I’m really hoping this is a temporary problem.

There are a lot of very large batteries in the process of being built that will start to meaningfully address this issue in the next couple of years.

When you “mine” natural gas and burn it for heat, it’s gone. It disappears (and produces harmful GHG in the process) You have to keep doing this to get more output.

When you mine materials for batteries, you end up with a physical thing that persists, can be used over and over and can be recycled into new batteries at end of life.

This means the amount of mining required for renewables + batteries is proportional to only the addition of new capacity, whereas the amount of “mining” for fossil fuels is proportional to the total gross energy output (including significant heat losses)

We’re mining a lot of battery materials now, but that’s because we’re adding a crapload of capacity.

It says in the article that this is likely an exaggeration.

American exceptionalism at its finest.

It’s such a dumb metric for batteries. I wish people would stop using it.

Thanks for the heads up!

Welcome news after a depressing week of toxic energy debate here in Aus.

Nuclear: to maintain baseline power (as opposed to peak power) for emergency scenarios.

That’s an incredibly expensive emergency power supply. If you can’t operate a nuclear plant 24/7 it’s going to take a veeeeerry long time to pay off the massive capital investment.

And that’s the crux of the issue. These plants won’t be supplying baseload. By the time they get built we will have twice as much rooftop solar, and lots more utility wind and solar. There will be very little room for them to operate at a spot price that earns them money.

No Home app support? Oof.

Melbourne, Australia

Does this apply on the dark side of Earth? I.e. during night time?

The policy will be backdated to June 1 2023

Excellent!

Same.

First Tesla and now Polestar have quit membership of the FCAI due to the automotive peak body’s misrepresentation of, and lobbying against, the government’s proposed fuel efficiency standards: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/tesla-quits-fcai-over-carbon-emissions-scheme/103558374

I applaud them for calling out the BS publicly. I hope others brands follow, and I hope this story increases scrutiny on the misinformation being pushed. Unfortunately, this leaves the FCAI free to adopt an even more conservative position in its advocacy without dissenting member voices.

Yeah. As much as I love every little bit of information we can get from inside SpaceX, it kinda feels weird coming from Elon now. Like can we even trust what he’s saying anymore? I mean I hope it’s just a trivial purging of LOX that was at fault, and that’s an easy fix, but is that the whole story? What about the booster?

This is exactly how Trumpism gets seeded into mainstream Australia. Dutton can fuck right off with his racist dogwhistling, and find something better to complain about.

That was Kitty. She does that a lot. https://youtu.be/u1alISOTGfE

Counterpoint to your counterpoint: Due to renewables becoming cheaper and cheaper, private investment is pumping in capital en masse because the economics work out on their own. There is less and less room for government policy to set the direction. The market will decide.

I honestly don’t know how a nuclear power plant could be anywhere near profitable when 30% of the time we have negative power prices due to rooftop solar. Batteries are already edging out gas plants on a LCOE basis, and they’re getting cheaper by the day.

By the time the Liberals get in and try to implement their nuclear fever dream, there will be no cheaper form of energy than distributed solar + batteries and no sane financier will back anything else.

Cool. Next!