Elon Musk remains an enigma to me. I dare say I would be richer than God and have my own private plane if I were able to amass the reputed $US6 billion ($7.9bn) in subsidies his business has received from federal and state governments in the US.
Batteries are supposed to be the answer to the world’s future energy demands. Perhaps they will be but I suspect that won’t be any time soon.
For Musk, there is tremendous upside in his venture in South Australia. If this mega battery can produce real power when it is needed in a state that lives on a knife’s edge of praying that the sun keeps shining and the wind keeps blowing. If the battery works, Musk gets massive global publicity and an enormous boost to being able to sell his batteries all over the world. By the same token, if this new battery provides only 1½ hours of power a day then I, for one, will wonder what all the fuss was about.
Call me a cynic but I am always suspicious when the zillionaire flies in to a fanfare of a hundred trumpets and a thousand cameras to make an announcement as big as this without mentioning, or even hinting at, what the enterprise might cost.
Musk is a proven grand master at relieving governments of huge chunks of taxpayers’ money. It is a fair assumption that he is not paying the whole of the bill. Well then, how much is he coughing up and how much is Jay Weatherill putting in. If Musk is putting it all in then surely the South Australian Premier would be crowing about his negotiation skills.
Make no mistake about it, the South Australian government and its Premier desperately need this project to do more than be delivered on time. Every citizen of that state, already reeling from far too many power failures, will expect this battery to provide a big percentage of the state’s power needs. When the build-up is this big, the end result must live up to or exceed expectations. Billions of people around the globe want battery technology to be one of the real contributors to future energy needs. Even Chief Scientist Alan Finkel said battery technology at the moment could deliver less than two hours of power to Australia. If the whole of the country is getting only a piddling couple of hours, then presumably South Australia will get far, far less.
We do not have enough data on this project to make sense of it. There are two possibilities here — either the data does not stack up with the promises, or for some reason I am utterly unable to fathom, the data is being withheld.
It is time Weatherill briefed his voters and the rest of Australia as well about the truth of the claims or counter claims.
Every one of us wants to believe that Musk will deliver something special that will provide direction in finding the energy to power Australia to the next level.
However, we need facts, not fantasy, if we are to become true believers. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...l/news-story/f471b33ebdf140a71b41e0b0bea7894f
following comments...
One coal fired power station would be simpler and cheaper and guarantee base load. I don't think I have ever seen stupidity of this magnitude. A battery that will keep 30,000 households in power for approximately two and a half minutes - just enough time to find the torch and the candles. Meanwhile a foreign carpet bagger runs off with millions.
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Regardless of what has been released on this "magic battery", I think there is much to come..
I believe the SA Premier is giving a media release today at 11am.
I did read one farmer was given 24hrs to agree with it being built on his land. I do not know the outcome.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
