Jason Badeaux

A system is a public utility if it is permissionless, rent-free, and does something useful.

With the right mechanisms in place, DERs will create a flexible grid by helping supply meet demand in a dynamic system. This represents a very exciting opportunity for electrification, with several software companies already developing solutions to make electricity demand digital and efficient.

I found something else surprising about previous energy transitions. Each one later enabled new modes of transport and new materials which were very hard to conceive of during its early phases. In each of the past transitions, the energy source unlocked new distribution technologies and materials that helped drive more adoption for the energy... See more

Tesla’s vision is simply batteries everywhere, for everything, all the time. And that means Tesla is going to need to produce a lot of batteries.

Resiliency is DERs killer app. I’d like to do a study of how much search traffic from users asking “how can I install a battery in my house?” spikes after wildfires in CA, hurricanes in NY, or big freezes in Texas once again knock out the power grid. This is a now universal problem and overtime, resiliency benefits will lead to more and more users... See more

Elon Musk explained his commitment to the Model 3 launch, when he said: “The reason I slept on the floor was not because I couldn’t go across the road and be at the hotel, it was because I wanted my circumstances to be worse than anyone else at the company on purpose. Like whatever pain they felt, I wanted mine to be worse. That’s why I did it. And... See more

And when was the last time you tried to go to fill up your tank and you couldn’t because there was no fuel? The 70's? That was one of the worst existential crises our real economy has faced since the Great Depression. This is a far more frequent occurrence on the electricity grid: nodes can’t function individually, unlike how cars and boilers can.

By offering blockchain-based tokens, Helium incentivizes anyone to own a Hotspot and provide wireless coverage—so the network belongs to participants, not a single company. A network can be scaled much faster and more economically than if a single company tried to build out infrastructure.