Is this the future?

[kentuck]

http://nerdist.com/elon-musks-next-game-changer-is-a-battery-called-the-powerwall/

<snip>
Last night in Hawthorne, California, Elon Musk unveiled “the missing piece” in the transition over to clean energy. The Tesla Powerwall, a large household battery (with industrial applications as well), was that piece.

In Musk’s mind, we orbit the key to weening the world off of fossil fuels. “We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky called the Sun,” he said to the crowd as his keynote. Solar energy then, relying on commercially available solar panels, is the first step in the weening process.

We’ve long heard the promise of solar power, but the public hasn’t viewed it as a real competitor to fossil fuels (at least the American public). However, the math is all there. Musk referred to a striking graph to make his point (shown below). The blue square is the total amount of surface area that would need to be covered by solar panels to take the US off the grid:

<snip>
The second part isn’t so obvious. Solar panels can’t collect energy at night, so it’s hard for them to reliably provide power like a coal power plant can. Batteries could theoretically solve the problem. During the day solar panels around the country would provide energy and store any excess energy that the grid cannot accommodate in large battery installations. And those large installations would only require a “pixel” of space, Musk explained.

...more at link

[Cosmic Kitten]

1. I would gladly pay $3000 for a 10 year household battery

This Powerwall looks incredible!

The 7K daily cycle would get me
off the grid and provide plenty
of emergency backup

[leftofcool]

2. All I know is that if this turns out to be genuine

and I see that it is working in several businesses and homes, I am going this route, even if I use it as a back up.

[Sunlei]

3. at about $1,000 at the most, a large household battery is the future. At $7,000+ no it's not.

I read next years hydrogen powered car will have sockets to plug in and power your house.

[awoke_in_2003]

8. It may be $7k now...

but the prices will drop. This happens with most new technologies- take hi def TVs for example.

[Octafish]

4. Wouldn't it be great if there were a battery to collect all the energy we needed?

Oh....Wow! Cool!

[Eleanors38]

5. Curious, that the car is a "Tesla" for the man who enabled the grid with A.C. current and

won out over Edison's house-be-house D.C. generation approach. In the long road home, Edison may win out.

[bobalew]

6. Not really, if you want to sell soe juice back into the grid,

Guess what, AC transport much more efficiently, The DC transport has to be very short to reduce losses. that just a matter of plain physics.

[Eleanors38]

7. I understand. But Edison's plan was no grid because of DC's limitations.