There are large scale solutions being designed for excess energy storage. This is a pretty interesting proposal in the Netherlands: build an underground water reservoir, pumps to pump it so a reservoir above the ground, and hydro power generators in between. The estimation is that it delivers 9.4 GWh capacity for a construction cost of 1.8 billion Euro.
I expect a lot more of these kinds of large scal solutions to be developed to bridge the cap between generation of wind and solar energy, and their consumption.
The waste is easily contained, high level waste is kept on site and buried with the reactor when its life cycle is finished. Low and mid level isn’t as dangerous as you think
I think tech stocks in general are overly valued and generally the business forecasts are overly optimistic (really speaking generally here). The few unicorns that pop up every few years and generate a lot of buzz though are not indicative of the tech industry as a whole. There are entire sub-industries within tech that will never go away. SSD technology for instance is improving by leaps and bounds every year (this is my area so I’m biased but it’s truly amazing what the cutting edge stuff can do). Software is becoming smarter at utilizing the hardware. The entire world of tech isn’t in web.
The dotcom crash came from investors who’d toss money at any company whos primary business was online. There was literally no other metrics people were using to measure whether the valuations were good, it was just pure mania. I don’t really see that happening often nowadays, and even this company, We, is kind of a joke in the industry right now. I mean the IPO is a complete lunatic’s concoction. Go read it or an analysis of it.
Will people still buy it? Probably, but that’s more of an indictment on our insane, out of control bullish market than tech itself. And We isnt even a tech company, keep in mind. I mean, their IPO filing basically says “we cannot make money sustainably and have massive conflicts of interest and colossal risk exposure,” ffs.
Yeah this tech bubble is nowhere near as egregious as the last one… simply because they aren’t figments of people’s imaginations.
I’d be curious about your thoughts on Uber. I think it’s exhibit A for the thesis ‘tech stocks are overvalued’… but I wouldn’t extend that to any of the tech behemoths. I think they are close to fairly valued assuming the first round of regulation breaks their way… and honestly more and more I think it will.
I can’t talk about Uber without bias because I used to drive for them and they are hands down the worst, most evil company I have ever dealt with. It seems like the culture has changed for the better in the last 5 years but that isn’t saying a whole lot.
Yea, Uber has too many risks for me to even consider investing in. But, I think their story and vision is sound and their long term goals could really put them in a position to dominate the entire auto-based service industry (especially trucking). They remind me a little of Amazon - for a long, long time Amazon was unprofitable. Now it basically rules the world.
Tech valuations are about stories and not revenue now, and Uber is definitely one of those, as is Tesla. But Tesla seems mismanaged and Uber does not appear that way. I think they are probably 10-15 years too early for what they want to do (automated driving). But, if it pans out, they could make a few billion a year just from automating our trucking system. It’s totally possible and probably will be some of the first automated vehicles on the road. Trucking is a 700billion dollar industry.
All/most driving will be automated one day, I truly believe this. We’re just a long ways from it and Uber’s core current business model sucks.
You should know that they aren’t viable in trucking. Like at all. They haven’t even gotten to a point where they are reinventing the wheel yet… And even on the automated truck side they are getting waffle crushed by people who are only trying to do that.
Automated trucks are coming, but Uber has no edge or lead there, and they are miles and miles behind the curve on logistics management side.
Source: They are a competitor that I watched very closely for a very long time (because until I realized that they are vaporware they looked very scary). I’ll explain in greater detail by PM if anyone has questions.
I forgot which thread the energy talk was happening in, so I didn’t get back to it.
I’m tempted to write a long post or start a new thread talking about the options for renewables and storage in different areas (focused on SoCal) including information on trends and talk about the facts on the ground about real nuclear power in the real United States, not some Platonic ideal of nuclear power. But, I don’t see the point. In the end I don’t think any minds will change, few people will actually read much if it, and people who don’t agree will think it’s bias and propaganda.
But, whatever. It’s not really a problem. When arguing with the people on 2p2, the deniers, I would also not really be frustrated. This is because renewables have won in the market for real. The majority of new energy sources in the US coming online are renewable sources. The price of energy plus storage contracts are already below $.03/kwh and Los Angeles is looking at a project with storage that might come in below $.02/kwh. While it would be great if the transition is sped up because we need it to have happened already - lots of temperature increase is already guaranteed - renewables with storage will take over the vast majority of electricity production. Thankfully there’s no stopping it.
Maybe I’ll start some of it today. Gonna have to work on it offline. Hmm, everyone else in my house is getting published (my wife recently got in WaPo, eldest daughter is in an upcoming Teen Vogue which is apparently and surprisingly pretty friendly to radical leftism). Maybe I should try to get something in some magazine.
Yeah, I’m VERY leery about hoping Trump will tank the economy at the right time. The 800 pt drop in the DOW already came back half-way. And if things really start to tank because of tariffs, the stable genius can just wake up and tweet that he’s happy to announce that because he’s gotten everything he wants from China (even though nothing has changed) he’s rescinding 100% of the tariffs immediately - market would likely jump a thousand points or so.
The economy doesn’t need to tank. It’s been flat for over a year (using Trump’s favorite metric, stock prices). People are already starting to notice, especially the types of people who are willing to look past his deficiencies because their 401k balance keeps going up. Trump needs to deliver a 10% gain minimum over the next year if he wants to run on the economy.
