Bret Adams’ Post

FLOW BATTERIES KEEP MAKING PROGRESS...

INTERESTING: "The IRA provides...up to $7,500 for new EVs. Purchased EVs must be assembled in North America .... The “leasing loophole”...allows all leased EVs to qualify for subsidies ... the leasing loophole astronomically increases leasing rates. .... Including the global cost of climate change, the average EV generates $16,000 and the average gasoline vehicle generates $19,000 in lifetime social costs. When measuring only the domestic costs of climate change, however, EVs generate more external costs ($7,200) than gasoline vehicles ($5,400) ... The IRA, like many EV policies, does not incentivize purchases of cleaner and lighter EVs. Switching from a Prius gasoline vehicle to a Cybertruck, for example, increases climate pollution." My take on figure 1 is contrary to author's findings, this shows EV prices are flat when they should be dramatically dropping as supply of Li-ion increases and there's been a dramatic drop in Li-ion prices. So the subsidy is going to EV makers. That would be consistent with other studies that show when the tax credit is lowered, the EV makers have in the past, lowered the price more than the subsidy reduction. But it is complex. Price of EVs are driven by many factors, including the option to lease, general consumer confidence after recovering from Covid, consumers perception on the future cost of gas, etc. You can't tell anything on a single variable analysis of +/- 6 months. https://lnkd.in/gDeSt7kb

The B is gone. May it never return! Sanity and tradition have prevailed. Maybe the rants worked...

Whoo-Hoo!

HOW DOES IT WORK? Ever see someone's posts arrive routinely in your LinkedIn feed? They look legit, you can go to the posts author LinkedIn site and he has education and job experiences, and so forth? But every time he posts, it looks legit, the underlying data will reference legit sources, but the whole thing is twisted. If you bother to read the surprising reports, which generally dispel obvious facts, saying that in fact, it is night during the day, not what you thought. So you open the link, read it's context, etc. and you find out it is distorting its intent and meaning. E.g., its dark during the middle of the day inside a dark room. If you point this out on the author's post, are you helping spread disinformation or is this just a healthy exchange that LinkedIn intends? Going deeper, you see that all of the posts are on a topic outside of the LinkedIn member's site shows as his expertise or career interests. Has the author been hacked? Is the entire account a phishing attempt by some evil outside government or corporate group? One expects this on FB but it's showing up on LinkedIn and the sophistication, consistency, and the effort taken to create fancy graphics out of actual technical papers that seems to be supporting some perverse thesis, but doesn't, is amazing. Is this what AI is? What should one DO and NOT DO to get accurate information and honest analysis out while not letting the fake crap win? My 'DO NOT' is comment or 'like' or do anything but 'ignore'... is that the best and the best I can do? Smart guys sound off.

INTERESTING: Kind of contrarian, instead of worrying about over-supply of chips and a crash in Semicap, caused by government driven capacity is duplicating supply, this analyst sees that as creating shortages. Next chapter would have you short software driven companies. So hardware >> software? That's an original perspective. https://lnkd.in/g7RenHY8 Shamelessly re-wording same report and author promoting his personal brand on his personal twitter account: https://lnkd.in/gqHc26mG

GEEZ. Instead of facing price volatility at the pump, Guv is proposing regulating stock levels of gasoline. Now why wouldn't the refineries have thought of that? Increase the costs for refineries may reduce the volatility but it will also raise prices always. And the Guv is probably right ... drivers would pay less attention to gas prices if they were always 33% higher instead of seeing prices vary 100% (maybe time to teach kids math and economics?). Off the table to consider aligning CA gas standards with the rest of the country? The CA formulation saves 10% in emissions and I've observed that I get 10% less gas mileage compared to NV gas. Hopefully the 10% reduction is per mile, not gallon. Meanwhile, with the $0.50 gallon Mystery Gas Surcharges probably caused by a more constrained supply/demand, we could instead actually increase (egad!) tax gasoline 1/2 that, fund various public transport or other emission reducing programs and everyone come out ahead. https://lnkd.in/dcHrpiJw

INTERESTING: Still waiting for the analysis of the last PG&E rate case, how bills have doubled over past 10 years. It's one thing to measure the reality ... lot's of new transmission, cost of net metering, fire insurance, , etc. But first what happens if you accept the assumptions of the rate case? Expect CPUC to stand to represent 'bill payers' to assure safe, reliable and low cost ... but not getting any of the three. It's an honest intellectual question, what percentage comes from each policy, each market design change, impact of inflation and fuel costs, ... subsidizing solar, funding CEC etc. WHERE'S THE PIE CHART? I too keep looking at huge areas of white roofs whenever flying out of SFO or SJC and baffled that given a goal for 75GW of solar for 12.5M EVs in 11 years these are overwhelmingly white.

INTERESTING: A 6lb gallon of gas contains 20lbs of CO2 emissions potential? "The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is produced from burning a fuel weighs more than the amount of the fuel itself. During complete combustion, each carbon atom in the fuel combines with two oxygen atoms in the air to make CO2. The addition of two oxygen atoms to each carbon atom forms CO2, which has an atomic weight of 44—about 3.6667 times the atomic weight of the carbon, which is 12. For example, subbituminous coal is, on average, 51% carbon, so the carbon in a short ton (2,000 pounds) of subbituminous coal weighs 1,020 pounds. The CO2 emissions from burning a short ton of subbituminous coal weigh approximately 3,740 pounds, or about 3.67 times the weight of the carbon in a short ton of subbituminous coal and 1.87 times the weight of a short ton of subbituminous coal." https://lnkd.in/gqfaXCYV

INTERESTING: Pounds That Kill: The External Costs of Vehicle Weight: "Heavier vehicles are safer for their own occupants but more hazardous for other vehicles. ....Using three separate identification strategies we show that, controlling for own-vehicle weight, being hit by a vehicle that is 1000 pounds heavier generates a 40–50% increase in fatality risk. These results imply a total accident-related externality that exceeds the estimated social cost of US carbon emissions and is equivalent to a gas tax of $0.97 per gallon ($136 billion annually). " https://lnkd.in/gJdYCn-C