Author Archives: DorthySilver

We need better home energy storage. These companies are working on it

by DorthySilver Posted on September 17, 2015

We need better home energy storage. These companies are working on it

By on 17 Sep 2015commentsShare

Earlier this summer, serial game-changer Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Powerall, a home energy storage device designed to give people energy independence and thus usher in the solar age. The announcement came only after Musk first revealed his deep distaste for existing batteries — namely that they “suck,” tend to be “stinky,” “ugly,” and are just “bad in every way.”

But Musk isn’t the only one who feels this way. Practical home energy storage, while not the sexiest of technologies, is crucial to the very sexy concept of off-grid living. And with more and more households installing solar panels, the home battery market is only going to get bigger. MIT Technology Review has the scoop on some other companies getting in on the action:

This week at the Solar Power International show, in Anaheim, a company called SimpliPhi Power is unveiling a lightweight battery system for homes and small businesses that offers a longer life span than other lithium-ion batteries and doesn’t require expensive cooling and ventilation systems.

SimpliPhi’s bid comes a few weeks after another energy storage provider, Orison, released its design for a small plug-and-play battery system that, unlike the SimpliPhi and Powerwall options, does not require elaborate installation or permits for a home or small commercial setting.

Orison will be launching a Kickstarter campaign to produce its first batch of batteries, which it plans to start distributing sometime next year, Technology Review reports. The unit will cost about $1,600 and have a 2 kWh capacity, compared to the $3,000, 7 kWh Powerwall (the average household in the U.S. uses about 30 kWh per day). Both of these options are pretty expensive, but the hope is that home storage costs will go down over time. SimpliPhi hasn’t revealed prices yet, but according to its website, it has residential units with 2.6 kWh and 3.4 kWh capacity.

Of course, it’s no good having batteries that solve an environmental problem, if they’re just going to cause another. Back in 2013, the EPA did a life cycle assessment of lithium-ion batteries — the kinds that all three companies are using — and found that the lithium-ion batteries that contain nickel and cobalt tend to have the most environmental impact:

These impacts include resource depletion, global warming, ecological toxicity, and human health impacts. The largest contributing processes include those associated with the production, processing, and use of cobalt and nickel metal compounds, which may cause adverse respiratory, pulmonary, and neurological effects in those exposed. There are viable ways to reduce these impacts, including cathode material substitution, solvent-less electrode processing, and recycling of metals from the batteries.

So before any of these emerging companies take over the market, it’s worth asking what kinds of materials they use in their batteries and what impacts those materials might have on the environment. Technology Review gets us part of the way there:

Orison’s products will use a lithium manganese cobalt battery from a supplier that CEO Eric Clifton declines to name. SimpliPhi, on the other hand, is using a relatively new battery chemistry known as lithium iron phosphate. The absence of cobalt in the cathode makes lithium iron phosphate batteries less subject to material shortages (cobalt is scarce and expensive) and, more important, less prone to heating up—a problem with lithium-ion batteries, which have shown an alarming tendency to go into thermal runaway (uncontrolled heating that can destroy the battery) or even catch fire.

In the meantime, we can all fantasize about a day when low-cost clean, efficient batteries are the norm, and living “off-grid” won’t mean having to settle for ugly batteries or life in one of these super low-energy hell-pods.

Source:

Home Energy Storage Enters a New Era

, MIT Technology Review.

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We need better home energy storage. These companies are working on it

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, ONA, Oster, Radius, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We need better home energy storage. These companies are working on it

Social Conservatives Are Freaking Out Because the GOP Let 2 Gay People Into the Party

by DorthySilver Posted on October 1, 2014

Mother Jones

The Republican Party is slowly beginning to accept the existence of gay people among its ranks. As I wrote last month, there are two openly gay GOP candidates running for the US House this year—both with the support and financial backing of the national party (a third prominent openly gay candidate lost in a primary). But the social-conservative groups that have long held sway over the party aren’t taking the change lightly.

Late last week, three anti-gay-rights groups—the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Family Research Council (FRC), and CitizenLink—sent a letter to national Republican leaders declaring their intention to actively oppose openly gay Republican House candidates Carl DeMaio and Richard Tisei, as well as Oregon Senate candidate Monica Wehby, who has endorsed gay marriage. “This decision was reached,” the groups wrote, “only after having exhausted all attempts to convince the Republican leadership of the grave error it was making in advancing candidates who do not hold core Republican beliefs and, in fact, are working to actively alienate the Republican base.”

The groups sent the letter to John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the leaders of the Senate and House election committees, claiming DeMaio, Tisei, and Wehby are “terrible role models for young people.” The organizations not only criticized the official Republican apparatus from supporting such candidates, but also vowed to launch a “concerted effort” to encourage people to vote against them.

Tisei is firing back. “I think that the majority of people at this point look at organizations like that as going backwards rather than forwards,” he said in an interview with Mother Jones. “I think DeMaio and myself represent the threat that we’re people who will be able to move the debate forward and help change the Republican Party. That scares a lot of those groups that are in existence primarily to hold people back.”

Tisei says that he hasn’t heard anything from the national groups regarding the letter from NOM and FRC, but isn’t concerned that the party would retract its support just because social-conservative groups are in a tizzy. “I think most party leaders recognize that the majority of younger Republicans have a different opinion and eventually the party needs to move in the right direction,” he says.

The Republican Party is still walking a narrow line when it comes to LGBT issues. The leaders of the party recognize that opposition to same-sex marriage is often a nonstarter among the young voters they need to win back, but the party still needs the religiously conservative voters that haven’t come around on marriage equality. Party leaders seem perfectly willing to accept a few gay candidates. But they won’t allow any meaningful consideration of ways the law could change to improve life for LGBT folks.

For a Republican running in a blue state like Tisei in Massachusetts, critiques from the far-right may prove more useful than detrimental; it gives him an opportunity to present himself as a middle-of-the-road, moderate candidate, attacked from all sides. “As a gay Republican, you’re under siege from both the left and the right, cause you’re a threat to both,” he says. “The left wants to keep things exactly the way they are for political reasons—they want their voting bloc to not be dissipating, they don’t want to have two parties who are good on the issue. Those on the far right don’t want to see the Republican Party change at all.”

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Social Conservatives Are Freaking Out Because the GOP Let 2 Gay People Into the Party

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Microsoft Wants Minecraft to Make It Cool. Good Luck.

by DorthySilver Posted on September 18, 2014

Mother Jones

Microsoft rattled the gaming world this week when it announced it would spend $2.5 billion to acquire Minecraft, a wildly popular indie videogame. By buying the game, Microsoft hopes to tap into players’ wallets. But what’s less clear is whether Microsoft can win over gamers, some of whom are criticizing Microsoft for trying to buy its way to cool—and stifling creativity in the process.

Minecraft’s premise is simple: Players are dropped into a world with LEGO-style blocks, and can then choose their own adventures—exploring, building new structures, or fighting monsters. The game has legions of devoted followers—including hardcore gamers, elementary school kids, and United Nations staffers who have asked citizens in developing countries to use the program to design better public spaces. Some gamers are earning a living off of Minecraft by uploading game videos to YouTube and taking a chunk of the ad revenue, and they’re not shying away from slamming the deal.

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Microsoft Wants Minecraft to Make It Cool. Good Luck.

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