Shocking! Battery Tech From MIT (an awesome presentation) [View all]

[Playinghardball]

If we're going to get this country out of its current energy situation, we can't just conserve our way out. We can't just drill our way out. We can't bomb our way out. We're going to do it the old-fashioned, American way. We're going to invent our way out, working together.
Donald Sadoway

One of the engineering opportunities (nee problems) still open to green energy production by solar and wind technologies is the very real issue of generation and demand. As currently configured the electrical grid must be ready to deliver as much energy as is needed at any time. This may not be possible in a system primarily dependent on solar or wind energy generators.

An obvious solution would be to store electrical energy in industrial quantities so that peaks in demand could be met smoothly. Donald Sadoway has an idea about how to do just that.

The electricity powering the lights in this theater was generated just moments ago. Because the way things stand today, electricity demand must be in constant balance with electricity supply. If in the time that it took me to walk out here on this stage, some tens of megawatts of wind power stopped pouring into the grid, the difference would have to be made up from other generators immediately. But coal plants, nuclear plants can't respond fast enough. A giant battery could. With a giant battery, we'd be able to address the problem of intermittency that prevents wind and solar from contributing to the grid in the same way that coal, gas and nuclear do today. You see, the battery is the key enabling device here. With it, we could draw electricity from the sun even when the sun doesn't shine. And that changes everything. Because then renewables such as wind and solar come out from the wings, here to center stage. Today I want to tell you about such a device. It's called the liquid metal battery. It's a new form of energy storage that I invented at MIT along with a team of my students and post-docs.

Below is Dr. Sadoway's presentation at TED in March of this year. It is about 15 minutes and worth the time. He is an interesting lecturer.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/04/1080441/-Shocking-Battery-Tech-From-MIT