Notez 1/28/2017
Linkz
Tesla semi trucks in the works
- Tesla announced last year that they will venture into the semi-truck business
- Musk confirmed Tesla Model 3 is still the “overwhelming priority”; progress on a Tesla semi is still being made
- over 400k orders for Model 3’s
- The Tesla semi project is led by Jerome Guillen, the former manager of truck company Daimler’s Cascadia semi truck program
- Daimler was working on “SuperTruck”, a DOE initiative to increase fuel economy
James’ notes:
- Most freight transport is less than 250 mi (70.7% of weight, 55.7% of value)
- Less than 10% of weight is transported more than 1000 mi (2007 data)
- This means that Tesla has a huge opportunity in the short-haul market, where electric vehicles would be significantly more feasible
Emailed FOIA requests no longer accepted
- FBI will no longer accept Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by email starting in March
- The bureau advised sending a fax or mailing requests instead
- A small portion of requests can be sent via a web portal, but this requires a phone #, mailing address, and signing a service agreement
- The shift is probably intended to restrict implementation of FOIA
- The FOIA law requires that a search was “reasonably calculated to discover the requested documents”
- The CIA also doesn’t accept digital FOIA requests
China becomes largest solar producer
- China’s National Energy Administration announced the claim (last) Saturday
- China doubled its installed PV capacity in 2016, to 77.42 GW
- Solar energy still represents only 1% of China’s energy output
- The NEA’s goal is to add 110 GW of solar in the next 3 years
- This would help raise renewables to 20%, up from 11% today
- According to this article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-solar-idUSKBN15J0G7?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=589663fb04d301059ff13d69&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter China will put $364 billion into renewables by the end of the decade
Elon starts digging a tunnel in LA
- Musk hinted last month that tunnel construction underneath LA could start by the end of February
- A boring machine began to dig a tunnel at the Hyperloop pod competition last weekend
- Musk hasn’t denied a connection between tunneling and Hyperloop, since it could function in both aboveground tubes or below-ground tunnels
- Any tunnel-boring project would fit within Tesla’s mission to alleviate traffic, and could also help with emissions and fuel consumption
- Tunnels could also be used on Mars to service underground habitats
ISS to get new cargo airlock in 2019
- Houston based company Nanoracks is now developing the first commercial airlock for the ISS
- Airlock is not the same as the adapter which was lost aboard the Dragon during the CRS-7 explosion
- Airlock will be about 2 meters wide and 1.8 meters long
- Will be the first permanent commercial asset to the station
- Would be ~5x larger than current airlock (Kibo module managed by JAXA)
- Will be berthed to Tranquility module
- Also includes a “Haybale” system
- Designed to deploy many cubesats at once (up to 192)
- Airlock is configured for cubesat deploy and is then moved away from the station via Canadarm2 for deployment
- Airlock will be delivered to ISS via the Dragon spacecraft
Pad 39a has a vertical rocket on it for the first time in 5 years
- SpaceX has readied a Falcon 9 rocket on pad 39a in preparation for a static test fire
- Static test will verify the pad for use in the upcoming February 18th launch
- SpaceX is no longer able to use LC-40 due to Falcon explosion which severely damaged the pad
- SpaceX has a 20 year lease on 39a from NASA
- Pad will be used to launch Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets in the future
