Eat the rich.

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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2025

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  • I had Google help me out with this one. For illustrative purposes, let’s take the Tesla Semi (an electric commercial truck) battery. You could transport about 4 MWh worth of electricity. That’s about 4 months worth of electricity for an average American household. Here’s the details:

    A single Tesla Semi utilizes an estimated 850 kWh to 1,000 kWh battery pack, which weighs approximately 10,000 to 12,000 lbs. If a trailer were filled strictly with these large, fully integrated packs rather than smaller, individual battery cells, only about 4 to 6 of these high-capacity, 1-megawatt-hour systems could physically fit within the weight limits of a standard trailer.

    Battery Capacity & Weight: The Semi uses roughly 1 MWh, which consists of four, high-capacity, smaller packs.

    Total Weight: A full 1 MWh pack weighs between 10,000 lbs (4,570 kg) and 12,000 lbs.

    Capacity Limit: Due to weight restrictions of 80,000 lbs for a loaded semi (with a 2,000 lb increase for EVs), you cannot simply load 80,000 lbs of batteries into a trailer.

    Physical Space: While the trailer has massive volume, the 10,000+ lb per pack weight means the trailer would reach its weight limit long before it is full of, say, Model S packs (if that was the method).



  • Not a fair comparison.

    In a nutshell, you can’t directly replace gas power with electric power. Gotta have some sort of conversion. Gas is very portable and offers big bang. Solar generally needs to be generated on demand or stored. Then it needs to be transported. We can’t transport the solar power from Texas to Michigan the same way we can truck gas across state lines. The longer an electric line, the more power is lost.

    Another issue with this graphic is that it implies that solar panels are a one-time expense. This isn’t true. They generally last about 20 years.

    I’m a champion of green energy, but a stickler for details.