Asianometry

Silicon is probably the single most studied element on earth. Over the past seventy years, people have researched more ways to cut it, etch it, grind it, clean it, crystallize it, polish it than almost anything else. 

Engineers have done amazing things to turn this plentiful shiny rock into the century’s most impactful piece of technology. And the wafer industry needs some love for those achievements. 

So in this video, we are going to talk about the decades of research and stunning engineering that have gone into creating today’s cutting-edge semiconductor wafers. 

In 2011, then-President Barack Obama visited a General Electric or GE facility in the town of Schenectady, New York. There, he mostly discussed wind turbine exports. But he also briefly mentioned an "advanced battery" business with great promise. 

Obama was referring to a molten salt stationary battery technology branded as Durathon. GE CEO Jeff Immelt believed that it will become a billion dollar business. 

But Durathon fell far short. In 2015, the company closed its battery manufacturing factory in New York after investing nearly $200 million. Nearly a hundred people lost their jobs. 

In this video, we are going to look at General Electric's failed molten salt battery business venture. 

In 1895, Japan acquired Taiwan island from the Qing Empire as their first colony. For the next fifty years, Japan occupied Taiwan - infusing it with their traditions, culture, and expertise. 

The colonial legacy of the Japanese occupation period was deep and long lasting for both colonized and colonizer. In this video, we are going to talk about what happened during those fifty years. And what it did for both the Taiwanese and Japanese people.

One morning in September 1981, Malaysia conducted a financial dawn raid that stunned the British business community and reclaimed hundreds of thousands of acres of Malaysian plantation land for Malaysia.

In this video I want to talk about Malaysia’s strike against the remaining structures of the old colonial state.

Sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and yet we just can’t get enough of it. 

In 2018, Singapore was the world's biggest importer of sand by value. Each year, the country consumes over 5 tons of sand per resident. 

Over the past twenty years, they have imported over 500 million tons of sand. 

And with these sand imports, Singapore has created massive amounts of wealth for itself and its people. 

But the sand has to come from somewhere. Its mass removal has big environmental impacts, and has opened the country up to criticism. 

But is it even possible to replace sand? That’s what we are going to talk about in this video. 

Contemporary Amperex Technologies or CATL is China's leading EV battery supplier. As of this writing, it is the only Chinese EV battery company that has begun to export its products abroad. 

It is interesting to consider that one of China's most valuable companies makes, of all things, batteries. When we think about high value add, technically complicated things, we think about iPhones or other tech. Not exactly batteries. 

But as it turns out, batteries are surprisingly complicated to make. In this video, we are going to look at how CATL manufactures one of their EV batteries.