Tag Archives: Tesla

Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Observation, Sustainable Energy

Beating the Heatwaves: a Sensual Solution to Satisfy your Limbic System

Energy efficiency is sending a love letter to your amygdala

If you take a Tesla on a test drive at the HQ located next to SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA you’ll find yourself behind the wheel and, once you are strapped in, your official co-pilot will suggest one thing immediately. “Try pushing the pedal to metal, once, if you want to feel the g-force”, he or she will say.

When you do as suggested, you’ll be shocked at the torque and sudden acceleration, as you slam back against the head-rest and your face turns nearly liquid. That’s how the limbic system and the human need for sensual gratification becomes enamored with something “boring” like an EV.

It’s an example of how Tesla and Elon Musk transformed the auto trade, and brought the term “limbic resonance marketing” into the lexicon of contemporary speech.

While this all sounds thrilling and harmless, this kind of magical behavioral manipulation is missing, and desperately needed, for the next most important area in the transition to a sustainable economy: built-world upgrades and energy efficient retrofits (EE Retrofits for short).

The built environment, a sector that contributes approximately 40% of global carbon emissions, is one area where urgent action can have a dramatic impact. Specifically, the EE retrofitting of existing buildings and homes represents a remarkable opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Our collective preoccupation with the immediate, the easily marketable, and the visibly green overlooks a profound truth: energy efficiency is more than just about using less energy—it’s about achieving the same level of comfort, productivity, stimulation and even joy, with less. At scale it could mean a new energy economy, one that prioritizes living benefits, not just the ability to burn and combust fossilized plant matter as a path to living large.

Think of the energy system as a gourmet meal. The LED lights, the low-flow shower-heads, the energy-efficient heating and cooling appliances—they’re the condiments. They add flavor, they’re necessary, but they’re not the main course.

The main course is the EE retrofit—an ambitious reimagining of our existing buildings that holistically incorporates energy-saving measures, such as those that meet the passive house standard, including insulation, air sealing, HVAC upgrades, and high-performance windows. This means we could be needing fewer heat pumps, less energy production, fewer solar PV panels, a transition less dependent on grid expansion or upgrades.

The added spice to this gourmet meal, the pièce de résistance if you will, is a stunning architectural integration that enhances the building’s value beyond its pre-retrofit counterpart. This is where long-term thinking and smart design meet, offering not only reduced energy consumption, but a high-performing, aesthetically pleasing living or working environment.

Deep value and abundance by design

It’s important to note that this isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution—each building has its own unique challenges and opportunities. What’s necessary is a model that allows for that flexibility while still pushing for the highest efficiency.

An integrative design process that involves owners, architects, engineers, contractors, and building operators from the earliest stages can ensure that energy efficiency measures are built into the very fabric of the design, rather than tacked on as an afterthought.

We can no longer afford to take the path of least resistance. The climate crisis demands ambitious, long-term solutions. Retrofitting our existing buildings, first, to be more energy efficient is a significant step in that direction. We just need to make sure we’re aiming for the main course, and not settling for the condiments.

How can an energy realignment excite and stimulate?

In a world enthralled by the allure of the ‘next big thing,’ it’s easy to get lost in the narrative that technology alone will guide us through the current environmental crisis.

There’s an understandable, if somewhat misguided, emphasis on the simple mass production and consumption of green tech—solar panels, heat pump HVAC units, and electric cars. It’s a straight line thesis that is the stuff of future-world dreams, the kind that Silicon Valley venture capitalists find irresistibly compelling.

Public subsidies and venture capital investments, unfortunately, often narrowly follow this line of thinking, pouring billions into the manufacturing and implementation of these technologies.

Governments around the globe are eager to foster the expansion of these industries, both as a means of curbing carbon emissions and as a strategy for economic growth. But what if this focus on producing ‘green’ technology is diverting resources from a solution that could be even more impactful—increasing the energy efficiency of existing buildings?

There is an inconvenient truth in the realm of energy efficiency. The greatest potential for reducing our energy use and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions is not in the new gizmos we can attach to our homes, but in transforming the energy performance of the buildings themselves. As the saying goes, the greenest building is the one that’s already built.

The enemy of the good is not perfection: it’s a solution that solves nearly nothing

Ironically, many government subsidies are skewed towards upgrades to mechanical and electrical systems, but neglect to cover improvements in energy efficiency.

The result is that while buildings may be equipped with the latest in green technology, they remain fundamentally inefficient, their new solar panels and heat pumps mere band-aids masking the core issues.

Imagine pouring water into a leaky bucket—the more water you pour in, the more it continues to leak out. You can keep pouring faster and faster, or you can fix the leaks. The latter is undoubtedly more effective, and yet, our current approach to energy efficiency often looks like the former.

The remedy lies in comprehensive energy retrofits. Rather than attaching green tech appendages to inefficient structures, we should focus first on overhauling the buildings themselves, making them more efficient and reducing the energy demand.

A highly insulated and airtight building, for instance, such as one upgraded to passive house standards, requires fewer solar PV panels and smaller, less energy-intensive HVAC systems.

These upgrades are often seen to have higher upfront costs, which, when compared to doing nothing is a subjective assessment. But the long-term benefits of EE retrofits— in terms of energy savings, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and improved indoor environmental quality— are enormous.

And if we redirected even a fraction of the funds currently being funneled into green tech appliances towards deep energy retrofits, as a first step, we could begin to tackle this issue on a significant scale.

The path forward requires a paradigm shift, one that repositions energy efficiency buildings as the cornerstone of our response to the climate crisis.

We need to realign our funding mechanisms, from venture capital to public subsidies, to prioritize energy efficiency.

In the end, the greenest future might not be the one filled with the shiniest new technology, but the one in which we learned to use less, waste less, and value our existing resources more. It’s a future that’s within our grasp—if we choose to reach for it.

The first step, just as takes place on a Tesla test drive, is to push the pedal hard and find ways to demonstrate the sensual gratification and technical superiority of an indoor world that is designed for a better, more exciting future.

Elon Musk, Entertainment, TikTok

Elon Musk leaving Twitter (X-Corp) for… TikTok?

Is this a sign of things to come?

Elon Musk’s business journey began with an X. After co-founding Zip2 and X.com (which later became PayPal), he continues to favor “X”.

As soon as tonight he says Twitter’s bird will be gone and the new logo will be an X.

Meanwhile on TikTok, he has a new account, or at least someone with access to new private looking videos has posted them using his name.

Less than 24 hours ago 12 new clips were posted simply under the name Elon Musk, with a profile link to the Wikipedia page for Elon Musk.

Likes, views and follows are exploding, as can be expected- and will likely be viral in a matter of hours, as happened with Billie Eilish, when she launched a private account.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Rw6WUe/

The videos are almost all shot by a person, whose voice is sometimes heard, that appears to have close access to Musk. They tour Space X facilities, and even seem to go to various public events together.

There’s a voyeuristic quality to many of the clips, shot sometimes from backstage, following Elon as he strides into the spotlight- the footage is interesting if only for the mysterious nature of the source. Like a home made, amateur styled peek into the daily life of the world’s richest human being.

One clip of Elon testing a flame thrower is particularly eerie.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Rw8Xxg/

@elonmusk__livechat 🚀 #Elonmusk #elonmusknews #elonmuskmotivation #elonmusktesla #elonmuskquotes #elonmuskisagenius #elonmusktweets #tesla #spacex #neuralink #theboringcompany #mars #nasa #business #failure #entrepreneur #entrepreneurlife #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurmindset ♬ original sound – Elon Musk

There appears to be a doubling of views, likes and follows every 12 hours or so, and this will likely accelerate. It will be interesting, indeed, to see what, if any, new videos are added and what they hold in the way of secret views and content.

The story gets weirder but continues to entertain

Elon Musk has not been immune to controversies throughout his career. One of the most notable controversies revolves around his use of social media. Musk’s tweets have often landed him in hot water, from making bold claims about Tesla’s stock prices to sharing controversial statements without considering the potential consequences.

Concerns have been raised about the work environment at Tesla’s factories. Reports of intense work pressure, employee safety issues, and high turnover have drawn attention to labor practices within the company.

Elon Musk’s outspoken nature and unorthodox behavior have also attracted controversy. His comments about certain socio-political issues and public figures have occasionally drawn criticism, leading some to question his judgment and use of social media.

Hilarious history or serious fun?

In 2002, Elon founded SpaceX, determined to make space exploration affordable and sustainable. Amid numerous setbacks, he persisted, and in 2008, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 1 rocket into orbit, marking a pivotal moment in his journey.

Around the same time, Elon became CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, aiming to revolutionize the automotive industry with electric vehicles. Tesla faced challenges, but Elon’s vision of a sustainable future kept him pushing forward.

Climate Solutions, Sustainable Energy

This Climate Solution is a Sleeping Giant

A breakthrough technology evolution that can have an enormous, immediate impact

By Nick Mandala, for Positive Energy Action, republished by permission

Sometimes, the most effective and powerful solutions are right in front of us, yet somehow the potential is not immediately recognized.

This is a story about using available knowledge and technology to reduce climate warming GHG emissions to zero, while at the same time creating a new economic model for housing, transportation and, well, life on earth.

Two of the greatest challenges of our time (and one could argue, of all time) are climate change and the affordability crisis in housing worldwide.

Some data on housing, published by WeForum:

  • The housing crisis could impact 1.6 billion people by 2025, the World Bank says.
  • The world needs to build 96,000 new affordable homes every day to house the estimated 3 billion people who will need access to adequate housing by 2030, UN-Habitat says.

Superficially it would seem that these two challenges are in conflict; doesn’t it cost more to build zero carbon or even carbon negative homes? (negative carbon = produces more energy than it consumes)

What if a combination of existing methods, materials and technology could help solve both problems at once?

< R. Buckminster Fuller, (American architect, designer, inventor, and writer, best known for his geodesic domes) believed in the the ability of technological advancement to do “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing,” that is, an accelerating increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output (products, services, information, etc). >

”An accelerating increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output”

Before tackling the recipe for creating significantly more affordable housing, while at the same time battling climate change in a big way, it’s helpful to begin with an analogy from sustainable transport design.

Electric vehicles have been around, in primitive form, since the 1830s, nearly two decades before the oil industry officially began in the US.

But, in essence, it took 163 years before efficiency and battery technology were sufficiently developed to make transportation as cheap in an EV as in an ICE car.

( It can be argued that this accomplishment could have happened nearly a century sooner, if not for the threat it posed to the fossil fuel industry.)

The history of the ICE automobile is often one of ignoring efficiency until simply burning more fuel without limits became an issue. R. Buckminster Fuller (see above) designed a “Dymaxion” car in the early 1930s that could transport up to 11 passengers, reach speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, and ran 30 miles per gallon. The combined average mpg for cars and consumer trucks was sill less than 30 in 2011, nearly 80 years later.

The dawn of the EV era, finally

Tesla takes the efficiency of its vehicles very seriously and has made great strides in achieving long battery range and, with the model 3, increased affordability. The three main areas where EV efficiency can be increased are the materials (weight), the highly aerodynamic design (drag coefficient) and, of course, the battery design.

Aptera, a startup company that is targeting 2023 for initial mass production of its radically designed EV, is taking this focus on efficiency a step further in creating a solar powered car.

A great challenge to using solar panels on a passenger vehicle is the small surface-area that is available to mount the panels. For this reason every aspect of the design must be hyper-optimized.

Astoundingly, the Aptera is slated to release a model that can travel 1000 miles on a charge and, under ideal conditions, never need to be charged at all (100% self-charging via integrated solar panels).

Currently the biggest limitation is that the solar panels can only add 40 miles of range per day, meaning if you drive less than 40 miles per day on average you would never need to spend a cent plugging into grid power.

How do they do it? Special hyper-efficient PV panels, a drag coefficient nearly half of a Tesla Model 3 (1.3 vs. 2.3) and an aerodynamic design that makes it look as crazy as you can imagine. (Oh yea, and only 3 wheels)

If this story continues, and companies like Aptera are able to achieve additional incremental gains in efficiency to produce even better solar powered cars, transportation itself could become affordable at a level inconceivable in the current economic system.

Imagine buying a modestly priced vehicle (Aptera’s base model is currently priced at $25k) and never paying to charge it for the life of the car.

This is approaching an example of the “until eventually you can do everything with nothing” part of the quote above. Further gains are possible with continued design evolution.

What if a home, or housing community, could have “Aptera-like” performance?

Aptera formula:

  1. Solar powered
  2. Battery back up
  3. Hyper-efficient design to optimize 1+2

AM51 concept:

  1. Solar powered
  2. Battery back up (or geothermal, pumped hydro, etc + hyper-efficient heat pumps and other future tech appliances)
  3. Hyper-efficient design to optimize 1+2

At AM51 we are working to take decades of accumulated knowledge and use similar design principals, first pioneered by “Bucky” Fuller, in creating a complete “living system” for homes and communities.

The preconception that aerodynamic design and precision to create hyper-efficiencies is fine for cars, boats, aircraft, etc, but of little use in buildings / homes is where the communication challenge lies.

We use the term living system, because, like an EV, all the elements must be designed to work together with optimum performance in order to reach the twin goals of less than zero carbon emissions and achieving that at a price below current, traditionally built, homes and communities.

Also, a combination of the “core and shell” basically the equivalent of the body in a car, along with the power source (rooftop solar) each have to be hyper-efficient and work together at maximum performance.

Add to this eco-friendly insulation and HVAC systems, and something magical happens.

The EV design analogy is apt, also, because we incorporate batteries for backup and load management.

Where the analogy diverges is in the design of the building itself. Drag coefficient is less relevant (unless we create a flying house) but instead the thermal profile and material choices have a huge impact.

The thermal profile is the area where the greatest gains are possible. Traditional homes (and buildings generally) were never designed to take efficient energy use for climate control into account. (This would be the equivalent of driving a rectangular “block-car” EV -Hummer?- and watching your battery reserve disappear in minutes.)

Getting into the details of how exactly the thermal profile is achieved is beyond the scope of this article, however, what we can say is that the increased efficiency (compared to a home built with traditional methods) is achievable to between 80-94%.

In plain English, this is a measurement of how much less energy is needed to heat and cool the home, along with the standard average usage for typical residents (cooking, TVs, computers, etc).

Starting in the 70s, refined in the 90s, passive house standards are the underlying scientific foundation of our work in designing the ultimate thermal profile for homes.

This standard has been underappreciated and is often considered “expensive” which is only true if you look at only one aspect of the design in isolation (like triple pane windows, for example).

As part of a complete system, the real cost, not just in climate terms, is comparable, and, as discussed below, can be significantly less when every element is properly measured. Vastly less expensive and more efficient heat pumps or other new innovative HVAC systems already offset much of the added construction costs of superior materials and quantities.

Every home a power plant and a grid interactive citizen

Unlike an EV such as the Aptera, the roof area of an average sized home has space for a larger number of panels. Therefore, using standard current PV systems, an AM51 home, with an over 85% more efficient energy demand profile, can power itself using only a portion of the space available.

With a system that uses the entire available area, a significant amount of excess power is available to share with the public grid, in exchange for compensation.

All of this can be magnified, particularly in a community setting, once grid-interactive systems and net metering become standard, and laws adapt to maximize this potential.

In a nutshell, our goal is to create a system where a community functions as individual hyper-efficient homes, combined with shared solar power and backup.

The calculated benefits to this total system design are “beyond Aptera” in their potential impact at scale.

This comparison shows the real cost difference between a fully electric home built using traditional methods and an AM51 hyper-efficient home. The savings also reflect the higher energy costs for all-electric homes vs. cheap gas and oil. Many States are planning to require all electric single family home construction by 2023-2025.

Imagine a home that, once paid for via mortgage at a price at or below a traditional home, does not generate a cent in energy bills for up to 25 years…

…and, additionally, will generate monthly income, thus reducing the monthly payments, in some cases significantly.

All of this, while having a negative carbon footprint (more energy produced than consumed), and causing enormous reductions in GHG emissions at scale…

For many, utility bills are not the greatest concern or cost factor they focus on when imagining the cost of home ownership. But the potential – the freedom of a “grid-optional” lifestyle – and the incredible comfort, health and well-being attached to a perfectly climate controlled indoor environment – all this and many more benefits, once experienced, we believe will eventually make traditional home environments obsolete.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

-R. Buckminster Fuller

Adaptation to hotter heat waves and “polar vortexes”, and other unexpected weather events that are now increasingly likely, is an important topic.

Having a living system that can be counted on to keep you warm in winter, cool in the raging summer heat, and all for zero dollars beyond the basic initial costs, must become a minimum standard as we go forward.

Fractalize™, the coup de gras of affordability for the grid-interactive, hyper-efficient home

So much for battling climate change through efficient design and synergistic systems.

In order to reach even greater affordability, for most even more important and extremely meaningful in getting homes to those in need, AM51 homes and communities will need a construction method to reduce actual costs even further.

Labor shortages in construction and supply chain issues for materials, are two major factors that are driving costs up.

Our completely unique pre-manufactured building system, Fractalize™, takes on both issues and more.

With modern, yet simple, computer and robotic assisted manufacturing of building blocks, optimized specifically for home construction, and made exclusively out of plant-based materials (wood and other) far less labor is required.

Building times are up to 10X faster and minimal assembly crews, with no heavy machinery, are all that’s needed.

Again, the specific details of the hybrid-deep-tech-low-tech system are too complex for this article, but the end result of the added layer of efficiency (in this case efficient execution of construction) can result, by our calculations, in up to 15% lower construction costs overall, with additional cost-benefits from the speed to market.

The automated Fractalize™ manufacturing system is planned for mini factories near each region where homes and communities are needed.

It can also be adapted to make use of cost benefits in non-OECD developing economies where using local supply-chain logistics and available labor can lower prices much more for those unique circumstances.

As for North America, imagine owning a home and having your home pay you, provide free energy for a quarter century, yet cost up to 20% less than a comparable home, built old-style!

This, combined with unprecedented healthy, comfortable living, convenience, and elegance will proclaim a new architectural century. And with an Aptera in the driveway you’ll never pay a cent for transportation or utilities for the life of your home and car. Bucky would be winking at the thought…

Climate Solutions, Sustainable Energy

Virtual Power Plants Could be the Future of Distributed Energy

More grid power failures are likely: a distributed network is the only solution

If you have heard about the concept of a VPP, it is most likely that you read about a Tesla Virtual Power Plant. A virtual power plant (VPP) is a system that uses a network of decentralized energy resources, such as solar panels, wind turbines, and energy storage systems, to generate electricity.

These resources are connected and controlled through a central management system, which allows them to operate as a single, coordinated entity.

The goal of a VPP is to provide a reliable and cost-effective source of electricity by leveraging the collective output of the connected energy resources.

Tesla has been working on the concept going back as far as 2015, when they first began producing battery back up systems for solar.

Tesla’s home system, called Powerwall, and the Megapack, first offered in 2019, which is a massive 3 MWh energy storage product, are the best known backup systems for solar panel systems.

More recently companies such as Swell Energy are working together with utilities to operate a “behind the meter” virtual power plant systems that are able to manage residential solar installations to ensure that there are no outages and that the maximum financial benefit is available for the power generated.

VPPs can be used to provide electricity to a specific location, such as a neighborhood or a campus, or they can be connected to the grid and used to generate electricity for a larger area.

They can also be used to support the integration of renewable energy sources into the grid, by providing a flexible and responsive source of electricity that can be dispatched as needed to meet changing demand.

VPPs can be beneficial in a number of ways. They can help to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, which can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

They can also help to lower energy costs by using locally-generated renewable energy, and they can help to improve the reliability of the electricity supply by providing a distributed source of electricity that is not reliant on a single power plant or transmission line.

The many benefits of these systems are only now beginning to emerge – with greater cooperation between the government, regulations, utilities and individual home owners the potential for a more resilient grid and more secure, sustainable energy for communities are virtually unlimited.

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Elon Musk, Tesla

Love or Hate Elon Musk, The Tesla Semi is a Big Step Forward

The December 1st launch date is good news for the climate

Elon Musk confirmed, via tweet, that a Tesla Semi successfully completed a 500 mile trip, fully loaded, on November 27th. With a full weight of 81,000 lbs, the 500 mile trip on a full charge is an impressive feat that bodes well for the production roll out, scheduled to begin on December 1st, 2022.

The date also coincides with scheduled delivery of the first production Semis to Pepsi. The timing is also interesting as Coca-Cola has recently begun its roll out of Renault trucks intended for last-mile deliveries in Belgium.

The Tesla Semi accomplishment is particularly impressive as the difficulty of designing a long-haul EV truck that is capable of 500 miles on a charge with a full load of cargo plus battery weight is off-the-charts difficult.

The 500 mile target is important since it corresponds to an 8 hour shift for drivers, after which a rest period would be mandatory. Not only is there an obvious climate benefit to fleets, and eventually the entire long haul industry, switching to EVs, the reduced costs per mile compared to diesel is significant.

Since an 80% charge is the recommended maximum for battery health and longevity, the Tesla Semi is expected to be able to run 400 miles (fully loaded) on a charge. The company has plans to provide solar-powered “Tesla Megacharger” charging stations that can reach 80% in 30 minutes.

Reducing the long haul diesel carbon footprint is a hugely important milestone

Diesel emissions are dirty if you try to breathe them, but they also emit 13% more CO2 compared to vehicles running on gasoline. As of 2020, transportation was responsible for 27% of GHG emissions, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Although replacing the entire US fleet of both passenger vehicles and trucks with EVs, charged ideally by sustainable energy sources is a huge, long term undertaking, the mere possibility that it can be accomplished is proven by this first step into sustainable commercial transportation.

Considering the economic benefits, the opposite of a so-called “green premium” the adoption of EVs for the long haul trucking industry seems very likely to proceed rapidly. And, regardless of your take on Twitter’s recent drama, that’s good news for all of us.

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Elon Musk, Tesla, Twitter

Why Elon Musk Bought Twitter V3: The Tesla Phone Wrinkle

In a bizarre twist Elon tweets a “threat” to sell phones if Apple or Google ban Twitter from App stores

This article is the third in a series that was never intended to be one. The question of why, other than lack of impulse control and way too much money, Elon Musk would buy Twitter and take it over himself is still unknown. Our first two articles chronicled two possible motivations, each put forth by someone claiming to have inside information. This story is based on Elon Musk’s direct reply to a tweet.

With Twitter getting more dangerous daily, if you are an advertiser or stake your reputation on the content not being toxic (good luck!), and now speculation is mounting that Apple and/or Google might ban downloads for the app.

Elon Musk actually responded to these thoughts with a tweet saying, “…yes, if there there’s no other choice, I will make an alternative phone.”

Oddly, this idea has been around a long time as a sort of fake news thread – various YouTubers have a continuous output of made-up stories about Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX. One of the most circulated is one claiming that there is already a solar-powered, Starlink connected phone from Tesla, which some claim is called the “Model Pi”.

Spoofs that become real?

There are many, many reasons, beyond the fact that the whole thing was a spoof, that make it very unlikely that this could ever happen. It’s true that the various capabilities that would be needed to make an iPhone like product are generally within the scope of what Tesla already does.

Manufacturing, supply chains, software, all of these are within the general scope of what Tesla has done very well up until now. It is, on the other hand, more than a bit crazy to think that, literally overnight, a new product could overtake or even compete with the incredibly mature capabilities of the iPhone or a top Android unit.

The iPhone has been evolving for fifteen years and the resources that Apple brings to bear in improving it are not small. The spoof version invents a few bombshell features such as built in crypto mining (presumably where the name “Pi” comes from ), Solar charging, Starlink internet, and others to ad believability to the joke.

Even if these features were available (crypto less of a incentive now lol) it’s extremely unlikely that a large number of people would jump on the trend with so many other features delayed (Cybertruck, anyone?).

The genius is that people think that Elon Musk can make the impossible happen

Getting away from the negative, what Tesla has accomplished in changing perception of EVs from a dead on the shelf product, to one that has forced the entire automotive industry to adopt a similar path is amazing.

And, even at Twitter, it is possible that, after a lot of pain and tumult there could be a new Twitter that is no worse that the pre-Musk version. It could even be bigger and, eventually, not a cesspool.

One thing that is abundantly clear, however, is that the ongoing drama will continue and maybe even accelerate. Watch this space for the next chapter.

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Observation

The Real Dream of Clean Energy: Video Eureka Moment from Cleo Abram

Video

Reducing fossil fuel use is important, but it’s more important to increase zero carbon energy production

Increasing sustainable energy production is possibly the most important goal for the world today. This idea is mostly couched, however, in negative terms, the idea that without a shift to clean, green sustainable sources climate change will destroy the future.

This is an important and essentially true statement.

However the automatic association of sustainable energy as being inevitably connected to less energy availability is a false premise. One that can be proven wrong with positive action towards building clean energy infrastructure, not as a defensive, desperate survival goal, but as a natural expansion of more energy and power that could lead to increased prosperity for the human race.

Deeply embedded thought patterns prevent us, perhaps, from imagining a world where more energy is not associated with more pollution, eventual depletion of a finite and limited resource and ultimately death, destruction and a CO2 induced climate catastrophe.

Optimism and abundance are linked with hope and a dream of a better standard of living for all. That dream is possible not with less energy use, but rather, more and cheaper energy availability that can be created by building a global, sustainable, renewable energy infrastructure.

A change in thought and perspective is necessary and could be more powerful than the sun

Utopia is a word that will get you laughed at, while oblivion is becoming the expected outcome of our century. Predicted by R. Buckminster Fuller in his book ‘Utopia or Oblivion‘, the choice we face in this century is not oblivion and catastrophic suffering or ‘business as usual’, it is not survival vs extinction, it is survival by unleashing utopian potential or total annihilation.

The paradox of sustainable energy is that, without it becoming the primary energy production system for the planet, combined with reduced consumption of fossil fuels until 100% sustainability is reached, oblivion or at least massive pain is assured; while at the same time, achieving 100% carbon free, clean energy from sustainable sources like solar, wind and geothermal, can create virtually unlimited increases in beneficial uses of energy, leading to an almost utopian potential for quality of life.

Thinking is the Difference Between Utopia or Oblivion

The clarity of realizing that clean sustainable energy ubiquity means unlimited energy consumption is non-destructive, and can end the malthusian nightmare of finite resources, that so many have fought over and even died for, is truly mind altering.

More is less, is another way to say it. Or at least more consumption and benefits, but none of the negative costs to the environment that we have come to see as inextricably linked to fossil fuel energy production and use.

At the same time it also harkens back to Elon Musk and Tesla’s mission statement. Tesla has had a vision for sustainable energy that is S3XY; more luxury, more beauty, more fun.

That mind-set, a mind set of abundant clean unlimited energy from sustainable sources, used to power beautiful powerful EVs, has made the company the enormous success that it is and ushered in an era EV production as job #1 throughout the entire auto industry.

The genius of this perspective centers on the idea that humans, when striving toward a positive goal, are always more powerful and successful than they are when simply trying to avoid a negative outcome.

Interestingly, the dream of reaching Mars, Musk’s other stated goal, is both positive and negative, since one reason for the urgent need to establish colonies there could be the destruction of earth due to climate disaster, caused by a failure to create a sustainable clean energy infrastructure in time.

It is the power and dream of much more abundant energy that can remove the idea from our minds that energy consumption is inherently bad, just because it does have negative ramifications galore when the source for that energy is dirty fossil fuels.

The Utopian Mindset must begin to permeate our consciousness if we are to overcome the challenges of 2000-2050 and beyond

Energy abundance is not the only type of abundance that our minds must learn to accept as possible for our species if we hope to turn things around. Bitcoin, for example, is currently being scapegoated in the media generally and is having endless disinformation hurled at its proof of work mining system based on the premise that it uses “too much” energy and too much of that energy is sourced from fossil fuels at this time.

But why not focus on the real problem? Why not see that a monumental and heroic effort to rid the world of dependence on “bad” and ultimately finite and limited sources of energy from fossil fuels and shift, ultimately, 100% of production to clean and renewable sources, needs to be job #1 for team earth?

Again, in an all-or-nothing scenario there is no option to equivocate. The negative reasons that fossil fuels must be phased out as soon as possible (‘the stick’ as per Cleo Abram in her video below) become more inevitable each minute and are already threatening everything humans have accomplished to date.

The positive motivation is less obvious for most at this point (‘the carrot’) and yet is ultimately more powerful (S3XY!) since it carries with it the hope that we can not only avert disaster, death and destruction, but can build a clean, abundant and infinitely expandable energy supply that could be used to build the first tentative steps toward a utopian dream.

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Crypto, Elon Musk, Twitter

Bitcoin’s Origins get Well-timed Mention in Elon Musk Tweet

The ‘why’ of Bitcoin is back in the news

Bitcoin’s history and origination is an important factor for more than just true believers and maximalists. Created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and with evidence that it was intended, by its founder, known only as Satoshi Nakamoto, as remedy for the failed system that had nearly collapsed the world economic system at that time.

In a recent CoinDesk post, Nathan Thompson wrote: Bitcoin’s genesis block is historic, not just because it contained the first 50 bitcoins, but because it had a message coded in the hash code: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

The bank bailouts and various financial system failures were integral, then, in the creation and purpose of bitcoin, and one could even say, coins and systems that followed, starting with Ethereum in 2015.

After a few weeks of tweets revolving around the Twitter buyout brouhaha, Elon Musk, in a reply, added, in a more introspective tone than has been seen of late, some of his thoughts on the subject;

Interesting timing and a nice shift from the obsession with prices

The recent “crash” and panicked voices over the drop of the bitcoin price below $30k is the unspoken background addressed in this exchange, it appears.

Decrying the erroneous belief that “prices only go up” held by the public at large during the doomed run up to the 2008-2009 crisis could be seen as a hint that, perhaps, prices of assets like Bitcoin, and Tesla shares, for that matter, can not “only go up” and anyone who seeks such a preposterous nirvana is digging their own graves, having failed to learn from all the times in history that fools took the path of peak greed and self-delusion.

Worse, and worth being singled out specifically, are those that profited from the delusion of others in “predatory lending” practices, which Elon Musk “doesn’t support”.

Ultimately for this tweet thread, it was Elon Musk’s Twitter buddy @BillyM2k that nailed it with a series of tweets explicitly spelling out the divergence between the founders and believers in the original, positive, intent of bitcoin and the massive bubble of speculators and scammers that has, in his view unfortunately, grown up around it.

The Best Books on Cryptocurrency

Pointing out that DogeCoin, as an example, was created to highlight the stupidity of speculation and excess greed that came with the avalanche of meme-coins and “shitcoins” etc, that flooded the market and, to a great degree, obscured the original, positive force that bitcoin and decentralized finance was invented to be.

https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1525274042592202752?s=20&t=yenGWhR_EZDBYDoUwOhnZg

Maybe, some of the various challenges and stumbles that Elon Musk is experiencing lately, seemingly for the first time, after a string of incredible triumphs, culminating with the Person of the Year designation and the buyout launch that is now in limbo, will inspire him to be more reflective and use his powerful position as a “Twitter-sage” to draw more attention to the need for a voice of “reason”, rather than as a cheerleader for the bonfires of vanity and speculation.

https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1525277905319628801?s=20&t=yenGWhR_EZDBYDoUwOhnZg

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Business, Sustainable Energy

How Electric Trucking Options are Coming to Freight Businesses 

There’s been a lot of talk lately about transitioning to sustainable energy sources, and for good reason. With the threat of climate change looming, it’s more important than ever that we work to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

Transportation options that are more sustainable than gas-powered vehicles and also much cheaper are out there. Believe it or not, sustainable energy transport is not only possible; it’s becoming increasingly popular as companies and consumers alike move towards greener options.

In this post, we’ll explore how transport companies can transition to sustainable energy transportation. We’ll also look at some of the challenges and benefits associated with making this switch. So if you’re interested in learning more about sustainable energy transportation the information below may be useful.

What Is Sustainable Energy Transportation and Why Is It Important?

At its core, sustainable energy transportation refers to any form of transport that relies on renewable energy sources or non-polluting fuels. Sustainable energy sources include electric or solar power plus things like wind farms and biofuels.

Many freight companies are looking into sustainable energy transportation because it helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. In fact, the transportation sector is responsible for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States—nearly 30 percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Furthermore, changing regulations and consumer preferences may significantly impact the future of sustainable energy transportation. For example, many cities are now starting to implement strict emissions standards for taxis and buses, which could result in more companies shifting towards electric or hybrid vehicles.

For transportation businesses to remain competitive in the future, it’s important to start exploring sustainable energy transportation options now. Not only will this help reduce their impact on the environment, but it will also help them stay ahead of the curve.

Challenges of Transitioning to Sustainable Energy Transportation

Of course, making the switch to sustainable energy transportation isn’t without its challenges. Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles for transport companies is investing in the new technologies and infrastructure required for these types of vehicles. For example, electric vehicles need charging stations, and solar-powered vehicles may need special equipment to harness the sun’s energy.

Another challenge that transport companies face is changing consumer behavior. While there is a growing interest in sustainable energy transportation options, many consumers are still unfamiliar with these technologies or are hesitant to switch from traditional methods like gas-powered vehicles.

This means that transport companies need to find ways to educate consumers about the benefits of sustainable energy transportation and convince them to make the switch. This can be a costly and challenging process, but it’s essential if we want to see widespread adoption of these technologies.

The final challenge to consider when transitioning to sustainable energy transportation is the availability of resources. Currently, sustainable energy sources like solar and wind power are still not as widely available as fossil fuels. This means that transport companies need to be strategic about where they source their energy and how they use it.

However, despite these challenges, more and more transport companies are making the switch to sustainable energy transportation. And as more businesses and consumers become educated about the benefits of this technology, we’ll likely see even broader implementation in the future.

Benefits of Transitioning to Sustainable Energy Transportation

Despite the challenges that come with transitioning to sustainable energy transportation, there are also a number of benefits that make the change worth it.

For one thing, sustainable energy sources like wind and solar power are becoming much cheaper than traditional fossil fuels. Using sustainable energy can help companies save money on fuel costs, as renewable energy is more affordable, in aggregate, compared to conventional fossil fuels.

As an example, at Cross Country Car Shipping detailed examples are shown breaking down the cost of shipping vehicles across the country. In the future, this cost could be greatly reduced as more transport companies start using sustainable energy.

Additionally, sustainable energy transportation options are becoming increasingly available as more companies invest in this area. This means that transport companies have more choices when it comes to finding vehicles and technologies to meet their needs. Plus, these types of vehicles produce fewer emissions, which can help improve air quality and reduce health problems like asthma.

The benefits of transitioning to sustainable energy transportation are clear. And not only will they help transport companies save money and reduce their environmental impact, but they’ll also help these businesses remain competitive in an ever-changing marketplace.

How Can Transport Companies Make the Switch to Sustainable Energy Sources?

Making the switch to sustainable energy transportation can be challenging, but it’s essential work that must be done if we want to see a more sustainable future for transportation. 

There are many ways transportation and shipping companies can transition to sustainable energy sources. Some possible strategies include investing in electric or hybrid vehicles, using solar power, and utilizing renewable fuels like biofuels. Additionally, companies may need to make changes to their infrastructure and educate consumers about the benefits of sustainable energy transportation to facilitate this transition. 

Transitioning to sustainable energy transportation is an important step many companies are taking to be more environmentally friendly and cost-effective. And while the challenges involved in this process should not be underestimated, the potential benefits make the switch well worth it.

The Takeaway on Transport and Sustainable Energy

As the world looks for ways to become more environmentally friendly, many transport and shipping companies are making the switch to sustainable energy transportation. This transition can be challenging, but it comes with many benefits that can help businesses save money. It’s also an important step in protecting our planet for future generations.

There are a few key things that companies need to think about when it comes to making the switch to sustainable energy, including harnessing the right technologies and communicating the benefits of this transition to consumers. And with some forethought and planning, companies can make the switch successfully while helping to protect our planet for years to come.​

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Elon Musk, Twitter

Elon Musk’s Latest Tweet Says it All, or Does it?

Perhaps in a moment of incoherence, this three-tweet set was launched. It is just plain goofy (unless he is buttering up “the right” for after mid-terms…?)

In what looks like some kind of twisted attempt at being diplomatic, Elon Musk’s latest tweet manages to clarify his stance regarding “free-speech“ about as much as a mud bath clarifies a cupcake.

Leading off with a bizarre attack on what he Calls “the far left “, he explains that it is his contention that they “hate everyone including themselves”.

Standing alone this is already a bizarre statement, which seems like a far right talking point, typical of the Joe Rogan school of anti-cancel culture and anti-so-called “woke-mob”.

He follows this up with a disclaimer of sorts, as bland as it can be stating that he is “no fan” of the far right, either.

One would have to be forgiven if they thought that this implied, in its very wording, an actual bias toward the far right which is what many already believe.

Ending his three-tweet soufflé on the flat “Let’s have less hate and more love” the responses, not surprisingly, were a very loving mix of WTF and ????

To be fair, there were also lots like this:

And this:

But, the way his tweets were so oddly posted, there was definitely a sense among “lefties” that he was biased. And it didn’t take a genius, but merely @cjwalker21, to retort:

It actually seems odd, that Elon Musk would wade (or dive head first) into a “left vs. right” argument that has no hope of any kind of resolution. And pretending that the disagreements are equal on some level and love can just be ratcheted up as if it was cheap rocket fuel, seems odd…

Then, in what’s gotta qualify as “far left’ in Elon’s book, this gem:

https://twitter.com/Grizzy_333/status/1520210804330704897?s=20&t=4N4AdzxcqVPa3BiO9XkCjg

Honestly, if you just look at the numbers, maybe you don’t see taxes as the answer, but considering the company Elon is in (Zuckerberg and Bezos?) there’s clearly something wrong with this picture?

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Elon Musk, Twitter

Elon Musk owns Twitter after $44 Billion: What’s Next?

Video

Freedom of Speech is declared driving force for Takeover

Twitter Inc. announced that it has agreed to be acquired by an entity that is wholly owned by Elon Musk. The news comes after it was widely leaked that negotiations were underway over the weekend and that a deal was imminent.

Going forward the company will be privately held and current stockholders will be compensated at $54.20 for each share of common stock that they own as of completion of the deal. This represents a 38% premium over the closing price on April 1st when Musk’s 9% stake was announced.

The board voted unanimously to the proposal and, though subject to the approval of Twitter’s shareholders, and applicable regulatory approvals the agreement is expected to go through in 2022.

What will follow is unknown, but speculation is rampant

Since the announcement on April 1st that Elon Musk had purchased approximately 9% of Twitter and this Saga began, there has been a busier than usual frenzy of speculation regarding the possibility that has now come to pass.

On the most superficial level, there was an odd kind of measured jubilation on the political Right, with speculation that Musk might re-instate Trump and others who have been permanently banned (although Trump himself indicated that he would decline if invited back) and a sense of horror on the Left – with an implied mistrust of the world’s richest human, connecting this situation to ongoing debates over wealth taxes and economic inequality overall.

On a deeper track are those closer to the situation – such as Jack Dorsey, who expressed support and openly criticized the current board and public structure in elucidating tweets, such as the one below.

Looking back at some of the harmony and love shared over bitcoin and other major topics an alliance, or at least a consulting status for @Jack could be amazing in terms of what could come of this – a private Twitter with Musk at the helm, in terms of a new direction for social media and all online business and how they evolve going forward.

While it may seem presumptuous to think it won’t be a disaster, there are deeper issues that would indicate that a lot more thought might have gone into this than a superficial look reveals.

Elon Musk has proved, and explained to anyone that will listen, that his motives and goals for any business endeavor are in a new category of entrepreneur, and his success, often against incredible odds, are a testament to the power of this mindset.

With Tesla, he took on nothing less than the most powerful, entrenched (and arguably corrupt) special interest group in history, the fossil fuel industry, and somehow, due perhaps as much to timing as to any particular strategy or plan, prevailed.

That this takeover could mark the beginning of real change in “Web2” and social media, regarding of the risk of a private individual excepting near absolute control, it is a welcome change, based on the reality that the status quo, at Twitter and basically all the so-called internet giants could not be any worse.

Let’s hope that the public and very visible lead up to this deal will be followed in the near future by a continuation of that openness and that changes and plans will be announced as they happen, which would be entertaining at the least, and exhilarating at best.

There’s a lot more to unpack in this, not just in the reactions and opinions that will surely flood now that the next step is upon us. but in a fruitful and valuable deeper look into the real motivations and potential of this new deal.

For that, please stay tuned, and for now, please let me know what you think about Twitter’s decision and new owner.

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Sustainable Energy

Electrifying homes to slow climate change: 4 essential reads

The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that to avoid massive losses and damage from global warming, nations must act quickly to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is that experts believe it’s possible to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 through steps such as using energy more efficiently, slowing deforestation and speeding up the adoption of renewable energy.

Many of those strategies require new laws, regulations or funding to move forward at the speed and scale that’s needed. But one strategy that’s increasingly feasible for many consumers is powering their homes and devices with electricity from clean sources. These four articles from our archives explain why electrifying homes is an important climate strategy and how consumers can get started.

1. Why go electric?

As of 2020, home energy use accounted for about one-sixth of total U.S. energy consumption. Nearly half (47%) of this energy came from electricity, followed by natural gas (42%), oil (8%) and renewable energy (7%). By far the largest home energy use is for heating and air conditioning, followed by lighting, refrigerators and other appliances.

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from home energy consumption is to substitute electricity generated from low- and zero-carbon sources for oil and natural gas. And the power sector is rapidly moving that way: As a 2021 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed, power producers have reduced their carbon emissions by 50% from what energy experts predicted in 2005.

“This drop happened thanks to policy, market and technology drivers,” a team of Lawrence Berkeley lab analysts concluded. Wind and solar power have scaled up and cut their costs, so utilities are using more of them. Cheap natural gas has replaced generation from dirtier coal. And public policies have encouraged the use of energy-efficient technologies like LED light bulbs. These converging trends make electric power an increasingly climate-friendly energy choice.

The U.S. is using much more low-carbon and carbon-free electricity today than projected in 2005. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, CC BY-ND

2. Heat pumps for cold and hot days

Since heating and cooling use so much energy, switching from an oil- or gas-powered furnace to a heat pump can greatly reduce a home’s carbon footprint. As University of Dayton sustainability expert Robert Brecha explains, heat pumps work by moving heat in and out of buildings, not by burning fossil fuel.

“Extremely cold fluid circulates through coils of tubing in the heat pump’s outdoor unit,” Brecha writes. “That fluid absorbs energy in the form of heat from the surrounding air, which is warmer than the fluid. The fluid vaporizes and then circulates into a compressor. Compressing any gas heats it up, so this process generates heat. Then the vapor moves through coils of tubing in the indoor unit of the heat pump, heating the building.”

In summer, the process reverses: Heat pumps take energy from indoors and move that heat outdoors, just as a refrigerator removes heat from the chamber where it stores food and expels it into the air in the room where it sits.

Another option is a geothermal heat pump, which collects warmth from the earth and uses the same process as air source heat pumps to move it into buildings. These systems cost more, since installing them involves excavation to bury tubing below ground, but they also reduce electricity use.

3. Cooking without gas – or heat

For people who like to cook, the biggest sticking point of going electric is the prospect of using an electric stove. Many home chefs see gas flames as more responsive and precise than electric burners.

But magnetic induction, which cooks food by generating a magnetic field under the pot, eliminates the need to fire up a burner altogether.

“Instead of conventional burners, the cooking spots on induction cooktops are called hobs, and consist of wire coils embedded in the cooktop’s surface,” writes Binghamton University electrical engineering professor Kenneth McLeod.

Moving an electric charge through those wires creates a magnetic field, which in turn creates an electric field in the bottom of the cookware. “Because of resistance, the pan will heat up, even though the hob does not,” McLeod explains.

Induction cooktops warm up and cool down very quickly and offer highly accurate temperature control. They also are easy to clean, since they are made of glass, and safer than electric stoves since the hobs don’t stay hot when pans are lifted off them. Many utilities are offering rebates to cover the higher cost of induction cooktops.

4. Electric cars as backup power sources

Electrifying systems like home heating and cooking made residents even more vulnerable to power outages. Soon, however, a new backup system could become available: powering your home from your electric vehicle.

With interest in electric cars and light trucks rising in the U.S., auto makers are introducing many new EV models and designs. Some of these new rides will offer bidirectional charging – the ability to charge a car battery at home, then move that power back into the house, and eventually, into the grid.

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Only a few models offer this capacity now, and it requires special equipment that can add several thousand dollars to the price of an EV. But Penn State energy expert Seth Blumsack sees value in this emerging technology.

“Enabling homeowners to use their vehicles as backup when the power goes down would reduce the social impacts of large-scale blackouts. It also would give utilities more time to restore service – especially when there is substantial damage to power poles and wires,” Blumsack explains. “Bidirectional charging is also an integral part of a broader vision for a next-generation electric grid in which millions of EVs are constantly taking power from the grid and giving it back – a key element of an electrified future.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jennifer Weeks, Senior Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation

How fast can we stop Earth from warming?

The ocean retains heat for much longer than land does. photo / adobe stock / lynxotic

Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, University of Michigan

Global warming doesn’t stop on a dime. If people everywhere stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, stored heat would still continue to warm the atmosphere.

Picture how a radiator heats a home. Water is heated by a boiler, and the hot water circulates through pipes and radiators in the house. The radiators warm up and heat the air in the room. Even after the boiler is turned off, the already heated water is still circulating through the system, heating the house. The radiators are, in fact, cooling down, but their stored heat is still warming the air in the room.

This is known as committed warming. Earth similarly has ways of storing and releasing heat.

Emerging research is refining scientists’ understanding of how Earth’s committed warming will affect the climate. Where we once thought it would take 40 years or longer for global surface air temperature to peak once humans stopped heating up the planet, research now suggests temperature could peak in closer to 10 years.

But that doesn’t mean the planet returns to its preindustrial climate or that we avoid disruptive effects such as sea level rise.

I am a professor of climate science, and my research and teaching focus on the usability of climate knowledge by practitioners such as urban planners, public health professionals and policymakers. Let’s take a look at the bigger picture.

How understanding of peak warming has changed

Historically, the first climate models represented only the atmosphere and were greatly simplified. Over the years, scientists added oceans, land, ice sheets, chemistry and biology.

Today’s models can more explicitly represent the behavior of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. That allows scientists to better separate heating due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the role of heat stored in the ocean. https://www.youtube.com/embed/_WUNMzC98jI?wmode=transparent&start=0 Why global warming is ocean warming.

Thinking about our radiator analogy, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere keep the boiler on – holding energy near the surface and raising the temperature. Heat accumulates and is stored, mostly in the oceans, which take on the role of the radiators. The heat is distributed around the world through weather and oceanic currents.

The current understanding is that if all of the additional heating to the planet caused by humans was eliminated, a plausible outcome is that Earth would reach a global surface air temperature peak in closer to 10 years than 40. The previous estimate of 40 or more years has been widely used over the years, including by me.

It is important to note that this is only the peak, when the temperature starts to stabilize – not the onset of rapid cooling or a reversal of climate change.

I believe there is enough uncertainty to justify caution about exaggerating the significance of the new research’s results. The authors applied the concept of peak warming to global surface air temperature. Global surface air temperature is, metaphorically, the temperature in the “room,” and is not the best measure of climate change. The concept of instantly cutting off human-caused heating is also idealized and entirely unrealistic – doing that would involve much more than just ending fossil fuel use, including widespread changes to agriculture – and it only helps illustrate how parts of the climate might behave.

Even if the air temperature were to peak and stabilize, “committed ice melting,” “committed sea level rise” and numerous other land and biological trends would continue to evolve from the accumulated heat. Some of these could, in fact, cause a release of carbon dioxide and methane, especially from the Arctic and other high-latitude reservoirs that are currently frozen.

For these reasons and others, it is important to consider the how far into the future studies like this one look.

Oceans in the future

Oceans will continue to store heat and exchange it with the atmosphere. Even if emissions stopped, the excess heat that has been accumulating in the ocean since preindustrial times would influence the climate for another 100 years or more.

Because the ocean is dynamic, it has currents, and it will not simply diffuse its excess heat back into the atmosphere. There will be ups and downs as the temperature adjusts.

The oceans also influence the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide is both absorbed and emitted by the oceans. Paleoclimate studies show large changes in carbon dioxide and temperature in the past, with the oceans playing an important role.

The chart shows how excess heat – thermal energy – has built up in ocean, land, ice and atmosphere since 1960 and moved to greater ocean depths with time. TOA CERES refers to the top of the atmosphere. Karina von Schuckman, LiJing Cheng, Matthew D. Palmer, James Hansen, Caterina Tassone, et al., CC BY-SA

Countries aren’t close to ending fossil fuel use

The possibility that a policy intervention might have measurable impacts in 10 years rather than several decades could motivate more aggressive efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It would be very satisfying to see policy interventions having present rather than notional future benefits.

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However, today, countries aren’t anywhere close to ending their fossil fuel use. Instead, all of the evidence points to humanity experiencing rapid global warming in the coming decades.

Our most robust finding is that the less carbon dioxide humans release, the better off humanity will be. Committed warming and human behavior point to a need to accelerate efforts both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to this warming planet now, rather than simply talking about how much needs to happen in the future.

Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Apps, Elon Musk, Social Media, Twitter

New Elon Musk tweets Confirm he will not be a Silent Stakeholder: Board Seat Declined

In another weekend explosion, this time, revealing the hands on bent of ideas for TWX project

Once again the weekend is seeing a barrage of tweets from Elon Musk, this time with a solid bulls-eye on Twitter itself and changes he has on his wishlist. Implementation schedule appears to be, well, immediate.

https://bookshop.org/a/565/9780553418835

The first tweet we are featuring was a preview of just how much of an activist shareholder he is planning to be.

Looking forward to the first board meeting he will attend since his $2.9 billion 9.2% stake in the bird platform – Musk reposted a meme of his infamous “Ganja weed” interview – essentially creating an instant meme of memes:

**note – on Sunday night (April 10th, 2022) it was revealed that Elon Musk joining the board would not be a thing, after all. Most likely reason sited in the avalanche of reactions? A board seat would have capped the maximum investment / stake percentage at 14.9% and brought potentail legal issues. As the largest shareholder the door remains open to his acquiring the company outright, and continuing the activist direction clearly indicated in the tweets below…

Next, the constructive criticism started, first taking note (perhaps already up his sleeve as he contemplated shelling out 3 bil of pocket change) of how many of the accounts with the most followers post “very little content”. Summing up his thoughts with the question “Is Twitter dying?”

Next, in replies to himself he got granular, citing two very specific examples, how @taylorswift13 and @justinbieber are remiss when it comes to staying active and tweeting on a regular basis…

Apparently, the day was just beginning to get interesting, cause he posted a Yogi Berra-like conundrum next, pointing out that statistics, including this very one, presumably, are very often false. Posted at 1:14 PM he may have had a siesta and found himself ready to rumble cause with the next tweet at 5:03 PM things started to cook…

He dug into his infographic trove of insights and pulled out this re-tweeted gem, showing how the Weather Channel is distrusted by nearly 50% of Republicans and about 35% percent of Democrats.

This tweet is an interesting one as there has been a lot of hand wringing and dire predictions made in the “media” that Elon Musk, known as having a Libertarian prediliction, will somehow be Trump’s savior and that his idea of “free speech” is similar to those that are somewhere to the Right of Q-anon.

This, I would venture, is highly unlikely. It’s far more likely that his idea of free speech might actually be closer to, well what it sounds like, less censorship. Oddly both the left and the right are anticipating disappointment, and perhaps, that is one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for things.

The tweets of April 9th, seem to bear out the idea that he will be active, vocal and, above all, amusing, but unlikely to follow any faction or party.

Next came more specific and sort of practical tweets, like this one suggesting twitter “sell” the authentication checkmark as part of the Twitter Blue $3 subscription package. This, bizarrely, is a great business concept, and might actually happen, crazy as it sounds.

After reflecting briefly on the idea, it became clear that the invention of a new plebian version of the coveted mark is needed, lest it be confused with the rare and hard to acquire “public figure” or “official” accounts.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512957577092608004?s=21&t=p5FTMofYfTHgM4X5Gm2n8Q

A quick followup tweet with self replies included the observation that the edit tweet feature that has had much action this week is already a done deal in the future paid Twitter landscape.

Then, as if out of the blue like a bolt of lightening Elon decides that there should be no ads! Ok, so this does make sense in a genius billionaire kind-of-way here’s the new breakdown:

  1. Everybody pays $3 per moth
  2. Advertising is cancelled
  3. We all get checkmarks and an edit tweet feature
  4. Corporations stop “dictating policy”
  5. Twitter SF HQ is converted into a homeless shelter (unhoused refuge)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512962115270754306?s=21&t=p5FTMofYfTHgM4X5Gm2n8Q

Good idea?:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512966135423066116?s=21&t=p5FTMofYfTHgM4X5Gm2n8Q

Then, in a semi-final, inspired burst of sunshine, there’s a great suggestion – actually a tweet from earlier in the am – 7:39 to be exact but pinned for now, the man who must be heeded points out that “crypto scam accounts” represent a large percentage that should be subtracted from the real accounts. ow if they can just remove the 3 billion fake accounts across all social media…

Apparently not able to quit while ahead, or maybe under the influence of jet lag or substances, this gem dropped:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513045405029711878?s=21&t=Rw_ry5HVOGgsmXRxJJzSbA

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Elon Musk, LA Local, Tech

Tesla is Accepting Dogecoin at new LA Supercharger

Video

Drive-in and 50’s Diner still to come

A new Tesla Supercharger is now open in Santa Monica. Located at 1421-1425 Santa Monica Blvd., just blocks from the beach, it is the first location in Tesla’s Supercharger network to accept payments in Dogecoin.

The rumored plans for a Drive-in Theater and a 50’s style diner are no longer slated for this location, but will be added to an upcoming location which is planned for Hollywood.

The Santa Monica facility will have 26 total Supercharged one fully operational. Elon Musk confirmed that the Dogecoin payments are going to go live, which makes this the first in the growing network to take crypto as a payment method.

Elon Musk has long championed both Bitcoin and Dogecoin, with each serving a different function. (add clip from Fridman interview here). The idea that the meme-coin can be great for daily transactions is catching on, with others such as Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks already selling merchandise and souvenirs in exchange for Doge.

Though not widely known there are up two thousand companies that will accept Dogecoin as payment according to Cryptwerk. According to the site this include 1315 shops and markets. Much of the commerce revolves, not surprisingly, around online services and digital goods, but there are also tangible items such as food, clothing and travel.

“ In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic”

John Maynard Keynes – 1924

In a kind of mind bending twist of logic you can even purchase gold bullion with your doge, in case you want to revert to the original, non-digital form of gold, once called a “barbarous relic” by John Maynard Keynes in 1924.

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Apple, Elon Musk, Tesla

Steve Jobs & Elon Musk: Apple is the Tesla of Communication

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Elon Musk believes he is saving the world: are others worthy to claim the same?

Tesla is a luxury car company with an impeccable green pedigree. Even with attempts at a car with mainstream entry level pricing, owning a Tesla is still beyond the reach of many.

Yet the belief in it’s sustainable energy mission, and the far reaching master plan to back it up, make this fact, for many, “forgivable” at least, and in many ways even a boon.

After all, surviving in the face of an extinction level threat of our own making, has to be for a reason. The reason is the beauty and luxurious success of being alive. These are the twin messages that Elon Musk created that led to a business triumph that is about more than money and power.

Apple makes expensive luxury gadgets that facilitate communication, education and entertainment. It could be argued that these, no less than a pleasurable acceleration of a Tesla in “Ludicrous Mode”, are essential to our continued survival and are desperately needed to help us meet the ever growing challenges of our world and its future.

Apple, since the premature demise of Steve Jobs, has not had the same kind of heroic branding of Tesla’s sustainable energy mission. But the iPhone company should be seen in the same light. The many tools for communication and education make Apple just as important as Tesla in creating a more positive future.

With the ongoing success of Apple’s brand, and the rapid and accelerating expansion of its hardware, software and services, the company will undoubtedly have a central role to play in our success or failure as a species going forward. Apart from the mundane marketplace triumphs, there is a deeper story of a mission that should not be overlooked.

Bad guys make good guys look even better

Look at Zuckerberg and Bezos. Would anyone ever mistake either for a savior? Does anyone believe that Zuckerberg wants to build the metaverse to save the world?

Or that Bezos has ambitions toward space travel for anything other than self-aggrandizement and commercial exploitation?

No one does, of course not. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk can (could) emanate natural sincerity and engender the belief that they are on a “holy” mission. And perhaps that ring of truth succeeds because of it’s honestly and authenticity.

Bill Gates just wants to sell you overpriced, inferior software. And lock you into a never ending billing cycle.

America has had a sad history, for the last century, of celebrating charlatans and hucksters like Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates, and misunderstanding Steve Jobs until he was gone. But it was his vision, finally, that brought Apple to the pinnacle of business success where it stands today.

Elon Musk’s ‘saving the world ethos’ is important to recognize, acknowledge and adopt. We need more visionaries with an explicit aim to improving and uplifting not just winning a battle between equality corrupt adversaries.

Apple is the Tesla of communication and it’s innovative DNA inspired and created by Steve Jobs is just as essential to building a sustainable, and better, world as Tesla & Musk.

The days of celebrating empty, temporary monetary “success” achieved by scurrilous business models must end, now.

The future heroes of sustainable tech, blockchain innovation, Web3 and, yes, even the metaverse must be lauded, supported and acknowledged as they emerge, while the truth of the shortcomings of evil men must be taught to every child.

Because the choice is not between Coke vs. Pepsi, Tesla vs. Ford or Apple vs. Microsoft. The choice is between Utopia or Oblivion. And there is no third way forward.

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Hot-Lynx

Starlink @ 100K and Elon Musk is Tweeting the Milestone

Above: Photo Credit / Starlink

Starlink is way out ahead of the pack, which simultaneously grows in its shadow

The SpaceX’s Starklink satellite internet service has hit a milestone and Elon Musk took to Twitter to share the news. He confirmed that 100,000 terminals have been shipped out. According to an article from Slash Gear there are also more than half a million people on the waitlist globally.

This is all happening at a time when SpaceX is under siege from Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin and potential rivals are launching their own satellites to try and catch up. Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit is going public and hopes to launch satellites for iOT connectivity, while OneWeb recently launched 34 internet satellites into space, while Amazon’s “kuiper” system is still planning its launches to proceed.

100K is huge considering the satellite launches only began back in November 2019 and the initial beta program was only available for select customers a year later.

Starlink’s main goal, also mentioned in Musk’s tweet is for the company to go global and serve the whole world. Currently, service is available for 14 countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, India, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand.

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Hot-Lynx

Musk is developing a Humanoid Tesla Bot with a Screen-face

Photo Credit / Tesla

At the end of Tesla’s AI Day presentation, Musk revealed an unexpected new product, the Tesla Bot.

The humanoid robot would be 5’8″ tall and its main purpose, according to Musk, would be to eliminate dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks. The prototype is expected to be available some time next year.

The CEO also made a typically bold statement about the future and AI, saying “Essentially, in the future, physical work will be a choice. If you want to do it, you can, but you won’t need to do it.”

Elon finished with an invitation for engineers to join the Tesla team to build the robot.

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TECHCRUNCH

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Books, Elon Musk, Tech

Tales of Tesla and Musk in ‘Power Play’

Above: Photo Collage / Doubleday Books

The recently released book “Power Play” begins with some detailed accounts of Tesla’s rocky beginnings. The book is said to showcase behind-the-scenes anecdotes and allow readers to get an exact account of just how unusual Elon Musk is.

Musk also appeared to respond to various media activity related to the book, and accounts of his alleged behavior, via Twitter, confirming that Walter Isaacson will be penning his biography.

In his tweet, he said “If you’re curious about Tesla, SpaceX & my general goings on, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography”. Isaacson is responsible for writing biographies on Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, Henry Kissinger, as well as Steve Jobs.

Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century

Author and WSJ tech and author reporter Tim Higgins pens the inside story of Musk, which includes some already leaked controversial stories.

Back in the good ole days, aka as the 2000’s, fast, sexy (s3xy) electric vehicles were a new concept, a novelty, one that lead to the rise of Tesla and Elon Musk’s colossal fortunes. For more check out “Power Play“.

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Breaking News, Business, Crypto, Elon Musk, Observation, Tesla

Elon Musk & Jack Dorsey finally agree to debate for the BitCurious

Above: Jack Dorsey & Elon Musk – Photo – various / tesla / Twitter / collage Lyxotic

Possibly staged “Twitter feud over BitCoin” leads to portentous upcoming event: “THE talk”

Although both Jack Dorsey, head of both Twitter and Square, and Elon Musk are long standing and staunch BitCoin advocates, a lot of chatter around the internet has painted Musk as having gone soft on the crypto currency.

Th narrative that has been put forth pits his loyalty to Bitcoin as somehow incongruous with his support for DogeCoin, the somewhat less serious AltCoin variant he has openly championed.

Intermingled with this straw-man charade, is the also over-hyped idea that the energy used by BitCoin mining is a factor in global warming and therefore a stain on Musk’s otherwise high profile positive sustainable energy resumé.

While many article have shown this argument to be blown out of proportion at best, apparently the whole world (China, if you’re listening) has seized on this talking point as a way to damage BitCoin’s popularity and pedigree.

The attempt to use this argument to undermine BitCoin’s adoption progress and futuristic pedigree appears to have already backfired, however. For example, at the recent BitCoin conference in Miami, Jack Dorsey announced plans to invest in a sustainable energy powered BitCoin mining facility.

Elon Musk has also stated via his twitter account that Tesla would resume accepting BitCoin payments, as soon as more miners switch to renewable energy. This coming after he had announced, to great fanfare, that Tesla would accept the cryptocurrency and then, in May, reversed the decision after backlash from those who pounced on the issue to try to tarnish Tesla’s sterling reputation as a proponent of the transition to sustainable energy.

The hype is warranted and the buzz can begin

Though not yet confirmed 100%, the Twitter exchange between the two titans implied that the “talk” would take place in conjunction with the “The B Word” BitCoin conference, which kicks off on July 21, 2021. Sponsored by Ark Invest, Square and Paradigm, the big name speakers and hype already building, along with the timing, coming on the heels of a huge peak then “crash” in the crypto markets, looks to be a watershed event for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

Details on whether the exchange between the two will be live on stage or via video conference have, as of yet, not been revealed.

Twitter and Square CEO Dorsey tweeted Thursday about an upcoming “The B Word” bitcoin event, and Musk responded to it. It’s unclear if the event, which kicks off on July 21, will be virtual or in-person.

The potential for drama as the two discuss a topic on which they, for the most part agree, is a smart way to hype the event, both the conference itself and the monumental meeting for “THE Talk”.

Regardless of any fireworks or revelations coming out of the event and the meeting between these two incredibly influential business leaders, the upshot is that all of the above is a net positive for BitCoins progress toward more widespread adoption and acceptance.

Critical mass may already been achieved for crypto in the US

The overly manic focus on price fluctuations notwithstanding, there is a rapidly growing sense that the #1 cryptocurrency as well as all related coins and activities are reaching the point, in the US, that it will be impossible to return the genie to the bottle.

Any attempt to block or outlaw, in totality, the emerging world of crypto-finance, is likely to fail. Realizing this there appears to be a faint whisper of capitulation on the part of both the government in the US and among the “old guard” establishment, namely Wall Street.

Dorsey’s take, as quoted from his appearance at the BitCoin conference in Miami:

  • “Governments are trying to block cryptocurrency use to avoid losing hold of power”
  • “It can’t, and it never will.” — musing on the likelihood of Wall Street controlling bitcoin.
  • “That’s why we don’t deal with any other currencies or coins — because we’re so focused on making bitcoin the native currency for the internet.” — when asked about payments provider Square’s ambitions for bitcoin.

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Business, Crypto, Economics, Finance

Elon Musk is taking sides in the ‘True Battle’ between Crypto & Fiat

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Above:Photo Credit / Unsplash / Collage / Lynxotic

If you are stuck on the word ‘fiat’ this post can help you (everyone else too)

In a single, 14 word reply to a follower (@TheRealShifo) that asked “Yo Elon what do you think about the peeps who are angry at you because of crypto?” He gave a simple answer that is the often unmentioned, yet most important, question regarding crypto vs. fiat, government issued, currency such as the US dollar.

Looking around during the ongoing frenzy surrounding crypto and digital finance you’ll see countless ‘news” stories and blog posts comparing, or pretending to compare cryptocurrencies, especially the two biggest Bitcoin and Ethereum (as coin sometimes referred to as “Ether”) and they virtually always quote the “price” fluctuations of those coins as a certain number of dollars and cents.

Interestingly I have yet to see any of these “comparisons” use the reverse valuation method, such as, “the US dollar is currently worth .00002703 Bitcoin. Can you imagine everything using that as a standard – CNBC quoting stock prices in Bitcoin, your house is “worth” 32 Bitcoins (if you’re in California, for example).

The reason this comes off sounding strange and ridiculous is that all communication related to the US dollar, which has been a fiat currency since abandoning any “backing” (such as gold) and continuing on by decree (or fiat) of the government with no backing other than than decree, also carries a decree (tacit) not to undermine it in public.

So when Elon says:

“The true battle is between fiat & crypto. On balance, I support the latter.”

Simple and straightforward and yet intentionally shrouded in mystery

Musk is directly comparing crypto, generally, and fiat currencies around the world that “float” against each other. And by inference, doing so in terms of the difference between a fiat currency like the US Dollar and a crypto currency, like Bitcoin.

A fiat currency is money that is not backed by a physical commodity like gold, but instead backed by the government that issued it. Most modern currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, euro, pound and yen, are fiat money.

from Wikipedia

The term fiat derives from the Latin word fiat, meaning “let it be done” used in the sense of an order, decree or resolution.

— common Definition

The fact that Bitcoin was created as a digital alternative to fiat money stands at the forefront of that point. The fact that it was designed precisely to counter the drawbacks and dangers of a system based on fiat paper money (or digital ledgers of those paper dollars such as your bank balance or any method to keep track of how many “imaginary” paper dollars you “have”) is exactly the real issue at hand.

photo credit: twitter

It’s no secret that many attack those goals and intentions superficially and dismiss the entire discussion with a wave of the hand. They willfully use the complexity of the cryptographic solutions, at the heart of cryptocurrency, as a way to gloss over the real and substantive problems being targeted.

They prey on the ignorance of the majority to try and discount out of hand any value at all for the movement and the various products.

Opening up the door to this exact exchange and characterizing it as a “battle” in one fowl swoop clarifies and simplifies the real issues and the real reason for the existence, and according to many, including Elon Musk, the need for monetary “reform” or change via a shift toward crypto.

Opening up the door to this exact exchange and characterizing it as a “battle” in one fowl-swoop clarifies and simplifies the real issues and the real reason for the existence of, and the need for, monetary “reform” or change via a shift toward crypto.

D.L.

The “price” of Bitcoin or any other crypto currency on any given day has almost nothing whatsoever to do with that debate.

Speculation abounds but not just in Crypto

The “price” is a function of, mostly, speculation and scarcity, due, in the case of Bitcoin to the mining cap, or at least a perceived scarcity. And additionally the various perceived advantages of crypto such as privacy, decentralization, use of block chain systems, etc.

But the price is like the smoke above the battlefield, not the reason for the battle or any indicator who is winning or who is on the side of might or right.

Two major questions that arise from this tweet and the potential shift toward a clearer and simpler dialogue on crypto are the following:

  1. Is crypto generally, and Bitcoin / Ether more specifically established and entrenched enough to withstand the coming backlash from governments that feel threatened and other status quo institutions that will do whatever it takes to discourage or even stamp out crypto usage?
  2. Will the very battle itself, that Elon Musk says is the current “true” battle, bring even more attention to the weaknesses and problems with the current fiat money system and thereby increase, perhaps inadvertently yet massively, the size of the battle and its stakes?

Alternative systems of trade have been tolerated in the US for some time now. How are those air miles doing? What about the chips and points for perks you got at the Indian Casino? Is it too late to outlaw all crypto without causing a revolution in the streets?

The other side of the (clipped) coin

It is truly surprising to see how little is to be found in the media about the deeper reasons for the rise of crypto. How it sometimes seems like direct criticism of fiat currency is almost taboo.

Naturally any internet search will find many “rabbit hole” sources for all kinds of information critical of the current monetary system, the same system the near total collapse of which in 2008 inspired the creation of bitcoin.

It appears that Elon Musk is emphasizing, in a subdued manner, exactly the way that the nonsense-furor over huge price gains or declines is completely missing the actual point. The “true battle”.

Many stories in the media and millions of private comments are currently following a kind of convoluted logic – first the popularity of crypto (which is linked to the unpopularity of the very messed up fiat system) artificially and massively increases prices in many crypto assets.

This “bubble”, a typical outcome of human herding behavior in financial markets, inevitably bursts or sees large setbacks. Then the coin or crypto system itself is blamed for the human stupidity and greed that caused the distortions of price, just like happened in the dot-com bubble and the 2007 housing bubble and subsequent crash.

The difference is that the crypto bubble, in an interesting way, is in reality due to a surge in skepticism toward fiat currencies, a boom in the prevalence of mistrust toward governments and a combination of fear and greed that is growing, not dissipating.

Although many have rightly criticized Elon Musk’s tweets and odd Saturday Night Live appearance, and there is a kind of mini-backlash (growing?) against all things Musk, in this case it is a healthy and wise tweet that we have shown above.

Reframing, or more aptly refocusing the discussion away from prices and speculative profits and back to the real reasons that cryptos were initially created and why it has gained such massive support is a welcome shift. That this reframing comes from the likes of Musk himself, is fitting and who better to put forth a message to simplify and clarify the nature of the real “battle” at hand.

The following video has some interesting data and arguments for, and mainly against, the fiat regime under which we have lived for most of the last century. Although, in a sense, a kind of advertisement for Gold and Silver, the overview is nevertheless accurate and does not exaggerate the dangers and issues that revolve around the fiat system.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Lynxotic does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Business, Crypto, Elon Musk, Tech, Tesla

‘Big Short’ Investor Dr. Michael Burry Now has a $534 million short in Tesla, Inc.

Video

Above: Christian Bale, playing Dr. Michael Burry in “The Big Short“

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Shorting in the stock market has gotten a bad rep recently among the “WallStreetBets” crowd on Reddit, and those that were in the run-up frenzy over Game-Stop and AMC, Koss, etc. This was, for the most part, due to a lack of understanding of what shorting is, how it works and why it adds liquidity and has other benefits to markets as a whole.

Many of the crowd from that frenzy has now moved on to the crypto frenzy, which has a lot of speculators worried after relatively large drops in many of the top coins. Similar to the misunderstanding of short positions many of the speculators in crypto are new arrivals and, for a short time, had no experience of the fact that volatile, fast moving instruments, such as shares in tech companies or “alt-coins” also go down faster than slow moving investments. They don’t “only go up” as was the “slogan” for the Game Stop crowd and others at the time.

Michael Burry, the genius founder of Scion Asset Management, the firm that was chronicled in “The Big Short” (both the book and the film) which tells the story of how Burry bet against the US housing market at the peak of the bubble and experienced massive success when his billion dollar bet paid off.

That bet was, as the name of the book implies, the longest of long shots, and in the movie the skepticism and outright scorn and derision that he experienced for even thinking of taking that gamble was shown and formed the backbone of the story.

The power of that story was how a man with knowledge and experience could see clearly, even with one good eye, what millions of “experts” either could not see or were too corrupt to admit or accept.

That the housing market and the products devised to profit off of it, mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and so forth, were about to take the entire world economy to the brink of doom.

A collapse did occur, and were it not for desperate and questionable bail-outs by the governments and the central banks around the world, could have collapsed the world economy to a level that would have taken decades to recover from.

Instead this “largest band-aid” in the history of the universe has been followed up by larger and larger ones until as of the writing some 14 trillion has been created to prop up the original “fix” and kick the can further and further down the road.

Fast forward to 2021 and see where Burry sees a big opportunity now…

Michael Burry, the same man who say the end of the housing bubble in 2006 and 2007, and bet big against the one market that no one, literally no one, believed could ever go down, appears to believe that the end of the road for the current speculative bubble ( at least in Tesla stock prices) is near.

Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management has disclosed a major, half-a-billion dollar short position against Tesla Inc.

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Scion Asset Management disclosed via a regulatory filing on May 17th that purchases were made for bearish put options on 800,100 shares in Tesla. In the disclosure was also the further information that, as of the end of the first quarter, the options had a value of US$534 million.

“my last Big Short got bigger and Bigger and BIGGER,” Burry said in a tweet from February, apparently referring to Tesla’s large surge in market capitalization. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he continued.

It appears that, as of May 18th, he may have deleted his Twitter account entirely. Which, if true, may be over concerns that the SEC could have questions about the tweets, as wells as earlier tweets he made referring to other short position in GameStop Corp.

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/thebigshort/thebigshort-onlinespot_h1080p.mov

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