Musk Says Renewable Energy Shift to Bring ‘Strife’ for Utilities

[kristopher]

Musk Says Renewable Energy Shift to Bring ‘Strife’ for Utilities

...Tesla, the electric-car maker, based in Palo Alto, California, said yesterday it plans to invest as much as $5 billion to build the world’s largest battery factory. The company is seeking to drive down the cost of lithium-ion batteries used in its cars by at least 30 percent. Tesla also has developed a battery that could be used to provide backup power to homes, commercial sites and utilities, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.

Tesla is “working to create stationary battery packs that last long, are super safe and are compact,” Musk said.

“When you have a game-changing technology, those in the game don’t want to change,” Rive said. “They like the existing game, the sole source, cost-plus model.”

Rive said it now takes eight months for utilities in California to connect a SolarCity solar and energy storage system to the grid....

Other companies are starting to provide similar products ...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/02/musk-says-renewable-energy-shift-to-bring-strife-for-utilities?cmpid=SolarNL-Saturday-March1-2014

Another very good write up on this topic is here:
Tesla Motors Inc and the Home Energy Storage Business
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/02/25/tesla-motors-inc-and-the-home-energy-storage-busin/

[msongs]

1. current electrical companies and systems are becoming obsolete and they will not die quietly nt

[hunter]

2. Rather like the phone and cable television companies.

The U.S. government sure doesn't protect its labor force, but it will bend over backwards to protect the obsolete corporate powers of Wall Street.

We could get rid of corporate broadcasting, traditional utility companies, health insurance corporations, traditional banks... a whole lot of crap.

Will we? No. Big money has too much political power, "We, the People," have too little.

[cprise]

3. That's actually a nice, concise list

We could get rid of corporate broadcasting, traditional utility companies, health insurance corporations, traditional banks... a whole lot of crap.

An interesting one, too, as it starts with broadcasting.

Most people here think we can solve our media problem by writing sternly-worded letters to media corps until they see the light; Tragic stupidity. How do you talk super-concentrated wealth out of its self-regarding mania? The result has been CBS news taken over by a Fox VP, and PBS getting David Koch on the board of its biggest producer station.

Another sector that comes to mind are defense contractors; that one could represent a real conundrum.

[kristopher]

4. "Most people here think we can solve our media problem by writing sternly-worded letters"

Who thinks that way?

The most common solution I hear is a regulatory crackdown on concentrated ownership, and variations on the concept of a what I'll call a 'truth in broadcasting law'.

Democratizing society by a far more even distribution of wealth is the linchpin. Eliminating the bottlenecks where obscene profits are able to be extracted for the energy we all need is a big part of doing that. And eliminating those bottlenecks is largely accomplished by moving to distributed renewable generation of our power.

As for the idea that we should "get rid of" the services of modern society, I have to ask how you go about doing that? If you have an even remotely feasible path we can follow to achieve that, please share it. And if you can't even provide a rough blueprint for doing it, then what is it that you're suggesting or recommending or advocating for?

I really want to know.

[cprise]

5. Its a bit less common in recent years

...but I still encounter the mindset regularly when I venture into LBN or GD. Remember, I've been here since 2001. Back then, people were still very deluded about media, thinking their news brands were like the pre-merger, pre-conglomerate days. Veritable windows onto the world, distorted only by "what sells".

Its an extremely durable delusion, IMO, though ablated substantially now. People still speak of the Fairness Doctrine in dulcet tones, when they really "reach" in the direction of regulation, even though I point out that FD if anything helped deliver (not repel) the onset of 'Reagan Revolution'.

My interpretation of hunter didn't include getting rid of services, but moving to other types of institutions; banks to credit unions, private utilities to local co-ops, etc. We could even outlaw purely profit-driven corporations, and require that social responsibility figure large in organizational charters.

-

I'm not sold on the idea that distributed energy will necessarily get us better democracy and harmony. I think it will result in a complex social interaction that will give us a chance to be humane and responsible. OTOH, the entire world before the Enlightenment was solar powered and culturally it was pretty decrepit.