Neil, is there anywhere you can safely park your Chevy Bolt without worrying it will start a fire?
h/t Raymond
We Don’t Need No Melty Megabatteries
Via Zerohedge: A truck carrying a load of Tesla batteries in Placer County, California crashed and rolled over, causing the batteries to light on fire and blocking a large portion of I-80 on Friday night.
h/t Raymond
We Don’t Need No Melty Megabatteries
Late on Saturday evening, a major energy storage project in the USA was taken offline after an incident involving some battery modules.
At 300MW/1,200MWh, Phase 1 of Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in Monterey County, California is the world’s largest operational battery energy storage system (BESS). LG Energy Solution supplied 4,500 TR1300 racks containing JH4 high energy cells for the project, pre-assembled at LG’s factory prior to shipping to reduce construction time and associated installation costs.
Phase 1 commenced commercial operations on December 11, 2020. The batteries charge up during the day, taking advantage of local solar energy generation, and discharge back to the grid as solar electricity production drops in the evenings.
In the incident on Saturday evening (Sunday morning in Australia), integrated safety systems detected “a number” of battery modules operating at a temperature above operational standards, which triggered targeted sprinkler systems that doused the affected modules.
Owner of the facility Vistra Corp says while the incident was controlled and contained without the need for outside assistance, the local fire department was called in as part of response planning.
A local news channel reported the incident was a bit more than battery modules getting a little warm, with the firies allegedly stating some battery racks had been “scorched” and wires “melted”.
h/t roaddog
A millstone, not a milestone….
If one were honest about the actual cost of facilities like this one in Iceland, it would become clear that the chattering classes of the western world are incentivizing the digging of holes that not only bury carbon, but literally bury valuable capital as well.
That is less than 1% of the annual emissions of a single coal-fired power plant, according to EPA emissions data and an International Energy Agency report on the technology. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that, to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, the world needs to remove 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of carbon from the atmosphere by the end of the century.
Keynes may not have imagined this in his wildest dreams.
Y2Kyoto: Put An Orangutan In Your Tank!
In A Battle Of Energy Super-Villains Who Would Win?
Wind or Diesel?
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
In June 2017, months after General Motors Co. beat Tesla Inc. to market with an affordable, long-range electric vehicle, it took out full-page newspaper ads touting how long its Chevrolet Bolt could travel between charges. The tagline: “Begin a long-distance relationship, now.”
Four years later, the long-distance relationship between GM and its battery partner, LG Energy Solution, is being tested like never before. At issue: who will pick up a roughly US$1 billion tab.
Y2Kyoto: Schadenfrozen
One of Germany’s biggest challenges in the fight against climate change is to keep the lights on.
As Europe’s biggest economy shuts its last nuclear reactor next year and utility RWE AG warns that coal plants may close earlier than planned, critics say green energy isn’t being added quickly enough. Germany’s ability to meet peak demand is poised to shrink rapidly over the next two years, increasing the risk of blackouts.
In a last push to save her fading reputation as ‘The Climate Chancellor’ before stepping down after next month’s election, Angela Merkel announced Europe’s strictest emissions goals. But the green power revolution she fronted for almost two decades is running out of steam just as the electrification of the economy will increase demand. […]
A supply squeeze would send power prices soaring for the many thousands of companies that make up the backbone of the economy. Wholesale rates have already jumped almost 60% this year to their highest level since 2008. That increase will feed through to the nation’s 40 million homes already paying the highest bills in the European Union, partly to fund the energy transition.
The green-hucksters at Bloomberg buried that third paragraph at the bottom of the article, and this one at the end:
In the meantime, Germany may have to rely more on neighboring markets for imports. But the closure of fossil-fuel plants in other nations too means that availability could be limited during harsh winters, just when the power is needed the most…
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
The best part of EV’s is that you can charge them at your home.
General Motors says it has expanded a recall of its Chevy Bolt electric vehicles to include all model years because of a risk the battery cells could catch fire.
This latest recall includes about 73,000 Bolts from model years 2019 through 2022, including just over 10,000 in Canada. A previous recalled announced in July was for 69,000 Bolts from between 2017 and 2019.
The company says that in rare cases, two manufacturing defects in the battery cells create a risk of fire.
It warns that owners should limit charging to 90 per cent of battery capacity, park vehicles outside immediately after charging and not leave vehicles charging indoors overnight.
h/t Chris
Biden’s Bridge Is Falling Down
In 2011, it was Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood reciting the mantra about “rebuilding the Brent Spence or any of the tens of thousands of bridges in America.” Foxx, his successor, who would turn down the Brent Spence bridge, was also pitching plans to rebuild thousands of bridges.
Replacing the “damn bridge”, as Biden put it, would cost about $2.5 billion. Instead of rebuilding the bridge, Obama had poured a fortune into Big Green projects that failed.
Solyndra received a $535 million loan guarantee to build solar panels and went bankrupt. Abound Solar got a $400 million stimulus loan guarantee and went bankrupt. Tonopah Solar Energy got $737 million in loans and went bankrupt. Fisker got a $529 million stimulus loan to build electric cars and went bankrupt. A123 got a $249 million stimulus grant to build electric car batteries and went bankrupt.
Ener1 got a $118.5 million grant to build electric car batteries and went bankrupt. Biden had visited the company and hailed it as one of the “100 Recovery Act Projects That Are Changing America”, but he had also accidentally described it a little too accurately as “Enron One”.
The bankrupt company was then taken over by an oligarch with ties to the Russian government. But 40% of the company’s stock had already been controlled by a Russian state-owned bank as collateral for a mere $24 million in loans.
That’s why the “damn bridge” still isn’t fixed.
h/t Adrian
Now Is The Time At SDA When We Flashback!
June 28, 2021 — Ottawa rolls out aid program to help farmers adopt cleaner technology
“We saw a business opportunity because of all the chatter in agriculture with the expense of drying grain,” said chief executive Lyall Wiebe. His pitch to farmers was simple: You’re sitting on your own fuel source.
August 4, 2021 — Burn your scarce and expensive cattle feed
h/t KP
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
A new study has found that if the world were to meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, there would be eight million more jobs globally by 2050.
But in this scenario, researchers say some fossil fuel-dependant economies such as Canada would actually see fewer energy jobs.
Because most of those eight million jobs would be in manufacturing wind turbines and the like, and not in actual energy generation. And nobody sane is going to manufacture that crap in high cost jurisdictions like Canada. It seems they’re just figuring that out now.
You know, there’s a Nobel Prize awaiting the first economist who successfully explains to mainstream journalism that when a system creates “eight million more jobs” than would be otherwise required, it’s a flashing red siren that energy generation has become vastly less efficient, and that vastly less efficient translates into vastly more expensive for consumers and industry alike.
Good luck keeping manufacturing plants in northern latitudes when winter heating costs go through the roof. Adios Amigos.
(There’s a lesser prize awaiting the first person to explain why there’s a hyphen between “fuel” and “dependant”).
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
…according to a new Bank of America Global Research report, the global EV battery supply is in danger of running out completely as soon as 2025. “Our updated EV battery supply-demand model suggests the global EV battery supply will likely hit [a] ‘sold-out’ situation between 2025-26, with its global operating rates reaching above 85%,” the report reads ominously. The supply shortage will be largely a product of rapidly increasing demand in a market that is simply unprepared for the levels of EV adoption coming down the pike in the immediate term.
Otherwise, everything will work out just fine providing the Chinese are generous in sharing their rare earth minerals, the electrical grid is rebuilt nationwide, and the cheap and plentiful renewable energy fairy godmother arrives in time to save us.
h/t Jojodogfacedboy
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
General Motors said Friday it is issuing a new recall for nearly 69,000 Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles (EVs) worldwide for fire risks after reports of two fires and will replace defective battery modules as needed.
The Bolt EVs were recalled in November for fire risks and at least one of the two new fires was in a vehicle that had already had the software update released as part of that recall.
The latest recall comes after GM and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulators last week urged Bolt owners to park their vehicles outside and away from homes after charging.
The largest U.S. automaker said “experts from GM and (battery maker) LG have identified the simultaneous presence of two rare manufacturing defects in the same battery cell as the root cause of battery fires in certain Chevrolet Bolt EVs.”
GM said it will replace defective battery modules in the recall population, although it is not clear how many are defective. The recall includes 50,925 U.S. vehicles.
h/t Chris
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
h/t Exurban
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.
The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city’s transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles’ chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city’s bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately address the city’s concerns.
The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant. Philadelphia defended the investment with claims that the electric buses would require less maintenance than standard combustion engine counterparts.
h/t Scissor
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
The best part of EV’s is that you can charge them at your home.
While your family sleeps.
But read the comments. There’s more.
h/t Raymond
A journalist doing her job
Asking the right kinds of questions gets you some revealing answers. Mainstream Canadian journalists should take note.
“As a source of finance for climate change mitigation, nothing makes more sense than borrowing.”
“Borrowing money today is almost free.”
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors
…a major new study of the economics of solar, published in Harvard Business Review (HBR), finds that the waste produced by solar panels will make electricity from solar panels four times more expensive than the world’s leading energy analysts thought. “The economics of solar,” write Atalay Atasu and Luk N. Van Wassenhove of Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires, one of Europe’s leading business schools, and Serasu Duran of the University of Calgary, will “darken quickly as the industry sinks under the weight of its own trash.”
Conventional wisdom today holds that the world will quadruple the number of solar panels in the world over the next decade. “And that’s not even taking into consideration the further impact of possible new regulations and incentives launched by the green-friendly Biden administration,” Atasu, Wassenhove, and Duran write in HBR.
But the volume of solar panel waste will destroy the economics of solar even with the subsidies, they say. “By 2035,” write the three economists, “discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times. In turn, this would catapult the LCOE (levelized cost of energy, a measure of the overall cost of an energy-producing asset over its lifetime) to four times the current projection.”
h/t Sid V
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
John F. Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said only months ago that those losing fossil fuel jobs in coal and hydraulic fracturing will find they have a better choice of jobs in either the solar industry or as wind turbine technicians.
That was then. Now, a wind blade manufacturing plant located in Aberdeen, South Dakota, has announced it is shutting its doors permanently in less than two months.