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Why We Still Don’t Have Better Batteries.

Earlier this year, Ellen Williams, the director of ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy’s advanced research program for alternative energy, made headlines when she told the Guardian newspaper that “We have reached some holy grails in batteries.”

Despite very promising results from the 75-odd energy-storage research projects that ARPA-E funds, however, the grail of compact, low-cost energy storage remains elusive.

A number of startups are closer to producing devices that are economical, safe, compact, and energy-dense enough to store energy at a cost of less than $100 a kilowatt-hour. Energy storage at that price would have a galvanic effect, overcoming the problem of powering a 24/7 grid with renewable energy that’s available only when the wind blows or the sun shines, and making electric vehicles lighter and less expensive.

But those batteries are not being commercialized at anywhere near the pace needed to hasten the shift from fossil fuels to renewables.

Read more.


Batteries, in every way are terrible to deal with, making them, shipping them, using them, charging them. It’s a bunch of energy, densely packed, it’s the bomb’ and not in a good way sometimes. The makerbiz opportunity here is to educate and demonstrate the power, literally, so customers can make smart choices and help drive demand for the new technologies.