Elon Musk's Tesla to build world's biggest lithium ion battery to secure power for South Australia (SA)

[VerticalDiscussions]

This is one of the best things that has ever happened to our world xD.

 

 

And yes, the man is also legendary on its own.

[Dash Lambda]

13 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Which is entirely different from creating production batteries right now...

But investment in production can affect interest in development. What I was saying is, if he puts so much time and money into traditional lithium batteries, I wonder if that would prevent him from developing new types of batteries to ultimately warrant a change to the entire process somewhere down the line.

This is Elon Musk, so I don't think that really matters to him, but in most cases that really is a factor.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

But investment in production can affect interest in development. What I was saying is, if he puts so much time and money into traditional lithium batteries, I wonder if that would prevent him from developing new types of batteries to ultimately warrant a change to the entire process somewhere down the line.

This is Elon Musk, so I don't think that really matters to him, but in most cases that really is a factor.

I assume that the Giga Factory can be modified to produce other battery technologies, as they evolve.

 

The thing is, South Australia needed this, and needed it now. They can't wait 5+ years for Elon to R&D a new battery tech that's still mostly in research phases (graphite, etc).

 

I would not be surprised in the slightest if Elon IS already R&D'ing new battery tech.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Prysin said:

all fun and games, until someone crosses the poles... Have fun stopping the worlds biggest chemical fire

After reading new safe battery tech is on the horizon - I feel like this is ill-timed and will be obsolete rather fast, especially when concerned with risk to reward. 

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Alexokan said:

After reading new safe battery tech is on the horizon - I feel like this is ill-timed and will be obsolete rather fast, especially when concerned with risk to reward. 

What is the ETA on this so called safe battery tech, though?

 

Every few months a news post comes through LTT about some new battery tech that will revolutionize the battery industry. And guess what? Nothing happens - why? Because that tech is in many cases still 10+ years away from mass production. These breakthroughs and advancements are happening in deep level R&D, where the tech won't see consumer applications for decades, sometimes.

 

SA had a massive power issue that needed to be solved. And this is a solution. Waiting for some tech that may or may not be available in half a decade is foolish, when we have something right now that can solve their problems.

 

And if some new tech does make Li-ion obsolete? They will have the opportunity to upgrade to such a solution when the current battery system installed reaches EOL (end of life).

[Zando_]

3 hours ago, Prysin said:

all fun and games, until someone crosses the poles... Have fun stopping the worlds biggest chemical fire

Yeah, let's hope the Note 7 battery engineers weren't hired for this project...

[Prysin]

23 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Yeah, let's hope the Note 7 battery engineers weren't hired for this project...

You mean, hopefully, Elon Musk took note of what happened?

[rattacko123]

12 hours ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

watched ironman? tony stark is based of elon musk

What if... Elon Musk was based on Tony Stark? 

[RedSpade]

12 hours ago, MoonSpot said:

OT: Good, batteries are required to make green energy tech worthwhile.  But still realistically need a nuclear plant as a base for any advanced society of worthwhile size.  Don't think there are any in use in Oz.  It's simply best to mesh a few different energy generation types together and use them all at the same time so you can capitalize on each techs strength when appropriate to do so.

There's only 1 nuclear plant in Aus and that's in Sydney but generates no power. They should have a nuclear power plant as Aus has 33% of the worlds uranium.

11 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

The thing is, South Australia needed this, and needed it now. They can't wait 5+ years for Elon to R&D a new battery tech that's still mostly in research phases (graphite, etc).

It definitely does, SA has had huge problems with black/brown outs, not entirely due to renewable energy, but mostly because their energy network is so spread out. So when the power lines are brought down then everything fails, hopefully they put some safeguard in place with these batteries to reliably supply electricity even in extreme weather.

[MoonSpot]

1 hour ago, RedSpade said:

There's only 1 nuclear plant in Aus and that's in Sydney but generates no power. They should have a nuclear power plant as Aus has 33% of the worlds uranium.

That doesn't mean as much as one would like to believe(means nothing other than potential for national mining jobs).

The material would need to be refined and packaged for use for a particular type of powerplant.  Sorta like needing the right sized cartages to fit, there's no dude shovelling "raw" uranium into a boiler to make it go faster.  With that the where x% of uranium is is invalidated for the most part.  It won't be cheaper to buy refined nuclear fuel(s) from General electric, hitachi, Toshiba or whom ever else pedals fuel for their respective reactors.

 

The reason for needing a nuclear plant is that regardless of weather you'll have a known quantity generated in a clean manner, when coupled with supplamentary power generation methods you're more able to opperate it at optimal levels.  And unlike other clean solutions you can turn up the dial and crank out the watts when a suprise AU v NZ Rugby match breaks out and everyone turns on their tubes to watch it.

Or in an unlikely heatwave with no wind and people are turning on their AC to survive it.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, MoonSpot said:

crank out the watts when a suprise AU v NZ Rugby match breaks out and everyone turns on their tubes to watch it.

Don't know why they bother to watch, we're going to beat them anyway 

[MoonSpot]

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Robert Downey Jr. based his performance of Tony Stark largely on Elon Musk. Not entirely, of course - as much inspiration was drawn from the original comic book character. But the current MCU iteration was definitely modelled after - to some degree - Elon Musk:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/true-story-elon-musk-robert-downey-jr-tony-stark-ashlee-vance

OIC.  He does clearly have 2 eyes, 2 ears and a nose, just like elon.  Coincidence?  Pfft obviously not!  Its not like stark was always a super intellegent science guy that was into women and philanthropy.

 

(P.S. plz highlight what relavent item you wanted to point out with that link, I don't have much tolerance for reading that sort of stuff.  Too gossipy cheerleader like for me )

[RedSpade]

6 minutes ago, MoonSpot said:

That doesn't mean as much as one would like to believe(means nothing other than potential for national mining jobs).

The material would need to be refined and packaged for use for a particular type of powerplant.  Sorta like needing the right sized cartages to fit, there's no dude shovelling "raw" uranium into a boiler to make it go faster.  With that the where x% of uranium is is invalidated for the most part.  It won't be cheaper to buy refined nuclear fuel(s) from General electric, hitachi, Toshiba or whom ever else pedals fuel for their respective reactors.

 

The reason for needing a nuclear plant is that regardless of weather you'll have a known quantity generated in a clean manner, when coupled with supplamentary power generation methods you're more able to opperate it at optimal levels.  And unlike other clean solutions you can turn up the dial and crank out the watts when a suprise AU v NZ Rugby match breaks out and everyone turns on their tubes to watch it.

Or in an unlikely heatwave with no wind and people are turning on their AC to survive it.

I completely agree. I was trying to say that Australia would be an ideal place for a nuclear reactor, due to natural resources and unreliable power sources. Unfortunately the only one we have is a small one for research.

 

And it would be cheaper for Australia to process Uranium than to sell it to someone else, then buy it back processed. The only problem is the media convincing the Australian people that it's bad.

Just now, leadeater said:

Don't know why they bother to watch, we're going to beat them anyway 

Pfft, more like you try 

[dalekphalm]

Just now, MoonSpot said:

OIC.  He does cearly have 2 eyes to ears and a nose, just like elon.  Coincidence?  Pfft obviously not!  Its not like stark was always a super intellegent science guy that was into women and philanthropy.

 

(P.S. plz highlight what relavent item you wanted to point out with that link, I don't have much tolerance for reading that sort of stuff.  Too gossipy cheerleader for me like)

I'm not going to summarize the entire thing - read it, or don't. But the jist is that while they were about to start filming Iron Man, Downey Jr was very nostalgic towards Howard Hughes (they were filming in an old Hughes warehouse) - and heard about a new Hughes-like figure - Elon Musk.

 

He then got a personal tour of SpaceX and spent some one-on-one time talking with Elon.

 

The performance being based on Musk was definitely embellished - he certainly influenced some of the character, but Musk isn't the alcoholic womanizer that Stark is. Musk let the embellishment happen, because it boosted his ego, and helped boost the visibility of his persona, which in turn, helped the visibility of his companies and investment.

[leadeater]

18 minutes ago, RedSpade said:

Pfft, more like you try 

I'll refer you to statistics of win rate and the sub statistic of win rate specifically against Aus.

Spoiler

Details	Played	Won by  Australia	Won by  New Zealand	Drawn	Australia points	New Zealand points
In Australia	80	25	49	6	1200	1565
In New Zealand	73	15	57	1	895	1588
Neutral venue	5	2	3	0	75	81
Overall	158	42	109	7	2187	3268

 

Just don't bring up world cups 

 

Edit:

Spoiler

New Zealand have only ever been beaten by six test nations,^[k] and they are the only international team to have a winning record against every nation they have played. They have won 428 of their 555 test matches – 77.12% (see table), and have lost at home only 37 times. Since World Rankings were introduced by World Rugby in October 2003, New Zealand have occupied the number one ranking the majority of the time.^[2] In the decade from 2000 to 2009, New Zealand won 100 tests (82% winning percentage). As of 24 June 2017, the All Blacks have won a record 47 consecutive tests at home. However on 1 July, they lost to the British and Irish Lions to end that 47-match winning streak at home.

 

New Zealand's longest winning streak is 18 test victories (a Tier 1 joint world record), achieved between 2015 and 2016. In 2013 they won every test they played during a calendar year. Their longest unbeaten streak is 23 tests (from 1987 to 1990) with one game being drawn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_national_rugby_union_team

 

We have a 69% chance of beating you 

[rewird]

Used to live in Adelaide, has always had massive power issues, more so in summer than anything (air con etc). Pretty sure the pelican point power station was obsolete about 10 years ago, the funny thing is this has been an issue for a decade, and even through the spiel of renewable tech and discussion on whether they should or shouldn't build a nuclear facility; alas the govt again, did nothing.

 

It's good to see another company actually helping

[rowlYy]

South Australia represent! The issue we have been having is that South Australia gets a lot of its power from an inter-connector running from Victoria (the state next door), we had a huge windstorm that knocked over a large portion of the power line, which caused a surge that tripped something to shut the inter-connector and wind farms off. Power was out for days in most places.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/wind-farm-settings-to-blame-for-sa-blackout-aemo-says/8389920 - that's the report for the investigation 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout - general info

ABC is the government news agency, they have to remain neutral, so it is quite reliable.

[Jito463]

1 hour ago, rowlYy said:

ABC is the government news agency, they have to remain neutral, so it is quite reliable.

They're kind of like that here too, only far less reliable. 

 

Or at least they were, under the last regime administration.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

Teehee, just watched the last WAN show that mentioned this article. Either Linus misread my username or he just didn't want to say it.

[mr moose]

On 7/8/2017 at 0:57 AM, MoonSpot said:

Watched Ironman?  Tony Stark is based off the Tony Stark from the Ironman comicbook, first released in May 1968.  3 years before Elon was born.

 

OT: Good, batteries are required to make green energy tech worthwhile.  But still realistically need a nuclear plant as a base for any advanced society of worthwhile size.  Don't think there are any in use in Oz.  It's simply best to mesh a few different energy generation types together and use them all at the same time so you can capitalize on each techs strength when appropriate to do so.

 

absolutely we need to have nuclear in Australia, but the damn greens are so hell bent on sending us back to the dark ages for fear of killing a tree that we'll end up in the dark ages because we haven't let new technology flourish. We have two reactors in Australia, one fission reactor that is a science facility and doesn't produce and the other is a prototype fusion reactor (suffice to say also doesn't produce power).

 

On 7/8/2017 at 1:22 AM, Dash Lambda said:

But investment in production can affect interest in development. What I was saying is, if he puts so much time and money into traditional lithium batteries, I wonder if that would prevent him from developing new types of batteries to ultimately warrant a change to the entire process somewhere down the line.

This is Elon Musk, so I don't think that really matters to him, but in most cases that really is a factor.

At least he's investing in technologies that will make a difference, it's very easy to be critical when we are not in the position he is in.

On 7/8/2017 at 1:17 PM, RedSpade said:

There's only 1 nuclear plant in Aus and that's in Sydney but generates no power. They should have a nuclear power plant as Aus has 33% of the worlds uranium.

It definitely does, SA has had huge problems with black/brown outs, not entirely due to renewable energy, but mostly because their energy network is so spread out. So when the power lines are brought down then everything fails, hopefully they put some safeguard in place with these batteries to reliably supply electricity even in extreme weather.

18 hours ago, rewird said:

Used to live in Adelaide, has always had massive power issues, more so in summer than anything (air con etc). Pretty sure the pelican point power station was obsolete about 10 years ago, the funny thing is this has been an issue for a decade, and even through the spiel of renewable tech and discussion on whether they should or shouldn't build a nuclear facility; alas the govt again, did nothing.

 

It's good to see another company actually helping

Power issues there (as is always the case) have more to do with corporate Australia and politics than anything else.  We just don't have the consumer base to make building a new plant ever 40 years feasible. That's why there is nothing to replace hazlewood and while al the greenies are rejoicing it's closure we are going to have to buy more expensive coal fired power from NSW to make up the difference while the company that owned hazlewood sells more expensive gas and power from the the two other stations it already owns.      

 

Also for those talking about the safety of Ion batteries, there are plenty of safeguards in place, if you are going to take issue with big lithium banks being unsafe then you need to also take issue with nuclear and coal as the threat of explosion and ongoing damage are the same.  Everything on this planet is only as safe as the safeguards people maintain.  Ergo lithium Ion batteries are just as safe as nuclear/coal (technically even safer).

 

 

[Bensemus]

About battery safety. There are videos where they cause 1 battery to fail and show that it can't take out any other batteries in the same unit. Unfortunately I'm unable to find that video

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Bensemus said:

About battery safety. There are videos where they cause 1 battery to fail and show that it can't take out any other batteries in the same unit. Unfortunately I'm unable to find that video

 

Just like if you take out one control rod from a fission reactor at let it cascade it can cause all to go.  Not saying batteries are inherently  safe, just saying they are not more dangerous than what we already have.  It all comes down to safeguards and how operators implement them.

[abazigal]

On 07/07/2017 at 8:08 PM, revsilverspine said:

Elon Musk is Tony Stark^{[citation needed]}

In the movies, I found Tony Stark was as much responsible for the problems in the shows as he was for fixing them. No doubt Stark is a genius, but he seems to be lacking a lot in the common sense department. 

 

Not sure the comparison is a fitting one. We will see when the power plant is up and running (or not). 

[Dash Lambda]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

-snip-

On nuclear fission power, it is more hazardous for one reason. A catastrophic failure exposes highly radioactive material, which lasts a long time and is dangerous to even be near.

And as for environmental impact, I'm really not which which is worse between fossil fuel byproducts and nuclear waste. They're both bad.

 

Really, what we need is fusion power. We won't be dependent on highly limited resources anymore, we won't need to fill our environment with crap anymore, power plants will even be safer, and we'll actually be able to power cities easily (unlike wind and solar).

[You_are_a_cunt]

5 hours ago, abazigal said:

In the movies, I found Tony Stark was as much responsible for the problems in the shows as he was for fixing them. No doubt Stark is a genius, but he seems to be lacking a lot in the common sense department. 

 

Not sure the comparison is a fitting one. We will see when the power plant is up and running (or not). 

We're talking about someone that started a company because he was stuck in traffic. Now we have the Boring Company. If that's not something Stark would do, I don't know what would.