Near Future

Is Decentralized Manufacturing the Key to our Clean Energy Future?

April 5, 2022 By admin Leave a Comment

The sanctions have resulted in excess production in Russia. The trading companies in Europe can only buy and store so much oil for future refinement. That means that Russia’s storage facilities and pipelines are at full capacity. I don’t think it will be long before wells shut down because there is no place to put the oil.

Some might think, “Great! Serves them right!” But there are other implications…

Once these wells shut down, or freeze, new wells must be drilled. It could take years, or even a decade, before Russia’s production returns to 2021 levels.

And that means much higher prices for oil in many parts of the world for an extended period of time. I believe that Europe will eventually see $200 a barrel.

Only countries that have the capacity for domestic production will be able to keep oil below $100 a barrel. Prices in the $120–150 range will be considered normal.

The U.S., however, is fortunate to have strong domestic production capabilities. And as I predicted on Monday, I believe that the current administration will have to ramp up domestic production and likely ban oil exports in the interest of keeping oil, and thus gasoline prices, down.

It will be entirely political, but it will happen nonetheless. This will, of course, come at the expense of other countries who would like to purchase excess production.

It has never been more obvious that we need energy-producing technology that will meet the world’s energy requirements in a fully decentralized manner, where no one country can have such an outsized – and negative – impact on the global economy.

The three most critical and fundamental needs of the human race are food, potable water, and energy. Yes, love and friendship count, too. But without food, water, and energy, there wouldn’t be a human race.

Limitless, abundant, and clean energy across the planet can bring abundance in both food and water (think desalinization). Imagine a world in which there would be no need for any geopolitical conflict caused by the need for energy. Sources of energy have been the driver of war for centuries.

The answer is, of course, the power of the Sun – the nuclear reactions that literally sustain life on Earth by making the planet habitable. It’s time for the world to step up and make nuclear fusion a reality.

Carbon-free, emission-free, abundant, and limitless power… Some forms of which don’t produce any nuclear waste at all.

If we don’t solve the problem for clean, utility-scale, baseload energy production, we’re going to be suffering decades more of geopolitically-driven pain and suffering largely caused by the puppet masters toying with our own life and liberty.

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The all-seeing orb is cashing up…

We talked about Worldcoin and its all-seeing orb back in November. This creepy project is moving forward faster than expected…

For the sake of new readers, Worldcoin envisions creating a global monetary system.

Worldcoin’s plan is to scan everyone’s retina to create a unique biometric identity. That identity then becomes a digital wallet for the project’s cryptocurrency, Worldcoin (WDC).

The device that scans retinas is “the Orb.” It’s a silver orb that looks like the palantir “seeing stones” in The Lord of the Rings movie series.

Worldcoin is aggressively pushing the Orb on consumers. The project’s goal is nothing short of capturing every eyeball on the planet. And Worldcoin is giving away “free” WDC to everyone who scans their retina as an incentive.

“Orb operators” are also incentivized to sign people up by awarding the operators WDC for their services. Worldcoin reports that the “best” orb operators can sign up about 1,000 people a week with a single orb.

Well, Worldcoin just raised $100 million in a WDC token sale… at a $3 billion valuation. That’s steep given the project is still in its early stages.

Among the institutions that purchased WDC tokens were crypto-focused powerhouse venture capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, and Digital Currency Group (DCG). In addition, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman personally invested in Worldcoin’s token sale.

This is a powerhouse of backers. I’m a bit surprised to see them investing in Worldcoin at a $3 billion valuation… especially considering the privacy issues around taking biometric data from people.

Of course, Worldcoin’s mission sounds very altruistic. It’s all about global financial inclusion. And its website is even set up as a ‘.org’.

But to me, this is the same pitch we got from Facebook (now Meta). And we know how poorly Facebook has treated its users’ data.

So I’m very skeptical. And I don’t believe for a moment that our biometric information will be kept “safe.” I absolutely recommend readers stay as far away from Worldcoin’s Orb as possible… Please don’t look “deep into its eye.”

Still, we will need to keep a close eye on this project going forward. Worldcoin’s cryptocurrency, WDC, might just be a good speculation at some stage.

And with $100 million in new funding and powerhouse backers, Worldcoin is setting itself up to gain some serious momentum…

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More evidence that decentralized manufacturing is the future…

Tesla just opened its first European factory in Germany last week.

This is a remarkable development given all the chaos unfolding in Europe right now. And it clearly demonstrates the major shift in manufacturing we have been tracking in The Bleeding Edge…

As we know, people hold the German auto industry in high regard. German-made cars are typically associated with high quality and attention to detail.

However, Germany is also known for high labor costs. Labor unions are very strong in the country. The average workweek for German auto workers is just 35 hours per week. I can’t imagine what that would feel like… A light week for me is 70 hours.

The high costs and relatively low hours make it expensive to manufacture in Germany. Yet Tesla plans to produce half a million vehicles every year in this new factory.

In other words, Tesla’s automation technology has made it economical to produce cars in high-cost markets for the first time in decades.

And this allows Tesla to manufacture much closer to its target markets. This is the decentralized manufacturing trend that has been gaining steam over the last several years.

For the last several decades, nearly all manufacturing has been centralized in China and Southeast Asia. Then companies would ship the finished goods to consumers in the U.S. and Europe. This makes for complex supply chains that, as we discovered, are subject to major disruption.

Tesla is breaking that cycle. We are witnessing a dramatic shift towards decentralized manufacturing and something called reshoring.

And it’s all thanks to automation. Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) can now boost productivity and make manufacturing economical in the West again.

This is a trend that will accelerate for the rest of this decade.

And we’ll continue to find ways to profit as the trend continues.

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NVIDIA’s $1 trillion opportunity…

NVIDIA just held its annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC).

To me, this is one of the most important conferences of the year. I always drop in to listen to CEO Jensen Huang’s presentations.

And Huang’s presentation this year was certainly special. He announced NVIDIA’s new AI semiconductor architecture. It’s called the Hopper chip family – named after computer scientist Grace Hopper.

The Hopper chips are designed to replace NVIDIA’s Ampere chips. And get this – the first Hopper-based chip, H100, provides nine times the performance of its predecessor. This is a revolutionary step forward.

The new chip uses 4 nanometer (nm) processing technology. And it consists of 80 billion transistors. That’s 68% more than the Ampere chips.

So the Hopper chips represent almost a magnitude jump in performance. And that opens the door to a massive market opportunity.

With this new product, Huang said the company is targeting industries with $100 trillion in revenue. And he believes NVIDIA can capture 1% of that.

In other words, NVIDIA has a $1 trillion-a-year opportunity.

Here’s the breakdown of where NVIDIA thinks this $1 trillion in revenue will come from:

$300 billion – Automotive industry
$300 billion – Data center applications
$150 billion – AI for enterprise software
$150 billion – AI software for the Omniverse (NVIDIA’s word for metaverses)
$100 billion – Gaming industry

Incredible.

And what stands out to me most is how far NVIDIA has come since I first recommended the company in February of 2016. That was at a small conference focused on high-net-worth investors and family offices.

At the time, NVIDIA was considered to be just a video game tech company. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) were primarily used almost exclusively for gaming.

But I knew that NVIDIA’s GPUs would ultimately enable AI and machine learning applications at scale, as well as power autonomous vehicles. That was my pitch in 2016. NVDA was trading around $24 per share at the time.

Fast forward to today, and my predictions all came true. NVDA trades around $283 a share. Anyone who bought on my original recommendation in 2016 is now up 4,290%.

And subscribers to The Near Future Report are up 721% on my official recommendation in that publication. (If you’d like to learn more about joining us, go right here for more information.)

This is such an incredible success story. NVIDIA is a textbook example of what’s possible when bleeding-edge technology is applied to explosive growth markets.

What’s more, NVIDIA’s new chip architecture will lead to incredible breakthroughs in the field of AI and machine learning in 2023 when Hopper becomes widely available. I can’t wait to see what comes from this.

Regards,

Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge

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Impossible Foods Targets a $10 Billion Valuation

April 14, 2021 By admin Leave a Comment

The IPO rumor mill is swirling with news that Impossible Foods could be preparing for a $10 billion IPO. Yes, you read that right — $10 billion.

If you aren’t familiar with the company, it develops plant-based substitutes for meat products — similar to the recently IPO'd Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND). You could say that Beyond Meat sort of started the craze for plant-based food alternatives and substitutes for meat products with its IPO. There weren't too many people talking about plant-based alternatives until the news of Beyond Meat’s market debut. Now, most grocery stores have a special (and growing) section for plant-based alternatives.

Impossible Foods was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. The company aims to move the food system in a more sustainable way. It has become famous for using heme protein in its burgers, which allows the burgers to have a similar taste to beef. And last year, the company announced that it is aiming toward producing a vegan alternative to dairy milk, which Impossible Foods claims will have the taste and appearance of real cow’s milk. It will be sourced from plant proteins and be used the way dairy milk is used in cereals, recipes, and coffee drinks — even foaming up the exact same way as cow’s milk — a very important aspect for many coffee drinkers.

The company’s website reads:

The outside world, Impossible Foods is a food company — but at its heart is an audacious yet realistic strategy to turn back the clock on climate change and stop the global collapse of biodiversity.

You could say that is a little bit of what Impossible Food’s mission consists of.

The company recently launched its first national TV ad campaign, which could the start of building brand awareness for potential investors and orchestrating hype surrounding a possible IPO or even a move to go public through the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) route. The company was valued near $4 billion in a recent private funding round in 2020. Some of those venture capital investors have raised about $1.5 billion in the private market. They include Khosla Ventures and Horizon Ventures — along with some celebrity investors like Serena Williams, Natalie Portman, and Jay-Z.

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Within the past year and since Beyond Meat went public, Impossible Foods has been able to make a name for itself. It has surged in popularity, which has helped bring in private funding from investors. With this growth, it has been able to expand its retail distribution from 150 stores to more than 20,000 major supermarkets in the last year.

Impossible Foods isn’t the only thing that’s been growing. A report from the Good Food Institute and Plant-Based Foods Association (PBFA) indicates that U.S. plant-based retail sales increased by 27% — reaching $7 billion in 2020. According to Grand View Research, “The global plant-based meat market size was valued at $3.3 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.4% from 2020–2027.” And that’s just focused on the plant-based meat market and doesn’t include plant-based dairy alternatives.

These markets will continue to grow and experience increased demand as more people search for alternatives for food products that are high in fiber, vitamin C, and iron and lower in saturated fats and calories. Not to mention these products have a longer shelf life, so they aren’t wasted by grocery stores or consumers because a product has gone bad before it can be used. The greatest free investment you'll ever make.

Throughout 2020, we increased production and achieved record economies of scale, which we passed on to customers with an average 15% wholesale price cut in March — the first of many to come. We accelerated a long-term project to achieve zero waste and modernized our waste infrastructure. We scaled up production of heme — our “magic ingredient” — to keep our supply chain strong. 2020 was the most transformative year since the 2016 launch of commercial operations.

Impossible Foods has partnered with some fast-food restaurants to expose their products to consumers who otherwise would have no interest in plant-based alternatives. Impossible Foods has offered its plant-based burgers with Burger King, Carl’s Jr., and White Castle. A research analyst with Euromonitor, Alex Jarman, had this to say when it came to these types of partnerships with a company like Impossible Foods:

The introduction of a plant-based line by the world’s largest fast-food chain will certainly challenge these brands’ dominance of the plant-based market. In recent years, chains such as Burger King and White Castle gained a competitive advantage against McDonald’s by introducing plant-based options on their menus.

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More partnerships like the ones with popular food chains will spread brand awareness to Impossible Foods and that could result in the company being a market leader in the plant-based food and beverage market. If Impossible Foods can come up with an alternative to dairy milk that tastes similar and is used the same way as dairy milk, that would be a game-changer for the company and the market.

A public debut could happen for Impossible Foods within the next year and could value the company at about $10 billion. If a public debut is in the near future, then you better believe you'll be seeing more Impossible Foods advertising and maybe even more partnerships with other well-known companies to help get its products and name out to the public who otherwise would have no idea what this company is about or what it offers to consumers.

Until next time,

Monica Savaglia
IPO Specialist

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Rivian to install more than 10,000 EV chargers by end of 2023

April 8, 2021 By admin Leave a Comment

Rivian, the EV startup backed by Amazon, Cox Automotive, and T. Rowe Price, plans to install more than 10,000 chargers by the end of 2023. The network will have a dual purpose: quickly power its electric vehicle models with fast chargers installed along highways and provide Level 2 chargers at further afield locations next to parks, trailheads, and other adventurous destinations.

The company said Thursday that its so-called Rivian Adventure Network will include more than 3,500 DC fast chargers at over 600 sites, which will only be accessible to owners of its electric vehicles. Each site will have multiple chargers and located on highways and main roads, often by cafes and shops, the company said in a blog post Thursday.

Rivian is also installing thousands of “waypoint” Level 2 AC chargers throughout the United States and Canada. These waypoint chargers will have an 11.5 kW charging speed, which should be able to add up to 25 miles of range every hour for its R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV. The waypoint chargers will be strategically located along and near routes that Rivian customers are likely to take. They will be found at shopping centers restaurants, hotels, campsites, and parks. The first of these waypoints, which will be open to the public and accessible to all electric vehicle brands with a J1772 plug, are being installed at all 42 Colorado State Parks. Each park will have two Rivian Waypoints each, with installation starting in July, the company said.

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The decision to add this second layer of electric vehicle chargers is a direct appeal to Rivian’s customer base and one required to build confidence in the brand and electric vehicles, in general, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe told TechCrunch late last year during a wide-ranging interview about charging, batteries and automated driving.

Rivian’s approach is similar to Tesla with a few distinct differences. Tesla has built a proprietary network of more than 20,000 Superchargers, which are typically located next to highways and busy commuter corridors, and destination chargers installed at high-end hotels, restaurants and other spots an owner of a Model 3, Model S, Model Y or Model X might visit.

Rivian’s waypoint chargers serve the same purpose — albeit different kinds of locations — to the Tesla destination chargers. However, unlike Tesla’s chargers, Rivian’s waypoint site are open to the public and use the J1772 plug, a North American standard for electrical connectors for electric vehicles.

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As part of its announcement, Rivian shared an image of a map of its fast chargers, indicating where they will be located. The map is not yet interactive, making it difficult to provide exact locations, but it appears that there are fast chargers located near Grand Canyon National Park as well as Zion National Park in Utah.

Rivian owners will be able to locate the waypoints as well as its branded fast chargers through the vehicle’s navigation and the accompanying app. Drivers will also be able to use the app or in-car system to and monitor charge status.

Rivian’s vehicles are equipped with a direct current connector used for rapid charging called Combined Charging System (CCS). CCS is an open international standard that in recent years has gained popularity in Europe and North America. This means that Rivian trucks and SUVs can also use any third-party CCS charging station without having to use an adapter.

The company indicated that the entire charging network will be powered by 100% renewable energy. That doesn’t mean that there will be a solar panel and energy storage system. Rivian clarified to TechCrunch at there will not be solar or wind on site. Instead, the 100% renewable energy goal will be achieved through partnerships with electricity providers. Rivian said it will use wind and solar wherever possible along with Renewable Energy Certificates to offset other power sources.

Building out such a large network will require capital, which Rivian hasn’t had trouble accessing. Rivian announced in January that it had raised $2.65 billion in a round led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Fidelity Management and Research Company, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Coatue, and D1 Capital Partners as well as several other existing and new investors also participated, which pushed Rivian’s valuation to $27.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the investment round.

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Kirsten Korosec

Near Future

In this Article:

The all-seeing orb is cashing up…

More evidence that decentralized manufacturing is the future…

NVIDIA’s $1 trillion opportunity…