Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Be there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the one that saves me. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and our other host, Lauren big Obama is
Speaker 1: not with us today, but she will be back next time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she is currently being famous doing something else, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, more or less true. She she has she
Speaker 1: has a lot of other shows that she's on, and
Speaker 1: so we're letting her go and be on her other
Speaker 1: show and we are going to carry on here, but
Speaker 1: she will be on the next episode. So we're going
Speaker 1: to cover something that was recently mentioned in the news
Speaker 1: and kind of made a big stir online coming from
Speaker 1: the company Tesla, which has been known to announced several
Speaker 1: things that have cost stirs in the past. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: might look at them as aspiring to create somewhat disruptive technologies,
Speaker 1: perhaps being the people who want to shake up the market. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe create a new market where one never existed before,
Speaker 1: which could potentially take some steam away from other markets,
Speaker 1: sometimes literally as a case. Maybe. Yeah, And so this
Speaker 1: technology that we're going to talk about today is the
Speaker 1: the widely hyped Tesla power wall, also known as a battery. Well,
Speaker 1: so what I imagined when I first heard somebody in
Speaker 1: the office here talking about the power wall, like, hey,
Speaker 1: did you hear about the power wall? I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is that? It's some kind of like home defense
Speaker 1: system where if you touch the walls of the house,
Speaker 1: it's like a Tesla coil. It's like, it's like the
Speaker 1: house defense version of the car alarm and RoboCop. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: like the batmobile. That's that's not what it is, as
Speaker 1: it turns out. So what it is very simply is
Speaker 1: a home energy storage solution. Yeah, and that's that might
Speaker 1: sound pretty basic, and in a way it is, but
Speaker 1: we shouldn't talk about why home energy storage is a
Speaker 1: thing that actually matters and will matter more in the future,
Speaker 1: probably hopefully. There are some places in the world where
Speaker 1: this announcement truly makes a huge difference. Now the place
Speaker 1: where Joe and I live is not necessarily one of them,
Speaker 1: but we'll get into why that is. In fact, it
Speaker 1: might might benefit us to have a discussion really quickly
Speaker 1: about how electricity is measured in terms of pricing, because,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, the energy storage part has you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the decision to switch to an energy
Speaker 1: storage system in your home has to do with the financial,
Speaker 1: uh situation you are in, the type of how much
Speaker 1: are you being charged for your electricity? Yeah? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: let's start off talking about about electricity pricing. How you
Speaker 1: get your electricity, how it's measured, and what it costs.
Speaker 1: So I've got a question. Okay, a lot of times
Speaker 1: you'll see an appliance, some kind of electrical device rated
Speaker 1: for like a number of watts or killer watts. But
Speaker 1: then it seems like when I have to pay for electricity,
Speaker 1: I'm being charged for kill a watt hours. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so what's going on there? Your electronics require a certain
Speaker 1: amount of electricity in order to operate at any given instant,
Speaker 1: and watts is a way of measuring units of electricity
Speaker 1: in an instant. So it's it's kind of like if
Speaker 1: you are driving thirty five miles per hour, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say how much time was that because that doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense for that question at that instant you were
Speaker 1: going thirty five miles per hour, you would have to
Speaker 1: ask how long were you driving for thirty five miles
Speaker 1: per hour? That that would make sense. All right, I
Speaker 1: drew thirty five for ten minutes, that would make that's
Speaker 1: the question that makes sense. Same thing with electricity. You'd
Speaker 1: say how much electricity does this, uh this a lot
Speaker 1: electronic device require? And you'd say, like a hundred watts
Speaker 1: in an instant? How long did you operated it an hour? Well,
Speaker 1: that means that you were operating at one watts per hour.
Speaker 1: So when you are talking about electricity pricing, the utility
Speaker 1: companies look at kill a watt hours, how many killer
Speaker 1: watts were used per hour in your home? And you
Speaker 1: figure this out by looking at all the different electronic
Speaker 1: devices you have, right finding out how much how much
Speaker 1: wattage they require, multiply that by how long they were
Speaker 1: in operation, and then divide that by one thousand, because
Speaker 1: one thousand watts equals one kill a watt. And once
Speaker 1: you do all that, you know how many killer watts
Speaker 1: per hour were used for any given amount of time,
Speaker 1: uh like over the you can average that out over
Speaker 1: a month, which is what utility companies do. And then
Speaker 1: in order for you to figure out how much you're paying,
Speaker 1: you would look at your bill and you this gets
Speaker 1: a little complicated depending upon where you live. Um, your
Speaker 1: you might have a statement right there that says how
Speaker 1: much has charged per kilowatt hour, and essentially you would
Speaker 1: multiply that figure by the number of kilowatt hours you
Speaker 1: consumed in that that time period, or you might have
Speaker 1: to actually do the math yourself. Right, You might have
Speaker 1: to take the total and take out any additional fees
Speaker 1: that were at on top of it, and then divide
Speaker 1: the number of kilowatt hours you used to find out
Speaker 1: how much they're charging you per kill a watt hour. Well,
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty straightforward. If you just have a price
Speaker 1: per kilowatt hour and then you've used this many kilowatt hours,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a simple way to calculate your bill.
Speaker 1: But not all kilowatt hours are the same. This is
Speaker 1: this is true, yeah, because there so One of the
Speaker 1: things about the power grid, especially in the United States,
Speaker 1: is that there are peak hours of usage and there
Speaker 1: are slow hours of usage. And depending on the power grid, uh,
Speaker 1: it may be operating at near capacity, as in it
Speaker 1: is carrying a load that is the maximum for what
Speaker 1: it is capable of handling. Right, and you can think
Speaker 1: about this in terms of your own daily habits. I mean,
Speaker 1: how do you use electricity in your house or your
Speaker 1: apartment wherever you live. Well, you probably, if you're like
Speaker 1: most people, wake up in the morning, you turn on
Speaker 1: some lights, You maybe run the dishwasher, take a shower,
Speaker 1: run the water heater. You use some power. Then you
Speaker 1: leave for work, and then for most of the day
Speaker 1: you're not using much power. Then you come back home
Speaker 1: in the evening, turn a bunch of lights on, run
Speaker 1: some appliances, turn on the TV, use your computer, and
Speaker 1: then you go to bed, and then suddenly the power
Speaker 1: drops again. So there's a pretty standard, common sort of
Speaker 1: time of day surge in the demand for power throughout
Speaker 1: the grid, and often you will find out that the
Speaker 1: times when you most use power are the ones that
Speaker 1: have surge pricing on them. A tiered pricing level, so
Speaker 1: that price per kilo what hour maybe a range. Right,
Speaker 1: You might have an average of how much you paid
Speaker 1: per kilo one hour, but that that actual amount might
Speaker 1: change throughout the day, So in the big lead part
Speaker 1: of the day or at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it might be higher because increased demand is putting increased
Speaker 1: demand on the system. And it also means that it
Speaker 1: creates an incentive for you to use less electricity, thus
Speaker 1: decreasing the demand on the power grid. Um. Keeping my
Speaker 1: most power companies in the United States are like co
Speaker 1: ops or government owned utilities. They're not it's and they
Speaker 1: are also regulated, so they're not able to go for
Speaker 1: crazy profits there. It's not in their interest to try
Speaker 1: and uh uh you know, create the money making scheme
Speaker 1: of some sort because they're regulated to the point where
Speaker 1: they can't do that anyway. So they're operating under these
Speaker 1: rules and uh and and they want to make sure
Speaker 1: that they can supply electricity to all the customers who
Speaker 1: demand it. But in part of that they have this
Speaker 1: tiered pricing to help mediate that demand. Otherwise you would
Speaker 1: end up having demands that power grid couldn't meet, and
Speaker 1: you could have some pretty serious consequences like brownouts or worse.
Speaker 1: Um and uh you know, one of the things we
Speaker 1: could talk about a little bit later is how this
Speaker 1: is the perfect set up for us to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is time for us to look in two ways
Speaker 1: to address this, because it's a problem that's not going
Speaker 1: to get better over time. We're going to have an
Speaker 1: increasing demand for electricity. So we need to start figuring
Speaker 1: out one how we can decrease our individual consumption levels
Speaker 1: and to make the infrastructure to deliver electricity more efficient
Speaker 1: so that we're not constantly at that that edge where
Speaker 1: things could spill over into a problem. There's some states
Speaker 1: like California that are really close to that a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. Okay, Jonathan, Well here I've got a solution. Okay,
Speaker 1: say I look at this situation and I say, oh man,
Speaker 1: some some of these you know, power providers, they're straining.
Speaker 1: We're we're going to max out the grid. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put some solar panels on my house, and then I
Speaker 1: will be energy independent and I won't have to worry
Speaker 1: about this, you know, peak surge pricing at the time
Speaker 1: of day or possible brown outs when other people need electricity.
Speaker 1: I'll just be I'll be completely free. I'll be like
Speaker 1: the Superman of home energy usage. Right. It's not quite
Speaker 1: that way, is it. No, It's a little more complicated
Speaker 1: for two reasons, too big reasons. The first reason is
Speaker 1: that the installation cost of solar panels is something you
Speaker 1: can't ignore. Right, That's an upfront cost that is also
Speaker 1: going to require replacement over time. So you have to
Speaker 1: factor in how much am I spending for the system? Uh,
Speaker 1: and if I'm spending more like if you figure out
Speaker 1: for the lifetime of those solar panels, if you're spending
Speaker 1: more per kilo lot hour effectively for the lifetime of
Speaker 1: those solar panels than you would if you were getting
Speaker 1: it off the power grid, it doesn't make financial sense. Environmentally,
Speaker 1: that's a different question, but financially that doesn't make sense. Okay,
Speaker 1: well let's say we ignore that. Okay, we've still got
Speaker 1: another problem. Time problems actually eider that for a different
Speaker 1: reason now, right, because solar panels will convert solar power
Speaker 1: to electricity, but that's immediate. That's it happens when it
Speaker 1: when the solar power, when the sun light hits those
Speaker 1: solar panels. Yeah, that's when the electricity gets generated, whether
Speaker 1: you are using it or not. That's when the electricity
Speaker 1: is there and it doesn't stick around. So we talked
Speaker 1: earlier about the peak times when we're going to be
Speaker 1: using electricity, first thing in the morning and in the evening,
Speaker 1: especially once it starts getting dark and we need to
Speaker 1: turn lights on so we can see well when it
Speaker 1: gets dark, we're not getting any sunlight on the solar panels.
Speaker 1: In the morning, we may not be getting very much
Speaker 1: sunlight either, and so you're not generating a lot of electricity.
Speaker 1: You're generating the most electricity in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: which we have already established the time when you're not
Speaker 1: at home. It's the cruel irony of nature. So you
Speaker 1: need some way to store that electricity so that you
Speaker 1: can then access electricity during the hours when you need it.
Speaker 1: But it's also the hours when you're not generating electricity,
Speaker 1: at least not through solar panels. Right. So we've reached
Speaker 1: the point where whether you're just drawing grid electricity or
Speaker 1: you want to outfit your home with solar panels and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Either way, it would be really advantageous
Speaker 1: if you had an efficient way to store a lot
Speaker 1: of energy without much loss, uh, that you could use
Speaker 1: whenever you really needed it, right, Yeah. And this would
Speaker 1: allow you to do things like even like you were saying,
Speaker 1: even if you don't have solar panels, you could use
Speaker 1: a battery and charge your batteries when the peak, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: when the pricing is at its lowest, and then in
Speaker 1: the day when it get parts of the day where
Speaker 1: the pricing is higher. Instead of pulling your electricity off
Speaker 1: of the grid, you pull it from the batteries, so
Speaker 1: you're still getting the electricity you need, but you're only
Speaker 1: sipping from the power grid during the hours when it's
Speaker 1: at the low off hour times. And this would usually
Speaker 1: be at night, so you'd be probably asleep your batteries
Speaker 1: charged in the middle of the night. That's the only
Speaker 1: thing that's really going. There might be a couple of
Speaker 1: other systems like air conditioning, especially here in the South,
Speaker 1: some other things that might be running, but in general
Speaker 1: most of your electronics are off or in sleep mode
Speaker 1: or whatever. Uh so you would be sipping power from
Speaker 1: the power grid at a lower cost per kill a
Speaker 1: lot hours. Let's say, let's arbitrarily say it's eight cents
Speaker 1: for off peak hours, which is you know, low, but
Speaker 1: it is not unheard of. I've seen between five and
Speaker 1: ten cents, depending upon where you live. Um, there are
Speaker 1: other parts of the country where it's very different. But
Speaker 1: if it's eight cents per killer whatt hour off peak hours,
Speaker 1: that's when you're pulling your charging your battery. Then during
Speaker 1: peak hours it might be something closer to eighteen cents
Speaker 1: per kill a lot hour. Well, instead of pulling your
Speaker 1: electricity for the power grid there, you're pulling it from
Speaker 1: the battery. So this is electricity that you only spent
Speaker 1: eight cents per kill a watt hour to get in
Speaker 1: the first place. And if you do that time and
Speaker 1: time again over time, that difference between the the peak
Speaker 1: hour usage and the off peak our usage costs will
Speaker 1: offset the the the purchase and installation price of the
Speaker 1: battery hopefully, right, So whether you whether you go grid
Speaker 1: or whether you go solar, either way it could be
Speaker 1: a big help to have a large energy storage unit
Speaker 1: in your home. It could make financial sense, yes, depending
Speaker 1: on what it costs exactly and how much energy it
Speaker 1: can hold, and that and a lot of other considerations.
Speaker 1: But all of this is what brings us to the
Speaker 1: power wall. So ultimately, let's let's you know, to deconstructed.
Speaker 1: It is a battery. It is a lithium ion battery,
Speaker 1: but it's a very inexpensive lithium ion battery, particularly for
Speaker 1: the capacity, the efficiency in the number of cycles it has.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to take anything away from the
Speaker 1: achievement because battery technology is one of those things we've
Speaker 1: talked about in the past about how you know to
Speaker 1: to get it to a point where it has advanced
Speaker 1: similar to how other technologies have advanced. Is really really hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I've said this on the podcast before. I
Speaker 1: think batteries are one of the great overlooked marvels of
Speaker 1: modern life. They're one of the things we take for granted.
Speaker 1: We don't often think to be thankful for batteries, but
Speaker 1: just think how amazing batteries are. Awesome they make your life. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the only time we tend to think about them is
Speaker 1: when a battery's juice runs out and then were cursing, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you walk into your house and you hear the
Speaker 1: tell tale beeping noise of a smoke detector was as
Speaker 1: its battery is dying, You're like, I've got to go
Speaker 1: replace that. But assuming it's functioning properly, I mean the
Speaker 1: fact that you can like put a little thing in
Speaker 1: your cell phone or your laptop and then go use
Speaker 1: this device for hours without plugging it in, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: It is phenomenal, and it gives us. It gives us
Speaker 1: a lot of independence and freedom that we would not
Speaker 1: otherwise have. So certainly very important and uh and again,
Speaker 1: Tesla has done a lot to bring that price down,
Speaker 1: which is one of the big barriers to using energy
Speaker 1: storage at home. Now there are people who have had
Speaker 1: solar pedals on their homes for years, and they have
Speaker 1: had batteries for years, because you have to have a
Speaker 1: battery if you want solar panels to make sense, or
Speaker 1: you're using the solar panels to help offset how much
Speaker 1: you're pulling from the grid, because otherwise you're that again,
Speaker 1: that electricity that is being generated is just going to
Speaker 1: waste if you're not using it. Well, I think in
Speaker 1: some scenarios you can you can sell excess energy back
Speaker 1: to the grid. Yeah, depending upon the utility company in
Speaker 1: the region you're in there and the laws of the
Speaker 1: state you are in. This is very complicated when it
Speaker 1: gets down to it, but yes, there are some places
Speaker 1: where if your house is actually generating an excess of electricity,
Speaker 1: you can sell it back off to the grid, which
Speaker 1: makes sense. It it ends up taking some of the
Speaker 1: load off the grid itself. They don't have to produce
Speaker 1: as much electricity. Okay, but so, how is the power
Speaker 1: wall different from the batteries that, say, a solar panel
Speaker 1: equipped house has had before. Okay, well, one the design,
Speaker 1: it's pretty I mean it looks kind of like a
Speaker 1: big like pictures mound or like home plate. Like I
Speaker 1: was thinking that it looks like it's kind of bigger.
Speaker 1: And it's also uh, like you said, it's a lithium
Speaker 1: ion battery. Right. A lot of the batteries that were
Speaker 1: used in solar panel technology before now had been lead
Speaker 1: acid batteries, which are the same type of batteries that
Speaker 1: you would have in a vehicle like a car. Lead
Speaker 1: acid batteries. Um are you know, they're they're sturdy, they're
Speaker 1: proven technology, they cry horrible acid, they are all. They
Speaker 1: also can be bulky. Uh. If you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of them in series then one of them goes out,
Speaker 1: then you're in trouble because then you have to find
Speaker 1: the one that's gone out and replace it. Um. It's
Speaker 1: it's not the Uh, it's not the easiest technology to
Speaker 1: swap in and out, and it definitely has its disadvantages,
Speaker 1: but it's proven it works. Lithium ions worked too, but
Speaker 1: they had been very expensive until Tesla had said, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna come out with these couple of models. Um,
Speaker 1: so let's talk a little bit about the the actual
Speaker 1: power wall batteries. There are two models of them that
Speaker 1: they have. As far as I know, they are the
Speaker 1: same um size, right, yeah. I think one of the
Speaker 1: first things a lot of people would want to know
Speaker 1: about it is simply how big is this thing? Like
Speaker 1: where does it go? So they suggest, well, you put
Speaker 1: it on the wall, you mounted on one of the
Speaker 1: walls in your house, and it is in inches fifty
Speaker 1: one point to by thirty three point nine by seven
Speaker 1: point one, so so not a not an insignificantly small box.
Speaker 1: It is smaller, probably smaller than you in metric what
Speaker 1: is that It is a d millimeters by eight hundred
Speaker 1: sixty millimeters by one hundred and eighty millimeters and they
Speaker 1: are producing Tesla's producing two different types of power wall batteries.
Speaker 1: There's also another um power battery that Tesla's coming up
Speaker 1: with for like industrial use, but we're not really focusing
Speaker 1: on that. We're looking at the home use ones. So
Speaker 1: the two models they're looking at is a seven kilowatta
Speaker 1: our daily cycle capacity, meaning that it has the capacity
Speaker 1: to hold seven kilowatt hours of electricity. Then there is
Speaker 1: a ten kilowatt our weekly cycle battery. So we can
Speaker 1: hold ten kilo one hours. But you heard me say
Speaker 1: daily cycle and weekly cycle. And that's important, I think
Speaker 1: because a lot of people have been using the ten
Speaker 1: kilowatt hour cycle weekly cycle battery as their um basis
Speaker 1: to explain how this would work. But it would require
Speaker 1: you to essentially use and charge that battery every day,
Speaker 1: which is not a good idea for a weekly cycle battery.
Speaker 1: The cycles refer to how how much charged, how much
Speaker 1: capacity that battery can hold over a certain given amount
Speaker 1: of time or certain number of uses. Really is what
Speaker 1: I should say. So, Uh, the simplest way of explaining
Speaker 1: a cycle is, let's say you've got a battery, it's
Speaker 1: charged full. You use the battery until the charge has
Speaker 1: hit quote unquote zero percent. Trually do that. You shouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily do that, depending on the battery. Some batteries it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but we won't get into all that. Then
Speaker 1: you recharge it all the way back up to full.
Speaker 1: That's a cycle. From full to empty to full. That's
Speaker 1: a cycle. But you don't necessarily have to do it
Speaker 1: that way. If you if you end up using half
Speaker 1: the charge, recharged it, then used half the charged and
Speaker 1: recharged it that's a full cycle too, so it's really
Speaker 1: just the the representation of a of that battery's capacity
Speaker 1: being used and recharged, and there's a limited number of
Speaker 1: those per battery. The battery officials decreases, like you get
Speaker 1: a new laptop or something, and it will tell you
Speaker 1: the battery has this many cycles in its lifetime. And
Speaker 1: I said efficiency, it shifts at just capacity, because what
Speaker 1: I mean to say is that after you hit that number,
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that capacity is going to be the
Speaker 1: same as what it was when you first got the battery.
Speaker 1: In fact, it probably won't be right. So let's say,
Speaker 1: for example, here's here's I'm just using this as a
Speaker 1: as a out of the blue kind of example. Let's
Speaker 1: say that you have a ten kilowatt hour capacity battery
Speaker 1: and after ten thousand cycles, it's capacity has dropped, so
Speaker 1: now it's closer to nine kilowatt hours of capacity. Again,
Speaker 1: I just grabbed that out of nowhere. That would mean
Speaker 1: that that battery would now be nine kilowatt hours, but
Speaker 1: when you first got the battery, of that capacity would
Speaker 1: be ten kilowatt hours, and over time that that full
Speaker 1: capacity would drop more and more and you would need
Speaker 1: to replace the battery because you would no longer be
Speaker 1: able to store as much electricity in the battery as
Speaker 1: you could when you first got it. Uh. And sometimes
Speaker 1: this drop off can be pretty dramatic, and depending upon
Speaker 1: the type of battery, you can have issues. Like the
Speaker 1: reason why Joe was saying you don't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: drain a battery completely and recharge it is that sometimes
Speaker 1: with some batteries you can't recharge it, like it gets
Speaker 1: all the way down to the bottom and it won't
Speaker 1: charge back up. Yeah. Well, the horrible thing to do
Speaker 1: is like let it go to zero, charge it to
Speaker 1: use it, let it go to zero. Don't do that
Speaker 1: to your battery. Yeah. Depending again, depending on the battery,
Speaker 1: you can build up a memory of that where the
Speaker 1: battery starts to think of as being its new and
Speaker 1: then you've got a battery can hold half the capacity
Speaker 1: of what it used to. That's not as big a
Speaker 1: problem these days as it used to be, but it
Speaker 1: is still something like you really shouldn't do that all
Speaker 1: the time. Um, it's better to avoid it. So uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if you're using the ten kilowatt hour battery, it's suggesting
Speaker 1: weekly cycles, so they Tesla's marketing as a backup battery,
Speaker 1: something that would be used in times where perhaps you
Speaker 1: needed to you wanted to maybe ease off on your
Speaker 1: consumption but only for a little while, or your consumption
Speaker 1: from the grid for a little while, or perhaps there
Speaker 1: might be power outages and this would be a great
Speaker 1: way to be able to still provide electricity to your
Speaker 1: home even during a power outage. But you would only
Speaker 1: recharge it like once a week, or at least have
Speaker 1: the equivalent of one cycle being consumed once per week. Uh,
Speaker 1: seven killo whate hours being a daily cycle, that means
Speaker 1: that you could recharge it every single day, and the
Speaker 1: number of cycles is presumably larger to because both of
Speaker 1: these batteries are warrantied for ten years. So if they're
Speaker 1: warrantied for ten years, you would imagine that means they
Speaker 1: have enough cycles in them to get through those ten
Speaker 1: years without an appreciable loss of capacity. So, uh, the
Speaker 1: daily one, you're more likely to be able to drain
Speaker 1: that and recharge it frequently than you would the ten
Speaker 1: kilo one hour one um that being said, seven kilo
Speaker 1: one hours, it sounds like a lot, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: the depending upon, uh, your household, it may not be
Speaker 1: enough for you to get through a night even Here's
Speaker 1: another question though, I mean at any even time. Let's
Speaker 1: say you're trying to run a bunch of appliances at once.
Speaker 1: What's the maximum output, like just the watts they can provide? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's an excellent question. Yeah, while they can provide to
Speaker 1: kilowatt hours or two kilowatts rather continuously with peaks of
Speaker 1: up to three point three kilowatts, So I don't know
Speaker 1: how much that is, all right, So let's say that
Speaker 1: you've got a refrigerator that's about four hundred watts. Usually
Speaker 1: four wats a washer or dryer can be around to
Speaker 1: kill a watts of required power. Like some things just
Speaker 1: draw more power, they need more electricity to operate. So
Speaker 1: depending upon what you need to do to kill a
Speaker 1: watts at an instance is not unusual. I think the
Speaker 1: average for any part of a day, like it's essentially
Speaker 1: the daily average a house uses is one thousand two kilowatts.
Speaker 1: But that's the average that's not peak used, right, that's
Speaker 1: when you're averaging it all over the entire twenty four
Speaker 1: hour period. So they're gonna be sometimes where it's significantly
Speaker 1: higher than kill a watts that you're going to need
Speaker 1: to power everything that you want to do it simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Me I like to run the washer, the dryer, the microwave,
Speaker 1: a hair dryer. I don't even have hair, and my
Speaker 1: Xbox and my TV. Plus I usually have a computer
Speaker 1: downloading something downstairs, and I don't know. Sometimes I have
Speaker 1: the upstairs air conditioning going on because I like the
Speaker 1: room to be cool when I go upstairs. And some
Speaker 1: space heaters, yeah, just outside. I just have them pointed
Speaker 1: outside to make the Georgia heat even that much more unbearable.
Speaker 1: Because you know, I'm this is your doctor doom plan. Yes,
Speaker 1: well it's a really thing of it more as a
Speaker 1: Cobra commander plan, because I think that through climate change
Speaker 1: I can I can actually control the weather. That was
Speaker 1: his go to was weather control. Okay, no, seriously, I
Speaker 1: don't do all that. But there are times where you
Speaker 1: might be drawing more power than uh to kill a watts.
Speaker 1: And you know, three point three kill a watts is
Speaker 1: a peak. That's a pretty I'd say it's a fairly
Speaker 1: safe number there. I don't know how along that could
Speaker 1: be sustained. I mean, obviously you're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to do it for more than two hours with
Speaker 1: the seven kilowatt hour battery because you'll drain it, like
Speaker 1: in two hours, it would be pretty much gone. Um.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind also we haven't talked about the batteries
Speaker 1: efficiency yet. We'll get to that. And when we talk
Speaker 1: about efficiency, that means that while it's capable of holding
Speaker 1: seven kilowatt hours, that's not all the electricity you're going
Speaker 1: to get. Right, You're gonna get less than that because
Speaker 1: about the battery is not um as efficient as that.
Speaker 1: And plus there are some other issues we have to
Speaker 1: think about. Well, how about the issue of the current type.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, you one of these alternating current because it
Speaker 1: is much better for transmission over long distances. With direct current.
Speaker 1: You want to be uh, you want the load, that is,
Speaker 1: the the whatever you're powering, to be fairly close to
Speaker 1: the point of generation. So if we were using direct
Speaker 1: current like Edison wanted, we would need power plants everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: we would have to have them all over the place
Speaker 1: in order to supply the power we need. Alternating current
Speaker 1: is gray for transmitting power electricity over very great distances.
Speaker 1: The crazy thing, though, Joe is that your appliances really
Speaker 1: want direct current. But well that's why we've got those
Speaker 1: direct current transformers. Well they have their inverters, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have inverter converters. We'll just use the word converter
Speaker 1: for boxes. Yes, we're just gonna use converter for simplicity's sake. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, all of you electricians out there can roll
Speaker 1: your eyes because I understand that we could talk about
Speaker 1: the difference between inverters and converters and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But yeah, you want to be able to
Speaker 1: convert from a C to d C because that's the
Speaker 1: way that our appliances have been designed. So the crazy
Speaker 1: thing is that power from a battery is direct current,
Speaker 1: right right, Like you go from the negative terminal to
Speaker 1: the positive terminal. Technically, with current, it's the opposite way
Speaker 1: because when Franklin was describing electricity, didn't realize that the
Speaker 1: negative ones were the ones doing the moving. I didn't
Speaker 1: know about electrons yet, so uh, but anyway, you've got
Speaker 1: direct current with batteries, but the the system you're using,
Speaker 1: your home system, works on alternating current, so you have
Speaker 1: to have a device to convert the DC power to
Speaker 1: a C and then the A C power, we go
Speaker 1: to your devices, which would then convert it back to
Speaker 1: d C to actually consume it to use it for
Speaker 1: whatever you're using it for. Um. But that means that
Speaker 1: you need to have this inverter device, and the power
Speaker 1: wall does not come with one, so you actually have
Speaker 1: to buy it separately. UH. And I've read lots of
Speaker 1: different versions about how much they cost, and um. In fact,
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this, but I might as well mention
Speaker 1: that the power wall itself, the ten kilowatt hour version
Speaker 1: costs uh. The seven kilowatt hour version costs three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: You can stack sevens with sevens and tens with tens.
Speaker 1: Tens you can get up to ninety one hours capacity
Speaker 1: to be more than enough for for a day easily,
Speaker 1: but for for a week, probably doing pretty well there. Uh,
Speaker 1: sevens you can stack up to sixty three kill one
Speaker 1: hours together, so UM, so if your house does require
Speaker 1: more capacity than seven kill one hours per day, then
Speaker 1: you could stack them, but that means another extra three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars per battery unit. You still need the inverter
Speaker 1: to convert the DC power to a C, so that's
Speaker 1: an additional cost. It does not come with that cost.
Speaker 1: Tesla has said that you would have to pay for
Speaker 1: like installation and an inverter, so uh, these can cost
Speaker 1: somewhere in the realm of a thousand to two thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: So that goes on top of the cost of whatever
Speaker 1: batteries you're buying. These are all important things to take
Speaker 1: note because a lot of people have been pointing at
Speaker 1: power wall saying this is a great way to get
Speaker 1: either independent from the grid, which means that you also
Speaker 1: have to invest in some other means of generating electricity
Speaker 1: like wind or solar, or to offset the cost of
Speaker 1: those peak pricing periods on the grid. And in that case,
Speaker 1: you have to sit there and look at all, right,
Speaker 1: the stallation cost and the purchase cost is that over
Speaker 1: the lifespan of the the actual products going to be
Speaker 1: lower than if I were to just stay on the
Speaker 1: grid entirely, And that those questions are tough. Um, you
Speaker 1: actually have to ask that based upon where you live.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not so simple as just um, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: it's better to be independent. All right, Well, it sounds
Speaker 1: like we're already sort of talking about the question that
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask which was simply like, as it stands, now,
Speaker 1: does it make sense for most people to buy one? Uh?
Speaker 1: This is entirely dependent upon individual basis. Like Uh, to
Speaker 1: the point where I mean, you've got it upfront cost
Speaker 1: that is not insignificant. I meant is for a ten
Speaker 1: kilowatt hour per weekly cycle battery, that's that's expensive. Three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for seven kilowae hour, that's expense of upfront cost.
Speaker 1: Not everyone can afford it. Um. So even if you're thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: over the long term, I'll save money, if you can't
Speaker 1: afford the upfront costs, and that's gonna be tough. Right,
Speaker 1: Even if you can afford it over the long run,
Speaker 1: then uh, you you may have to look at your
Speaker 1: individual situations just to see if it makes sense from
Speaker 1: a financial standpoint, if you're doing it for an environmental
Speaker 1: standpoint in order, or or you're doing it because you're
Speaker 1: being you're trying to be a super good citizen and
Speaker 1: reduce the load on the power grid. Um. First of all,
Speaker 1: you're probably Captain America because I don't know that many
Speaker 1: people who are willing to spend that kind of money
Speaker 1: to help the power grid, right, I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of people view the power grid as being like
Speaker 1: this thing that we need to help out, although it
Speaker 1: really is um it would and it does make sense
Speaker 1: to try and reduce the load, but that I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the motivator from most people. Right. If you
Speaker 1: have an environmental motivation, like you, you say, well, my
Speaker 1: local power concern is coal fired, and I want to
Speaker 1: put some solar panels on my roof and be able
Speaker 1: to use that. Yeah. Yeah, If you're doing it the
Speaker 1: solar panel way, either you're trying to get off grid
Speaker 1: or you're trying to just supplement, you know, you're trying
Speaker 1: to reduce the need for the power from the grid.
Speaker 1: I totally get that. If you're just talking about using
Speaker 1: it to get lower rates on your electricity, then you're
Speaker 1: still I mean, the power plants still burning coal at night.
Speaker 1: It's not like the nighttime electricity suddenly came coal free.
Speaker 1: So it all depends upon your motivations. What what's your
Speaker 1: reason for purchasing it, and then you have to look
Speaker 1: at the actual finances. So let's take the tin killer
Speaker 1: what our battery, because that's what a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been looking at. That's the one. Uh So that's
Speaker 1: three fifty dollars per kill a what hour, So you
Speaker 1: take that the full three hundred dollars divided by ten um.
Speaker 1: The other battery systems that are out there are closer
Speaker 1: to five dollars to six hundred dollars kill a one
Speaker 1: hour competitors existing. Yes, So in other words, the Tesla
Speaker 1: power Wall on a a cash per kill awa our basis,
Speaker 1: is less expensive than competing batteries that already exist on
Speaker 1: the market. Okay, so it takes a desirable but expensive
Speaker 1: proposition and makes it cheaper. Yeah, exactly. So the question
Speaker 1: is isn't cheap enough? Now? According to winfried Hoffman, this
Speaker 1: was something that I read in Forbes. The cost per
Speaker 1: kill a watt hour of running a battery that has
Speaker 1: an installation cost of four dollars per kilo one hour
Speaker 1: with eighty percent efficiency and the ability to run five
Speaker 1: thousand cycles is fifteen cents per kilowatt hour. So that's
Speaker 1: obviously not exactly the same as the power wall, right
Speaker 1: because we had already just said that the ten kilowatt
Speaker 1: hour would be closer to course, that doesn't include installation,
Speaker 1: nor doesn't include the inverter, which would add to that
Speaker 1: um and the efficiency of the power wall is higher.
Speaker 1: It's it's in the ninety's. I think it's efficient, which
Speaker 1: is obviously significantly higher than eight percent efficient. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we don't know the number of cycles it can run,
Speaker 1: but we do know it's supposed to be a weekly
Speaker 1: cycle thing. But fifteen cents per kill one hour, that's
Speaker 1: that's not bad. Um. So if we look at fifteen
Speaker 1: cents per kill a one hour, and then we look
Speaker 1: at what the national averages for electricity cost, the national
Speaker 1: average is twelve cents per kill a one hour. So
Speaker 1: in other words, if you live in one of the
Speaker 1: states where your the the cost for electricity is at
Speaker 1: this level or lower, then it doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: to buy one in order to save money because you
Speaker 1: won't be saving money. So if that's the reason why
Speaker 1: you would want to buy a power wall, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense for you. That means said, there are states
Speaker 1: that have significantly higher kill what hour prices for their electricity,
Speaker 1: Hawaii being the big one. Like we're talking an average
Speaker 1: of thirty seven cents per kill a one hour, So
Speaker 1: a battery there to get the kilowatt hours at the
Speaker 1: cheapest level and then sipping from the batteries during the
Speaker 1: peak hours makes incredible sense over the long run because
Speaker 1: you will very quickly end up seeing the value of
Speaker 1: that purchase. California is another example California peaks. California is
Speaker 1: the most complicated state when it comes to figuring out
Speaker 1: how much your electricity costs. It's like a three tiered system,
Speaker 1: and it ends up being like it involves so many
Speaker 1: factors that it might even include things like what color
Speaker 1: shoes are you wearing today? I mean, it really gets complex.
Speaker 1: But California is another one of the states where it
Speaker 1: really makes a lot of sense because those peak charges
Speaker 1: can reach up to the neighborhood of forty cents per
Speaker 1: kill one hour. So again, if you need electricity during
Speaker 1: those times, it makes more sense to use a battery
Speaker 1: where you can draw the power when it's cheap and
Speaker 1: then you access it when it's expensive. Uh So, in
Speaker 1: those cases it makes a lot of sense. But if
Speaker 1: you're living in a state where the cost is much
Speaker 1: lower I think George's pretty low on the whole national
Speaker 1: average thing, um, then it's hard it's a harder sell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say from a money point of view, this might
Speaker 1: not be as revolutionary as some people have claimed it is.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I see people seeming to be,
Speaker 1: at least to me, kind of overly dismissive, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure quite what that is about. Some people seem angry.
Speaker 1: I'm not overly I'm trying not to be overly dismissive
Speaker 1: because I think it is. One. It's a huge improvement.
Speaker 1: The battery cost has come way down to it's bringing
Speaker 1: attention to it, and there are people who could very
Speaker 1: much benefit from this battery, right, the folks in Hawaiian
Speaker 1: California being two examples. Also, if you decide you want
Speaker 1: to invest in sellar panels, and maybe it isn't because
Speaker 1: of financial reasons, it's not because of the the money
Speaker 1: you're spending on electricity, but because you want to be
Speaker 1: independent of coal firing, you know, power plants. Uh, then
Speaker 1: this makes a lot of sense, uh, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's it's a better investment. Right, you're talking about the
Speaker 1: investment you have solar panels put in. Uh, you're talking
Speaker 1: about the the inverters you might need you might need
Speaker 1: to by the way, um, depending because if you're using
Speaker 1: just the batteries themselves without the solar panels, then you
Speaker 1: you would need a converter from a C to d
Speaker 1: C to charge the battery, and then another converter from
Speaker 1: d C to a C to send the electricity to
Speaker 1: your home, So that would add to the cost of
Speaker 1: the system as well. But assuming that you're doing solar panels,
Speaker 1: solar panels are going to generate electricity in d C power.
Speaker 1: It's not alternating current, so your solar panels would not
Speaker 1: need some sort of converter to run the electricity to
Speaker 1: your battery. The battery would still need an inverter to
Speaker 1: change that to a C for your home appliances, but
Speaker 1: you wouldn't need two of them, you just need one.
Speaker 1: Um So if you're concern is to is to go green,
Speaker 1: then this is great because it cuts down the barrier
Speaker 1: of entry to do that. The the expense becomes lower.
Speaker 1: And of course solar panel technology has gotten less expensive
Speaker 1: over time as well, and I think that does matter.
Speaker 1: I mean, for a lot of people for a long time,
Speaker 1: that's been a you know, they like to have some
Speaker 1: solar panels, but then they look at the price test, right,
Speaker 1: and there's just no way I could afford that the
Speaker 1: upfront cost is too much, and it may still be
Speaker 1: true that if you add up all the numbers, right,
Speaker 1: you add up how expensive the solar panel purchase and
Speaker 1: installation is, how expensive the power wall installation is, how
Speaker 1: expensive the inverter is. If you add all of that up,
Speaker 1: and then you average it out over the life the
Speaker 1: expected lifetime of those elements, and you look at the
Speaker 1: price per killer, what hour you'd be spending an equivalent
Speaker 1: if you're on the power grid, it may be that
Speaker 1: you're still spending more money using the solar panel solution,
Speaker 1: but maybe that's not what's important to you. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: not the reason why you want to make that conversion,
Speaker 1: but you could argue that this helps bring that dream
Speaker 1: closer to reality for a lot of people. The other
Speaker 1: thing we have to remember is Tesla has built, or
Speaker 1: is it the process of building, their Giga factory, which
Speaker 1: is their massive battery production manufacturing plant, right, and with
Speaker 1: mass manufacturer, one of the things we see is that
Speaker 1: costs come down as manufacturing processes improve, volume increases, cost decrease,
Speaker 1: and so this three thousand dollar price tags that we're seeing,
Speaker 1: those could drop in a few years. So it may
Speaker 1: be that Forbes is right in calling this a rich,
Speaker 1: rich person's green toy for the time being. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: true for now, but it's probably not true for the
Speaker 1: long term. And it's a great first step to really
Speaker 1: getting to this sort of energy independence where we we
Speaker 1: can decrease the load on our really you know, stressed
Speaker 1: power grid structure. Yeah, and that sort of makes me wonder,
Speaker 1: like what is the future of home energy access and
Speaker 1: home energy stores, because you could sort of think of
Speaker 1: if this makes any sense, it might be kind of
Speaker 1: strange think about energy as compared to television. It used
Speaker 1: to be that everybody got all their television uh linearly
Speaker 1: like it's coming in right now. I see where you're going.
Speaker 1: You're getting exactly what is being broadcast at this moment.
Speaker 1: But we've made a very strong transition in recent years
Speaker 1: to more on demand viewings. People like they have TiVo
Speaker 1: or they just they watch Netflix or YouTube, or they
Speaker 1: watch what they want when they want it. And you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what's streaming in at any given time.
Speaker 1: It's just there when you need it and not when
Speaker 1: you don't write. You don't have to you don't have
Speaker 1: to sit there and make time in your day at
Speaker 1: at seven pm to make sure you catch something because
Speaker 1: now you can you can watch it whenever you like.
Speaker 1: Right So, right now, grid powers the same way. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like the old linear programming TV. It's coming
Speaker 1: your way. And if if you want to get some
Speaker 1: of that power, you're getting the power that's being gen
Speaker 1: rated right now, unless your grid is you know, unless
Speaker 1: your grid has some kind of like storage just I
Speaker 1: mean it might be different in different places. Yeah, most
Speaker 1: most power grids don't have I mean, Tesla also has
Speaker 1: Solar City, which is you know, so they have a
Speaker 1: vested interest in solar power. But you could have like
Speaker 1: solar farms where they would also have their own energy
Speaker 1: storage perhaps so that way they are generating electricity, storing
Speaker 1: the electricity, and then the electricity you're getting is actually
Speaker 1: coming from the battery storage systems, not from not necessarily
Speaker 1: directly from the solar panels themselves. That's a possibility. Um.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I think is interesting is the possibility
Speaker 1: of seeing smart grid technology worked into our paragrid infrastructure,
Speaker 1: which would would really help with load balancing and help
Speaker 1: help prevent things like brownouts are blackouts from happening. But
Speaker 1: even so, you still want to see this growth and
Speaker 1: home energy storage because it allows people to get independent
Speaker 1: from the power grid, which it does a couple of things.
Speaker 1: It helps us create greener means of generating our electricity,
Speaker 1: so we don't have to worry about polluting the earth
Speaker 1: quite as much. And it also means that we're decreasing
Speaker 1: the the demands the load on those power grids and
Speaker 1: making it less of a volatile situation. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I wonder if coupling some kind of like home
Speaker 1: energy storage system with just more responsive feedback on our
Speaker 1: energy usage. I mean, I don't think there's any reason
Speaker 1: we couldn't do the same kind of feedback with the
Speaker 1: grid energy we consume. But what if it's like overnight,
Speaker 1: you know, you charge up a battery and that battery
Speaker 1: has a big display on your wall that's showing you
Speaker 1: sort of like a bar of all the energy that
Speaker 1: you want to set out to ration for that day,
Speaker 1: And as you use appliances and devices, that bar goes down,
Speaker 1: so it's sort of like your battery indicator on your
Speaker 1: smartphone or Yeah, and it could help you be more
Speaker 1: conscious of exactly how much energy you're used. That could
Speaker 1: be great because I mean, but that's not dependent on
Speaker 1: the battery like I said, mean you could just have it.
Speaker 1: Add up, you can have you could just have a
Speaker 1: smart meter, right, there's smart meters that give you a
Speaker 1: lot more information about how much electricity you're using, and
Speaker 1: the stuff I've read have suggested that people who have
Speaker 1: smart meters, once they become aware of it, really get
Speaker 1: much better about conserving electricity. And you know they a
Speaker 1: lot of it is just because you know when it's
Speaker 1: when it's not easily accessible or easy to understand, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't pay it very much, mind, I mean, why
Speaker 1: would you, Because it's it's kind of behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and it's not until you get your electric bill that
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, I guess, um, I guess I
Speaker 1: did use a lot, so smart meters definitely help. I
Speaker 1: would also say that there's the possibility this is kind
Speaker 1: of a pipe dream, but there's the possibility we could
Speaker 1: develop a really awesome way of generating electricity, like fusion power,
Speaker 1: where energy storage no longer becomes a big problem because
Speaker 1: we can generate tons of electricity more than enough to
Speaker 1: meet demand. Which is kind of a naive thing to say.
Speaker 1: Whenever there is there's I don't think you could ever
Speaker 1: claim there's a power excess, like, we will always find
Speaker 1: ways to consume that energy. But but if we were
Speaker 1: able to crack something like that where we're not dependent
Speaker 1: upon fossil fuels, we're using a a you know, much
Speaker 1: safer means of generating electricity than something aunt right something
Speaker 1: it's not nuclear power in the sense of fission, so
Speaker 1: we're not generating nuclear waste like we would with nuclear
Speaker 1: fission plants. Nuclear fusion is a very different process. It's
Speaker 1: just happens to be one that right now isn't efficient
Speaker 1: enough to be a means of generating electricity for like
Speaker 1: a city or something. It's still in the laboratory phase
Speaker 1: where we're trying to find a way of initiating fusion
Speaker 1: um in a way that is both efficient and consumes
Speaker 1: enough of the fuel to make sense to actually convert
Speaker 1: to So if that happens energy storage at home, you know,
Speaker 1: it's still is a good idea since you know, there
Speaker 1: could be an infrastructure problem, like let's say that there
Speaker 1: are storm that knocked down power lines or an earthquake
Speaker 1: or something like that, you would still be able to
Speaker 1: supply electricity to your home because you would have batteries
Speaker 1: that would allow you to do that, but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be as important from a stance of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to reduce the amount of money that your electricity
Speaker 1: bill is uh is mounting up to, because we could,
Speaker 1: in theory, once if fusion works out, invest in that
Speaker 1: infrastructure to the point where we don't have to worry
Speaker 1: so much about load balancing, we don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about running out of supply because fusion is would produce
Speaker 1: abundant amounts of energy uh, and it might end up
Speaker 1: making a lot of these other issues moot. But but
Speaker 1: that's a big if, and you don't want to put
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, So my view and it's very much I
Speaker 1: think what you were saying, Joe, is that I want
Speaker 1: to see this kind of technology continue to evolve, to
Speaker 1: continue to come down in price. I see it as complementary.
Speaker 1: Perhaps in the long run, it could be a replacement
Speaker 1: for the current ha ha means of distributing electricity. But
Speaker 1: it's certainly a complimentary approach. And um, while I don't
Speaker 1: think it's the announcement to completely lose your head over
Speaker 1: unless you live in a place like Hawaii or California
Speaker 1: where you know your electric bill is is significant, especially
Speaker 1: in those peak hours. Um, I think it is a
Speaker 1: very encouraging announcement, so I would I don't totally dismiss it,
Speaker 1: but I don't like I don't have stars in my
Speaker 1: eyes either. I had posted a Twitter message and this
Speaker 1: might have been a little excessive, I guess, but I
Speaker 1: posted a Twitter message I said. I think Tesla Motors
Speaker 1: is well named because it seems to have the same
Speaker 1: distortion field that Nicola had, at least after his life. Anyway,
Speaker 1: because people look at Nicola Tesla as like this kind
Speaker 1: of iconic mythical figure. Now, um, I call it the
Speaker 1: Tesla fog. It's this fog of kind of like rumor
Speaker 1: and legend that you encounter on the Internet and it's
Speaker 1: hard to tell, like, wait, what's real about this guy?
Speaker 1: And what's just strange misconception and and lionization and yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think the company has the same the same feature, right,
Speaker 1: It's maybe not to the same extent as as the person,
Speaker 1: but there seems to be some of that going on.
Speaker 1: Like if you if you ever, if you ever say
Speaker 1: anything that is critical of electric cars, the Tesla fans
Speaker 1: will jump on that in a heartbeat. Or if you
Speaker 1: say something that like if you if you point out
Speaker 1: that as a particular space X project hasn't worked out
Speaker 1: the way that it was hoped, even if you're being
Speaker 1: very you know, very uh objective about it, who the
Speaker 1: fans can come after you? So you know there are
Speaker 1: some passionate Tesla fans and Elon Musk fans for good reason.
Speaker 1: The man is is inarguably a genius. He is certainly
Speaker 1: a business genius. He has done in an incredible amount
Speaker 1: to push electric battery technology. Uh so, um, you know,
Speaker 1: not taking anything away from him, I hope that in
Speaker 1: maybe five years time, we are seeing this battery price
Speaker 1: come down to a point where it makes sense for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, because I would love to see
Speaker 1: more and more people be able to take advantage of
Speaker 1: those lower off peak rates to decrease the demand on
Speaker 1: our power grids and to kind of, you know, find
Speaker 1: a way of of uh maintaining a lifestyle that they're
Speaker 1: accustomed to without having to take too many huge sacrifices
Speaker 1: because obviously the more sacrifices you have to make, the
Speaker 1: harder it is to commit to that kind of change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I can, if I can analyze a little bit, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what you're reacting to is not You're not
Speaker 1: having a negative reaction to the power wall itself as
Speaker 1: a technology, more just to sort of overblown misconceptions about
Speaker 1: it in the media. Yeah. I mean, I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of media coverage where it seemed like they were
Speaker 1: focusing on like, oh, this could provide electricity at fifteen kilo?
Speaker 1: What fifteen since Perkella what hour? And my thought was,
Speaker 1: before I read what it was, I thought it was
Speaker 1: people thinking that this was a way of making elect
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was coming across too. I was
Speaker 1: reading these reports and it sounded like, wait, you realize
Speaker 1: this is a battery, right, and that once it's drained,
Speaker 1: you have to refill it, so that electricity has to
Speaker 1: come from somewhere. It's like it was putting a putting
Speaker 1: a power reactor inside your house, and that's not what
Speaker 1: it is. You know, It's a battery, just like any
Speaker 1: other battery. So uh it maybe those the people who
Speaker 1: wrote those were already working with the presumption that this
Speaker 1: is paired with something like solar panels, which would make
Speaker 1: sense because again Tesla is invested in solar panel technology,
Speaker 1: but it didn't say that in the article. It was
Speaker 1: just like how they could deliver electricity at fifteen since
Speaker 1: Prokella one hour, And I thought, well, where's the electricity
Speaker 1: coming from to charge the battery? If you have solar panels,
Speaker 1: and that's your answer, that's fine. I have no problem
Speaker 1: with that. Obviously, you have to affector in the price
Speaker 1: of the solar panels. But if you already have solar panels,
Speaker 1: then you you've already committed that expense. I think it's
Speaker 1: coming from the arc reactor in your check. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I am iron Man. According to brain stuff,
Speaker 1: I am iron Man. Yeah, so that's me. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they're worse burdens to bear. Uh, but yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: was one of it. I have felt the same way,
Speaker 1: like it just seemed to me that there was a
Speaker 1: misconception that this was a means of generating electricity, not
Speaker 1: storing electricity. So I'm sure that we have completely done
Speaker 1: away with that misconception in this episode. Anyone who had
Speaker 1: that before by now is certainly like, Okay, I get
Speaker 1: it's a battery, John, then you say it too many times.
Speaker 1: I got it. But h but still pretty cool, and
Speaker 1: I'm still very eager to see where this goes in
Speaker 1: the future, me too. All right, Well, that wraps up
Speaker 1: this discussion. I guess it was really fun to look
Speaker 1: into this because again, when we see these things pop
Speaker 1: up in the news often it takes a little bit
Speaker 1: of critical thinking to kind of get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of it and see, you know what, how excited should
Speaker 1: we be about it? I think we do need to
Speaker 1: be excited about it. We just need to, you know,
Speaker 1: not lose our heads over it. So if you guys
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future episodes of forward thinking, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a technology that you want to know, what's that
Speaker 1: going to be like in the future, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: a rumored technology you want to know how likely is
Speaker 1: that going to happen. We've got a a doozy of
Speaker 1: an episode coming up where we're gonna be looking at
Speaker 1: a theoretical uh type of technology that is bending our
Speaker 1: minds as we try to understand it. But we love
Speaker 1: that kind of challenge, So feel free to write in
Speaker 1: let us know what you think. Our email addresses FW
Speaker 1: thinking at how stuff Works dot com, or drop us
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