08 Jan '14 21:11>5 edits
This looks like the most promising new technology yet for cheap economic storage system for storing electricity off-the-grid so to compensate for renewables being fickle.
It would making off-the-grid energy storage for one or two days worth of energy for the whole of the electric grid cost effective and thus remove one of the biggest obstacles to making renewables totally replace fossil fuels.
This should not take many years to develop and, once developed, permanently and completely debunk forever one of the main and most commonly cited criticisms of using renewables. This, combined with the fact that the price of solar panels will surely go down in the next few years while their energy efficiency will increase to the point that solar would become always more cost effective than fossil fuels virtually everywhere in the world, would mean the excuses for not going renewable are rapidly running out of places to hide.
http://phys.org/news/2014-01-mega-battery-breakthrough-renewable-energy.html
It would making off-the-grid energy storage for one or two days worth of energy for the whole of the electric grid cost effective and thus remove one of the biggest obstacles to making renewables totally replace fossil fuels.
This should not take many years to develop and, once developed, permanently and completely debunk forever one of the main and most commonly cited criticisms of using renewables. This, combined with the fact that the price of solar panels will surely go down in the next few years while their energy efficiency will increase to the point that solar would become always more cost effective than fossil fuels virtually everywhere in the world, would mean the excuses for not going renewable are rapidly running out of places to hide.
http://phys.org/news/2014-01-mega-battery-breakthrough-renewable-energy.html