293: Sodium Battery Fade

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A smart panel adds a few thousand dollars to an already expensive project, so Matt asks the awkward question straight out. Reynolds Holmes, VP of Product at SPAN, answers with a test: will you add an EV, a battery, a heat pump, or a new AC in the next ten years? If yes, he argues the future proofing pays for itself, and he explains why judging the decision on twelve months of old utility bills is backwards math. Matt also pushes on privacy, local API access, and what happens to your hardware if SPAN ever disappears. Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, Why is Disney World Grinding Glass Into Sand? https://youtu.be/o5AeXRChgVQ?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ Chapters: 00:00: Intro 02:49: Reynold’s Holmes Interview 47:13: Feedback Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evNiSMCU0lg Support the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/ Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fm YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbd YouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/join Get in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/ Follow us on: Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrell Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.social Undecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Perovskite solar has promised a revolution for over a decade, so is it finally real? Matt and Sean talk with Joel Jean, co-founder and CEO of Swift Solar, the US startup spun out of MIT and Stanford. Joel explains how stacking a perovskite film on top of silicon lifts a solar cell's efficiency ceiling from 30 percent to about 45 percent. He also breaks down the three "tooth fairies" every new solar technology has to solve: performance, lifetime, and cost. So is perovskite tandem solar finally ready for your roof? Or is 25 year durability still one miracle away? Chapters: 00:00: Intro 03:20: Joel Jean Interview 41:02: The Super Soaker Mailbag Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtmX0st3uOk Support the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/ Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fm YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbd YouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/join Get in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/ Follow us on: Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrell Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.social Undecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most smart homes hand your house to Big Tech. Home Assistant is proof they don't have to.

The inventor of the Super Soaker, Dr. Lonnie Johnson, joins Matt to talk about his most ambitious project yet: the JTEC, a heat engine with no moving parts that converts low-grade waste heat straight into electricity. They get into how it actually works, why Johnson thinks it could run far more efficiently than what we use today, and the long road from a 2003 idea to the first commercial unit. Plus how a billion-dollar water gun quietly funded a quarter-century of clean-energy research. Chapters: 00:00: Intro 05:06: Dr. Lonnie Johnson Interview 32:36: Previous Episode Feedback Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhbPajWdgUk Support the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/ Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fm YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbd YouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/join Get in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/ Follow us on: Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrell Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.social Undecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.