastic and something I will be installing as soon as I can. So older neighborhoods, rural areas with inconsistent power supply. All of these potentially benefit from this.
How is a power outage once or twice a year problematic? Did you mean once or twice a month? (Just curious :)