431–440 of 590 posts
Payback time on the 10kWh battery would be around 26 years, and on the 7kWh battery would be 33 years.
So, at least in the midwest, I think you'd have to be either using a ton of peak energy or coupling the battery pack with solar to make the investment worth it.
The competition doesn't sleep: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sungevity-and-so... In fact they seem to be ahead. Sonnenbattery offers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery since 2011 in Germany. For technical details see http://www.sonnenbattery.com/strom-energie-speicher/sonnenba...
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> But lithium is still not cheap. Lithium is extremely cheap. The cost of the Lithium has practically no impact on the cost of the batteries. Most of the cost of batteries is work. This venture makes sense because as lithium batteries are used, they lose capacity, and thus their specific energy gets worse. At this point, they are no longer very useful for cars, yet still can be used for other things. As Tesla recover…
Recycling this way batteries that are not good for cars but fine for less demanding applications would be really smart. Is there any indication that they actually do this?
A quick analysis of our local (St Louis) rates for an average (1700 sq ft) suburban house indicate that time shifting to get peak rate savings isn't worth it: Payback time on the 10kWh battery would be around 26 years, and on the 7kWh battery would be 33 years. So, at least in the midwest, I think you'd have to be either using a ton of peak energy or coupling the battery pack with solar to make the investment worth i…
Funny that something called Tesla Energy brings back direct current to the home. I wonder how many people will catch that.
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The environmental impact shouldn't be significantly more than any other hunk of metal of the same mass. And that has to be weighed against the fact that cost-efficient battery technology can make solar/wind viable and cost-effective relative to fossil fuel plants.
There's about $10,000 worth of work in a battery. It's not just a hunk of metal, it goes through a very complicated and energy intensive creation process. The cost of the raw lithium is about 1% of the cost of the battery. It's engineering it in a very precise way that's expensive.
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Gas fumes are very flammable, but the gasoline itself will flow down and out of my garage, and the fire would be very easy to contain with a simple garden hose. A gas can also will not light on fire just because it gets hit with a car. It would take malicious use of a gas can -- splashing it on a wall and then lighting it on fire -- to match the default configuration of a Powerwall.
You ever try to put out a gasoline fire with a garden hose?
Lithium fires do not require oxygen, so your typical Class ABC fire extinguishers won't actually work on it. You need a class D (dry powder) extinguisher, which is very rare and expensive.
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The key to successful Solar Living is an understanding of energy efficiency. Suggesting running an electric oven on solar is crazy talk.
Is it that crazy? The amount of energy you'll spend on an electric oven isn't that large, relative to your overall consumption, unless you run a bakery or have somebody in your house who does nothing but make cookies and bread all day.
However, I replaced my electric with gas last year.
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>" but it's not like Elon Musk has saved the world just yet." "I choose to rent, I choose to have no property rights over the building I live in, I choose to be legally incapable of installing solar panels and batteries on a structure I don't own: Elon Musk has failed me" Come on now. You made your choice to not be a part of the greater community and culture of property owners. These options, they're available to own…
Oh, give me a break. Asking your landlord to switch ISPs is not the same as instantly acquiring 100 grand to buy yourself a Tesla automobile. Nor is it the same as instantly having the financial and personal freedom to say "I'm going to go buy some property!" Have you ever considered that some people can't buy certain things because they don't have the means to do so? (Save me the tirade of libertarian talking points…
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I would guess for most people it would show an ROI number that is not conducive to sales. 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.
I agree. Strangely, all of these issues were conveniently left out of the article. Not sure everybody knows this, but its not economically feasible to recycle these batteries: "Recycled lithium is as much as five times the cost of lithium produced from the least costly brine based process. It is not competitive for recycling companies to extract lithium from slag, or competitive for the OEMs to buy at higher price po…
the lithium, although lithium is sometimes thought of as a bigger thing than it really is for lithium ion cell.
It’s like using maybe a couple percent of the cell mass, but the biggest cost constituent is nickel
There's a great analysis of material constraints here [1].
1. http://seekingalpha.com/article/654441-ev-myths-and-realitie...