Musk on South Australia Grid Crisis: Tesla Will Install 100 MWh of Powerpacks Within 100 Days of Contract Signature or It’s Free
March 10th, 2017“That serious enough for you?”
Via: Reuters:
Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk on Friday offered to save Australia’s most renewable-energy dependent state from blackouts by installing $25 million worth of battery storage within 100 days, and offering it for free if he missed the target.
The offer follows a string of power outages in the state of South Australia, including a blackout that left industry crippled for up to two weeks and stoked fears of more outages across the national electricity market due to tight supplies.
Musk made the offer on social media, and the government said it could consider backing such a battery roll out by Tesla.
“The government stands ready through ARENA and the CEFC to work with companies with serious proposals to support the deployment of more storage,” Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said in an email to Reuters.
ARENA is the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the CEFC is the Clean Energy Finance Corp.
Musk made the offer in response to a comment on social media by Mike Cannon-Brookes, the co-founder of Australian software maker Atlassian Corp, who said he would be willing to line up funding and political support if Tesla could supply batteries that would solve South Australia’s problems.
100-DAY GUARANTEE
Musk responded by tweeting: “Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?”
He quoted a price of $250 per kilowatt hour for 100 megawatt hour systems, which would imply a price of $25 million for the battery packs.
“You’re on mate. Give me 7 days to try and sort out politics & funding,” tweeted Cannon-Brookes.
‘Crime-Fighting Robots Aid Police’
March 10th, 2017Via: Star Telegram:
Maybe someday it will menacingly order citizens to drop their weapons — or else, a la Robocop.
But for now, the Knightscope crime-fighting robots, demonstrated for the University of Texas at Arlington Police Department and the media on Thursday, are limited to less aggressive tasks like scanning license plates for unauthorized vehicles or alerting authorities to people in restricted areas.
Or, for mall bots, telling shoppers how to get to Macy’s. And they’re always videotaping and collecting data, including markers that help identify nearby wireless devices. Those latter skills helped solve a robbery recently.
But Knightscope co-founder and former UTA student Stacy Stephens has much higher expectations for the technology.
“Long-term, our ultimate goal is to be able to predict and prevent crime,” he said, by analyzing past data with real-time, on-site information collected by the robots. “Then maybe we have the ability to put the robots into a patrol state where they are hitting those hotspots.”
Aquion Energy Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
March 9th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Bummer. That’s the battery I wanted, albeit for less than half the price of what they were asking. *chortle* Maybe the chemistry will survive with whichever entity picks over the carcass…
I doubt it’s a coincidence that this happened just as the Tesla Powerwall 2 is beginning to ship.
Back in October, I wrote the following about the Tesla Powerwall 2:
As far as I can tell, this authoritatively blows away all other residential energy storage options…
This is a bit disturbing because this upsets the entire storage industry. There is no competition to this. For companies with existing energy storage offerings, there are two options:
1) Drastically drop prices
2) Die
The cost of a delivered kWh from the Aquion system is more than double the cost of a delivered kWh from the Powerwall 2. Despite the superior safety and environmental characteristics of the Aquion, the high price, and possibly the larger footprint, doomed it.
This is why I keep telling people to wait, if possible, on these next gen systems. If it’s not possible, and you need storage now, go with the cheapest AGM bank that fits your needs and wait for this industry turmoil settle out somewhat.
The Tesla Gigafactory isn’t even fully operational yet! There are an unknown number of Chinese battery Gigafactory clones spinning up. There’s the former Tesla employees’ battery Gigafactory clone coming to Sweden. Mercedes is massively expanding their lithium ion production facilities as they’re preparing several electric drive models for market and a push into domestic energy storage.
On and on. This is about .1% of the battery news floating around.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
More consolidation is inevitable.
And if I had to pick the next one to face difficulties:
I wonder about Enphase.
Enphase’s storage prices are high and they refuse to acknowledge that people legitimately demand some form of backup capability from a multi thousand dollar investment in Enphase batteries. I’ve tried to get through to Enphase, “My customers are demanding backup capabilities, even if they’re limited.” Enphase responds: Buy a generator. Actually, a generator is the correct response if you really do the math on this issue for an average house (which Enphase has done), but the average customer won’t care with just about every other option touting backup.
Via: Energy Storage News:
US battery and energy storage system manufacturer Aquion Energy has declared bankruptcy, offloading 80% of its employees and reverting to its core R&D team, according to a company release.
The maker of saltwater Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries and energy storage systems stated it “has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Delaware”.
Several of the personnel whose employment was terminated have entered into consulting agreements with Aquion to help in the sale of its assets. All factory operations have been paused as well as the marketing and selling of products to allow time for assets to be sold.
Several potential strategic buyers have shown interest in multi-award winning Aquion and are said to be conducting due diligence under non-disclosure agreements.
Scott Pearson, Aquion’s outgoing chief executive, said: “Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, time-consuming, and very capital intensive. Despite our best efforts to fund the company and continue to fuel our growth, the company has been unable to raise the growth capital needed to continue operating as a going concern.”
Hawaii: Another Large Tesla Powerpack Build
March 9th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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One of my off grid solar power customers just had her system installed yesterday. She and her husband built their small home 16 years ago and dreamed of someday having a solar power system. (It would cost about $100,000 to bring grid power to the remote location.) Her husband died a few years back, so it was an emotional moment for her when we brought her system online.
She had been getting electricity with a generator all of these years. Needless to say, she’d had enough of the generator.
I was yammering with the electrician in technical lingo for an hour and she peaked in, looking a bit concerned. She’d been hearing a steady stream of volts, amps, watts, hertz, MPPTs, kilowatt hours, milliseconds, depth of discharge, blah blah…
“Do I need to know all of that stuff you guys are talking about?”
The electrician smiled and said, “Here’s all you need to know, Betty” and then he flipped a light switch and the lights came on in the room.
She smiled and brought her hands up to her face, almost in shock, “And there’s no generator noise!”
She was dropping hints from the start that she really didn’t want to deal with the generator anymore. When I designed the system, I suggested doubling the size of the AGM bank that we normally supply, as this would really minimize generator on time. For her use, which I calculated very carefully, she can run without sun for three days without having to worry about the generator. In real conditions, my guess is that it would take four or five days of heavy rain, with no daytime clearing, before the generator would be needed.
I asked the guy who installed the system (and believe me, this dude is the Delta Force of off grid installers in NZ) if he thought she’d need the genny. He said that I did the calculations right and that he doubts that the genny will ever be necessary, assuming the daily energy consumption I observed. We hooked up her generator to the charge controller and tested it out. It worked great and it’s there if she needs it.
I tell the story because the same idea applies, whether you’re dealing with a granny in the remote hills of New Zealand, or a power grid in Hawaii, or anywhere else. Do you want to minimize the use of gas or diesel generators or peaker plants when using power from intermittent sources like solar and wind?
Add batteries.
Via: Electrek:
Tesla recently brought online its massive Powerpack 2 project with Kaua?i Island Utility Cooperative in Hawaii and held an event today to inaugurate the facility.
We are talking about a 52 MWh Tesla Powerpack installation (272 units) with a 13 MW solar farm (~55,000 solar panels) built by SolarCity. The system will help the Island of Kauai get more out of its solar power and retire more diesel generators.
Tesla CTO JB Straubel was present for the inauguration today with KIUC President and CEO, David Bissell, Governor of Hawaii, David Ige, and the Mayor of Kauai, Bernard Carvalho.
KIUC serves just over 30,000 customers on the remote island and it already has significant solar power capacity, but they have to run diesel generators when the sun is not shining.
They can run 100% on renewables for short periods of times under the best conditions in mid-day if demand is low, but the new Tesla Powerpacks will enable them to achieve 100% renewables more frequently.
U.S. Crude Oil Slumps Below $50 After Stocks Build
March 9th, 2017Via: Reuters:
Oil prices fell more than 2 percent on Thursday, extending the biggest falls this year as record U.S. crude inventories kept sentiment weak, pointing to a global glut despite supply cuts.
Crude oil stocks in the United States, the world’s top oil consumer, surged last week to 528.4 million barrels, an all-time high and up 8.2 million barrels in a week, well above forecasts of a 2 million barrel build. [EIA/S]
The surge in U.S. inventories came despite an agreement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other exporters to cut output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2017.
“U.S. oil stockpiles have gained around 50 million barrels since the start of the year, raising some doubts over the effectiveness of OPEC cuts,” said Hamza Khan, head of commodities strategy at ING Bank in Amsterdam.
Meet Flippy, a Burger-Grilling Robot
March 9th, 2017Via: Tech Crunch:
Flipping burgers is a hot and greasy job. Slips, trips, burns and cuts are common hazards associated with the work. But global demand for burgers is tremendous. Top burger chains racked up more than $75.5 billion in annual sales in 2016. To help keep human cooks out of harm’s way while fulfilling our collective appetite for burgers, Pasadena-based Miso Robotics is rolling out a new “robotic kitchen assistant” called Flippy.
Miso Robotics CEO and co-founder David Zito said, “We focus on using AI and automation to solve the high pain points in restaurants and food prep. That’s the dull, dirty and dangerous work around the grill, the fryer, and other prep work like chopping onions. The idea is to help restaurants improve food quality and safety without requiring a major kitchen redesign.”
Brain Activity 10 Minutes After Death?
March 8th, 2017Via: ScienceAlert:
Doctors in a Canadian intensive care unit have stumbled on a very strange case – when life support was turned off for four terminal patients, one of them showed persistent brain activity even after they were declared clinically dead.
For more than 10 minutes after doctors confirmed death through a range of observations, including the absence of a pulse and unreactive pupils, the patient appeared to experience the same kind of brain waves (delta wave bursts) we get during deep sleep.
Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed
March 7th, 2017If you have an active U.S. Government security clearance, you probably shouldn’t click on this.
Via: Wikileaks:
Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named “Vault 7” by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
The first full part of the series, “Year Zero”, comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized “zero day” exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
“Year Zero” introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of “zero day” weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency’s hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA’s hacking capacities.
By the end of 2016, the CIA’s hacking division, which formally falls under the agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other “weaponized” malware. Such is the scale of the CIA’s undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had created, in effect, its “own NSA” with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.
In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA’s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.
Who Controls Your Computer? (And How to Make Sure It’s You)
March 7th, 2017Good luck with that.
My paranoia doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this thing. Keep going, keep pushing through, and the next thing you know, you’re falling through fractals of fuckedness that endlessly reveal more fuckedness the deeper you descend.
Via: François-René Rideau:
At least in theory, we therefore know how to build ourselves small paradises of trusted code. Unhappily, we also know that even if you can trust all the source code on the system, you still cannot blindly trust the system — because as Gödel once established, the source code is not and can never be all the code. Your code always relies on semantic foundations to tell what the code means; and even if you manage to formalize these foundations, you’ll find they in turn rely on further meta-foundations, to which there is no end. It’s Turtles All The Way Down.
Indeed, Ken Thompson, in his Turing Award lecture, Reflections on Trusting Trust, famously demonstrated how, by subverting the compiler, he could introduce a security backdoor in the login program despite its source code being correct; furthermore, the compiler modification that introduced this security backdoor would also reproduce itself when you recompiled the compiler, even when compiling the compiler from unmodified source code. Therefore, after initially bootstrapping this attack, there was no malicious source code left in the system to distinguish a safe system from a subverted system, yet a subverted system would remain backdoored forever (well, until someone manages to subvert the subversion).
German Institute Successfully Tests Underwater Energy Storage Sphere
March 7th, 2017Viable anytime soon? No.
Cool idea anyway? Yep.
Via: Ars Technica:
A German research institute has spent years trying to tailor pumped storage to ocean environments. Recently, the institute completed a successful four-week pilot test using a hollow concrete sphere that it placed on the bottom of Lake Constance, a body of water at the foot of the Alps. The sphere has a diameter of three meters and contains a pump and a turbine. Much like traditional pumped storage, when electricity is cheap, water can be pumped out of the sphere, and when it’s scarce, water can be let into the sphere to move the turbine and generate electricity.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy Systems Engineering envisions spheres with inner diameters of 30m, placed 700m (or about 2,300 ft) underwater. Assuming the spheres would be fitted with existing 5 MW turbines that could function at that depth, the researchers estimate that each sphere would offer 20 MWh of storage with four hours discharge time.
In an underwater “energy park,” dozens of these spheres could be connected near an offshore wind farm to create a system that would be able to add extra reliability to a renewable-heavy grid. The institute admits that the economics of this project only work on a large scale. It estimates that more than 80 spheres would be needed “to achieve a relevant overall performance/capacity for the energy market.”
