The Race for Energy Independence™
Solid state energy storage coupled with PV technologies decarbonizes today's world.
The only thing constant is change. It doesn’t matter whether someone believes climate change is due to human activities or other reasons; it is a fact that the climate is changing. Just look around. You don’t need to be a scientist to see the changes – hot temperatures, droughts, and desertification in some parts of the world while other parts are experiencing an increase in hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, flooding, and storm surges.
My grandfather was a mechanical engineer, and so were my uncle and several cousins. My father was a civil engineer. My twin brother is a civil engineer, and I have a mechanical engineering background. When cross-pollinating the two disciplines, you realize energy and water are intertwined. You need water to generate energy, and you need energy to move the water through the system. It is a highly interdependent relationship. Solving the energy storage problem also helps mitigate water scarcity across the world.
Energy and water are intertwined. You need water to generate energy, and you need energy to move the water through the system.
When you look at the energy infrastructure in the United States and the rest of the world, it is aging and highly centralized. It’s a command-and-control system where energy is distributed from central points. Like the Internet, where information went from a centralized system to a distributed system, energy needs to be distributed as fast as possible through the combination of renewable technologies such as solar and wind.
About 80% of the world’s energy¹ is still from fossil sources. Global trade² in coal, oil and natural gas has meant that even countries with their own energy supplies have felt some of the pain of exorbitant prices.³ In the U.S., for example, natural gas and electricity prices are higher than normal because they are increasingly tied to international markets, even though the U.S. is the world’s largest exporter⁴ of liquefied natural gas.⁵
The costs of solar and wind energy have dropped dramatically in the last decade⁶ and now represent the cheapest sources of energy in most regions. The levelized cost of renewable energy worldwide has taken the lead. Onshore wind, solar and hydropower are all below the fossil fuel price range for the average global cost per unit of energy over the lifetime of a power plant. (In U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour.)
David Starr, NASCAR: Las Vegas
NASCAR: Homestead Miami
Even though solar and wind energy has been growing at a rapid pace over the last twenty years, they still have a way to go. The reason they have not become the dominant form of power generation compared to natural gas power plants. And the reason they are not reliable is that the Achilles’ heel of renewable power generation is energy storage.
Energy storage is the Achilles’ heel of renewable power generation because in terms of power generation, solar and wind energy are unreliable compared to natural gas power plants.
Current energy storage technology does not mimic the lifetime of solar and wind technologies. It all comes down to the type of electrochemistry. The leading battery systems today use lithium-ion technologies that last 7-8 years; they are flammable, toxic, and explosive. The problem comes down to the middle part of the battery – the electrolytes are gel-based, which makes them incapable of longer periods of performance and unstable.
There is a solution everyone claims they will have in two or three years.: solid state energy storage. With solid state, the electrolytes are stable, last 3-4 times longer, are non-toxic, non-flammable and non-explosive and last more than 25 years. We are not going to give you an electrochemistry lesson here, but the bottom line is that solid state batteries last more than 25 years, enabling power generation and renewable markets to mimic the financing of PV markets. The ability to finance PV along with solid state batteries over 25 years, is a game changer for energy independence, climate change, decarbonization … it is a game changer for humanity, regardless of your political spectrum or belief in climate change.
Logically, if a homeowner can pay $90 per month for an energy storage system that directly integrates into the current power grid or their rooftop solar panels, they control the energy destiny of their family, state and country. And who doesn’t want that?
The Race to Energy Independence has begun
Amptricity sponsored NASCAR driver David Starr because we love auto racing. Racing is a great analogy to Amptricity’s mission, and we want to electrify all racing formats in the world with our solid state batteries in the near future.
Racing is a great analogy to Amptricity’s mission, and we want to electrify all racing formats in the world with our solid state batteries in the near future.
The Race to Energy Independence for some of you or the Race to Save the Planet for others is symbolic for us. It’s still a race, no matter how you classify it. For the world to have energy security, we must help deploy solid state technology on a global basis. Time is of the essence. We must help people become more energy-independent. I personally experienced the hardships of Dallas’s Snowmageddon in February of 2021, and it wasn’t fun. With no power for three days, temperatures as low as 7 degrees, and five inches of snow and ice, it was dangerous and impossible to escape. Many Texans died. We do not ever want to experience that weather nightmare again .
Having come from the high-tech industry, I’ve been heavily influenced by tech visionaries.
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Bill Gates had a vision to place software and desktop in every home.
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Steve Jobs had a vision to make technology beautiful, fun, and easy to use.
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Jeff Bezos had a vision to digitize commerce.
These are simple and powerful visions. They changed the world.
Our vision is simple too.
Amptricity’s vision is to put our solid state energy storage systems in every home and building at warp speed. Across the world.
Humanity does not have the luxury of time. It’s a race to become energy independent, and right now, the solution to decarbonization is solid state storage coupled with PV technologies.
So let the Race for Energy Independence begin.
