I mean, most services have decided to price themselves out of the business. A great example is fast food. I remember the 99-cent Whopper and $1 McDoubles. At that price, it was acceptable food. It got the job done.

That any chain claims to still have a “value menu” befuddles me. And don’t get me started on $3.79 fountain drinks.

The problem isn’t RTO, it’s that there’s simply no value anymore. Time was, grabbing a burger on the way home was cheaper than making dinner. Those times have passed, and if you have to drive for an hour, why pay $7 for something you can make at home for $2?

OK, but where are the data that they’re inflating claims? From where I’m looking, they keep iterating. Your approach feels like sinophobia. What are we doing here in the states? Certainly not announcing new batteries.

I’ve been living exclusively off Chinese-made solar panels and batteries for nearly two and a half years. I don’t exactly view them as liars.

Also, your link is irrelevant. We’re talking about CATL here.

I first ran into this story on /r/energy (yeah, I cheated on Beehaw because I had to see what was going on in /r/journalism with the Post news), and while most comments were useful, there was also a tinge of “but it’s China, so that’s bad.”

Well, we were on our way to building up production and infrastructure here in the U.S., which I know because I fucking covered federal grants for green-energy projects and battery production until being laid off Jan. 20, 2025.

I mean, this is like complaining that another kid has a chocolate bar on the playground and you don’t. China invests for the long term. The U.S. needs quarterly returns. We did a lot better at advancing the state of the art in everything when we had robust corporate R&D departments than we do going with share buybacks.

We have lost our edge. Period, graf.

And nothing of value was lost. Fuck Adobe. You want me to pay you monthly? Prostitutes have better terms.

Not that I’m bitter.

Oh, look at Mr. “I took advanced physics” over here! I didn’t go beyond first-year uni-level physics, so basically, when stuff like this comes out, I’m like “that’s cool.” No bearing on my life at all, but it’s fun to read new theories.

That’s awfully specific!

Basically, there are three possible outcomes. The preferred one when you flip that master switch is that everything works.

The second is that nothing happens, and now you have to figure out what the fuck has gone wrong.

The third is an electrical fire.

When you’ve bolted the panels to your roof, wired everything up, charged the batteries off the mains and flipped the breaker on the solar ahead of turning the master switch, there’s more apprehension than waiting in your own wedding processional.

Here’s a story that doesn’t deliver on the hed.

If you know about PV and LFP, just skip to the politics for the last half hour.

Yeah, we were a bit peeved at the time.

“An essay” is an interesting choice of reference to the Declaration of Independence. I mean, I guess it was an essay by committee, but that undersells the source.

Sure, but if you’ve got 20 grand to spend on this contraption and already have solar, why not get a shitton of 48V server batteries?

It was nonetheless satisfying.

Engage spin machine!

It didn’t happen, but if it did … usw.

That’s certainly something you could look into. I provide original sources.

Maybe for industrial purposes, this makes sense, but losing half the energy to convert electricity to gas? You have a power line. You can charge an EV or lose 50% of your energy to produce a gallon of gas a day. I’m not really seeing parity here.

I’m assuming we can say this is carbon neutral, since the only carbon is being pulled out of the atmosphere in the first place, but it’s still combustion, and carbon isn’t the only concern there.

You’re not generally going to have a problem with CO₂ removal locally. We’re making enough of it that the trees won’t die.

Water vapour, on the other hand … that could be an environmental stressor depending on siting. Still, unless installing at scale, output of a gallon a day doesn’t seem like it’s going to do much to the local environment.