Earlier this year, Ellen Williams, the director of ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy’s advanced research program for alternative energy, made headlines when she told the Guardian newspaper that “We have reached some holy grails in batteries.”
Despite very promising results from the 75-odd energy-storage research projects that ARPA-E funds, however, the grail of compact, low-cost energy storage remains elusive.
A number of startups are closer to producing devices that are economical, safe, compact, and energy-dense enough to store energy at a cost of less than $100 a kilowatt-hour. Energy storage at that price would have a galvanic effect, overcoming the problem of powering a 24/7 grid with renewable energy that’s available only when the wind blows or the sun shines, and making electric vehicles lighter and less expensive.
But those batteries are not being commercialized at anywhere near the pace needed to hasten the shift from fossil fuels to renewables. Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk, hardly one to underplay the promise of new technology, has been forced to admit that, for now, the electric-car maker is […]
What I find interesting, in addition to this, is that NO ONE talks about what has become vital to today’s products. Perhaps the best name for the process is the title William McDonough, US architect & German chemist Michael Braungart used for the title of their 2002 book, Cradle to Grave. Historically, batteries have extremely toxic, from manufacturing to their demise. We currently have repurposing, and down cycling ( biological & technical) and the technical keeps growing exponentially; much of it is highly toxic; the extreme being battery manufacturer leaks into water and soil that caused babies to be born without parts of their brains. Not attempting to be alarmist, but it bears watching and prodding the battery industry to think in wholistic terms.