Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
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Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#2> Straubel ended his talk with a slide that featured a quote from Sheikh Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister: "The stone age came to an end not for lack of stones. And the oil age will come to an end not for lack of oil."
I remember when calling long distance was a big deal. It cost real money, and multiple big companies specialized in it and competed fiercely. Today for Internet connected folks, long distance phone calling is too cheap to meter.
It's not just that the price fell, although it did. It's that better technologies came along--cell phones and Internet--and the remaining cost of long distance just become embedded in them.
It's interesting to think of where energy generation or storage costs might become embedded. Homes? Cars? Appliances?
How much energy storage do you have in your house right now? Looking around right now, I've got 3 laptops, 2 tablets, and a smartphone in view. We're slowly accumulating watt-hours, just as a side effect of buying mobility.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#3Utility grade solar already has a less then 8 year payback. For profit companies are setting up money making solar plants in the SW right now. Solar here. I applaud the Saudis for shutting off fracking in US. It was kinda like a fever that cleared the system of pathogens.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#4> Straubel ended his talk with a slide that featured a quote from Sheikh Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister: "The stone age came to an end not for lack of stones. And the oil age will come to an end not for lack of oil." I remember when calling long distance was a big deal. It cost real money, and multiple big companies specialized in it and competed fiercely. Today for Internet connected folks, long distance phone…
I anxiously await the plucky zoning committee that decides to make it a zoning requirement that all new roofs must be made of solar panels.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#5> Straubel ended his talk with a slide that featured a quote from Sheikh Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister: "The stone age came to an end not for lack of stones. And the oil age will come to an end not for lack of oil." I remember when calling long distance was a big deal. It cost real money, and multiple big companies specialized in it and competed fiercely. Today for Internet connected folks, long distance phone…
I anxiously await the plucky zoning committee that decides to make it a zoning requirement that all new roofs must be made of solar panels.
If I were mayor, I would require new construction to have 1kw of grid intertied solar per unit.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#6Utility grade solar already has a less then 8 year payback. For profit companies are setting up money making solar plants in the SW right now. Solar here. I applaud the Saudis for shutting off fracking in US. It was kinda like a fever that cleared the system of pathogens.
You are wrong on the Saudis: lowering the price of oil had the main effect of making most energy alternatives less interesting in the near future, effectively buying them some extra time.
It also had the effect of making fracking too expensive, but I bet they didn't care much about it.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#7> Straubel ended his talk with a slide that featured a quote from Sheikh Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister: "The stone age came to an end not for lack of stones. And the oil age will come to an end not for lack of oil." I remember when calling long distance was a big deal. It cost real money, and multiple big companies specialized in it and competed fiercely. Today for Internet connected folks, long distance phone…
I anxiously await the plucky zoning committee that decides to make it a zoning requirement that all new roofs must be made of solar panels.
Palo Alto is already trying it
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/04/13/palo-alto-set-...
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#8Electricity already is very cheap. But I'm happy to know that it will be even cheaper, and cleaner.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#9Electricity will become cheaper thanks to renewable energies (Solar, Wind...) and energy storage improvements (Batteries). But, I think we should point out that those energies represent large investments at first. For instance, building solar electricity plants is very expensive, the same way as Wind power.
Germany is a good example: they stopped nuclear plants to increase their renewable energy production but costs of electricity increased a lot there.
I'd say electricity costs will go up first (because of high investments) and then will decrease.
Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years
#10Utility grade solar already has a less then 8 year payback. For profit companies are setting up money making solar plants in the SW right now. Solar here. I applaud the Saudis for shutting off fracking in US. It was kinda like a fever that cleared the system of pathogens.
Saudi Arabia hasn't shut off fracking in the US in any respect.
As of July 3rd, US crude oil production was 9.6 million barrels per day. The highest in at least 32 years. This is one year after the price of oil began to plunge. Since December / January, when oil particularly got cheaper, US crude production has expanded another 5%.
In fact, the Saudis have accomplished the effect of forcing US companies to innovate and make fracking even cheaper. What people seem to fail to understand about fracking, is that it's a shift in technology, not a temporary blip. It will continue to get cheaper and more efficient, and it will spread globally, leading to a wave of oil for decades. Just wait until you see what US frackers can do in Mexico with a liberalized oil market there.
As an example of technology making fracking cheaper, meet re-fracking:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-06/refracking...