An interesting excerpt from a recent Straubel session given by Tesla’s JB Q&A explains that the company were so determined the massive Gigafactory in Nevada should be completely solar-powered, they didn’t even connect a natural gas pipe, leaving no choice but to use renewable energy. Q&A said: “The other interesting thing is we wanted to manage the emissions from the Gigafactory. Solar power can do some of that, but we took kind of a radical move in the beginning and said we are not going to burn any fossil fuels in the factory. You know, zero emissions. We are going to build a zero-emissions factory — just like the car. So, instead of kind of fighting this battle in hindsight, we just said we are not even going to have a natural gas pipeline coming to the factory, so we didn’t even build it. And it kind of forced the issue. When you don’t have natural gas, you know, none of the engineers can say, “Oh, but it will be more efficient, let me use just a little bit.” Sorry, we don’t even have it.”
An interesting excerpt from a recent Q&A session given by Tesla’s JB Straubel explains that the company were so determined the massive Gigafactory in Nevada should be completely solar-powered, they didn’t even connect a natural gas pipe, leaving no choice but to use renewable energy. Straubel said: “The other interesting thing is we wanted to manage the emissions from the Gigafactory. Solar power can do some of that, but we took kind of a radical move in the beginning and said we are not going to burn any fossil fuels in the factory. You know, zero emissions. We are going to build a zero-emissions factory — just like the car. So, instead of kind of fighting this battle in hindsight, we just said we are not even going to have a natural gas pipeline coming to the factory, so we didn’t even build it. And it kind of forced the issue. When you don’t have natural gas, you know, none of the engineers can say, “Oh, but it will be more efficient, let me use just a little bit.” Sorry, we don’t even have it.”