Space and Science BS Thread

I can see we don't agree on this . That's fine. Let's see how Austin locals like the deal 30 years out. That's the real measuring stick.

PS you might want to ask Flint, MI about how deals have a way of souring over time when you put big development up and then it doesn't work out because a company chases the dollar.

 

Nothing new. I remember the price Baltimore payed to get the “Browns”.

 

Anyways, back to Boca, I don't see that panning out forever because SpaceX will force the issue once it becomes an issue. Those people won't be allowed to stay out of the goodness of SpaceX's human heart because SpaceX doesn't have a human heart. When the hamlet becomes an issue for SpaceX/Musk, the hamlet will either magically disappear or SpaceX/Musk will.

 

The area where the plant is planned is either 2-lane country roads (asphalt laid directly on clay) or 6-lane TOLL ROAD.

Infrastructure has nowhere to go but up.

 

Sometimes deals fall through. Things don't go as planned, etc. I'd still rather a state that is fighting to bring jobs in, as opposed to driving them away like my state of california is doing. This conversation would start to lead towards politics though, so I'll drop it there.

 

I don't think musk has been the driving force of most the bad things that have been attributed to him. Most of it seems to trace back to tesla, and that seems to have started when they went public. He's talked about that a little. And he is really trying to prevent spacex from going public.

 

I'm pretty sure that's why he started spacex. He knows he can't build it here, has to be on another planet/moon.

 

Google “Massachusetts Prop 2 1/2”

 

OMG. That's freaking awesome.

Can they make it retroactive to 2013? Asking for my entire HOA community. We went up in assessed value 22% in 2015.

Meanwhile, to get back on topic, how about those solid state battery developments?

 

Makes me curious if they will use the increased energy density to extend the range of tesla's or if they'll keep the same range and reduce manufacturing cost and weight.

 

Yeah, I saw some more news that someone cracked "the holy grail of battery technology."

Call me skeptical but solid state batteries haven't worked in the past because you need to allow ion transfer for discharge and charge, how a battery works, without having the electrodes form irregularities. Until I see someone whose really solved that in a product I can hold I'm not buying that the problem is solved. You're fighting the natural choas that results when ions flow and are deposited on one side of the battery and then the other during recharging. It's like suggesting you made it so that you can throw all the stuff in your living room onto the ceiling and then let it fall back onto the floor without a single thing being even a micron out of place from where it started. I mean, really neat stuff if they did it, but really hard to believe.

I'm still waiting for better solid state capacitors lol.

 

I find it really interesting the amount of R&D going into Lithium battery technology, tens of millions of dollars a year depending on who you ask, when we haven't even solved the problem of where the electricity will come from to achieve a carbon neutral economy. I feel like we should put more money into figuring out fusion power, since we are crazy close to the first commercial plant, rather than chasing the batteries that will carry that power around in vehicles.

I mean before WW2 the US academia was all over Nuclear Fission. The Chicago pile, and what came after it, was a money sink that was filled by private donors and the US government who wanted to see US superiority in the race towards Nuclear energy (admittedly for weapons first and powerplants later.) I wish we could see that level of commitment from the US now. There is no reason China should have two of the most advanced proto-fusion reactors when the US is basically standing back and chipping in a bit on a French reactor that isn't even nearly as ready as what the Chinese have. The British even have a powerplant on paper that depends on the French research results. The US is no where close to leading in the field. I mean, sure, Stanford did some neat work that broke the energy return barrier but their method is completely useless in the quest for an actual working plant. The west can brag up how advanced we are all we want, but one of the most backward economies of the world is probably ten years out from limitless power and you better believe they won't sell a sniff of that technology to the US.

 

Toyota thinks they've cracked it.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/toyota-solid-state-battery-ev-2021/

I'd be wary of capacitors only in that I used to work on HF radios, and we'd mess with other using charged capacitors. Charge a small one up, and yell "catch" while tossing it to your unsuspecting victim. Good times.

 

Toyota is actually second to the table, they're using this companies technology. I mean that's pretty normal, Toyota isn't per say a battery company, but I think it's important to point out they didn't make the supposed breakthrough. I mean they're mentioned in the article but just the headline makes it seem like Toyota got their first.

QuantumScape's New Solid-State Battery Is Twice as Energy-Dense as Lithium-Ion (singularityhub.com)

 

Supply and demand. Increase demand, and someone will be motivated to come up with a better way to supply. That's how our current space race is working, with the increased demand for cheap spacelift. If a nationwide electric vehicle infrastructure means we need more flexible electrical grid to supply that power, someone will figure out a way to get rich off of it.

 

The problem is SpaceX's entire budget for one year, I mean everything, is the cost of a proto-reactor right now. No private company wants to dive in because there is no guarantee they'll find a design that works and even if they do it's completely plausible it will be a combination of existing patents that won't make the discovery worth much to the company that makes the breakthrough. Chasing down and cracking the secrets of Fusion power is actually a doable goal for 2030, but it needs more than the pennies the US is throwing at it now.

COMMON MUSK, STEP UP.

 

It also has serious security concerns, like I said. If the Chinese can power everything and anything without buying a cent worth of oil it puts the West at a huge disadvantage in every way.

 

Quantumscape (QS) has a laboratory demonstrator that got everybody excited. It’s a single film about the size of a quarter. It can charge multiple times in 15 minutes at temperatures. They have yet to produce a multi layer product to form a cell. Then they have to take the cells and produce a battery. Then produce the battery at volume(s). So 5 years at your local VW dealer if all goes smoothly.

There are other companies (e.g., Toyota) working on the issue but have not done a technical show and tell. So still vapor ware.

 

I'm 100% with you.

Also Ford and Rivian own rights to Quantumscapes technology through Fords open agreement for battery and hybrid technology sharing with the VW group. You have to wonder IF they can get a working example will Toyota even be in the first five companies to launch the technology? Toyota is married at the hip to Panasonic because they're playing with Japanese government money. If Panasonic can't make it work, they're dead in the water. That's why so many auto companies have open relationships now with other auto companies, it works out best to spread the risk.