Investor That Can See The Future

Chapter 345

I flew to Michigan with Taek-gyu in a private plane to meet Governor Hubble Butler.

Although Governor Butler is a Democrat, he supported Ronald during the presidential election. Because Ronald promised to create a job here.

He was pointed out at the time as a traitor within the Democratic Party, but he was right. Because now his approval rating is over 70%.

We sat down and chatted comfortably.

Detroit is currently experiencing an unprecedented boom. Attracting the game industry, including OTK Games, is another achievement. Faceit also decided to build a research lab to research VR technology and car infotainment.

At this point, re-election is a winning party. It will be of great help when I go to another election later.

So Governor Butler warmly welcomed us.

“Come here.”

Entrepreneurs who invest money and create jobs are welcome wherever they go.

We talked about state support. Negotiations in the broad framework had been completed before the meeting, and it was a meeting to confirm it.

Governor Butler expressed his hopes and promised active support for administrative procedures and taxes.

We then went to the Karos headquarters.

Daryl, as always, looked very tired. As soon as he saw us, he said sternly.

“It’s also a problem that cars sell so well.”

Production is on track, and sales in the US continue well. Fortunately, we got out of the production hell we were worried about.

If you buy 10 servings of ingredients and then sell food, it’s worth it until you sell it to 5 people. The 6th person makes a profit, and the 7th person doubles the profit.

Comparing the sale to 6 people and 10 people, the difference in sales volume is less than double, but the profit is five times greater.

In other words, if there is a company with twice the sales in the same industry, the actual net profit is several times that difference.

With the factory running non-stop, Karos’ profits have soared. If you use this to invest in new industries and technology development, you can continue to widen the distance with latecomers.

Karos has now become a standard for autonomous driving and electric vehicles. Not only the U.S. government, but also governments around the world used Karos’s car as a standard when issuing related permits.

I plan to work with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to create international standards for autonomous driving and electric vehicles. The International Organization for Standardization, as its name suggests, is an organization that makes international standards. When the standard is set here, most companies follow it.

“Currently, the electric vehicle market is divided into high-priced models that use OTK batteries and equipped with autonomous driving, and mid- and low-priced models that use NCM batteries.”

Thanks to the advent of OTK batteries and the operation of TS Company, global battery production has increased significantly. The price of cobalt, which once accounted for more than 30 percent of the cost of batteries, has plummeted, and the price of NCM batteries has fallen significantly.

A fall in price led to an increase in demand.

Companies that think they cannot compete with Karos in terms of technology have poured out electric vehicles at low prices using NCM batteries that have plummeted.

However, the rapid spread of electric vehicles has caused a serious problem.

I sighed inwardly.

When I released the AD3 and AD4, the self-driving electric vehicles I was aiming for, I thought everything was over… … .

“It’s like starting now.”

Daryl smiled bitterly at my words.

“Maybe once we get this sorted out, another one will start.”

Having a lot of work to do in the future means there is room for further growth. should you think good?

* * *

I took the AD4 with Taek-gyu and headed to the OTK Lab.

Even if I wasn’t holding the steering wheel, the car drove along the lane coolly. When I stopped at the signal, the drivers around me looked at me curiously.

Only 300 AD3 and AD4 entered Korea. As it has not yet been officially sold in Korea, it is more than a Ferrari in terms of rarity.

Even if it is not sold, you can rent it through a car-sharing company. There are so many applicants, so even if you apply now, you have to wait two or three months.

Professor Homin Kim welcomed us warmly.

“I had a hard time coming here.”

“It’s hard. I came here to play.”

As we sat down, Professor Homin Kim poured hot water over the mixed coffee and served it.

Taek-gyu doesn’t usually drink coffee, but he drinks mixed coffee occasionally. Taek-gyu took a sip and admired it.

“Hey! Coffee and magazines are also Maxim.”

“… … .”

Can I do an advertisement?

About 200 researchers are actively conducting research at the OTK Research Center. Half of these researchers are foreigners.

Professor Ho-Min Kim is currently the highest authority in the battery industry. Perhaps because of that, he wanted to work with many researchers from all over the world. Daewoo is the best as it is operated with OTK battery patent fees.

Even after receiving the Nobel Prize, Professor Ho-Min Kim was busy. He developed a technology related to vehicle wireless charging technology and started commercializing it with Seoseong SB.

And he is currently developing another battery.

“Is it the battery center to be precise? We are developing a battery that can store the electricity produced by a small power plant.”

Professor Homin Kim explained while drinking coffee.

For the past few decades, the world has tolerated environmental degradation for economic growth. But now things are a little different.

This is because the environment has been destroyed to such an extent that economic growth is no longer possible.

The factory emits fumes. For economic growth, even if there is some inconvenience, we have to endure it. However, if the smoke has reached the point where people cannot breathe, the factory has no choice but to shut down. Or, build a factory that emits no or less soot.

Environmental problems are not a problem that can be solved just by one or two countries’ efforts. Developed countries are seriously aware of this problem, and have entered into international treaties to solve the problem.

Representative examples are the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Taek-gyu, who was listening to the story, said.

“Didn’t President Ronald withdraw from the Paris Agreement?”

Professor Homin Kim nodded his head.

“Unfortunately, it seems that President Ronald is not interested in environmental issues. To the extent that they openly say that global warming is a story made up by conspiracy theorists.”

Unlike other developed countries, the United States has not been active in solving environmental problems from the past. So I withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol.

In any case, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is now a global goal. Therefore, each country has put efforts to increase the share of energy with low greenhouse gas emission.

Germany is one of the most active countries.

The Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 once again reminded the world of the dangers of nuclear power.

As a result, several countries, including Japan, which were victims, declared to phase out nuclear power, and many countries decided to reduce the proportion of nuclear power plants.

Germany has phased out nuclear power and has greatly increased the share of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power.

“The most important thing in power is certainty. But in the case of solar or wind, you can’t even predict what the output will be in five minutes.”

Sometimes it’s overproduced, sometimes it’s underproduced. If you keep the excess electricity as it is, the power grid will be broken. Therefore, it is necessary to send it to the area where it is needed immediately.

Germany has established a power exchange system with neighboring countries for this purpose. If the weather is good and the amount of electricity produced is high, it is sent to another country, and if it is insufficient, electricity from another country is used, and so on.

The problem is that when you sell, you get a low price, but when you buy, you have to pay the full price. Because the only thing I regret when buying or selling is Germany.

The German government was also aware of this problem and was working on ways to store the energy produced in batteries.

“The weight and volume of batteries used in automobiles and electronic devices are important. But if it’s for energy storage, you don’t have to worry too much about that part, so the unit price can be greatly reduced. The problematic part is that the maximum charge capacity decreases as charging and discharging continue, and we are researching ways to slow it down as much as possible.”

By creating a battery center around a wind power generator or solar panel, if a lot of electricity is suddenly produced, it will be automatically charged, and then the electricity stored in the battery will be discharged when the production volume drops.

This opens the way for efficient use of renewable energy.

“Great.”

When I admired, Professor Homin Kim smiled bitterly.

“Yeah, this is also an unfinished book. It only makes renewable energy more efficient, it doesn’t increase electricity production itself.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, Daryl was also concerned about that.”

As the years go by, electricity consumption is increasing rapidly. There are several factors to this.

First of all, due to the development of technology, the number of electronic devices used is increasing. In addition to the electronic devices used at home, there are new air purifiers, clothes management devices, dryers, and AI speakers. All of these are powered by electricity.

Climate change is also a problem. All over the world, summers are getting hotter and winters are getting colder. As a result, electricity consumption for heating and cooling has also reached an annual record high. The amount of electricity used by companies such as data centers and servers continues to increase.

A bigger problem than all of these problems combined is electric vehicles.

Unlike conventional internal combustion locomotives that use gasoline and diesel to heat their engines, electric vehicles use electricity to drive their motors.

Electric vehicles are much more energy efficient than internal combustion engine vehicles. Therefore, it has the effect of reducing the total energy consumption, but instead increases the electricity consumption explosively.

Because of this problem, there was at one time a prospect that hydrogen cars would take over the hegemony of future cars. However, thanks to the development of OTK batteries, electric vehicles have completely pushed out hydrogen cars.

Most experts predicted that electric vehicles would replace internal combustion locomotives in earnest as early as three years later, and countries were also preparing accordingly.

However, when Carlos introduced the self-driving electric vehicle, that time was much earlier than expected.

This year is no different than the first year of electric vehicles.

It is expected that 1 in 10 new car sales this year will be electric. And by next year, that percentage will rise to over 30 percent.

In other words, more than 10 million electric vehicles are dumped on the roads every year. However, compared to the explosive growth of electric vehicles, the expansion of power plants and power grids has been slow.

Fearing that electric power growth could not keep pace with the growth of electric vehicles, some countries have moved to reduce the supply of electric vehicles by reducing subsidies or benefits given to electric vehicles.(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

However, EV prices are falling faster than subsidies are decreasing. If the power problem is not resolved, there may be a situation where electric vehicle sales must be restricted.

“Is Korea okay?”

At Taek-gyu’s question, Professor Ho-min Kim shook his head.

“It’s not very good. From the second half of this year, electricity consumption will increase significantly more than the government expected. Power generation has to match the maximum amount of electricity. For example, I usually use 50, but if I use 100 at any moment, I need to have a facility that can generate at least 110. This year, no matter how hard I try, the next problem is the problem.”

Following Germany, Japan, and Taiwan, South Korea also announced that it would phase out nuclear power. It stopped the construction of new nuclear power plants and banned the extension of the lifespan of old nuclear power plants. Instead, we decided to significantly increase the share of renewable energy.

The government announced that there is no problem with the power reserve ratio even if old nuclear power plants are stopped and new nuclear power plants are not built in view of the increasing demand for electricity, but the variable of expanding the supply of electric vehicles is missing from this plan.

Taehyung narrowed his eyes.

“what? Then this is your responsibility.”

“… … Isn’t that exactly our responsibility?”

If we hadn’t invested, electric vehicles wouldn’t have spread so quickly. Then this issue will be delayed a bit.

If the demand for electricity continues to increase, will there be a problem even if the nuclear power plant is phased out?

Nuclear power is responsible for the base generation of electricity. Base power generation means that it operates 24 hours a day and is responsible for the base of electricity.

This area is filled by nuclear power plants and coal power plants, which are inexpensive. Then, when demand increases, LNG power plants are fully operated.

“What if we still can’t meet the electricity demand?”

“Then Black Out… … In other words, there is a great blackout.”

Electricity is the foundation of modern civilization. No civilization can exist without electricity.

The conclusion is that electricity consumption will increase explosively in the future, and the amount of power generation needs to be increased. As for how to increase it, people will have different opinions.

Taegyu said.

“When you watch movies or novels, you hear that a huge energy source like nuclear fusion comes out and solves all problems at once.

Professor Ho-min Kim grinned.

“Maybe one day it really will be. But right now it’s too much. New technologies don’t just pop out one day, but are built on the basis of existing technologies.”

Not to mention laptops and smartphones, even a simple machine such as a toaster can be made only if the technological prowess of society as a whole rises to a certain level.

It was possible because the technology of the existing LFP and NCM batteries was the basis for making the OTK battery.

“Professor, what do you think about nuclear phase out?”

At my question, Professor Homin Kim said while scratching his head.

“I am in favor of increasing the share of renewable energy. It is the opposite in terms of stopping nuclear power generation. There is no other alternative at this time.”