2 Megawatt Nuclear Reactors That Can Fit In a Truck

NANO Nuclear is a startup that has raised over $8 million to develop micro nuclear fission reactors with up to 2 megawatts of power. They will be transported by Semi Trucks. They plan to sell 1,000 microreactors on a yearly basis for a trillion-dollar industry. Nuclear currently supplies some 18% of US power needs off …

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LG Energy and Panasonic Making 4680 Batteries for Tesla Starting August 2024

Panasonic and LG energy will each start making 4680 batteries in different factories for Tesla starting around August 2024. The LG Ochang plant should have a combined 35 gigawatt-hour battery production capacity by 2025. LG Energy Solution had planned to secure a 200 gigawatt-hour production capacity in North America, Europe and Asia combined by the …

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Elon 13G Filing Was Not News

Elon Musk 13G filing dated Dec 31,2023 was about stock and option ownership prior to the 2018 pay package legal issues.. Lot of confusion about Elon’s 13-G filing filed after the close. Bottom line: Elon still owns 13% (411M) of $TSLA shares – not 20.5% as shown in the filing. Just as he did in …

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Orbiting Thin Space Mirrors Could Boost Ground Based Solar Power

A new research paper in the Acta Astronautica journal describes a constellation of mirror satellites to increase the power at the large solar farms on Earth. Among all cases, the paper found SSO (sun synchronous orbit) and single reflector cases to be superior. A constellation with 20 reflectors could deliver a significant quantity of solar …

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High Power Bills in California, Unreliable Service and Poor Maintenance

Winter storms in California knocked out power for more than 890,000 customers on Sunday—with more than half a million still without electricity on Monday. There are still about 140,000 without power today on Tuesday. As of January 2024, the average monthly electric bill in California is $190–$210, which is a 20% increase from 2023. The …

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Comparison of Current Space Based Solar Power Proposals

Here is a paper written by Virtus Solis, Space based solar power startup. Virtus Solis is a funded startup working to develop space based solar power. They would leverage the low cost launch of the SpaceX Starship and modular satellites to enable power to be beamed from space at lower cost than coal or natural …

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2027 Orbital Space Solar Power Demo by Virtus Solis and Orbital Composites

Silicon Valley startup Orbital Composites and Michigan-based Virtus Solis Technologies announced plans Feb. 1 to conduct a 2027 space-based solar power demonstration. The 2027 mission is designed to showcase critical power-generation technologies including in-space assembly of solar panels and transmission of more than one kilowatt to Earth. The 2027 mission will be a precursor to …

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