[GWSG] Solid-state batteries on the market; why we are in Venezuela

[Tilley, Al]

1. Donut Labs claims to be producing the first solid-state electric vehicle battery for the market—significantly safer, more powerful, cheaper, less temperature sensitive, and greener than current Li-ion batteries. The Donut battery is destined for motorcycles, but the technology should be little different for electric autos. Links at the bottom of the story take you to parallel developments reported by Mercedes, Toyota, and others. Several Chinese brands are already offering solid state options, though insiders are cautioning that available modestly-priced models may be years away. Still, the energy transition just got a big bump. https://insideevs.com/news/783380/first-production-ready-all-solid-state-battery-official-specs/

2. Executives from Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron denied that the Trump administration consulted them before or after the US military intervention in Venezuela, in contradiction to statements by Donald Trump. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-not-consulted-us-171311809.html
On MS NOW last night Rachel Maddow discussed the implications of this story for our understanding of the purpose of our recent military strike. It cannot be to control the flow of drugs to our country because Trump just pardoned the drug lord from Honduras whom we convicted last year of supplying hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US. (Besides, Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl, nor much else that reaches the US.) It cannot be regime change, or we would not be leaving the Maduro establishment in charge of their country. It is not out of a love for democracy or fair elections. Maddow suggests that the strike was a part of a pattern of accustoming us and the rest of the world to the Trump administration’s use of force, whether in other countries or our own.
A US under martial control by a military dictatorship would be a tragic ordeal under any circumstances. The roll of the dead, already great (with the 600,000 deaths estimated from the disappearance of USAID early on the list), could become prodigious. Yet the dictatorship would pass, as have many others, and we could hope to eventually reestablish civil order. If we had the time to accomplish that, or to wait out the regime.
The climate requires our immediate action. A government dedicated to a reactionary insistence on fossil fuels may not be swayed by such market pressures as the low cost of renewable power or the virtues of solid-state batteries. We are now in extremis on the climate. We must soon cease burning fossil fuels and draw down much of the carbon we have added to the atmosphere and oceans if we are to maintain a livable world. The project of climate action in a reactionary military dictatorship would be a great challenge indeed. The dictatorship is not yet quite established. The coming year could be crucial.

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