Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Volkswagen Doubles EV Battery Order To $48 Billion
May 4th, 2018Via: Fortune: A few hours after Elon Musk berated analysts for what he perceived as unimaginative questions, Volkswagen AG said it was writing a check for batteries that almost match Tesla’s entire market value. VW has awarded battery-purchasing contracts worth 40 billion euros ($48 billion), double from just a few weeks ago. The deals take […]
Mercedes Gives Up on Home Energy Storage, Can’t Compete with Tesla
May 3rd, 2018Man oh man. Nobody said it was going to be easy. Via: GTM: Mercedes-Benz will stop manufacturing residential batteries and dissolve its U.S. energy subsidiary, ending a short-lived challenge to Tesla’s energy storage empire.
Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry
April 24th, 2018Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Where’s the electricity coming from to charge up those buses? A lot of it is still coming from coal, but China’s coal use has peaked: The real game changer is clean energy. The price of solar photovoltaic is at an all-time low, enough to compete […]
Tesla Battery Degradation Less Than 10% After 160,000 Miles
April 15th, 2018Via: Electrek: Battery degradation is one of the biggest concerns for electric car owners and potential buyers, but data from Tesla battery packs have been very reassuring so far. Now the latest data shows less than 10% degradation of the energy capacity after over 160,000 miles on Tesla’s battery packs. A group of Tesla owners […]
Battery Makers Descend on Australia, Canada Cobalt Developers
March 18th, 2018Via: Reuters: Nervous Asian battery makers are turning to early-stage cobalt projects in Australia and Canada to lock in supplies of the critical battery ingredient ahead of expected shortages as demand for electric vehicles revs up. Mine developers say interest from Japanese and Korean firms is particularly strong as they compete with rivals from China, […]
World’s Highest Capacity Grid Battery Might Be Built in Colorado
March 14th, 2018300 MWh. 😯 Via: Electrek: After breaking a few energy storage records with its battery system projects in Australia, Tesla looks to come back to the US to build a new world’s largest Powerpack battery system in Colorado. … In South Australia, Tesla’s 100MW/ 129MWh Powerpack project is known as “the most powerful battery system […]
VW’s Spending Plan for Batteries Exceeds Tesla’s Orders by More Than 40%
March 13th, 2018Via: Bloomberg: Volkswagen AG secured 20 billion euros ($25 billion) in battery supplies to underpin an aggressive push into electric cars in the coming years, ramping up pressure on Tesla Inc. as it struggles with production issues for the mainstream Model 3. The world’s largest carmaker will equip 16 factories to produce electric vehicles by […]
The Massive Prize Luring Miners to the Stars
March 11th, 2018The sci-fi fan in me decided to post this one, but, no, this isn’t going to solve peak cobalt, or peak-whatever anytime soon. Via: Bloomberg: Sending a spacecraft to the far reaches of our solar system to mine asteroids might seem like an improbable ambition best left to science fiction. But it’s inching closer to […]
Tepco’s ‘Ice Wall’ Fails to Freeze Fukushima’s Toxic Water Buildup
March 8th, 2018Mmm hmm. This was treated like comedy gold on Cryptogon when it was announced. And now, not only has it not worked, but the problem is worse. Via: Reuters: A costly “ice wall” is failing to keep groundwater from seeping into the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, data from operator Tokyo Electric Power Co shows, […]
Is Google Going Underground With Hypersonic Tech?
March 6th, 2018Via: IEEE: Google is carrying out research on hypersonics, probably for new technologies to slash the cost of geothermal energy and tunneling. It could also be acquiring a Washington-based startup called HyperSciences that has already built prototype devices. … The technology being developed by HyperSciences should make it cheaper to reach much higher temperatures even […]
