Comment by awesome_dude
16 hours ago
Strictly speaking - a battery is stored potential energy
A common battery for grid level storage is pumped hydro - that is, use the peak power during the day(s) to push water from the bottom of an elevation to the top, and hold it there - bonus points if it captures water delivered from other solar processes (evaporation -> rain)
> Strictly speaking - a battery is stored potential energy
That's its function, but that does not make any device that stores energy a 'battery'. An electric battery is specifically a battery of electrochemical cells — Franklin invented the term as analogous to an artillery battery (a collection of guns).
Calling every form of stored energy a 'battery' is just dumbing things down for the masses.
There are about 90 billion battery solutions - none of them are very efficient, cheap to manufacture, easy to manufacture/acquire materials for, and long-lasting all at the same time.
Grid-scale sodium batteries are already in production, and there isn’t some kind of magic anti-technology shield which keeps the United States in the 1920s.
When talking about cost, it’s important to remember that solar+batteries are already cheaper and, unlike nuclear, happen on much shorter timescales. I’m not opposed to some nuclear plant starts but those guarantee a couple decades of increased pollution before there’s any chance whatsoever for carbon reduction, whereas solar can come online in a year.
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