• Touching_Grass@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage. If we could create a battery that doesn’t just leak energy from storing, we could generate power in one location and ship it out where it’s needed. There could be remote energy production plants using geothermal or hydroelectric power that ship out these charged batteries to locations all over. It would let us better utilize resources instead of having to have cities anchored around these sources.

    Or we could generate a ton of power all at once, store it and use it as needed rather having to have on demand energy production

    Hell with better batteries even fossil fuels begin to be climate friendly since you could store the massive energy created and know you’re using close to 100% of it.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage.

      Globally humanity already invests over 10 Billion dollars per year in advancing battery technology.

      If we could create a battery that doesn’t just leak energy from storing…

      In order to build what you are talking about will almost certainly require real room temperature super conductors. We can get close, maybe, with the next generation of Aluminum-Air or Iron-Air batteries but this is big pimping. It’s incredibly complicated and difficult.

      It’s like Fusion Power. We can see a future where we have it figured out and working but it’s still some years, if not decades, away.

      • Touching_Grass@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Power lines would still mean we need energy on demand though wouldn’t it. And if we can transport energy from an area like a huge solar array in the Sahara to Kazakhstan or China it would be better. I was just raising it as an off thought like maybe theres more ways to think about solving this problem than just building plants. What level of storage ability could we have that would let us build a large solar array in the Sahara to power Africa and Europe vs just building more plants. I think our end goal will be energy storage and like you brought up transport/transmission. I think that because I think we have energy production pretty well solved

    • njordomir@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Kind of an unconventional battery, but I’ve heard of solar and wind being used to pump water uphill into reservoirs and then released through a hydro plant when the sun/wind aren’t shining/blowing. I’d be curious to know the amount of production lost from storing it this way.