Yes, that's exactly the point. It disarms people from fighting over patent nonsense. If you hate software patents you should love the bad + patents license.
What is it that makes solar panels cost what they do, ultimately? Not materials, right? Those are all basically sand and other not so special things. Labor? Isn't it mostly automated? Upkeep of the factories? Input energy?
Maybe it's just all those things together. But it sure seems like if we wanted to it wouldn't be that hard to ramp up production and drive costs down a couple fold. Not that I know how.
Ah, the good old "I know nothing about this but assume it must be easy"!
It's materials processing. They're only "basically sand" in the sense that glass or microchips are. The key step is purification of silicon, which is like distillation in the liquid/solid phase. It's very energy-intensive. This then gives you a solid cylinder of pure silicon.
A surprising amount of recent cost reductions have been due to making the cells thinner and making the cut as thin and clean as possible.
They are then run through some annoyingly toxic chemical processes, given an antireflective coating, have silver wiring attached, and packaged into a glass or polycarbonate fronted housing.
A lot of talk about solar trade has highlighted "unfair" competition from cheap, low-quality Chinese modules. But China also has companies making high-quality modules (LONGi, Jinko Solar, Yingli, and Trina Solar were identified as top performers in DNV GL's 2017 PV Module Reliability Scorecard, along with longer-established Japanese, Korean, European, and American manufacturers) and still making them cheaper than European/American/Japanese producers. The greatest difference is scale.
Recently-bankrupt American solar manufacturer Suniva is trying to get the US International Trade Commission to impose a minimum $0.78/watt price on imported solar modules:
Suniva made good modules. But it was manufacturing only 200 megawatts of modules per year. And its modules were not more efficient or durable than good imports. The large, high-quality South Korean manufacturer Hanwha Q CELLS is guiding 5500-5700 megawatts of shipments this year. The large, high-quality Chinese manufacturer Jinko Solar is guiding 8500-9000 megawatts this year. American solar manufacturers can't turn a profit so they don't scale up. And they don't scale up so they can't turn a profit. Jinko Solar and Hanwha can stay in the black at price levels that will bankrupt small producers lacking the same economies of scale.
Not that I know either, but the quality control process is possibly a source of much cost of production. Every part must pass a series of tests during and after production before deemed ready for sale. Every failure of a test costs time and money. These yield rates are either low with low cost manufacturing, or, high with high manufacturing costs. This could be part of it.
I think it would be much easier to use methane. Just as carbon neutral if you make it yourself, and doesn't have as many exotic engineering requirements.
I didn't know that about fuel cells though, interesting.
I think car sharing even works in those cases. It's all a logistical problem.
Not that there won't be some people who own cars. There just aren't that many problems that are hard to solve with car shares to outweigh the huge benefits.
Driverless cars can take you between train stations and destinations. No magical form of train will come to your house or go to your office.
In fact, this is a perfect use case for driverless cars. The problem with trains everywhere is the wasted time not on the train and the million stops along the way.
Ultimately I think driverless technology can revolutionarise high density public transport too:
It gives us exactingly detailed information on what journeys people need. The dataset will be immensely valuable in allowing the companies that sit on them to first start doing quasi-bus services:
Order a bunch of minibuses. During peak hours, offer an option: Wait for the next dedicated car to be free, or ride share with quicker availability and a discount. Limit detours strictly - there'll be plenty of "Follow road X and pick up 6 people on the way to station Y" type stretches that will make people happy (little time lost; feels efficient if there's not lots of turning off).
Then you can see them partnering with bus providers to dynamically fill in during peak hours, or even bidding for bus franchises and proposing contract changes that would allow for more dynamic, demand-based scheduling.
Ultimately this can feed into planning train type services - companies offering these type of drive share will be able to e.g. let people order "end to end" journeys of the type "pick me up at address 1, get me to address 2" where they show journey options that include rail when it makes sense. The key beying that if they do so, they will know the entire desired journey, and would be able to offer insight into the most efficient interchange locations or other changes to train services would be most desirable.
I really want to be in the business of writing the software that plans these things. The possibilities are crazy. Predicting where to have cars based on overall traffic flows, having cars ready for individuals who always leave at the same time. Think, a car is 30 seconds away every time you follow your routine. That's faster than getting into and starting your own car! Especially if you have a parking garage.
If you're predictable enough, it might be worth it to simply arrive a minute or two ahead of schedule.
The raving reviews you'd get the first times people order a car and are told instantly "your car is already waiting right outside your door" would be rather interesting.
Get in, and your favorite radio station or music is playing.
And for colder climates: Your car is already pre-heated. I remember too many winter mornings during winter in Norway when even ensuring our car would actually start in the morning was an annoyance (even with a garage, space heaters in the garage or motor heaters is sometimes necessary).
> No magical form of train will come to your house or go to your office.
Yes they will; the magic trains you're thinking of are called streetcars. And, with the oddities in oil and the difficulties of maintaining suburbia, we'll be moving back to dense streetcar suburbs soon enough.
Even buses don't take you door to door. I can't imagine a future where a streetcar is anywhere near as good as self driving cars (possibly paired with mass transit).
Are you familiar with streetcar suburbs? They'd have a streetcar running along a commercial street, with residential streets branching off from it; typically one would have a walk of a few blocks from streetcar stop to house. I don't know if a return to that pattern is the future I expect, but it's certainly the one I'm hoping for.
"Diapers" is just a synecdoche for parenting equipment: diapers, wipes, books, snacks for older kids, extra changes of clothing, etc.
Car seats will be a bigger problem: they are unwieldy, legally mandated, and require careful installation to be effective. Unlike diapers, even the small boosters used for older children can't fit in a shoulder bag.
A young couple expecting to have children in the next few years might balk at these inconveniences, and that could depress adoption of the 'mobility' model. You have to keep prospective purchasers in mind, who are evaluating their needs over the use-life of a car.
