- Julian's Monthly Update
- Posts
- Why hungry sheep are good for solar
Articles
One of the more interesting relationships between countries has been the relationship between the United States and China. Anthony Blinken visited China for the first time this week and had constructive conversations. One of the most important things to realize about US China relations is that both economies are deeply tied to each other.
“Beijing is facing an increasingly challenging geopolitical landscape, as the US blocks China’s access to high-tech chips to thwart its military progress and puts pressure on Xi to condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Geopolitical strains are also deterring foreign investment as China’s economy faces domestic headwinds.”
Solar panels have shade, and sheep love to eat the grass that can cause fire around solar panels. Wait doesn’t this sound idyllic. It is, but Solar Sheep are a solution to two separate problems.
Sheep are very sensitive to heat stress. As temperatures go above 32 degrees celsius and below 12 degrees celsius, their productivity goes down. Solar panels have a major challenge. The grass around them must be kept short and trim to avoid fire hazards, and keep panels highly efficient.
Chips and electricity have proven themselves to be two of the most important resources of the twenty first century. As our economies electrify and digitise, these will only continue to accrue in value.
Intel has decided to invest over $30 billion into chip factories in Germany. As the chip supply chain is moved to the west, we will continue to see larger deals with these manufacturers to move into Western countries.
While this sounds great, Intel isn’t the big player who can really make a difference. Apple just began producing their own silicon, after years of partnering with Intel… why? Because their chips just don’t stack up to the competition’s
The Chip Supply Chain
This is probably the most sought after supply chain in the world. Whoever owns chips, owns compute. Most of the world is betting on compute as being the resource of the future.
Chips are highly complex to make. They require very specific stenography tools that can cut patterns as small as 3 nanometers. The company, which makes the best version of those tools is called ASML. ASML is a Dutch company, which does business with chip producers to sell them their appropriate tools.
Next on the stack is TSMC. TSMC is referred to as a foundry. They do the hard manufacturing work. Designers send TSMC plans to what they want, and TSMC produces them.
Finally is the Chip Designer. A chip designer, like NVIDIA, designs the chip and makes sure it will do all the cool stuff chips can do. What’s interesting about Chip Design companies.
Which part of the stack do you think is most valuable?
Lessons
Finance is the study of evaluating a business for two main unknowns; risk and time. These two factors inform decision making. This week, I began learning about the fundamentals of finance and accounting, using MIT Open Courseware. The most important thing that I learned was that at their core accounting and finance are decision making tools
It’s crucial to set weekly routines. Since I’ve begun planning my weeks on Sundays and reviewing them Fridays, I’ve found myself able to have some sort of overview into what is actually going on in my life.