#666 – Good Energy Citizen

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released May 8th, 2024. Episode 666. Good Energy Citizen.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. I sound a bit weird today.

Chris Gammell: I'm going to say we're in the sick ward here.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we're in the sick ward. Why? Are you sick too or is it just me?

Chris Gammell: Well, I'm always sick. I have children. I have sick babies. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yep. You have a... Yes. If I'm not sick currently, I'm working on the next thing. Right. Yeah. Currently, I'm actually doing okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Excellent.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Two little petri dishes is what you've got. That's right. Just a petri dish.

Chris Gammell: The real problem is they go to different schools. And so it's like there's like two sources. Yeah. Two sources of... Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really good. Yep.

Dave Jones: Great. Anyway, I'll try and hold out as much as humanly possible. I can do it.

Chris Gammell: You can do it.

Dave Jones: What couldn't do it is the Boeing Starliner. I was about to go live after this. Yeah? I was going to about... Yeah. Because they were going to launch like 30 minutes after we finished this show for the new crude Starliner test, the Boeing. And yeah. That is a spaceship, right?

Chris Gammell: That's the spaceship?

Dave Jones: That is a spaceship. That is a crude spaceship like Starship... Like the SpaceX Dragon. Right, right.

Chris Gammell: Crude spaceship. That's C-R-E-W-E-D, not C-R-U-D-E. No. As in like a spaceship that swears at you as it's leaving orbit. No.

Dave Jones: I'm the hell out of here.

Chris Gammell: That's a crude spaceship.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. So, yeah. They just scrubbed. They just scrubbed. Yeah. Okay. It was a dodgy oxygen valve and I was sitting there watching it and nah, nah, scrub. Get them out. It's for the best.

Chris Gammell: It's for the best.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it was funny how they said that Rocketry is the game of 10 million issues. And if you have one issue, you don't launch. Shut it all down. And there's like 10 million of them and it's like, yeah, how does that? Oh, my goodness. You know, it just could be a dodgy sensor or something, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, yes, yes. You know, there's other things that are like that too, Dave, where you don't have all your parts in. Usually they don't assemble boards either. That's the... I always think about that one. You can't.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Unless they're like bypass caps and then, well, you don't really need those.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, you can sort of still work without them. But yeah, if you sort of like can't get your microcontroller or you can't get, you know, some other critical part. Right. Then you're completely screwed. Yeah. You're going to come a gutter.

Chris Gammell: Exactly.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Just sit there twiddling your thumbs. How many times have you done that over the years? Just sat there and twiddled your thumbs because you're just... Yeah. Just waiting because you couldn't get one part.

Chris Gammell: Waiting for the FedEx person to arrive at the fab. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Like... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That makes sense. Yeah. Many times. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: What is this? So Starliner is... Are there actually people on top of this rocket or no?

Dave Jones: There were people on top of this rocket. There were two people. There were two test pilots on top of this rocket ready to go to the space station. And yeah, I mean, they've only had one other launch and it went around the moon, which was really cool. Right? Well, did it? I can't...

Chris Gammell: I'm not paying attention to any of this stuff, obviously. I have no idea what's going on. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, yeah, but they had some issues with the heat shield, I think. So... Oh, okay. Yeah. But apart from that, I think it was a flawless test last time. So they went, oh, let's go for broke. Let's put some humans on there and, you know, she'll be right.

Chris Gammell: Let's put some meat sacks on the top of this thing. Meat sacks on top of this thing. And yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. So, yeah. I mean, it's technically a redundant system because it's designed to compete with SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which of course has been routinely taking astronauts to and from the space station. Right? So it's, you know, it's fine. I mean, it's gone nine or 10 times now, I think, and hasn't been a single issue. And the Boeing one was actually a few years back. Like, there was talk that Boeing would actually beat SpaceX to taking humans to the space station. But then, yeah, insert Boeing jokes here.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. I mean, really just insert traditional timeline slippage and, you know, large scale contracts. Right?

Dave Jones: Right. But there's a thing about Boeing. I mean, Boeing's a butt of a lot of jokes recently. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: They're catching it. Rightfully so, I feel like.

Dave Jones: Because you're not on Twitter anymore, so you're probably not seeing the constant barrage of Boeing jokes every time there's a Boeing airliner.

Chris Gammell: They used to have credibility. They used to have credibility, but it flew right out the window. It was the best company in the world. Flew right out the window.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. Isn't there a doco on that? I think there's a doco on how Boeing lost its way or something. Something like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, there's a new book. Actually, there's a link as well about the dark age of American manufacturing. The dark age? Yeah. What is it called? What? The Boeing in the dark age of American manufacturing. There's an Atlantic piece that's based on the book by the author. Right. So, the author basically wrote like a summary.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: But it's talking about many of the similar problems that like traditional space industry has run into as well. Oh, not traditional space. Right. But like the modern kind of outsourced manufacturing thing of just like schedule slippage because you have so many subcontractors, so many like requirements docs that are like flowing down the line. Whereas, I think a lot of the space in-house vertical manufacturing has served them well in many ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It seems to. Yep.

Dave Jones: It's great.

Chris Gammell: It seems like the – it's like longer startup costs and obviously there's a lot of weird things you need to do to make it all work. But ultimately, I think it's – it has served them well in a lot of contexts in modern spacefaring industries. So – Got it. Yeah. I'll link this one into our show notes. The book is on my to-read list, but – Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's generally – it fits my worldview too of just like the management types getting in there and like seeing all the dollars and cents benefits. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: And they just slash here and slash there and she'll be right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And then they miss some of the longer term – obviously, there's the brand value from Boeing, but then also the cost of quality, cost of returns. You know, just like thinking about the holistic costs of owning a solution, it's like there are obvious downsides. You know, Boeing used to be completely vertically integrated too, right? And the carrying costs of all the people and the factories and the – you know, all that kind of stuff. Like that is very non-trivial. It's a very cash-heavy kind of operation. But at the same time, when you're in a high critical industry like aviation, it's beneficial in certain ways. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Have you seen the meme that's going around about the photo of the toolkit, the carry-on toolkit if you're flying a Boeing? You should have a standard carry-on toolkit containing, you know, various glues and pliers and screwdrivers and gaffer tape and, you know. Oh, it's great. It's great. Yeah. Because there are so many in-flight incidents that, you know. I do wonder about that. You might have to go out and fix it.

Chris Gammell: Would it give you pause to step on a Boeing airplane these days?

Dave Jones: I've heard a lot of people who said, I never had an issue with flying. No. But fear is the greatest motivator and persuader. So if you, you know, there are, I'm hearing a lot of people now saying, oh yeah, I'm thinking twice. Like, they were saying, I would never look at what type of plane was on my ticket, right? You just wouldn't care, right? Is it a Boeing? Is it an Airbus? Right? You just don't care.

Chris Gammell: I mean, maybe what if you were like looking for like the seat map to try and find the best seat?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay. But-

Chris Gammell: The least worst seat, I suppose. Yeah.

Dave Jones: The majority of people don't do that. They don't care what actual plane it is. But now since the 737 MAX thing and also since the latest, especially since the latest Boeing incidents, whether or not it's fair or not, that is- Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Perception is reality.

Dave Jones: That is beside the point. Yeah. That's where it comes in. The perception of reality. Yes. Yeah. And yeah, I lost count of the number of people who now check their airline. Shit. Am I flying a Boeing? Yeah. It's like, eh.

Chris Gammell: There was- I saw some news article where they started actually putting the planes in the search results too. Let's see if I search to LHR. I think you can see it now in like Google Flights.

Dave Jones: Right. I so infrequently fly that I don't know the- I don't know if that's always been there or not.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, it is traditionally not.

Dave Jones: Right. Traditionally not. It's traditionally not, but you could find it if you go through a few more- That's right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: If you like actually look up the airline or look up the flight number, then you can go to like FlightAware and see, you know, this is normally is, you know, Airbus A330, that sort of thing. No, I guess it's not on Google Flights.

Dave Jones: The nerd that I am, I always check what plane I'm flying, you know.

Chris Gammell: Got it. Yeah. Yep.

Dave Jones: Not that I've ever changed my- Yeah, exactly. You know, thing. Like I haven't changed it, but I just like to know, you know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know, I just, I want to know the best seat that I can get for being miserable on a plane for many hours. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Same as you, I'm traveling so much less and I don't miss it. I don't miss some of that stuff, you know.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: The only time that I've ever had an airline announce what type of plane it was, we were at Melbourne Airport and we're coming back to Sydney and our flight was canceled. There was bad weather, you know, like it was real storms, really bad storms and everything. And so the flight was canceled. So, yeah. So we're sitting in the lounge there waiting and they said, we've found a seven, you know, the announcement comes on. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but we've found a 747 and it'll handle the weather. You know, we found one of these old school 747s and I went, yes, yes, let's punch through this bloody storm, you know, with this giant, you know. Wow. Wow. Yeah. For those who don't know, like 747 will fly through. Yes. Queen of the skies. Queen of the skies. Queen of the skies will fly through anything. And I think that's just before they completely discontinued all the 747s. So I got like last flight or something, you know. Yeah. But they found her. They still fly them. They still fly them.

Chris Gammell: They just don't make them anymore.

Dave Jones: Yeah. They still fly them. No, there's not. Not in Australia. I don't think there's any 747s still flying in Australia.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: At least Qantas discontinued all the 747 fleet, I believe.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: That was a couple of years ago.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's fine. Airlines.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Anyway. Now I have to know. Yeah. In March 2020, Qantas operated its last commercial Boeing 747 flight. There you go. Last commercial 747. Four years ago.

Chris Gammell: All right. Well, there you go.

Dave Jones: And, of course, Qantas were one of the biggest airliners in the world that used 747s because we're so far from anywhere that, you know, we need long haul aircraft. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Oh, boy. Do you hear about the Dreamliner? Have you ever flown the Dreamliner?

Chris Gammell: I actually have on my trip. The Airbus? On my way home from Sydney to LA or to San Francisco. Right.

Dave Jones: That beast is even bigger than the 747. It's just a monster. It's just an absolute monster. But if you look up YouTube, I forget the YouTuber who did it, you know, maybe it was a Wendover. Maybe. Okay. Or something. But they, like I watched this video on why the Dreamliner failed. It wasn't because it wasn't a good plane. It was just like they built it for a certain-

Chris Gammell: Oh, I think we're saying different things. The Dreamliner is a 787. You're talking about the Airbus A380.

Dave Jones: Airbus A380 is the double-decker.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yes. I'm talking about the A380. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Anyway, it's an absolute- Yeah. It's an absolute monster.

Chris Gammell: That I have not been on. That thing is, yeah, that's 600-some people that you could fit on there. Yeah, I know. That's-

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I don't fly to Dubai enough, you know.

Dave Jones: Right. Anyway, it's a beautiful plane. Anyway, I've been on. Yeah. It's because the 747 just has the upper deck in a small part of the fuselage. It's got that like bulge in the top of the, you know, fuselage. So it's only got like a small upper section, whereas the Dreamliner has like two complete decks, you know. It's just-

Speaker ?: Yes.

Dave Jones: Yeah. What an absolute beast. But anyway, so I watched this video about how it didn't fail because it was a bad aircraft. It was superb, right? No, they had a few teething problems. But, you know, generally it was a superb aircraft, but it failed because they designed it. They thought, because when you design it, like how long does it take to design an aircraft from when you decide to do it to when it first rolls off the line?

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Eight, ten years, right?

Chris Gammell: Ten at least, I think.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right? So it's a long time. So yeah, they designed this thing from scratch and they bet the whole company on it because they projected that in ten years' time, the market will want all of these high capacity long haul aircraft. And it turns out, oops, that prediction didn't quite pan out. It was okay for a while. It lasted for a couple of years and it was quite, you know, so everyone was buying it. But then the market changed in terms of, you know, routes and everything, you know, where things go, fuel economy and everything to do with the market and which type of planes they fly. And yeah, they just didn't want to, the airlines didn't, it was too expensive to fly now because of, you know, all these certain routes that dried up and.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Et cetera.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, the economics are tough, I think.

Dave Jones: So just imagine that, like betting your company on a ten year long bet and then the market changes. Like, oof. Right? That's kind of brutal.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, totally.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. I'm not sure there's another market like that.

Chris Gammell: Maybe you could say chip industry stuff, right? So, like, I think it's kind of evolutionary. I mean, A380 is also evolutionary. Yeah, but we've never gone back.

Dave Jones: We've never gone, oh, no, we can't use this 10 nanometer stuff. Nah, we're getting too many issues with it. We'll go back to 20. I think they are, though.

Chris Gammell: They kept saying, like, over time, right? Like, yeah, well, like EUV has been a thing for forever, right? I mean, they said, like, EUV is going to be the biggest thing and then it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. That's the only way you're going to get down there.

Dave Jones: EVs, yes, true. They bet on, yeah, there's a lot of car companies that bet on. No, no, no, no. The price of battery, what?

Chris Gammell: EUV, EUV. So, like, electro. What's EUV? Ultraviolet, electron, scanning ultraviolet. It's the methodology for doing patterning on a wafer, right? And so, that was the only way you're going to get down to, like, the smallest sizes you need. But then they went to double patterning in lithography and then triple and quadruple and whatever. Yeah, right. It's not like they, I mean, they had the technology, but it was, like, the efficiencies and the costs and just, like, the, like. And so, it is in EUV. EUV is used in the chip industry now, right? But it's, like. Right. I think it's just for the small. Yeah. No, I wouldn't say it's niche. It's just, like, it's just the. They kind of have gone back and forth because it's, like, really where is the. I think it's where the most economical high volume solution came from, right? So, as you. Right. As, like, you know, some of it is just the patterns of light and the interference patterns you can get. Like, that's where some of that benefited the old system versus the new. I think. And I think on the oldest. On the certain parts of the wafer, you don't need to have the smallest feature sizes.

Dave Jones: Ah. So, variable geometry across the die. Is that a thing?

Chris Gammell: Even within the die. I mean, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, there's different regions that have different needs of. So, like, you think about the. It's always the tightest one is always the gate width, right? That's, like. Right. Yeah. The tightest measure on a silicon wafer. And so, like, you could have selective patterning that's only doing gates versus larger features, right? They've been doing that for a long time, too. Because it's just the. But then, you know, you put it into the older equipment or something like that to get the larger feature sizes. And then the fanciest equipment in the fab is used for the tightest tolerance. Right. Photo resist exposure. Right. So, that's the closest I could think of. That's, I mean. And, you know. There's other stuff on our list about chip stuff. So, it's kind of staring me in the face right now. I'm guessing that's probably also part of it.

Dave Jones: And as I mistakenly said, the EV market is another one.

Chris Gammell: That is another one. Right. There's a whole bunch of automotive manufacturers. Going back to hybrid.

Dave Jones: Who came out publicly and said, right, we're going to be a full EV company by 2030. You know. Right. And they bet everything on it. And then they based that on the fact. Well, this. The supposed fact that the prices for the battery packs would continue to plummet. And they didn't.

Chris Gammell: Ah, yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: So, oops. You know. Right. It all hinged on that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They're basically throwing a dart from 10 years ago and trying to hit a target. Right. In the modern. Yeah, right. Made in the modern era. Yeah. Sometimes you just don't know those kind of things, you know. Right. It's tough.

Dave Jones: Well, there's a thing on our Reddit list about the Tesla superchargers.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. You put this one on here. They fired the whole team, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. Well, is that a sensationalist headline? Because they're still going ahead with it. So, I don't know how you can fire the entire team, like everyone that has anything to do with it.

Chris Gammell: You could fire the design team. You could fire the design team without firing the operations team. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. True. But that's why I'm saying it's probably a sensationalist headline that they fired everyone that has anything at all to do with supercharger. That seems like bullshit.

Chris Gammell: So, I'm just saying. I guess so. But if, I don't know, you're just sticking up for your boy? Is that what that is?

Dave Jones: No. He's not my boy. Jesus. He's your boy.

Chris Gammell: Come on, man.

Dave Jones: Bullshit. I criticize him as much as anyone. I just don't have EDS.

Chris Gammell: You've talked about Twitter. You've talked about SpaceX. You've talked about-

Dave Jones: I don't have Elon Musk. You want me to start talking about Starship?

Chris Gammell: I'll start talking about Starship. You did talk about Starship. And how Starship's going to come a gut's eye. Starship. Oh, Starship is their thing. Sorry, you were saying Starliner.

Dave Jones: Starship is the SpaceX thing.

Chris Gammell: They really need to come up with some better names. Right. Starliner, which is the thing. There's been-

Dave Jones: People think I'm an Elon fanboy, but I've dissed him more than most people have.

Chris Gammell: Dissed him more than most. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Okay. No, I don't want to talk about Starship. I would like to talk about the Tesla stuff. Well, okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, but I'm just saying, right? Because headlines are always bullshit. The default conclusion you come to when you see every headline, doesn't matter what it is, is that 50-50 chance is bullshit. Right? That's just default with all news media these days. Right? I mean, how can you possibly- You just go in and read the articles like, oh, yeah, we're still going ahead with Supercharger. We're just scaling back. We're going to cancel infrastructure in Australia, but we're still going to be rolling out and we're going to- You know, so obviously they've still got people working on it. It's not like they fired the entire team. It must be bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Right? They said they fired the entire team.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's got to be- Well, that's what I'm saying. Don't believe headlines. It's bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Okay. What about the rest of the article? Can I believe that?

Dave Jones: No. There's lie by structure. There's lie by omission. There's lie by headline. There's multiple ways that news media lie to you.

Chris Gammell: Right? Okay.

Dave Jones: So don't necessarily believe it.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: How can they fire everyone that has anything to do with Supercharger yet still continue with it? How?

Chris Gammell: That's a great question, Dave. Exactly.

Dave Jones: So it's bullshit. Right? Yes, they fired most of them. Sure. Or as you said, they fired the R&D team.

Chris Gammell: You're just splitting hairs now, aren't you? Are you just splitting hairs? I mean, yeah, you're right. Here's what I think it comes down to for me. If they fired the entire design team, that is a forward-looking statement on the viability, regardless of whether or not they install future chargers. Who cares at that point? It's more a question of like, oh, okay, so they're done innovating for now. That's what that says to me.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Okay. That's all I really care about. I mean.

Dave Jones: Sure. Okay. Okay. I'm just saying the headline is bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Great. Great. We've gotten past that. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. But yeah, no, they've canceled all Supercharger news. Yeah, I mean. New Supercharger infrastructure in Australia, I think.

Chris Gammell: I mean, this is a big deal for the US because they've already suggested that the Tesla Supercharger network is going to be the de facto network in the US. So that's the piece that I don't understand.

Dave Jones: Because they've got to open it to other people to use it. Yeah, exactly. And you'll just have to pay for it, which is fine. Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So now what? I don't know. Like, I guess there maybe could all be other opportunities in the market, you know, other players in the market, whatever. But I just thought, I thought this was going to be a bigger thing for the US. So.

Dave Jones: Well, they've canceled it in Australia here. So for the entire country.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's big too. That sucks for you guys.

Dave Jones: Hmm. Anyway, there's another article here. They laid off 500 people. So, yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Anyway, it's interesting. Well, you already have a massive infrastructure in the US, isn't there? Tesla stations. Last time I saw the map, it was like, it was massive. You guys have them everywhere.

Chris Gammell: I wouldn't. I mean, it is extensive. Yes. It's not. Compared to you. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's just a bad comparison. No offense. No. I think Australia is just a little behind a lot of things in, with regards to EVs. And I, so I like, so from my perspective as a charger owner, as a electric car owner, well, that was a, that was a yuppie statement right there. From my perspective, someone who's like hunting around for charging stations occasionally, they are around. They're definitely not around enough to support future looking. Like, so if the trend continued in a straight line, I think there would be a very big problem coming. I think some of this decision is in response to their internal financial issues. Like they had like, they're like 60% off profit or something like that. Oh yeah. No, they were huge.

Dave Jones: And, and the general downturn in the EV market, like their, their, their sales are sluggish.

Chris Gammell: This is like just changing. Yeah. Changing all the projections. So now they said, okay, fine. We're not doing that. But I do not think it is extensive enough. If, if there's a true EV, like a, all EV, like, like you said, right. The, like you've said before, like the 2035, you know, fully electric car companies in the US, right. If that was actually the vision, I think that is, that is withering, unfortunately, given, given the current growth rates.

Dave Jones: It's dead, dude. It's not withering. It's dead.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I guess timelines being what they are. I mean, 10 years is a long time, but also a short time, right? The days are long, but the years are short. So yeah, I, I do think that would be, that would take a concerted effort to, if, if this and other efforts, you know, start to stall out, then I think there are that 2035 vision is very much in peril, unfortunately. So, but I also think that depending on, you know, Tesla as the only supercharger network, like, I think, I personally think that that should be funded from a, like, there's not a lot of profit in putting a charging station in the middle of rural Kansas, right. Because of the, because of the costs of operations and the, the likelihood of it being used. So it's almost like in the air, in the, the public utility space, it should almost be right. So like, that's a, that's a personal opinion. That's some veers into political, that's fine, whatever. But like, it just feels like there's going to be a lot of unprofitable places that probably need infrastructure that are just like, not going to happen. Dude, this is backed up.

Dave Jones: This is your, your, your opinion is backed up by evidence. Every electric charger company in Australia has gone bust. Every one of them.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I have like, I am not exaggerating, like six apps on my phone for all these different charger companies. They've all gone bust.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: All of them.

Chris Gammell: It sucks.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That sucks. Right. I mean, and so then it's down to individuals. Right. You know, we need is like a Uber of people's personal garages. So you can just, you know, rock up someone's garage and use their charger.

Dave Jones: Rock up anywhere. And yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And you know what, Dave? What? The blockchain.

Dave Jones: The blockchain.

Chris Gammell: And now, and now for episode 666 of the Amp Hour, we will shift into promoting the blockchain for the next 40 minutes. It's still a thing. 40 minutes.

Dave Jones: There's an Australian company called Power Ledger. And this is what they do. Power Ledger. Power Ledger. Oh, yeah. Yes. Got it. It's an Australian company. And their thing is to use the blockchain for people to buy and sell power.

Chris Gammell: I think my favorite version of this was there was, I think there was an SNL sketch about it, but it was like, it wasn't Uber, but it was like blockchain plus Uber, but it was using people's toilets and it was called Poober. Nice. Classic. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I guess you and I don't really see eye to eye on cryptocurrency either. So, so what's it called? What's the one called? I didn't get the name. Power Ledger. Power Ledger.

Dave Jones: Power Ledger. The, uh, the actual coin is called, uh, power as in P-O-W-R. No E. Just P-O-W-R. Of course. You can't have a vowel in there. No. What is this? No. Exactly. So yeah. Power. Power Ledger. Anyway, Aussie company, um, and they've, there's, I think there's two major ones in the space. I can't remember the name of the other one, but Power Ledger is the leading one. And yeah, the whole, uh, premise. Sorry.

Chris Gammell: Have you used it?

Dave Jones: I have not physically used it. I have owned Power Ledger coin, but I have not physically used it. So, you know, because they're in that, well, you can't use it at the moment. It's only part of trial projects. So, you know, you have to be in some community that has the trial thing. So they shove a box in your house and then you can sell your excess salt and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I did see an interesting, uh, there's a local program here where they started saying if you, I think Powerwall was the only thing that's enabled right now, but they basically said, if you, we'll give you a, we'll give you a credit on your Powerwall or other battery install, but we get 30 control events, a minimum of 30, maximum of 36. So basically like virtual power plant kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Right. Right. So they will subsidize the install of your Powerwall.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think that is great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. It's like, and it's only certain times. Right. So it's like.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Interesting.

Chris Gammell: Truly to like offload type stuff like that. That is, that is an interesting future right there. And I do wonder about that sort of like, that's a tough business too, right? Cause you're basically. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's basically margin on top of batteries, which is, you know, like.

Dave Jones: They are expensive. Batteries are expensive. Um, so yeah, the payback period for batteries, I'm going to get a battery, a home storage battery very soon. Once I get my new inverter. Oh yeah. Once I get my new inverter installed, I have a new hybrid inverter. Okay. And I've expanded my solar system and I'm going to, it hasn't been installed yet, but maybe in the next week or something, hopefully. Okay. Um, yes. And then I can hook a battery up to it cause it's a hybrid one. And the good thing about the one I'm getting, which is a, uh, D I as in D E Y E D I, um, brand, uh, is that it supports all different chemistries, supports all different chemistries and brands. So I'm not tied into any one brand. So I can buy, you know, I can buy a, basically a, I can, I can mix and match batteries. I can buy them from anywhere and it should work.

Chris Gammell: Um, so yeah. Yeah. They find remaindered batteries from, you know, Al's junkyard. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, there's lots of companies in Australia that will, uh, repack, uh, that would do custom battery packs using, using covered cells or they use excess cells or whatever, or they use, you know, there's, there's tons of different companies like that. So yeah. Yeah. So anyway, much more, um, much more options.

Chris Gammell: So that's why I decided to go with that brand battery.

Dave Jones: Cause, uh, the, the other ones like a Tesla, like you've got to use the Tesla battery in phase, you've got to use the end phase battery. Right. And they're like twice the price, more than twice the price. Right. Super expensive. And I ran the calcs on it. Like it's like a 30 year payback. It's like pointless.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Absolutely pointless. But with these lower cost batteries, I could potentially get a payback in like five years or something, maybe. Nice. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And so tell me about the, uh, paint me a little word picture here, Dave. Yeah. What is the, one of the things that I was looking at when I was looking at this too, because the only way that I was going to be able to make solar work, I think was to have battery on hand and then still charge it off the grid too.

Dave Jones: Like, oh, right. Using like the excess rates at night or something cheap.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Like that sort of thing.

Dave Jones: Rates at night. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, but tell me, there was one thing that was like, there's like the battery on the AC side and there was, or sorry, there's like battery on the grid side and there's battery on like the not grid side. Right. There was like a bunch of like stuff that I didn't understand with where, how the block during room looked like.

Dave Jones: Right. There, there, there are AC batteries and there are DC batteries. The Tesla's an AC battery. The Enphase is an AC battery, which means it's on the AC side, which means it generates its own AC power internally and it, and then you just need an isolator switch on your house to switch it off and on. Got it. Okay. But I'm, but I'm going to get a DC battery, which plugs into a hybrid inverter. And then it's, and then it's got the inverter built in, which will then generate the 240 volts required for my house during the night. But yeah, it's, they're, they're just wired differently. Okay. But basically AC and DC batteries, they're two different things. You have to wire them in certainly very differently.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's like where the cutoff switch is. Like one of them you can't cut off, right? Like the AC, AC one you can't cut off. Is that right?

Dave Jones: Uh, no, you can, no, you can actually cut both of them off if you want to. But, uh, normally the DC ones, um, like my hybrid inverter, for example, it won't power the whole house. It'll have an emergency power outlet, which if the grid goes down, my house goes down, but I still have power on the emergency power outlet. So I can plug fridges and freezers into that, et cetera. So, you know, yep. And laptops. I mean, come on. And laptops and all sorts of things.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. Right. And, and, and considering the frequency or the lack of frequency of, uh, power outage here in Sydney, I'm, I'm talking one outage for half an hour every 10 years. And I'm not exaggerating. Right.

Chris Gammell: We have buried lines and everything like that, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. We, well, half buried, I guess, half, half and half pizza. Yeah. Um, but no, we, we, we just have an incredibly reliable grid here. And so it, so it doesn't make sense to have a full house backup, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: A, a, a full AC battery house backup thing just doesn't make sense. It's like, right.

Chris Gammell: Okay. So the power file is far off now. Where PG&E is, uh, going out every, you know, every other weekend. Yeah. It used to happen with our former editor, Suzanne. She would, uh, she'd, she'd be like, uh, I, I, I couldn't do the edit till Monday because like the power's just out all weekend. It was just like, damn.

Dave Jones: Wow. All weekend. See, I've lived in Sydney all my life. I have never had a 24 hour outage.

Chris Gammell: PG&E is just, uh.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: They're, they're having a lot, a lot of issues, a lot of issues. Yeah.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think maybe the longest one I can remember is like five hours or something. Maybe.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's. And you know, for, for that sort of length, you don't even have to power your fridge because your fridge is still going to stay cold for five hours as long as you don't open the door. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. No, I think that's, that's, uh, it is, it is an interesting exercise when it happens because it's like, you really, you really start, I mean, like, and you know, I have friends in South Africa and like that they have rolling blackouts all the time. And obviously California has been having this worse. And I think just generally as grids get more stressed, it's just, they got to make tough decisions a lot of places. And, you know, there's sometimes structural things that are just in there and it's just like, but man, as someone who spends a lot of days in front of computers and, you know, like electricity is kind of my life, Dave. I don't know if you know this, but it's kind of important to me. You, it does make me think that I really should have, I think, I think if, uh, if the stars align, um, uh, I'll probably get a battery as well. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So here's a wacky prediction, which is totally related to what we've been talking about.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Electricity will be the new currency. How's that?

Chris Gammell: Uh, okay, Mad Max. People will become batteries. Whoa.

Dave Jones: Oh boy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I do not, uh, I mean, currency is the currency and electricity is used with currency. So, um, currency is going down the toilet, dude. Yeah. Really fast. Yeah. That's definitely, that's really played out so far since we've heard about.

Dave Jones: You might, you might want to look into that funny crypto thing. Just saying.

Speaker ?: Okay.

Chris Gammell: You know what? Just saying. Maybe I will, but you know, you know how it's hard, it's hard to do crypto, crypto exchanges is without electricity. So, uh, yeah, that's why I've got silver coins as a backup. Bingo, man, you're really going to don't trust the media.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Silver coins. Crypto. Yep. Uh, do you want to talk about MREs next, Dave? I feel like.

Dave Jones: I'm not really into the MREs. No. Not yet. Not yet.

Chris Gammell: You know, usually people of your persuasion, they don't build more levels on their house. They build more levels below their house.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. So when's the bunker coming in? Yeah. Yeah. You, you and Colin, Colin Furs, you know?

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Yes. Yes. Oh, man. Bunker. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That thing is.

Dave Jones: I haven't, I haven't followed that. Has he, has he finished his, um, has he finished his Batman garage thing?

Chris Gammell: He's still working on it. Uh, it's the wet season there. So, well, it's England. So the wet season is, is very long, but, uh.

Dave Jones: Almost all year round.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Uh, it is, it is some impressive, impressive. I get very anxious watching it sometimes. Oh, yeah. Because he's like in tight spaces.

Dave Jones: I don't know how he does that on, on a tiny block of land. It, it isn't like the guy has this massive rural block or something. I know. I know. He's just got like this tiny little terrace. It's not like a terrace house, but it's almost like a, you know, just like. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's like a townhome almost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just traditional. Tiny.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: British side by side. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. People don't watch it. I mean, like, it's not like it's like, oh, this new unheard of channel. But if you don't watch it, uh, I think it's like one of my favorite channels to like pretend that I need to weld, to learn how to weld. Like that's probably the main thing I feel when I watch this channel. Totally. Yep. I need to learn how to do this, man. Like I'm going to do what he's doing. No, no, Chris, you're not going to, you're not going to do any of that stuff.

Dave Jones: Even, even my wife says, oh yeah, we should learn that. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. She loves that channel. She loves the Colin Firz channel. She's going, oh yeah. Yeah. Learn it well. Yeah. Look at all the cool stuff you can do. You know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's like, yep. Yeah. I always think about that. I'm like, I don't even know where I'd go to get bar stock, you know? Like, I'd have to learn a whole new set of stores. Is it really worth it? I'd have to like talk to people. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I've been saying forever that I would take a learn to weld course. Oh, okay. Yeah. They have them. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Chris Gammell: My father-in-law was a welder for like 35 years and I really just need a real, I need a good first project. How about that? Yes. People know a good first project. A good first project. Yeah. Tell Dave and myself and we'll, I don't know, chair?

Dave Jones: Well, I could, well, if I could weld, I could fix my Sinclair C5.

Chris Gammell: Bingo. EV. There you go. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Because the chassis on that is like, is completely buckled and rusted out.

Chris Gammell: Surely that's aluminum. Aluminium? Isn't that aluminum?

Dave Jones: No, no. That is a complete steel frame. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I didn't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Folded steel frame. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I need to weld like support plates on there and some of it's rusted away. So, you need to like, you know, fix up that kind of stuff and, you know. Yeah. Like, because if you try and sit in it, the frame just buckles almost, you know. It's like. Yeah. Yeah. It's lost.

Chris Gammell: You feel like squishy. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's too bad.

Dave Jones: You can tell it's not going to hold up. So, yeah. I need to let world support frames on there and strengthen the chassis and stuff. So, yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good project, actually. Yeah. Totally. You got to have a project, right? We always say that here. Yep. Yeah. We were talking earlier about a little bit about chips and EUV. They're interesting. All the Chips Act stuff, you know, we talked about months, years ago. It's kind of starting to play out. It's starting to pay out, too. And so, there's like 40 billion that's been distributed by the US so far. But the interesting one to me is the reading about TSMC coming to the States. Did you read that one at all?

Dave Jones: I'm looking at that. And what they've had, like worker abuse or something?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's interesting because I'm like reading it and I'm like, you know, this sounds a lot like Samsung. I'm like, oh. Was I part of this, too? No, it's not like worker abuse. It's just like expectations. Right. And US norms and stuff like that. And so, like everybody's gassed about this because like, you know, TSMC, obviously there's a lot of global politics type of thing. And like it reduces, you know, if TSMC is in the US, it at least would reduce some of the concern about geopolitical impacts to the island of Taiwan. Right. But the thing is, like that is a hard freaking place to work, right? I mean, like they are really driven.

Dave Jones: And the big thing is like when you try to bring their Taiwanese culture to the US and the US workers.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think it's.

Dave Jones: Nah, this is kind of abusive.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. Well, I think it's also like, I think it's probably like, you know, TSMC is not like just one of the bigger, better companies in Taiwan. It's like one of the best companies in the world for it is the best chip maker in the world. Right. So there's like there's like like national pride plus tech pride plus all this other. It's like there's a lot of stuff wrapped up in there plus like cultural elements. So like one thing that is very noticeable, you know, my Samsung days are long behind me. But one thing that was very noticeable was the kind of the top down military style culture. That's it. Samsung because there's mandatory military service in Korea. And like it's a thing. Yeah, right. A lot of leadership is from there. And that I don't know if you know this about me, Dave, but I was not in the military. And so like that's that I didn't drive with. And yeah, interesting works its way into the into some of the cultural elements. And like so just reading this article, it's interesting articles on Tom's hardware. And it's just about like how people are interacting with it. I'm sure they're going to get through it. I'm sure it's just going to be a little bit of just difference in how they operate and difference in how they're treated. And because I think the same thing happened at Samsung, to be completely honest, like the the Austin the Austin group was very different than the Korean group in terms of. Yeah, I can imagine expectations and stuff like that. But at the same time, like if you deliver results and you also get big tax breaks, I'm sure that they will put up with the Yanks for a while. So I just still can't believe that they're building this stuff in Arizona. There was another article.

Dave Jones: Is that fab working yet? Is that is the new TSMC fab actually producing silicon?

Chris Gammell: They are then I don't I think they're if they are there very early days because there's another piece. There is another piece on marketplace, which is an NPR show about the people that are trying to get hired. Right. So there's not all these people in Arizona. There's like training programs and there's like community colleges and like basically just to be operators in these plants and they're not hiring anyone yet. Right. So they're like, OK, starting to figure this stuff out and like it's a big, big workforce is needed. But like basically it's just about like the kind of the wait and see of getting this stuff going.

Dave Jones: And interesting.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting to see how you boot this stuff up because it's not it's not completely fungible labor either. Right. It's not like you can just. Oh, yeah. No, no. Even at a machine shop to be like, oh, now you have to go work in a fab. Right. So it's like learning different methodologies and that sort of thing and then the cultural element as well. So in that piece, they did imply that that is not that they are building too fast, but they're not completed yet. I don't know. I don't know the actual the actual details, though. So. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Wow. There you go. Yeah. It's not not really unsurprising, though, I guess, when you think about it.

Chris Gammell: Which part? The cultural piece?

Dave Jones: Like an Asian company has, I mean, shock horror. Countries have different cultures. I mean, you know. Yeah, you know.

Chris Gammell: I mean, yes, of course. Right. Right. I mean, yeah. Like people bristle at 996, right? I mean, that's another thing, right? That's like. Bristle at 996? What? Sorry. 996 is like the expectation that you that some parts of China, they said that there is expectation that you work nine hours a day or 996. Ah, right. Nine to nine, six days a week. That's what it is.

Dave Jones: Nine to nine, six days a week. Ah, okay. Gotcha. That's right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. That's like 996 is like a thing. But it's not like a universal. It's just like it's basically emerging economies doing their best to like. Yeah. They're working really hard, right? I mean, that's really what it comes down to. And like some of it expectations around that. And I think some of that is also carried into the, you know, the Korean cultures that I experienced and parts of it I loved. And I'm sure TSMC as well. And like, yeah, it's, it's just, I think it's just vestigial of some of that stuff. And it, the high expectations because of it, because there's a lot of money at play too.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, there you go.

Chris Gammell: I, speaking of my old, my, my old, old employer, I was, I was looking up, I was actually looking up Samsung on Google Maps a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. And like, I just like stumbled upon like, oh, they're building another fab there too. Right. Like, so like they're all expanding. I mean, they're expanding lots of places, obviously, but like, yeah, I was surprised. Like you can go on Google Maps and see just like the, I don't know if you've ever seen like the cranes that are required to build. A fab, but it's just, I'm sure. I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's. Yeah. Sure. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Although they're not high rise buildings. They're just big, wide, expansive.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Warehouse. Are they single, are they single level inside with high ceilings or are they?

Chris Gammell: No. Super, super high. Yeah. It's, it's, and, and the thing is too, you don't want to have lots of pillars in the middle. Usually you want to have like a huge open thing. So the spans, like you look at like the truss, the truss spans are often the entire width of the building. So that you don't have any. So like, that's where it starts to be like, oh my God, like seeing some of these things. Yeah. Yeah. Let me see if I can find. That's crazy. Because there's another one here. Here it is. Yeah. They moved out from where I had gone. Here we go. Let's see if I can send this to Dave real quick. And then, yeah, it is usually like, I don't know, 10 floors, 10 stories tall as well. Okay. 10 stories tall. You have lots of different, you know, like the actual fab itself might be three stories open internally, but then usually it's a hollow floor as well. Because then these machines that get moved in, they have another two floors of, you know, stuff below the floor itself, all the piping and the pumps and all the mechanical stuff. Yep. And then below that, then you have all the infrastructure piece as well to like, to move water and power and all. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So you have entire floors just dedicated to move in water and other chemicals and things. Right.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Not nasty stuff too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Wow. Oh, yeah. I'm actually having a look at some construction photos now of various fabs and yeah, they got, they got a lot of cranes.

Chris Gammell: I guess there's only five. Yeah. I guess they're only showing five stories in this one. Five stories. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They're not huge in terms of stories.

Chris Gammell: I do remember they, and they stack them too high, at least in Korea when I was there. So like they're the fabs actually are multiple on top of each other. So. Wow. I'm sure I've talked about that before, but yeah. It's wild to see. It's wild to see. Yeah. So I'm still amazed though, that they're doing this in Arizona. Like. Yeah. You've been to Arizona. You've been to Arizona, right?

Dave Jones: Oh, I've been to Arizona. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Speaking of, I heard that microchip masters is back this year. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I've never been to that, but I've heard good things about it. And yeah, that's in August in Phoenix, which is mind bogglingly a bad idea.

Dave Jones: Have you been to Winslow, Arizona?

Chris Gammell: Winslow. No.

Dave Jones: No. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's an Eagle song, right?

Dave Jones: Eagle song. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they do actually have a girl in a flatbed Ford. Just saying, you know.

Chris Gammell: Just looking at me. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Take it easy. Yeah. Oh, boy. Anyway. Yes. Arizona.

Chris Gammell: People are like, yeah, episode 666 of the Amp Hour, switching to karaoke mode. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know why Arizona was ever a thing. I mean, when I think of Arizona, I think of lack of water.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that. Water is the number one resource for a chip fab.

Chris Gammell: Right. But they reuse a lot of it. So, there is that. Right. Okay. And they also pay really well. So, I'm sure that whatever water is there.

Dave Jones: Right. They can just, yeah. Install a pipeline.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. But generally, yeah. It is intriguing. You know? Like, it's not a... It's a harsh environment, generally. I mean, it is flat. And, you know, I guess maybe they have good sources of power with solar and stuff like that. You need really solid sources of power. That's another thing. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, you'd have to have local. So, I'm sure they're covered in solar panels just to give you local. Yep. Yep. Hmm. And you need big diesel backup, massive backup generators because you couldn't have anything go down. Right? You couldn't have like a brownout in the mains and then...

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You would never... I'm sure there are... You would never be able to generate enough power for that sort of thing. They... It's just massive amounts of power.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. What? So, they run straight from the grid? And if the grid goes... Yeah, they get guarantees. And if there's a brownout on the... Oh, guarantees. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, then like the power companies on the hook for damages.

Dave Jones: They treat it extra special. They're going to switch you off last kind of thing. Oh, totally. How the guarantee works. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yes. Yeah. Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but the thing with the grid is that it has, you know, brownouts and little dropouts and all sorts of little quirks in it, right? So, maybe that doesn't matter.

Chris Gammell: But, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you could do some local filtering and stuff like that. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'm sure there's something. I'm sure there's something locally there to stabilize the power. I can't imagine them operating straight off the grid, but maybe, as you said, it's massive power requirements. Yeah. What is the major driver for the power in a chip fab?

Chris Gammell: I have no idea. I mean, like... Yeah. I'm just trying to think what it would be. Well, I mean, like... All the machines, all the robots, right? Yeah. But then also, you think about, like, the thing that's chucking ions at a wafer. Do you know that's just, like, a huge klystron?

Dave Jones: Oh, right. It's a... Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

Chris Gammell: It's basically just, like, winding up, like, gas in a particle accelerator. It's like a mini particle accelerator.

Dave Jones: It's a mini particle accelerator. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, implantation stages are... Right. The way they do that is really... It's...

Chris Gammell: It's magical. But then also, like, you know, like, so, like, the equipment I used to work on back in the day would have multiple kilowatt, like, RF generators on the bottom of it to strike plasmas and stuff like that. So, like... Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know, serious... Right. ...serious chunks of power. But I'm not sure what is the most power hungry. I mean, they also have ovens in there, right? For doing... Yep. ...for doing... What is that stage called? Not annealing. It's called... Oh, boy. Dave, you know, the old brain crusties are starting... The old brain barnacles are starting to grow in here.

Dave Jones: You're right. What is that called? Did you know that the semiconductor industry consumed 141... 149 billion kilowatt hours in 2021?

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: Billion.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Kilowatt hours.

Chris Gammell: Wow. I was trying to walk my wife through kilowatt hours versus kilowatts the other day, and she was getting very upset with me.

Dave Jones: Oh, I did power versus energy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Well, she's just like, why does one... Why doesn't power have the time... I'm like, it's unitless. Well, it's not unitless. It's per second, but then you also have it in an hour. I was just like, I don't want to talk about it.

Dave Jones: Well, maybe you could link her to my video. I've done a video on power versus energy.

Chris Gammell: Oh, she doesn't watch you. She doesn't watch you.

Dave Jones: I know. My wife doesn't watch me.

Chris Gammell: I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. That is a good idea. I mean, it is a tough thing to... What we were really trying to do is we were driving down the street and looking at gas prices, and we were just trying to figure out what is the equivalent of... How much are we paying in equivalent dollars per mile or dollars per distance sort of thing, right? And what is the fractional of the current gas prices, if at all, right? That's the tough thing. And it's actually tough to wind back, I feel like.

Dave Jones: Okay. Right?

Chris Gammell: Right? Because it's like 340 a gallon, which I realize is Yankee units right now, but like... What the hell is a gallon?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. A gallon is 3.7 liters. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I knew that off the top of my head. Well done. Yep. So, basically, yeah, let's say for ease of use, a dollar per liter, right? But then I don't know how much a liter will get you in terms of mileage.

Dave Jones: Well, we'd like... Adam's for Fortnite. Yeah. A really efficient car on the highway might be five liters per 100 kilometers.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, yeah, you got to like do that. Then you do the same thing for the electric, and then you have to back it out to like the power you're paying and the instantaneous rate and stuff like that. And this is something I posted on...

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: On Macedon the other day I posted this. I don't actually know. Is it better to plug my car in at night when it's like base load is lower overall? Or is it better to plug it in during the day when the sun's out and solar is backpowering from maybe my neighbors? I don't have panels, but my neighbors have panels.

Dave Jones: You're talking just from a general... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: From an environmental perspective. A good energy citizen point of view. That's a good way to say it. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yes.

Dave Jones: That could be the title for today's show. Good Energy Citizen.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I like that. Yeah. It's pretty good. All right. Not bad. Not bad. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Sorry. We're always thinking about a title.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Good Energy Citizen.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I like it. Yeah. So what is better, Dave? I mean, I know the best thing is to have panels on my roof and then...

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, in theory, yeah. If you know your neighbors all have solar and they're not home during the day, so you know it's pumping and you know they don't have batteries, so they're pumping out lots of excess, then yes, I would probably use it during the day. Yeah. Because the power is going to come from the most local, lowest impedance source. Yeah. So I get like...

Chris Gammell: The duck curve, right? Right. The duck curve, you should be trying to do it at like the bottom of the duck curve.

Dave Jones: What's a duck curve?

Chris Gammell: The duck curve is... Okay. This is off Wikipedia, so don't give me any credit here. In locations where a substantial amount of solar electric capacity has been installed, the amount of power that must be generated from sources displays a rapid increase around sunset and peaks in mid-evening. Basically, so this is when my friend Ari was on the show. We talked about this a little bit. That's when I learned about it as well. It's not like I knew about this otherwise. But basically, it's in the shape of a duck is the easy way. Okay. It's a duck. Okay. Yeah. But basically, it's like usage peaks in the morning as people are getting ready for work and then as they get home and they start turning on lights and cooking their dinner.

Dave Jones: 6pm, it's the dip. I'm sorry. I don't see the duck. I don't see the duck.

Chris Gammell: It's your imagination, Dave. Oh, God. Quack, quack, quack.

Dave Jones: Okay. Maybe. Maybe. I'm seeing like a filled in graph and it kind of... Yeah, okay.

Chris Gammell: It's not a Rorschach pattern, you know. Right. I see my parents and they're yelling at me about wasting power. Oh, boy.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. My guess would be if you know the circumstances and you can use your neighbor's solar, then I would suspect it's better to do it during the day. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the best economic argument would be if I had on-demand pricing, it would be whenever it's lowest, right? That would be the best. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, no. Of course. Like, if your state was powered from a nuclear reactor and you knew that your power came from that base load reactor, then it doesn't matter. Night time. Yeah. Night is fine. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, night is better because then you can balance and because, you know, there's going to be more load during the day. So, at night, you're better off switching it to night. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, there you go.

Chris Gammell: I have like once a week right now. So, it's really, I'm at very, very little impact regardless. Right. Yeah. I don't drive very far, but. No. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But you are trying to be a good energy citizen.

Chris Gammell: Good energy citizen. That's important. Yep.

Dave Jones: Service equals citizenship. Sorry. Thinking of some starship troopers there. Starship. Starship. I knew it. I knew it. Starship troopers. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Man, that's a wild. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Service equals citizenship. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I didn't like the bugs in that movie. Not for me. You didn't?

Dave Jones: Really?

Chris Gammell: No. I'm squeamish, you know. Right. There's some gross, gross scenes. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: There's an analysis video somewhere of how Starship. Oh, you've watched it. How Starship Troopers is big. It's actually based on a book, which I didn't know about. And it's actually a socio-political thing. It actually, this movie actually has a lot to say about the culture and socio-political military stuff. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. It was US military policy and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got all sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah. It's more than just a dumb action flick. You know? Yeah. It's actually, if you analyze it, it has a lot to do with, yeah, culture and politics and war. Yep. Anyway. I did find a 300 millimeter fab energy breakdown.

Chris Gammell: No way.

Dave Jones: Here you go. Yes, I did. I sent you a link. Breakdown. Okay. Air conditioning takes 21%.

Chris Gammell: And Arizona probably higher. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, probably. But hang on. I'm going to have a cough, Fit. Okay. Here we go.

Chris Gammell: Mute. All right. I'll read them off. 21% for air conditioning system. 10% for bulk gas. 8% process cooling water. 5% ultra pure water.

Dave Jones: 6% other.

Chris Gammell: 6%. Wait, so what's the top of the top?

Dave Jones: They're the largest ones. So they've combined tool and sub fab into the same 50%. Got it. So tool and sub fab are 50%. And then they break that down into thin film is 31%. Yeah. And then 19% for diffusion.

Chris Gammell: Diffusion was the word I can't remember. Yeah, that's what it is.

Dave Jones: Yeah. 15% etch, implant. Well, yeah, you have to halve these numbers for the total percentage because these are. Oh, I see. Okay. So this is the other percentage. Okay. So, yeah, it's the 50%. So you have to halve these numbers. So thin film will be 15, 16, something like that, actual percent. And then polish, lithography, implant, clean tech. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Thin film has got to be like CBD and growth, right? So like chemical vapor deposition and then growth using the ovens as well. So like growing oxide, that sort of thing.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Because you've got them in a big furnace or something, right? Or something like that. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's what diffusion is as well. Diffusion is usually like moving the ions deeper into the substrate.

Dave Jones: So you've got to heat them up and you need gigantic element heaters, I guess.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Big like inductive heaters usually.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yes. They take a ton of power. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So there you go. We actually got a breakdown.

Chris Gammell: Interesting. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Hmm. It's interesting that they're talking about potential savings too.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, this report is from an energy efficiency standpoint. So they're just-

Chris Gammell: McKinsey.com. There you go. There's the- McKinsey.com. There's sourced. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know. Who's that?

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's a huge consulting firm. Oh, okay. Right. One of the biggest consulting firms in the world.

Dave Jones: Ah, there you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. Anyway, they've done the breakdown. I guess, yeah, these plants, they hired McKinsey to do a report on how they can save power. So they had to measure and break down where they got them all. So did somebody go in there with a whole bunch of clamp meters and loggers and-

Chris Gammell: No. No. No? No. They went into an office with a spreadsheet like they always do.

Dave Jones: And they got the data sheets for the things and- Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Well, probably they could also, you know, they have meters and all these things, right? They want to know. I'm sure they have-

Dave Jones: Oh, I'm sure it's metered to the Wazoo, right? I'm sure all these fabs have, you know, metering to- Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Because you want to like monitor for like power surges and stuff like that too. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Totally. I'm sure they got, yeah.

Chris Gammell: But no, this is a great find. Yeah. It's interesting.

Dave Jones: Excellent. There you go. Well, I do believe our air powers up. Any dregs?

Chris Gammell: I'm having a meetup tomorrow. I'm not sure anyone's going to show up, Dave.

Dave Jones: Really?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Very low risk.

Dave Jones: That's because you're not on social media anymore. No one can hear you anymore. You're just shouting into that Mastodon void, you know?

Chris Gammell: I don't think I even posted it there. This is-

Dave Jones: He's wondering why nobody turns up and he hasn't even posted it to the only social media thing he's on.

Chris Gammell: So meetup.com is a social media of sorts. Oh, true. Okay. You're still on meetup.com. Okay. That's all that's ever really worked. Right. I don't know. Maybe tomorrow's a bad day. We'll see. We'll see. I got to get my demo going. I got a demo I'm going to take.

Dave Jones: Excellent.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So there's no one signed up at the moment because you can see how many of-

Chris Gammell: There's three people signed up, but if you've ever done meetups before, which you have, that's effectively no one signed up.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's effectively no one.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Although down here, it's been interesting. There's been fewer. It used to be like in Chicago, it'd be like, yeah, 30 people signed up, 10 to 15 show. Down here, I've actually had more people show up than actually signed up.

Dave Jones: Oh, I interact because they bought friends or something or-

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Sometimes there's that. Sometimes they're like, well, I saw the notice, so I just, I didn't click yes.

Dave Jones: Oh, you didn't click yes and they just put it in their calendar.

Chris Gammell: RSVP. Right. Responde. Si vous plait. Please respond.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Said with angry French accent. Yes.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't done a meetup in a long time. Maybe the show's coming up soon in Sydney, so maybe I can do a meetup. Yeah. Do it. I think it's in July or something. June. Something like that. Yeah. Okay. June, I think. Yeah. Late June.

Chris Gammell: All right, man.

Dave Jones: We'll see. Although I had to, although I canceled my meetup.com account because you have to pay monthly to keep it. I know. It sucks. And it was like, well, I do like one event every year or two. It's like, why am I paying monthly for this?

Chris Gammell: See, at that point, then you could do the socials and just do that. Right. Yeah. Put it that way. Yeah. I agree with that. That's what I thought about. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I just canned it, you know, even though it is the thing that works.

Chris Gammell: Right. I mean, yeah. I think there's discoverability on there and like, you know, someone new moving to town, they want to see what's going on. And it's, yeah, it's a good, it's a good bet. It's a good bet. Yeah. So like, you know, now that meetups not owned by WeWork anymore. Oh, really? It was owned by WeWork. Yeah. They bought by WeWork and they spun it back out.

Dave Jones: Oh, and they, and now it's spun back out because WeWork went bust. So someone bought up. WeWork's like always in the process of going bust.

Chris Gammell: I think, I think so. Yeah. I'm not. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Interesting. Oh boy. WeWork. Oh my God. WeWork. They were an office company pretending to be a tech company. That's right. And didn't work. Go figure. It did not. It did not. That's something you could have saved all that money and just went, ask Dave, ask Dave, will this work? Where are we, we just, all we do is actually rent out office space, but we have fancy coffee machines and meeting rooms, but we're actually a tech company.

Chris Gammell: They tried, they tried to ask you at meetups and you just never helped one. That was the problem. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Unbelievable. A lot of companies could save a lot of money if they just asked Dave, you know, or even consult

Chris Gammell: for free. There's consulting. They'll make a PDF for you. Right.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. Yep.

Chris Gammell: All right. All right, man. Well, hope you feel better.

Dave Jones: Thank you very much. I hope so too. I hope the drugs work.

Chris Gammell: Go drugs.

Dave Jones: Yay. Catch you next time.

Chris Gammell: See you soon. Bye.

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