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Muskular Magic (Or Smoke & Mirrors)
Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Elon Musk, Silicon Valley’s poster-boy genius replacement for the late Steve Jobs, rolled out his PowerWall battery last week with Star Wars style fanfare, doing his bit to promote and support the delusional thinking that grips a nation unable to escape the toils of techno-grandiosity. The main delusion: that we can “solve” the problems of techno-industrial society with more and better technology.
The South African born-and-raised Musk is surely better known for founding Tesla Motors, maker of the snazzy all-electric car. The denizens of Silicon Valley are crazy about the Tesla. There is no greater status trinket in Northern California, where the fog of delusion cloaks the road to the future. They believe, as Musk himself often avers, that Tesla cars “don’t burn hydrocarbons.” That statement is absurd, of course, and Musk, who holds a degree in physics from Penn, must blush when he says that. After all, you have to plug it in and charge somewhere from the US electric grid.
Only 6 percent of US electric power comes from “clean” hydro generation. Another 20 percent is nuclear. The rest is coal (48 percent) and natural gas (21 percent) with the remaining sliver coming from “renewables” and oil. (The quote marks on “renewables” are there to remind you that they probably can’t be manufactured without the support of a fossil fuel economy). Anyway, my point is that the bulk of US electricity comes from burning hydrocarbons, and then there is the nuclear part which is glossed over because the techno-geniuses and politicians of America have no idea how they are going to de-commission our aging plants, and no idea how to safely dispose of the spent fuel rod inventory simply lying around in collection pools. This stuff is capable of poisoning the entire planet and we know it.
The PowerWall roll out highlighted the “affordability” of the sleek lithium battery at $3,500 per unit. The average cluck watching Musk’s TED-like performance on the web was supposed to think he could power his home with it. Musk left out a few things. Such as: you need the rooftop solar array to feed the battery. Figure another $25,000 to $40,000 for that, depending on whether they are made in China (poor quality) or Germany, or in the USA (and installation is both laborious and expensive). Also consider that you need a charge controller and inverter to manage the electric flow and convert direct current (DC) from the sun into usable alternating current (AC) for your house — another $3,500. So, the cost of hanging a solar electric system on your house with all its parts is more like fifty grand.
What happens when the solar panels, battery, etc., reach the end of their useful lives, say 25 years or so, when there is no more fossil fuel (or an industry capable of providing it economically). How will you fabricate the replacement parts? By then the techno-wizards will have supposedly “come up with” a magic energy rescue remedy. Stand by on that, and consider the possibility that you will be disappointed with how it works out.
What gets me about Tesla’s various products and activities is that, when all is said and done, they are meant to extend the fatal rackets of contemporary life, especially car dependency and the suburban development pattern.
Car dependency can and probably will fail on the financial basis, not on the question of how you run the car. The main economic problem we face is the end of growth of the kind we’re used to, the kind that generates real capital and enables bank lending. It is already happening and has led to fewer loans for fewer qualified borrowers. It will also lead to the end of government’s ability to pay for fixing the elaborate hierarchy of paved highways, roads, and streets that the cars have to run on. Imagine the psychic pain of the Silicon Valley billionaire driving his $87,000 Tesla P85D down a freeway that the State of California hasn’t been able to repair in five years.
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Smoke and mirrors has been working so far.
Rinse and repeat until it doesn't work.
assuming your $s are correct - 50k over 25 years (and likely more years than that) is not that much to be off the grid. 2000 a year is way less than i spend on powering my house. how many heaters and what not will a normal house go through in that time frame? granted this assumes you never move.
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'Check out the lastest in LENR cold fusion technology.
A company called www.blacklightpower.com seems to ready to release a version.
Talk about catastrophically disruptive technology!
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V-V
Kunstler : "The main economic problem we face is the end of growth of the kind we’re used to, the kind that generates real capital and enables bank lending." Ummmmm, really? Real Capital huh? More bank lending, just what we need!
Mr. uber sarcastic, sour, dour-man can't have it both ways. A battery combined with solar panels DOES eliminate/reduce burning hydrocarbons, and IS independent of the grid. So it's lithium, toxic as hell and not cheap. So what? It's a freaking start and in the right direction no?
Am putting panels up, getting two electric cars and will add batteries when costs drop and choices pop. Being completely free from oil companies (gasoline) and electric utilities is most worthwhile. Too many commentators are spending too much time being negative and nitpicking the downside of everything. Musk is building real stuff, be grateful he doesn't spend his days thinking up clever snide, negative comments on other people's efforts at building things.
>So what? It's a freaking start and in the right direction no?
NO, because the shit to make it was mined in the first place and ultimately has to end up back in the ground eventually.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that ultimately bio-engineering be the answer.
Stuff grows faster than you can ever mine it.
Something along these lines: http://web.mit.edu/erc/spotlights/alg-all.html
Is Elon Musk “a sociopathic, narcissistic, Senator-bribing, lying, government funding fraud, stock swindling, woman-abusing, ego-maniacal, self-promoting attention whore?”
So in summary Zip2 was bailed out by a venture capitalist and with the prowess of a couple outside investors they sold the company to Compaq. Elon was part owner so he reaped the benefits. Where is Zip2 now and what exactly is its use today? Well there is none, and Zip2 is non-existent to say the least. And where is Compaq? Well it was bought out by Hewlett Packard in 2002, and Compaq did very little but lose money for HP. HP sold its Compaq division off and where is HP today? Man oh man, I think you get the point. Just type in $HPQ on one of your charts and see how failure follows failure to the graveyard.
Then with the proceeds of his lucky bailout of Zip2 venture, Elon founded X.com which later acquired Paypal. The huge misconception about Elon’s involvement in Paypal was that Elon was responsible for Paypal when that is not true at all. Had it not been for his partners Peter Thiel and Max Levchin the company would still be called x.com and be a very different story than what it is today. Peter was also at Paypal for a lot longer than Elon and was the leader during the companies crowning moments. Both the IPO and acquisition by Ebay. When Elon tried to impose some of his horrible ideas into this company like putting it on a Microsoft platform and off of Unix the investors and majority shareholder of the company were fed up with Elon’s antics and they fired him as managing board director. His partners were loved by the board and elected to lead and they managed to build up and sell the company to Ebay helping Elon once again reap the benefits of outside management. Once again, “right place, right time.”
Then Elon founded Space X and dumped too much of his personal wealth into trying to launch a rocket into outer space and was on the brink of bankruptcy. He infused so much of his own money that he was nearly broke but again by the luck of the draw and attention by our US government space program, they awarded his company 1 billion dollars using our tax dollars. How did he manage to get the government to give him money and why would they even do that is the question till this day? You will begin to get the impression that someone in our government really likes Elon as you read further on. It’s also rumored that NASA has been receiving scrutiny for spending over 100 billion dollars launching rockets and pretty much getting nowhere so in an attempt to avoid public embarrassment they funded a private company to quiet the government spending hawks. Well at least with that money he can pay himself a nice paycheck and fill up his coffers back with all the money he wasted throughout the years. Right place, right time.
Elon Musk Has A History Of Mismanaging Money
Elon Musk Unveils His Latest Taxpayer Boondoggle
It works like this:
1) He comes up with a big idea.
2) You pay for it.
3) He takes a huge cut.
4) It never becomes economically sustainable.
But that’s not the point. The point is putting extremely large amounts of money in Elon Musk’s pockets.
Please for a second think about how ridiculous this guys idea’s are. He wants to colonize Mars which has no benefit to us here on earth, he wants to crowd us with Solar panels which are not economically viable, and everyone to drive electric cars which again economically make no sense. The guy is filled with pie in the sky ideas. This time he won’t succeed because these ideas are off the mark and he is dealing outside of his norm which are usually internet companies. I will be right like I am 95% of the time when it comes to my predictions about people and companies. This won’t be any different. Mark my words. So next time you hear about Elon Musk buying a mansion or some other luxury item, just remember that’s your tax dollars he is doing it with.
Elon Musk Companies, are they are just scams?
Dirt farmers dumped batteries decades ago - cant run a dildo
I love ZH but it is kind of weird crowd when people here love Vladimir Putin and hate Elon Musk.
The average power of a car engine is let's say 100kw. At 60% efficiency it can deliver 60kw. This power needs to move the weight of the car plus load, including friction and other losses in the power chain. Add road friction, slopes, etc. You will need at least the same output power from an electrical source.
This 100 kw must be drawn from somewhere, from a plant running on coal, generating X kw power, which means, all that petrol used by the car will shift to coal (less efficient).
Let's say there are 200 million cars (a random number)at 100 kw, there will be a need for an additional 20,000 Gw. At 40 US/b I am sure Musk can cum with something novel such as interstellar g-strings