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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • I guess it comes down to whether we want to primarily communicate battery size in terms of charge (Coulombs = Amps * Time) or energy (Joules = Watts * Time).

    The first metric you multiply by your operating voltage to get the second metric, whereas the second metric you have to divide by your voltage to get the first. Depends on what comes easier to most people.


  • Hey nice to have ya!

    Friendly reminder that the Fediverse is awesome, and you have the power to control the content in your feed not only by which subs you subscribe to or instances you make an account on, but also which you can block - including specific users if it comes to that. Of course, instance admins can do the same, and if that happens to content you want to see, you can always make a new account on a different instance and see everything.

    It takes a little to understand the Fediverse structure, but imo it’s one of the best ways social media can be structured.




  • Michael Thackeray filed a patent under Argonne National Laboratory for the leading EV battery chemistry worldwide today, Lithium Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt Oxide (NMC), sometime around 2007-2008.

    The first cars with that specific technology started coming out in the US market in 2013/2014 IIRC, with EVs coming out before then basing their battery chemistry on NCA (Tesla) or LMO (Nissan Leaf & Chevy Volt).

    That’s a 5-7 year timeframe from laboratory to mass production.

    If you consider new technologies today like Samsung’s battery in this article, and make the not so unrealistic leap that we’re better at battery production today than in 2013/2014, it’s very possible that we see this technology hit the market in 5 years or less.

    Technology always improves. It’s CAPEX that hinders it, and I’m willing to bet that there are financial interests out there to keep the main battery chemistry NMC and secure steady profits.


  • EE here. Chargers put out power in units of kW, while batteries store energy in units of kWh or MJ or what have you. Otherwise, you’re absolutely correct.

    Typically Distributed Generation (DG) scale solar PV and battery storage sites are sized anywhere from 1 to 10 MW.

    At 1 MW, you could run (1) charger at a speed of 1 MW, or (2) at 500 kW, etc. Usually need just (1) transformer for that size installation too.

    At 10 MW, you can run each charger at 1 MW or so, but you’re also talking about probably (4-10) transformers @ $250k USD a pop. Installation prices go up the more you demand in power transfer.

    Then you need to consider that most DG projects need to pay for the upgrades to their downstream grid architecture, meaning reconducting or upsizing cable, breakers, switches, transformers, reactors, sensors, relays, etc.

    Not saying it’s impossible. You could co-locate and DC-couple solar PV or Wind parks next to charging points to get around some of the grid upgrades, but most people live in areas that require homes and grocery stores and other buildings than flat land meant for solar PV or Wind.

    When it comes down to it, it’s so much easier to just trickle charge your EV at night via arbitrage and when you’re sleeping so all of this infrastructure doesn’t have to been upgraded - and I’d argue upgraded needlessly because we need to save that copper and iron and materials for upgrades to the parts of the grid meant to interconnect renewables.

    But there is no silver bullet to these things so we’ll likely see more, larger chargers come through unless regulators stop it from happening.




  • I agree with all of this as an electrical engineer in the field. Base load is only base load because of the load profile of devices connected to the grid having either an on or off switch. Most of the time this means motors/HVACs, but the world of electronics is coming to that equipment just like how inverters have changed how we export solar PV and wind to the grid. VFDs, soft starters, and the like will make our industrial processes that much more efficient. We just need to spread awareness and ramp up implementation, just as much as for renewables themselves.







  • Yeah I thought OpenAI came out and said that they modeled the voice of a different actress, and they don’t want to share their identity out of a respect for privacy.

    It could just be a coincidence that Altman tweeted the image from Her, and people made the connection between the voice and ScarJo, especially since she did something extreme similar in that movie.

    Could be coincidental. Could not be. We don’t really have the evidence to say either way, but maybe ScarJo’s suit will affect change so that better rights are granted to people and their digital twins.