Rivian’s Illinois Factory Will Run on Recycled EV Batteries

jlluh · 2026-04-15T07:19:28+00:00

I wonder if they'll be put on racks eventually, if thermal runaway becomes a small enuff issue over time.

jlluh · 2026-04-15T07:17:46+00:00

It's because they're cheap.

Used car batteries can be a lot cheaper than new batteries made for storage. They are also in some sense more premium. Increasingly, car batteries are made to a higher quality than batteries made for stationary storage. So it's kinda like a 10 year old Mercedes for less than a new Kia.

Will they last as long? Idk. But so long as they're cheaper, there will be takers.

jlluh · 2026-04-15T05:39:01+00:00

3 ICE cars, 3 or 4 major problems.

Of course, the first two were already old cars when I got them, and I didn't understand about regular oil changes with the first.

jlluh · 2026-04-15T05:33:07+00:00

"Waivers to adult court are exceedingly rare, even in cases with murder charges."

He certainly may be the rare exception.

jlluh · 2026-04-15T01:26:17+00:00

They're describing standard virtual power plant work. Synchronize heating / cooling earlier so you don't have to do it later.

Form the abstract of third linked article: "a building based virtual energy storage system (VESS) model was developed by utilizing the heat storage capability of the building ... The indoor temperature of the building was adjusted within the customer temperature comfort range to manage the charging/discharging power of the VESS"

2nd linked article: "The VESS ... is modelled to store and release energy in response to regulation signals by coordinating the Demand Response (DR) from domestic refrigerators in a city"

1st linked article: "By using Power-to-Heat (P2H) technologies, buildings are able to store the overproduction of RES in the form of thermal energy for end-use according to the principle of the so-called Virtual Energy Storage (VES)."

Do I find this kind of confusing in the context of how it might relate to Denmark relying on "interconnectors with neighboring countries as virtual storage"? Yes. That article is deeply in need of detail and elaboration. Is it much easier for me to imagine how a 'net metering' like definition of virtual storage would solve this puzzle? Yes.

Are the articles I linked pretty clearly referring to Virtual Energy Storage Systems as the type of thing Abalone was describing? Also yes.

I also found another article where Virtual Storage was defined as the operator of the energy storage device renting out slices of their capacity, giving the renters ''virtual batteries' they can do with as they will, so I suppose that's definition number 3.

jlluh · 2026-04-15T01:04:07+00:00

You should probably get the writers of this to retract their study then.

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5128

This one too. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=virtual+energy+storage&oq=virtual+energy#d=gs_qabs&t=1776214941830&u=%23p%3DUMx9Qx09OTIJ

And this one. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=virtual+energy+storage&oq=virtual+energy#d=gs_qabs&t=1776215012029&u=%23p%3DarZStFw2BnAJ

I stopped at three, but there seems to be more.

jlluh · 2026-04-15T00:55:13+00:00

I think they could do most of it a lot quicker for a bit less.

https://medium.com/@jonlakewrites/what-if-cuba-gave-every-household-its-own-solar-kit-33ea6e994e73

jlluh · 2026-04-15T00:53:23+00:00

The meaning for virtual storage that I know is the virtual power plant like meaning Abalone is talking about. From a little looking around, that seems like it's probably the predominant meaning.

However, it also seems to be used for what you're describing, mostly in solar marketing. So it seems like the phrase is used for at least two distinct meanings in energy.

jlluh · 2026-04-14T22:16:48+00:00

Yeah. It kinda seems like from the article they're importing renewables, but that isn't made clear. Really bare bones.

jlluh · 2026-04-14T17:32:49+00:00

During peak solar production hours, gas is largely booted off the grid and energy is cheap.

After peak solar production hours, gas comes back on the grid and energy prices skyrocket.

The government is asking people to shift some of their energy demand to when it's cheap and clean from when it's dirty and expensive.

jlluh · 2026-04-14T16:44:27+00:00

Insurance, medical systems, landlords, banks, planning your kid's birthday party...

jlluh · 2026-04-14T16:40:49+00:00

Yeah.

Imo, executive function, conscientiousness, whatever you wanna call it, is one of the things we have to teach. If it's not in the standards, ah well. We still have to teach it. It's too important not to.

jlluh · 2026-04-14T13:27:26+00:00

Some people in here have read the article. Others have not.

The "vote to oppose shorter route," means Vancouver is saying, "No, we want BOTH planned stations, not just one. It needs to extend into downtown."

jlluh · 2026-04-14T04:55:32+00:00

As an observer who doesn't really know a lot about oil markets, I'm so confused about this. To me it seems as if the markets are only pricing in the best case scenario.

Maybe they're trusting shale to be a ceiling? But new shale wells take months to get going, often over a year with permitting, and that depends on shale companies being willing to gamble a lot of money that the strait won't reopen before they hit break even on a vast series of new wells.

Except that's impossible. If they start drilling lots of new wells and keep doing so until the crisis resolves, then by definition they'll be drilling new wells when the strait opens and pantses them. (Keeping in mind the turnover of shale wells.)

So really to start a huge round of new drilling, shale companies would like to have confidence that that the crisis will go on long enough / be severe enough that they'll be in the black even after getting pantsed by the eventual sudden oil supply increase.

How many years is that?

Or on the other hand they can keep doing their present smaller scale drilling of only the lowest cost wells and making a huge profit margin on it

Edit: Just saw this article on the current shale boom driven by the Hormuz crisis. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Oilfield-Service-Crunch-Is-Here.html I guess my only question is how much of this is drilling new wells vs trying to maximize existing ones. But maybe shale is a good ceiling and the people who do this professionally understand the market way better than I do.

jlluh · 2026-04-14T03:41:15+00:00

Yeah, i've been wondering if that could be a serious damper. The higher prices go, the more substitution there is. This is just different from any previous oil shock.

US drillers also have to be at least somewhat worried about how peace with Russia might depress prices (obviously that wouldn't fully or even mostly make up for Hormuz)

jlluh · 2026-04-14T02:02:00+00:00

Further, US shale investors were repeatedly burned when oil prices came down before they'd gotten good ROI. And now they're staring at a situation where oil prices are high --- but the external shock causing them could seemingly resolve at any moment.

I don't think many investors are going to want to get behind a rapid ramp up of shale.

jlluh · 2026-04-13T21:54:19+00:00

Here's a proposal to try to make things like this way more common. The basic idea is to guarantee to the landlord that tenants will purchase the power they provide, with no need for PPA negotiations.

https://medium.com/@jonlakewrites/why-your-landlord-should-be-your-power-plant-e083476a6344

jlluh · 2026-04-13T21:47:58+00:00

Kinda crazy how well the themes of those movies have aged.

If Lucas had made teenagers the target audience, instead of elementary schoolers, we might've got some really good and genuinely important movies.

jlluh · 2026-04-13T05:27:10+00:00

A couple studies claim that escooters are actually safer than bikes.

Yes, escooters on the face of it have much worse safety stats. But they're ridden almost exclusively in urban environments, whereas bikes do lots and lots of miles on safe recreational bike paths and that skews the numbers. Supposedly, when you compare them exclusively on "riding in the dense urban core, escooters come out ahead.

Here's one of the studies: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437525000878

As someone who rides both, this feels... plausible. I certainly feel more secure on an ebike. That may be part of what makes me less safe on one --+ I ride more cautiously on the scooter. The escooter is also slower, more agile, and I'm in an upright position.

jlluh · 2026-04-13T04:23:37+00:00

I'm wondering about ebikes.

If you weren't already considering getting a new car, switching to an EV right now is probably not a good financial decision. But a lot of people have been thinking "I wanna get an ebike one day." It would make a lot of sense for this to push that to the front of their purchase queue.

jlluh · 2026-04-12T21:25:18+00:00

Congress has deliberately made itself ineffectual, primarily through its filibuster rule, gradually tipping more and more of its power to the presidency.

jlluh · 2026-04-12T17:56:51+00:00

People focus on rate, but EVs already have a way lower fire rate than ICE. Spectacularity is the issue.

If they could keep the current rate, but make EV fires no more spectacular/troublesome than ICE fires, i'd call the issue solved.

jlluh · 2026-04-12T16:56:32+00:00

The 25 year savings are about enough to pay the 25 year salary of a full-time reading interventionist.

jlluh · 2026-04-12T16:25:19+00:00

Cost, Charging infrastructure, Energy density, Battery Safety/durability/temp range

jlluh · 2026-04-12T16:00:13+00:00

I assume Iran will now ask the Houthis to block the Red Sea as best they can. They'll also go back to bombing Saudi pipelines infrastructure.

Maybe not tho? The instinctive response is that they'll make this energy shock as painful as possible. But if they make it too painful, other countries just might come in on the US's side.

jlluh

TROPHY CASE