Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage
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So, Tesla decides to build a giant battery factory in the Nevada desert. What could possibly go wrong?
Problem with Gigafactory Leads to Global Shortage of Cylindrical Batteries
Delay in production from Gigafactory, which is Tesla’s battery manufacturing facility, is leading to global shortage of cylindrical batteries. As Panasonic has given most of its supplies in Japan to
Tesla has apparently been having production problems for several months due to unstable power supply to the factory and a shortage of people who want to work in a factory in the middle of the desert. As a result, they've been buying up all the batteries they can from other suppliers, including nearly all of Panasonic's production in Japan.
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
unstable power supply to the factory
If only they had some sort of backup storage that could tide them through...
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@jaloopa said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
unstable power supply to the factory
If only they had some sort of backup storage that could tide them through...
They will have, once the factory has power that's stable for long enough to make it...
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
and a shortage of people who want to work in a factory in the middle of the desert.
Build a city around it! Isn't that how it was done in the old days?
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@anonymous234 said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Build a city around it! Isn't that how it was done in the old days?
Those businesses were making money. Tesla isn't.
So Tesla built a factory to produce lithium cells, in the middle of a desert in the middle of a country that does not even rank in lithium production:
And they expected it to succeed? So now they are buying cells from other manufacturers instead?
Although Tesla initially planned to construct Gigafactory in the middle of desert in Nevada and supply power through its own solar power generators, it is difficult for Tesla to have normal operation with Gigafactory due to reasons such as uneven amount of generation of new regeneration energy. It is also facing shortage of manpower due to accessibility of its Gigafactory.
Doesn't Elon own some solar company that was supposed to change the world?
Yes. And they cannot even supply power to their own factory. Good job fellas. Awesome work. Why didn't they build in a place where they could be grid-tied? This is a fuckup and
of epic proportions. But, I mean as far as jobs go if you live in the area this would not be too bad. You can at least guarantee you would never get stuck on night shift.Were they really only planning on running production a few hours a day. Most factories run 24/7 because you cannot just start the equipment up in the morning and shut it down at night without large amounts of run-up and shutdown.
Has anything like this ever happened? Has a factory been built in the USA that was unable to run on time due to not being able to get enough power to run operations? I have never heard of it and I have been a subscriber to Engineering News Record and a few other construction industry publications for nearly two decades.
Is the 36,000 tons of worldwide lithium production basically the best that we can do? How much can we ramp that up? If we are already running in to severe shortages and Tesla is producing less than 90K vehicles per year what will that look like when they try to fill the 455K pre-orders for the Model 3?
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@polygeekery Lithium mining and refining is super energy expensive and pollution intensive, despite being real common. That's why we don't do it here--the EPA (and the green groups) threw all sorts of fits, but China doesn't care. I've been told (although I haven't checked) that building a new electric car (with its batteries) has the same average energy cost as the lifetime energy cost of a (cheap) gasoline car.
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
I've been told (although I haven't checked) that building a new electric car (with its batteries) has the same average energy cost as the lifetime energy cost of a (cheap) gasoline car.
Possibly, but in my recent reading I wonder exactly how they calculate that. I say that because an article I have already closed the tab on mentioned refining lithium from brine pumped out of the ground where it is pumped in to basins and evaporated with solar. When you mentioned what you did I could see an unscrupulous organization wanting to push an agenda factoring in that solar evaporation in to the energy figures when it should not be.
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@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
And they cannot even supply power to their own factory. Good job fellas. Awesome work. Why didn't they build in a place where they could be grid-tied?
They got a good deal on the price of the land?.
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@el_heffe Could an electric car even make it out to there from wherever the nearest residential area is?
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
They got a good deal on the price of the land?
Probably, but in the long run, they would have saved a lot on air conditioning by building it in Canada
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@timebandit said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
They got a good deal on the price of the land?
Probably, but in the long run, they would have saved a lot on air conditioning by building it in Canada
Or power by building it in Iceland. Cheap geothermal is why lots of european data centers are in Iceland.
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
They got a good deal on the price of the land?.
Three things influence the price of real estate: location, location, location.
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@benjamin-hall
It is also why Iceland is a top 10 producer of aluminium despite having no natural resources.
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@dragoon said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@benjamin-hall
It is also why Iceland is a top 10 producer of aluminium despite having no natural resources.Aluminum, like lithium, is very common but requires significant energy expenditure to refine. Same reason too--it's pretty darn reactive and locks itself tight to the minerals it's found in. That's why we didn't start using aluminum until electricity was common, even though it's way more common in the crust than iron is.
andnowyouknow.gif
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Or power by building it in Iceland. Cheap geothermal is why lots of european data centers are in Iceland.
I thought it was because it's so easy to keep things cool.
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@dragoon said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
It is also why Iceland is a top 10 producer of aluminium
And Canada is third
because we have cheap electricity
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@timebandit said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
because we have cheap electricity
Luckily for us the idiots we keep electing are working hard to fix that
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@masonwheeler said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Or power by building it in Iceland. Cheap geothermal is why lots of european data centers are in Iceland.
I thought it was because it's so easy to keep things cool.
That too. One of the primary costs of data centers is the AC costs, so reducing the need (cooler temperatures) and reducing the cost (cheap electricity) makes a huge difference in the cost of operations. The cool temperatures are nice, but marginal, since the servers themselves make so much heat. The big effect is that the AC runs more efficiently (since it depends on the difference between outside and inside temperatures).
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
That's why we didn't start using aluminum until electricity was common
Great job, Iframely; the link goes the #Aluminum_apex anchor:
The aluminum apex, at the time a rare metal as valuable as silver, was cast by William Frishmuth of Philadelphia.[10] At the time of casting, it was the largest piece of aluminum in the world. Before the installation it was put on public display at Tiffany's in New York City and stepped over by visitors who could say they had "stepped over the top of the Washington Monument". It was 8.9 inches (23 cm) tall before 3⁄8 inch (1 cm) was removed from its tip by lightning strikes during 1885–1934, when it was protected from further damage by tall lightning rods surrounding it. Its base is 5.6 inches (14 cm) square.
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@hardwaregeek said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
That's why we didn't start using aluminum until electricity was common
Great job, Iframely; the link goes the #Aluminum_apex anchor:
The aluminum apex, at the time a rare metal as valuable as silver, was cast by William Frishmuth of Philadelphia.[10] At the time of casting, it was the largest piece of aluminum in the world. Before the installation it was put on public display at Tiffany's in New York City and stepped over by visitors who could say they had "stepped over the top of the Washington Monument". It was 8.9 inches (23 cm) tall before 3⁄8 inch (1 cm) was removed from its tip by lightning strikes during 1885–1934, when it was protected from further damage by tall lightning rods surrounding it. Its base is 5.6 inches (14 cm) square.
Yeah. I'll amend my previous statement to "didn't start using aluminum much until..."
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@hungrier said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Luckily for us the idiots we keep electing are working hard to fix that
Just move to Quebec
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@timebandit But then I'd have to live in Quebec
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@hungrier said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@timebandit But then I'd have to live in Quebec
I don't see the downside
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5496/12043034386_458b6d5128_b.jpg
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
I'll amend my previous statement
I was agreeing with you. It was rare, exotic and expensive because it was so difficult to produce. The current process to produce it wasn't invented until 1888, and it didn't really take off until it was improved in 1920.
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@polygeekery but he had verbal approval that the location would be okay -- sorta!
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@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Has a factory been built in the USA that was unable to run on time due to not being able to get enough power to run operations?
It sounds like something out of Atlas Shrugged. Or Venezuela.
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Yeah. I'll amend my previous statement to "didn't start using aluminum much until..."
The article doesn’t seem to mention the aluminium tip’s cost at the time. Ah, here’s a page about it:
The author prefers to compare the 1884 price of aluminum of $1 per ounce ($16 per pound) to the fact that in 1884 the wage of a laborer on the Washington Monument was $1 per day, and the workday was typically 10 hours or greater in length. Thus, the cost of one ounce of aluminum was equivalent to a full day's work. The highest skilled craftsman on the monument project was paid $2 per day.
and
The aluminum pyramid itself was only 22.6 cm in height, 13.9 cm at its base, and weighed 2.85 kg.
That’s about 100 ounces, so the cap cost some $100 at the time.
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@gurth said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Yeah. I'll amend my previous statement to "didn't start using aluminum much until..."
The article doesn’t seem to mention the aluminium tip’s cost at the time. Ah, here’s a page about it:
The author prefers to compare the 1884 price of aluminum of $1 per ounce ($16 per pound) to the fact that in 1884 the wage of a laborer on the Washington Monument was $1 per day, and the workday was typically 10 hours or greater in length. Thus, the cost of one ounce of aluminum was equivalent to a full day's work. The highest skilled craftsman on the monument project was paid $2 per day.
and
The aluminum pyramid itself was only 22.6 cm in height, 13.9 cm at its base, and weighed 2.85 kg.
That’s about 100 ounces, so the cap cost some $100 at the time.
Or about $2400 (if this is to be believed) in current USD.
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@masonwheeler said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Or power by building it in Iceland. Cheap geothermal is why lots of european data centers are in Iceland.
I thought it was because it's so easy to keep things cool.
That too. One of the primary costs of data centers is the AC costs, so reducing the need (cooler temperatures) and reducing the cost (cheap electricity) makes a huge difference in the cost of operations. The cool temperatures are nice, but marginal, since the servers themselves make so much heat. The big effect is that the AC runs more efficiently (since it depends on the difference between outside and inside temperatures).
Not necessarily true. If the climate is right you condition the air in an entirely different way. In Iceland they can do partial air exchange (correcting humidity on incoming air) and they also do not have to do phase change cooling in the colder months. They can simply pump antifreeze outside and cool it with radiators. Simple heat exchange, no phase change. Much cheaper to install and operate.
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@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
do not have to do phase change cooling in the colder months. They can simply pump antifreeze outside and cool it with radiators.
The Canadian way is to just open a window
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@polygeekery I'm betting that amortized over a data farm, the biggest savings are in operation (because the efficiency is much better). These savings are multiplied by the cheapness of the electricity.
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@timebandit said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
The Canadian way is to just open a window
Covered that.
@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
partial air exchange
But if you don't:
@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
(correct
inghumidity on incoming air)You will find yourself with some issues with static electricity frying all your shit. But, it is a lot cheaper to add humidity to air than to use phase change cooling.
Here in the Midwest we use hybrid cooling in a lot of our data centers. Phase change cooling for summer months when it is eleventy billion degrees outside with eleventy billion percent humidity. During the winter months we can usually use chilled water cooling. The systems are hybrid in that the phase change cooling chills water which is used for zone cooling, but can switch to straight chilled water and bypass the phase change portion when outside temperatures are low enough.
In our area we generally do not use much air exchange because our winter temperatures are accompanied with 0% humidity and for us it is generally cheaper to run pure chilled water heat exchange than to correct the humidity on incoming air.
Source: I am drinking buddies with the owners and engineers of the data center we are in. I get to see all the guts of the operations. Our data center was also founded by a couple of engineers (electrical and HVAC) and they designed and built almost everything there, a lot from scratch. Lots of really cool stuff.
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@polygeekery I'm betting that amortized over a data farm, the biggest savings are in operation (because the efficiency is much better). These savings are multiplied by the cheapness of the electricity.
Huh?
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@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
I am drinking buddies with the owners
Color me surprised
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@polygeekery meaning installation cost isn't the big factor, operation cost is, both because it's more efficient and because (in Iceland) power is cheap. Cheap power + efficient cooling = happy accountants
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@benjamin-hall oh, well, yeah.
I have always heard that about 30% of the cost of running a datacenter is keeping the building cool. If you build in Iceland where that is extremely cheap you can cut a hell of a chunk out of your budget. Couple that with another 30% being other power usage and places like Iceland can be extremely cost-competitive.
Everything would be hosted there if we could just change the speed of light. Which is why Colorado has so much of our datacenter business here. Centrally located in the USA and mild summers and cold winters. Ping times to each coast are roughly equal and backbone infrastructure was already in place due to Denver and such.
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@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@gurth said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@benjamin-hall said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Yeah. I'll amend my previous statement to "didn't start using aluminum much until..."
The article doesn’t seem to mention the aluminium tip’s cost at the time. Ah, here’s a page about it:
The author prefers to compare the 1884 price of aluminum of $1 per ounce ($16 per pound) to the fact that in 1884 the wage of a laborer on the Washington Monument was $1 per day, and the workday was typically 10 hours or greater in length. Thus, the cost of one ounce of aluminum was equivalent to a full day's work. The highest skilled craftsman on the monument project was paid $2 per day.
and
The aluminum pyramid itself was only 22.6 cm in height, 13.9 cm at its base, and weighed 2.85 kg.
That’s about 100 ounces, so the cap cost some $100 at the time.
Or about $2400 (if this is to be believed) in current USD.
7.25 × 10 × 100 = 7250
7250 ÷ 2400 = 3.02
Interesting.
0.92 ÷ 16 × 100 = 5.75
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@hungrier said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@el_heffe Could an electric car even make it out to there from wherever the nearest residential area is?
That picture is slightly deceptive. Just to the west is Reno, which according to the scale on the map is only about 20 miles from the factory. But Reno isn't very big and there's not too much else in the area. Back in the early 2000s I spent a month in Reno one weekend.
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@polygeekery said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Everything would be hosted there if we could just change the speed of light.
Easy, just pass a law to that effect. Don't let a foreigner tell you otherwise. Problem solved.
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Just to the west is Reno, which according to the scale on the map is only about 20 miles from the factory. But Reno isn't very big and there's not too much else in the area.
Except brothels?
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Back in the early 2000s I spent a month in Reno one weekend.
That's some severe time distortion. Is Reno actually a black hole?
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@hardwaregeek said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
Just to the west is Reno, which according to the scale on the map is only about 20 miles from the factory. But Reno isn't very big and there's not too much else in the area.
Except brothels?
And casinos.
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@el_heffe As far as I know, casinos are scarce outside the big cities, so there probably aren't many until you go 20 miles to Reno. Brothels, OTOH, are legal or not at the county level, so being 20 miles east of Reno is probably far enough, or almost, that there may be one nearby.
(Note, I have no direct knowledge of the location, legality or any other aspect of brothels in Nevada or anywhere else. I only know what I have read about them.)
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@hardwaregeek said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@el_heffe As far as I know, casinos are scarce outside the big cities,
Probably true. But I do know that they have slot machines in the airports.
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@el_heffe said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@hardwaregeek said in Apparently, Tesla is causing a world-wide battery shortage:
@el_heffe As far as I know, casinos are scarce outside the big cities,
Probably true. But I do know that they have slot machines in the airports.
And grocery stores, gas stations, ... (At least in the movies; I have been to Nevada a few times, but not to gamble, so I've never really paid attention to them.) But a few slot machines do not a casino make.
List of countries by lithium production - Wikipedia
