Category Archives: Life

Energy storage have been in existence for a really long time even before the rise of solar panels, wind power and electric vehicles. In fact, batteries has been a very core enabling technology for us to go wireless, to have sensors in places which are inaccessible, and to have any operable portable gadget at all. Batteries have transformed the concept of portability and its advancement have allowed for that. In most cases, the needs in the development of other products is what drives the development of batteries rather than the other way around.

And because of that, the economics of batteries and battery technology tend to always lag behind actual products and services. That means that if you have a product, such as EV that really needs good batteries to work well and serve the right customers, then the customers you serve must be willing to take on the price point with the costs derived from battery costs. And in order to improve your product, you have to dive into battery technology. EV is the best example of how the vehicle companies have to team up with battery manufacturers or get involved in improving the batteries themselves so they weigh less, can be more compact, delivers more power and can be charged quickly. One could say that most of the capabilities, convenience of the electric car comes through the improvements in battery technologies.

That has some spill-over effects: people are eyeing grid-scale batteries as another means to improve grid performance and provide some kind of insurance against the intermittency that solar and wind have in the system. The problem with this market however, is that there is no clear market. Projects in Australia has demonstrated that it is necessary for multiple revenue streams and yet if from day one, batteries are relying on electricity markets, or ancillary services markets to recover their revenues, it probably won’t work.

For one, most grids which can even afford to have grid-connected batteries would already be stable enough, with sufficient competition in the markets to provide those services that a battery can provide. Grid connected batteries are multi-purpose assets which find competition in all the different services it can provide.

If you really consider the economics of batteries once again; it has to be a derived demand. There are some other products or services that must really be able to fetch that price point. Traditionally for batteries, it is paid for by the portability it brings about, then for EVs, it comes from the desire for clean mobility. For the grid, is there some equivalent draw that can compensate for the cost of batteries? Better to require it of variable renewable energy owners contributing to the intermittency to bear the cost, or to simply put the responsibility on grid operators (who can be free to lease the storage capacity from third parties). Without clear assignment of responsibilities, you mute the demand for batteries.

While people are making fun of SPH CEO bringing the somewhat archaic lingo back into mainstream, I think the real reason is that people are taking umbrage at what was announced about SPH. There’s generally a sense of socialisation of losses as the media substance of SPH is being packaged into a CLG to be held by the government.

I guess that move simply make the “state ownership” of the media outlets involve a little more explicit per se. The listed status is probably problematic but I’d think there is no need to cave in to investor pressure. The company itself is unique being regulated by special laws – that should already warrant it special status and allow shareholders to self-select. There is no need for them to compete with others for capital. In fact, 99.9% of the company is in the hands of public shareholders and they themselves signed up for it fully aware this is a regulated company by the government. Maybe the regulated status made it hard to innovate its business model?

Nevertheless, that is not an excuse to get a bail-out. Imagine a bank who says they can’t compete because of the central bank’s capital adequacy ratios and hence will transfer all the non-performing loans to a vehicle which will be guaranteed by the government. Hmm. Being regulated does not mean the public can be made responsible for losses.

What is for sure about this move though, is that it takes a loss-making business out of the hands of CEO Mr Ng. The same thing happened when NOL was divested to CMA CGA under Mr Ng’s leadership. Perhaps like NOL, the business may come back to turn a profit when it is led by someone else.

Not another piece about jobs and companies. Rather, I’m thinking about friends, the company we have in our lives. And the important of good company. Friends are the people around us that we technically can choose. Often we might think it boils down to some chemistry and circumstance. True to a certain extent; since for example, the friends you make in the first few weeks of university tend to be the ones you end up sticking to for the rest of your time in university and potentially even for life.

As we grow older, it becomes more challenging to make that same kind of friends. It feels less organic perhaps than a school environment though there are still clubs, associations and other opportunities to network but friends made with the intent of collaborating for a project, or for business gains just seem different from friends made in school, or joined by some other kinds of common interests.

Yet all that doesn’t mean we can’t be in control of the company of people we are in, and we can’t choose ‘good company’. It is more important perhaps to choose good company than to try and work for a good company because the people around you can shape your thinking which in turn shapes your capacity to strive and achieve.

I chuckled when I saw the quote ‘You can’t change the people around you but you can change the people around you.’ I laughed because I got it. Did you?

The only kind of failure that is permanent is one that terminates you. Or the one that you choose to keep you; because you’ve allowed it to terminate you. In Chinese, there’s the saying that failure is the mother of success. And that is the acknowledgement that more than being polar opposites, failures are building blocks of success.

In fact, life really isn’t about attaining successes. Ultimately, in our hearts, we are after the things that comes with success, perhaps the recognition, the sense of being loved. And we all know that success, like failures, are temporary too. We can only be successful ‘so far’. Introducing the time dimension helps us see that success or failures are not part of our identity but merely experiences that we go through as part of our growth.

When one ponders over failure, do you think about actions you regretted, not taken, or do you consider what are the new aspects of reality that you come to know through the process? It takes humility to say ‘I was wrong about this’ rather than to think ‘I knew it should have been so’ – but this humility is rewarding because it turns the temporary failure into a lesson, one that can be used as a building block. The arrogant ‘I knew it’ only turns the failure into regret and bitterness.

I wrote about opportunity cost and it dawned on me that I need to improve upon the story. Not just about the opportunities forgone but also the opportunity set. Implicit in the economics concept of opportunity cost is that you’re only have to consider the best alternative, just one.

But in this age of almost infinite choice, what is the best choice? Not to mention the best alternative. In trying to consider the choice and to “price” it against the alternative, our brains often just decides to be lazy and ask what everyone else does instead. There is less independent thinking, evaluation and decision-making.

To certain extent it is our cognitive abilities being overwhelmed but it is also us being lazy. The danger of following the crowd is that we then become afraid of missing out, which causes us to consider even more things, and lose even more bandwidth.

So the way to think about opportunity costs, might be to consider the set of opportunity that exists as alternative, and see roughly that “alright, those are what I’ve decided to miss out for this – more as an objective statement to oneself”. That is your subjective valuation of the choice you made.

How do you draw up an “agreement”; more often you should not really be thinking of what you agree on to include. Because the agreement is not really used again until you disagree. So better to think about what you’d likely disagree on later as a way to approach the drafting of an agreement. Ironic, isn’t it.

Dwelling on disagreements is an unlikely formula for harmony but I would say it is not disagreements which results in disharmony but what we do about disagreements in general. And that is where the education system comes in again.

The modern education system is there with an immense amount of nobility but also vested interest. Mass education lifts people out of poverty by enhancing their opportunities but they are also there to train people to become employees, to follow instructions, be obedient, conform. The industries want workers and reward them for having gone through those comformance training. And the cycle continues.

And that is probably why they don’t teach you much on how to disagree. Yet all the more it is important because these skills are scarce – disagreeing in a way that is agreeable. Disagree but yet be able to influence others to your side. Disagree and make a case with passion but no offense, with just joy and conviction the others want to join your side.

When companies earn more than they spend, they make a profit. And this profit, reinvested in the right places, turns up more. And the cycle continues. But not to build up profits; rather, there is a larger goal from the cycle. The larger goal is about serving people, bringing goods and services to those who have not yet accessed it.

What this means is that you can return profits to shareholder, or you can expand the business to serve more, ensuring of course that it does not come at the expense of perpetuating that profit cycle.

How about an individual? When we earn more than we spend (which we should in at least a significant part of our lives), we end up with savings. Likewise, how this is reinvested matters because it helps determine that very same cycle. The question for an individual then, is what is the larger goal he or she is trying to achieve.

It could be more consumption of course. So then the business analogy ends here.

Or does it? A business can be self-serving in that it spends on a posh office, lots of perks for executives who only shuffles paper around. Overly indulgent, unproductive consumption might not be too different. We want to be able to invest our surplus in changing our lives and those around us; part of it will enable more consumption but a lot of it are going to be gains from a better culture, opportunities to engage in higher levels of cognition, problem-solving, and creativity.

Should a teacher who is critical of the education system he or she works within, encourage and foster that in the students?

It is inevitable that a teacher brings to the classroom his or her own biases and influence the students. Yet for some reasons, with the modern institutions and bureacracy, there seems to be this illusion that things can be standardised. And so teaching can somehow also be standardised – which belittles both the teachers and students alike.

And we think that through all that standardisation, the system can take responsibility of the students more than the teachers. So instead of driving accountability, there’s more interest in creating policies, putting rules and processes in place for just about everything.

The end loss to students probably is not quantifiable. The least we can do, maybe, is to ensure the students are aware of the limitations.

When we were young and playing in the playground, strength was being able to go on the monkey bars and do the full length of it. Then we went to school, where being strong meant good academic results, taking on leadership roles, and being active in sports.

In army, strength was the push-ups and pull-ups you could do, and how short was the time you took to run 2.4km. At work, it was enduring long hours and delivering a good piece of work even under pressure, competing demands.

As you grow further, you take on greater responsibilities, face more uncertainties and confront challenges like death of friends, family. Having to deal with financial burden of caring for the sick, continuing to love your children even as they rebel or resist your care, dealing with crushing deadlines as you disappoint your loved ones with your absence. That becomes strength.

And when you age, when you receive that diagnosis of a terminal illness, you soldier on; trying the different treatments, hanging on to your faith; encouraging your family with your humour. That, is deep strength. Strength which you know that kid in the playground who just did a full length of monkey bar will still take a lifetime to cultivate.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” … Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:9a, 10, NKJV

Real strength that God grants us, is the strength for life. It is the strength that defeats death; that comes from a hope unseen.

So the post on incentives was probably an economics post disguised as a sustainability post. But honestly, it is difficult to get economics out of our daily lives. Even when I talk about career choices, I inadvertently try to perform some kind of cost-benefit analysis on it.

What is bad about economics as it is applied, is that a lot of intangibles or non-measurables get ignored. Yet that is just improper application of economics. The principles behind economics still allows us to make evaluations (in our very subjective human way) on the intangibles and urges us to account for all that.

For example, we can value the environment more than convenience when we bring our own bags, take the trouble to recycle stuff. The action reflects our subjective valuation even if we cannot put a price on it. And precisely because our valuation can change due to specific context, circumstances, psychological priming, that it is going to require a lot of that to make sure we tip the balance in favour of environment and align all the incentives. Not just monetary, but social, and psychological.

In other words, we focus more on our goals of achieving sustainability, having established at a higher level that it is worthwhile. Then we generate the incentive structures for every individual so that habits, actions and all gear towards that goal. Easier said than done.