Chapter 272 Podcast from a Rival

“No, I don’t think so. First of all, China’s third-generation perovskite battery technology has not yet announced specific parameters, so we cannot be sure how big the gap is between us and them.

Secondly, the underlying technical logic is the same, we are just lagging behind in parameters and we have every chance to catch up.

I think the gap between them is definitely smaller than the gap between China and us in semiconductors in previous years.

We have already achieved the technological advancement from zero to one, so there is hope for subsequent catch-up.

It is not like room-temperature superconductivity or topological semimetals. The latter are okay and are products with traces that can be traced, but the former is completely a product of God's blessing.

If God doesn’t bless us and we are unlucky, we may not be able to make it in a hundred years.” Frank also expressed his optimism about the perovskite battery industry and his pessimism about room-temperature superconductivity.

Mitai, who was sitting next to him, looked shocked: "Is room-temperature superconductivity so difficult?
Didn’t Wright publish the principle of their technology synthesis route? I watch CNN and Fox reports, which often report on the latest technological progress of major domestic laboratories on room-temperature superconductivity. "

Frank pursed his lips and said, “Yes, it is that difficult.

You know, domestic media is very fond of selective reporting.

The reports by CNN and Fox are not wrong, but they didn't tell you the premise.

For example, there are 100 million ways to synthesize room-temperature superconductors, and we eliminate of them every year. Do you think there is progress? Yes, to be honest, eliminating is a lot of work, and it is a big achievement.

But it is still a long way from success, because theoretically, the successful synthesis method may be the millionth one, which means it will take you 100 years.

What’s more, there may be more than a million technical routes for room-temperature superconductivity.”

When it comes to manipulating topics, the American media's technical means are much more advanced than those of China.

China simply refuses to report it and plays dead. Anyway, you won’t see me pretending to be dead.

The American media adopts a completely new approach. For example, when someone is stabbed, they report that someone was scratched by a teleprompter fragment, without mentioning that there was a shooter at the scene.

Then it mentions that a gunman from a certain terrorist organization carried out a shooting. In fact, the shooting took place in New York, and someone was assassinated in Washington. The two pieces of news are put together on the page.

It is natural for the audience to think that someone's assassination is the act of a terrorist organization.

"So there's a problem with the technical route announced by Wright?" Ted knew that the audience liked to hear this kind of content.

“Of course not, Wright’s paper has been rigorously demonstrated and there is no problem in theory.

His paper is like telling everyone that water can be decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen. Is that wrong? No, water can indeed be decomposed into these two components.

But would it be useful to tell you this a thousand years ago? No, people couldn't figure out how to decompose it into oxygen and hydrogen even if they racked their brains.

Because direct current was not discovered until the 17th century by Franklin, and it was not until the 18th century that it was stably applied.

Even if people knew this theory earlier, they had no way to put it to use.

There are no loopholes in the theory, but you can't reproduce it through this theory. China has relied on this theory to prepare room-temperature superconductors on a large scale." Frank used a metaphor to explain to Ted and the audience.

“I’ve heard similar opinions as you have.

But China has already done it. Whether it is a quantum computer or a superconducting electromagnetic emission device, these are indisputable facts. The samples provided by China to France have also been fully verified and there are no problems.

How did China do it? "

From theory to laboratory to industrialization, there is a huge gap at every step.

Frank smiled bitterly: “I don’t know, I really don’t know.

There are all kinds of speculations among the people, some saying that China obtained alien technology, some saying that China obtained God's revelation, and some saying that it was just coincidence. I think only the Chinese people know the truth behind this.

But it's really, really hard.

Room-temperature superconductivity is like the Chinese built a huge city out of thin air on the plains. This city has basically nothing to do with the scattered buildings on the plains before.

The only connection may be LK99 invented by the Koreans.
I think it is difficult for the Koreans themselves to understand. We invented LK99, but we haven't figured out how to develop LK99 into room-temperature superconductivity, yet China is already using room-temperature superconductivity.

As for perovskite batteries, it is also like building a city. The Chinese have inherited the legacy of academia and industry.

There are traces to follow. Because the sub-field of perovskite batteries has been developed in academia for many years, it is a very mature field with many papers to refer to.

We started with silicon-based materials. We believed in silicon at that time. The first note we printed for the company was 'Don't lose to stone', with a silicon symbol on the back. It was actually not popular at that time.

Because there were nearly 200 solar startups at the time, many of which were working on alternative materials. We were one of the few survivors of that group of companies, silicon was here to stay, and now we are more dominant than ever.

Now someone is standing in front of us and telling us that perovskite is the future. We no longer need to doubt which path is right, we just need to follow the footsteps of our predecessors.

If we use numbers to measure the difficulty, the difficulty of perovskite batteries is at most 10, and room-temperature superconductivity is . "

Don’t think that the Americans won’t cross the river by feeling the stones. The American industrial sector has often crossed the river by feeling the stones.

"After listening to the experts' opinions, I have much more confidence in America's photovoltaic industry," Mitai joked.

Frank said: “Of course, I always had confidence in it.

It’s just that I think the support provided by our government is far behind that of China.

We should increase our support in this regard.

I mentioned before that I have been to China frequently in the past two or three years. China itself has an advantage in talent, and of course we can also take advantage of China's talent advantage now.

The White House's directive quickly eliminated the imbalance in competition for talent between our two sides.

But China has always had subsidies, and these subsidies made it difficult for foreign competitors to compete in the past. Now that China has achieved technological leadership, they are still using subsidies.

Compared with China, the subsidies from America have neither reached the companies that really need them nor achieved the desired effect.”

Mitai was very interested: "Can you tell me more about this?"

"Of course, China is like drip irrigation, it is a very targeted subsidy," Frank said.

People always choose to say things that are beneficial to themselves. Frank would not say that before this, China was also flooded with money. In the past, photovoltaic companies had to rely on subsidies to survive, and then batches of them went bankrupt before the current situation came about.

"Our subsidies are completely determined by the White House. If it says you are a photovoltaic enterprise to be supported, then you are one. Even if photovoltaic business only accounts for 1% of your total business, it can give you higher subsidies than other enterprises whose business is 100% photovoltaic.

There will be a situation where a small area of ​​farmland is heavily watered, while other larger areas of farmland have little or no water.

I think the White House has to make adjustments in this regard.

We actually feel that the photovoltaic industry has gotten a lot better over the past decade. We have solved a lot of problems.

We need to take substantive measures to address climate change now. Photovoltaics must be an important part of the solution.

We as a people, as a nation, as a species have to recognize that climate change is a problem that needs to be solved. You need to incentivize businesses to be part of the solution, rather than continuing with the way we currently produce energy.”

This is an accusation against the current White House.

Honestly speaking, if it weren’t for the technological breakthroughs in China’s photovoltaic industry, which put tremendous pressure on the current White House, they wouldn’t have gotten any subsidies at all.

They can't even get this kind of random subsidy.

Because this White House is not interested in new energy at all, they are even more interested in traditional energy.

Therefore, people working in the American photovoltaic industry are grateful to China. Without China, they would have died long ago.

"So you think that if we continue to invest in the photovoltaic industry, it will help us improve our current climate problems?" Ted asked.

"Of course, China's goal is to achieve photovoltaics accounting for more than 2060% of their energy by .

Now it seems that this goal can be achieved before 2040, and our Chinese colleagues are very confident about this.

While Europe is unwilling to let Chinese products occupy their market in many areas, it is only in the photovoltaic field that Europe is very cooperative.

Because they know that they can only buy Chinese products. No matter how important the slogan is, they have to face the reality.

When everyone starts using photovoltaics, fossil energy will gradually decline. We must face this reality.

This is not just a climate issue, it is also an issue of industrial change. American cannot ignore it, let alone be absent from this industrial transformation.”

But even if America subsidizes these companies, can they catch up?
I'm afraid it will be difficult.

Because America's problems are systemic and cannot be solved by subsidies.

Taking the topic of rednecks, which is very popular in America and even around the world, through Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" you can get a glimpse into the problems that rednecks themselves face during the decline of American manufacturing.

In Vance's eyes, the problems faced by rednecks have little to do with income.

He was born in Appalachia, a place where men receive government relief, work reluctantly, drink, beat their wives and children, and eventually abandon them.

Arguments, drug abuse, divorce, promiscuity, alcoholism, and violence are the norm in life.

He wrote at the beginning of the book:

"A certain company had 12 employees with a good salary of $32000 a year. At that time, a good apartment only cost $500 a month to rent. The income was high but the prices were not high.

But the company has a hard time recruiting warehouse managers.

One of the employees is a 19-year-old named Bob, who works in the company with his girlfriend.
His girlfriend was pregnant at the time, and the company was very nice to them, arranging a job for his girlfriend to answer the phone. However, these two performed very poorly in the company.

Bob is late every day.
He has to go to the toilet 3 to 4 times a day, and each time takes more than half an hour, which means he basically spends 2 hours a day just going to the toilet.

His girlfriend doesn't even want to do the work of connecting the phone, and she skips work every two days without notifying the other party in advance.

Finally, Bob was fired. When he was fired, Bob yelled at his manager: "How could you do this to me! Don't you know my girlfriend is pregnant?"

With such labor quality, even if the photovoltaic industry returns to America, it cannot solve the redneck problem.

CubicPV can recruit engineers from China, can they recruit front-line workers from China?

Obviously it can't be done.

Therefore, even if CubicPV spends a lot of money to build an unmanned factory and gives the money to artificial intelligence companies, they are still unwilling to hire ordinary workers.

If TSMC had understood this earlier and used only 4V engineers and artificial intelligence from their own company, their factory in America would have gone into production long ago.

The problems of China and America are similar. It is a lie that the lower-class people will be able to get a share of the pie when China's industrial upgrading occurs. It is also a lie that the living conditions of the rednecks will improve if manufacturing returns to America.

However, the difference between the two is that the reason why the lower-class people in China cannot get a share of the cake is because of the distribution method. Most of the groups here can be regarded as first-class labor force no matter which country they are in.

The problems of the rednecks cannot be solved because they are essentially caused by themselves.

The podcast didn't cause any splash after it was broadcast, but it was forwarded to Bilibili by a certain up-host in China, and gained a lot of views after adding subtitles.

"The guest of this podcast episode is the CEO of a photovoltaic company invested by Bill Gates, an alumnus of Guangshen, and an absolute great guy."

"After watching this podcast, I can only say that room-temperature superconductivity is really difficult, and it comes from the certification of the Americans."

"It would be strange if it wasn't difficult. The Koreans who invented LK99 all moved to America with their families. It's unclear whether they went there voluntarily or were forced to do so.

Didn’t some uploaders go to explore the venue where they released LK99 before? Then they were taken away by the Korean police, who said they were no longer in Korea and told them not to go.

That damn place has been turned into a protected area.”

"I can only say that we are lucky to have the God of Light. If America had developed room-temperature superconductivity earlier, I can't imagine how China in that parallel universe would have competed head-on.

The Americans give you Zenith technology every now and then, and you have no way to do anything about it but watch.

For example, the Shenzhou-Guangzhou A-class spacecraft was launched by SpaceX, and the room-temperature superconducting electromagnetic launch tower was built by NASA. The domestic intelligent people are absolutely excited. "

"Fuck, forget it. I can't even think about it. I saw some freaks on Twitter write short stories similar to The Man in the High Castle that described the timeline of how America mastered room-temperature superconductivity. If anyone is interested, I'll look for the link."

"No wonder these people abroad are calling for us to release our room-temperature superconducting technology. With a probability of one in a million, you should release it."

(End of this chapter)