Skip to main content

Slashdot: Elon Musk Predicts Electricity Shortage in Two Years

Elon Musk Predicts Electricity Shortage in Two Years
Published on July 31, 2023 at 07:29AM
"The man behind the race to replace gasoline-fueled cars with electric ones is worried about having enough juice," writes the Wall Street Journal: In recent days he has reiterated those concerns, predicting U.S. consumption of electricity, driven in part by battery-powered vehicles, will triple by around 2045. That followed his saying earlier this month that he anticipates an electricity shortage in two years that could stunt the energy-hungry development of artificial intelligence. âoeYou really need to bring the time scale of projects in sooner and have a high sense of urgency,â Musk told energy executives Tuesday at a conference held by PG&E, one of the nationâ(TM)s largest utilities. âoeMy biggest concern is that thereâ(TM)s insufficient urgency....â The U.S. energy industry in recent years already has struggled at times to keep up with demand, resorting to threats of rolling blackouts amid heat waves and other demand spikes. Those stresses have rattled an industry undergoing an upheaval as old, polluting plants are being replaced by renewable energy. Utilities are spending big to retool their systems to be greener and make them more resilient. Deloitte estimates the largest U.S. electric companies together will spend as much as $1.8 trillion by 2030 on those efforts. Adding to the challenge is an industry historically accustomed to moving slowly, partly because of regulators aiming to protect consumers from price increases... PG&E expects electricity demand will rise 70% in the next 20 years, which, the California company notes, would be unprecedented. Similarly, McKinsey expects U.S. demand will double by 2050. âoeThis is an opportunity of the century for the power sector, and they could blow it if they donâ(TM)t get it right,â Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas, Austin, said of the industry. âoeThis demand growth is partly from EVs, but also heat pumps, data centers, AI, home devicesâ¦you name it....â One of Muskâ(TM)s solutions is to better optimize the grid by running power plants around-the-clock and storing the energy not used during peak hours in battery packs for use later. âoeIâ(TM)m not sure it might be as much as a 2x gainâ¦but itâ(TM)s at least 50% to 100% increase in total energy output,â Musk said recently.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slashdot: AT&T Says Leaked Data of 70 Million People Is Not From Its Systems

AT&T Says Leaked Data of 70 Million People Is Not From Its Systems Published on March 20, 2024 at 02:15AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: AT&T says a massive trove of data impacting 71 million people did not originate from its systems after a hacker leaked it on a cybercrime forum and claimed it was stolen in a 2021 breach of the company. While BleepingComputer has not been able to confirm the legitimacy of all the data in the database, we have confirmed some of the entries are accurate, including those whose data is not publicly accessible for scraping. The data is from an alleged 2021 AT&T data breach that a threat actor known as ShinyHunters attempted to sell on the RaidForums data theft forum for a starting price of $200,000 and incremental offers of $30,000. The hacker stated they would sell it immediately for $1 million. AT&T told BleepingComputer then that the data did not originate from them and that its systems were not breached. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: US Plans $825 Million Investment For New York Semiconductor R&D Facility

US Plans $825 Million Investment For New York Semiconductor R&D Facility Published on November 02, 2024 at 03:00AM The Biden administration is investing $825 million in a new semiconductor research and development facility in Albany, New York. Reuters reports: The New York facility will be expected to drive innovation in EUV technology, a complex process necessary to make semiconductors, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Natcast, operator of the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NTSC) said. The launch of the facility "represents a key milestone in ensuring the United States remains a global leader in innovation and semiconductor research and development," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. From the U.S. Department of Commerce press release: EUV Lithography is essential for manufacturing smaller, faster, and more efficient microchips. As the semiconductor industry pushes the limits of Moore's Law, EUV lithography has emerged as a critical technology to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: AT&T, T-Mobile Prep First RedCap 5G IoT Devices

AT&T, T-Mobile Prep First RedCap 5G IoT Devices Published on October 15, 2024 at 03:20AM The first 5G Internet of Things (IoT) devices are launching soon. According to Fierce Wireless, T-Mobile plans to launch its first RedCap devices by the end of the year, while AT&T's devices are expected sometime in 2025. From the report: All of this should pave the way for higher performance 5G gadgets to make an impact in the world of IoT. RedCap, which stands for reduced capabilities, was introduced as part of the 3GPP's Release 17 5G standard, which was completed -- or frozen in 3GPP terms -- in mid-2022. The specification, which is also called NR-Light, is the first 5G-specific spec for IoT. RedCap promises to offer data transfer speeds of between 30 Mbps to 80 Mbps. The RedCap spec greatly reduces the bandwidth needed for 5G, allowing the signal to run in a 20 MHz channel rather than the 100 MHz channel required for full scale 5G communications. Read more of this story at...
Post a Comment
Read more