Tesla to build Shanghai factory to make Megapack batteries

[Finishline42]

Rumors of another one for Europe. Megapacks allow utilities to store excess wind and solar energy for times of peak demand.

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is opening a factory in Shanghai, capable of producing ten thousand Megapack energy product per year, to supplement output of Megapack factory in California, the company said in a tweet on Sunday.

(edit)

Elon Musk's automaker will break ground on the plant in the third quarter and start production in the second quarter of 2024, Xinhua reported from a signing ceremony in Shanghai.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-build-shanghai-gigafactory-make-energy-storage-product-xinhua-2023-04-09/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Feeding the Eloon Balloon

[NNadir]

2. ...

Applause for waste?

The Number of Tesla Powerwalls Required That Would Address the Current German Dunkleflaute Event.

The specifications say that each Powerwall® weighs 114 kg, meaning that 30,369,600,000 kg of Powerwalls® would be required just for Germany.

According to Forbes, 15% of the weight of a Tesla Powerwall is cobalt, mined by Elon's happy Congolese slaves, meaning that the happy Congolese cobalt slaves would be required to mine and isolate 4,555,400 metric tons of cobalt to make Powerwalls® to cover this instance of Dunkleflaute with batteries.

This is 31.63 times as large as the world production of cobalt in 2021 according to the US Geological Survey

I'm sorry!!! I forgot to use "percent talk!" The demand for cobalt to cover month long Dunkleflaute in Germany observed in Nov-Dec 2022 would be 3163% the demand for all the world cobalt supply in 2021.

Should we wish good luck to the racist, fascist thug Elon in his hopes to find the number of cobalt slaves to increase world demand for cobalt by 3163% so Germany can pretend it's "green?"

Every battery manufactured in that plant will be electronic waste in less than 25 years.

[Finishline42]

3. I tell you what's wasteful...

Giving away electricity generated from wind and solar when there's little demand.

How much cobalt would be required to build all the nuclear plants needed for your dreams to come true?

[NNadir]

4. Um, this would be true if this happened at any reasonable frequency, but the reality is a joke.

Last edited Tue Apr 11, 2023, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Where, on this whole fucking planet, has a grid on which all the dangerous fossil fuel plants have been shut, because there been so much electricity from the vast stretches of industrialized former wilderness associated with so called "renewable energy?"

As usual, antinukes refer to nuclear plants - about which they know zero other than their cults told them to hate it - attacking them on grounds for which they actually vastly superior to everything else, mass intensity.

I can reproduce this graphic and reference as many times as it takes every time the anti-nuke cults raise yet another specious objection along these lines:

My original post on this topic is here: Material Intensity of Various Forms of Energy, a Nice Graphic.

Here's the reference and a picture from the post, just so any antinuke who is indifferent to education can see what the "nice graphic" shows:

Closing the Infrastructure Gap for Decarbonization: The Case for an Integrated Mineral Supply Agreement Saleem H. Ali, Sophia Kalantzakos, Roderick Eggert, Roland Gauss, Constantine Karayannopoulos, Julie Klinger, Xiaoyu Pu, Kristin Vekasi, and Robert K. Perrons Environmental Science & Technology 2022 56 (22), 15280-15289

Here's figure 3 from the paper:



The caption:

Figure 3. Materials needed for different forms of power generation. Figure based on data from U.S. Department of Energy Quadrennial Energy Review 2015.

It's, um, from a scientific journal concerned with the environment.

It's hard to imagine why it's so difficult for antinukes to comprehend simple graphs.

I don't know where antinukes get the idea that it takes very much cobalt to build a nuclear plant, but to be honest, I don't get where they get any of the selective attention crap they hand out while the planet burns.

Every once in a while, I get a comment from some generic antinuke or another about the disposal of used reactor cores which in their tortured little imaginations represents a far greater risk than climate change, the deaths of seven million people per year from air pollution, people dropping dead from extreme heat, etc., etc., etc.

Where reactor cores are made from steel, it is true that very small amounts of iron's isotope 58, which represents 0.2% of iron, is transmuted into cobalt's lone natural isotope, Co-59, some of which captures neutrons to form cobalt-60. It has a half-life of about 5.27 years, and its existence has certainly saved more lives than it is ever likely to cost as a side product of iron transmutation.

The main use for cobalt 60 is for the treatment of human cancer, and thus tiny amounts of cobalt-59 are deliberately irradiated to make this isotope, most often in reactors dedicated to producing radioisotopes for medicine, but occasionally in commercial power reactors:

Tumour treatment isotope to be made at Bruce-8

The amount of cobalt required for this purpose is trivial; it would only require about ten or twenty minutes out of the entire lifetime one of Musk's cobalt slaves to dig the amount of ore required to make it.

Have a nice day.

[Finishline42]

5. Maybe not all fossil fuel plants but

Where, on this whole fucking planet, has a grid on which all the dangerous fossil fuel plants have been shut, because there been so much electricity from the vast stretches of industrialized former wilderness associated with so called "renewable energy?"


Here is a story from early 2017 where CA was producing toooo much solar...

On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power.

Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines.

It happened on eight days in January and nine in February as well. All told, those transactions helped save Arizona electricity customers millions of dollars this year, though grid operators declined to say exactly how much. And California also has paid other states to take power.

The number of days that California dumped its unused solar electricity would have been even higher if the state hadn’t ordered some solar plants to reduce production — even as natural gas power plants, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, continued generating electricity.

https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/

Doesn't make sense that you would pay other states to take your excess and still have natgas plants running...

Then there's this in Texas...

In Texas, many energy companies offer plans that include free nights and/or weekends. These plans charge a higher electricity rate during the day and customers pay nothing for energy used during nights and weekends. Although these plans may seem like a good option, there are many factors to consider before selecting a free night and weekend energy plan.

How do you think they are able to do this? Excess production by wind farms at night is my bet.

[NNadir]

6. Yes, I'm aware that antinukes don't give a shit about fossil fuels, never have, and never will.

I also am aware that they don't give a rat's ass about climate change, although when embarrassed into excusing this indifference, they will sometimes pay lip service to the statement.

It's nice to see antinukes saying as much.

I repeat what I said earlier in this appalling thread:

There are no fucking places on this planet where solar and wind energy have provided enough power to shut all of the dangerous fossil fuel plants on a grid for a period of hours, never mind days, and thus every fucking battery on this planet on any grid that isn't French is being charged by wasting energy, energy provided by dangerous fossil fuels, to charge batteries, all of which will be electronic waste in less than 25 years.

This time I added the bold to be clear.

One does not get to "not believe" in evolution; one does not get to "not believe" in the effectiveness of vaccines; one does not get to "not believe" in climate change. These are all facts. FACTS MATTER.

Similarly one does not get to "not believe" in the second law of thermodynamics. Thus if any grid, anywhere, at any time is burning fossil fuels to maintain its reliability by charging batteries, it is causing more fossil fuels than it would have done without batteries.

Antinukes seem to believe I'm as lazy as I believe they are. I note that I frequently post graphics showing the fossil fuel dependent hellholes that have embraced so called "renewable energy," Texas (which is not, to be fair, antinuclear) and antinuke California and antinuke Germany. How is that? Because I look. Frequently. At random.

However, sometimes I look at moments of extremes, like the extremes that took place in California last September during a heat emergency that I lay at the feet of antinuke indifference to climate change, among other causes.

For example, in my files, I have information from September 6, 2022, from the CAISO grid where right now, as of this writing, California is charging batteries while burning dangerous natural gas and dumping the waste directly into the planetary atmosphere, even though it happens that today California is briefly producing a lot of so called "renewable energy." On September 6, 2022, two days before this article, The heat wave scorching California may be the worst in its history and now an offshore hurricane threatens to fan already raging wildfires, was published, here is what was happening on the California Grid expressed in three graphics, one for overall demand, one for the especially worshipped so called "renewable energy, and one for all energy sources on the grid.







California was charging batteries with dangerous fossil fuels to deal with the fact that the energy sources on their grid were unreliable and dependent on the whims of the weather, which was not cooperating.

Again, one does not get to "not believe" in the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Fossil fuels were being wasted because California's energy sources were unreliable, not predictable, and not available because of weather. Thus batteries were being charged using dangerous fossil fuels, wasting energy produced by dumping dangerous fossil fuel waste into the planetary atmosphere.

Now, in California on that day, there were lots of places where people would die if the air conditioning failed.

The waste of money, resources, human capital, ecosystems and the like for so called "renewable energy" makes, in the bizarre and destructive mentality of anti-nukes, fossil fuel burning is OK with them apparently. It's very clear that whatever criteria can be applied to energy systems of any type, anywhere, at any time, death tolls, waste, accidents, material intensity, land intensity and climate impact the only time an antinuke will mention one of these things it will be in connection with nuclear energy even in the case where nuclear energy is superior to all forms of energy.

Now, as for the idea that it is OK to spend billions of dollars and vast amounts of money provided by the unpaid cobalt slaves because some antinuke is having an orgasm over some event in 2017, where for a few minutes or hours there was briefly excess solar energy on the grid strikes me as obscene.

That of course, is just me.

Of course, I oppose all uses of all fossil fuels at all times, not just when the wind happens to be blowing. This makes me very different than anti-nukes.

There is a country on this planet, one may have heard of it, it's called "France" that was in the early 1970's wholly dependent on coal. Today they aren't. There is also a country - it borders France - that used to be far less dependent on coal, but now would be required to shut of power if it couldn't burn coal. One may have heard of it. It's called "Germany."

I also am aware of the fact that the second law of thermodynamics applies in all cases at all times. It is not subject to "belief." Frankly the elevation of "belief" over reality has a word for itself. It's called "ignorance."

In another thread, an antinuke celebration of the needs for cobalt slaves, by the way, I posted a note graphically demonstrating why so called "renewable energy" is not sustainable, not clean, and not worthy of the waste of money being squandered on it, not even counting the enthusiasm of the antinuke community for cobalt slavery and the racist Elon Musk's Chinese battery factories.

It's this one:

My original post on this topic is here: Material Intensity of Various Forms of Energy, a Nice Graphic.

Here's the reference and a picture from the post, just so any antinuke who is indifferent to education can see what the "nice graphic" shows:

Closing the Infrastructure Gap for Decarbonization: The Case for an Integrated Mineral Supply Agreement Saleem H. Ali, Sophia Kalantzakos, Roderick Eggert, Roland Gauss, Constantine Karayannopoulos, Julie Klinger, Xiaoyu Pu, Kristin Vekasi, and Robert K. Perrons Environmental Science & Technology 2022 56 (22), 15280-15289

Here's figure 3 from the paper:



The caption:

Figure 3. Materials needed for different forms of power generation. Figure based on data from U.S. Department of Energy Quadrennial Energy Review 2015.

It's, um, from a scientific journal concerned with the environment.

It works out sort of the way it works whenever antinukes who complain about so called "nuclear waste" but not fossil fuel waste (air pollution and climate change) are asked to show that so called "nuclear waste" has killed, in the 70 year history of nuclear energy, as many people as will die from air pollution in the next six hours, roughly 4500 people.

Silence.

Nothing said.

Let me repeat, not expecting it to get through a single think head invested in denial, moral indifference, and indifference to the environmental disaster now being experienced on a planetary scale.

There are no fucking places on this planet where solar and wind energy have provided enough power to shut all of the dangerous fossil fuel plants on a grid for a period of hours, never mind days, and thus every fucking battery on this planet on any grid that isn't French is being charged by wasting energy, energy provided by dangerous fossil fuels, to charge batteries, all of which will be electronic waste in less than 25 years.

This time I added the bold to be clear.

No matter how many times I repeat this fact I cannot expect it penetrate the moral and intellectual indifference of the antinuke community.

Their ignorance kills people, pure and simple.

One hears this kind of shit and one doesn't want to believe it.

Have a wonderful evening.

[Finishline42]

7. Beta test program by PGE using customer Powerwalls

Link to tweet

?s=20

edited to add>>>

There are over 50,000 Powerwalls in CA

[NNadir]

8. Um, this in an announcement of enthusiasm for denying the 2nd law of thermodynamics and wasting...

...fossil fuel energy and thus increasing the amount of dangerous fossil fuel waste dumped into the atmosphere.

When one stores energy, one wastes it.

I can repeat this as oft as required:

There are no fucking places on this planet where solar and wind energy have provided enough power to shut all of the dangerous fossil fuel plants on a grid for a period of hours, never mind days, and thus every fucking battery on this planet on any grid that isn't French is being charged by wasting energy, energy provided by dangerous fossil fuels, to charge batteries, all of which will be electronic waste in less than 25 years.

California never stops burning dangerous fossil fuels to produce electricity. The dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping in California is continuous, despite the destruction of vast areas of its wilderness for wind and solar junk that will all be landfill in 25 years.

It's 2023.

On April 11, 2023, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide was over 423 ppm:

April 11: 423.06 ppm
April 10: 422.29 ppm
April 09: 421.70 ppm
April 08: 421.64 ppm
April 07: 422.37 ppm
Last Updated: April 12, 2023

Recent Daily Average Mauna Loa CO2

And now, we're supposed to be happy that 2,149 homes occupied by people who lack the decency to give a fuck about cobalt slavery?

Really?

Again, recognizing that anti-nukes have nothing against fossil fuels, don't give a shit about climate change, and are enthusiastic for the waste of energy, dependence on fossil fuels providing that energy, contempt for the poor, contempt for future generations, there is nothing in this announcement of bourgeois stupidity that inspires respect for the antinuke mentality, a mentality that kills people.

I mean the only thing that's sort of impressive about any of this, albeit in a way that evokes disgust, is the ease and facility with which antinukes display exactly how oblivious they are.

[Finishline42]

9. Excuse me...

When you put the 2nd law of thermodynamics as your primary guide you tend to ignore the other factors in operating a utility.

If the 2LoT (2nd Law of Thermodynamics) is primary, you wouldn't put power plants in the middle of nowhere because of the line loss of sending the output hundreds of miles to users vs having the plant closer to population centers.

Megapack spec sheet shows a greater than 85% efficiency for the energy stored. So you lose 15%. But if you use electricity that costs $0.05 kWh to charge the battery but you can then sell it later for $2.00 kWh then the 15% is the just the cost of doing business. This is why more plants producing not only Megapacks but also competitors are being built. It saves utilities millions.

Battery storage is a good fit for solar because while the sun shining drives demand, demand continues as the sun starts going down and into the evening. So instead of flooding the market with cheap electricity, charge the battery and use it instead of buying electricity at peak pricing periods.