> There's no actual storage density information, is there? Nothing in KJ/m^3 units.
Even if there was (to be honest, didn't read the journal article) this is something that can easily be hacked. Energy storage research papers regularly hack energy density numbers by reporting the kJ/cc values of a tiny (like order 1 g) fleck of nanoparticle dust, which totally misrepresents the physics that matters are scale (i.e. in an EV).
Scaling up stuff is hard, including when you're moving from micron scale to cm scale.
No, it's not. Energy density is only relevant for today's uses of batteries - car's, laptop and the like. If energy density was all that mattered pumped storage would be utterly useless as it energy density is abysmal. The reality is pumped storage is 80% efficient, and is good for 10's of thousands of cycles (basically unto the dam silts up), and base storage medium (water) is dirt cheap. As a consequence we store and discharge gigawatt hours of energy using pumped storage every day, which I suspect more than all those batteries with higher energy density combined.
If you want another comparison, there are more vehicles using lead acid batteries than there are using lithium - yet lead acid has a horrible energy density. (You are thinking this is wrong - but you are thinking cars. There are far more golf buggies and indoor forklifts and the like out there than there are cars.)
They say the voltage of this battery is around 1/2 that of lithium - which I suspect means much than half the density. But Aluminium is cheap, more common and lighter than lead, and they are talking 10's of thousands of cycles. If this works it will change the world - regardless of it's energy density.
Indeed, I was specifically talking about batteries. But there are many other ways to store energy. They don't even need to be as efficient as batteries, as long as they are cheap/scalable.
You're arguing with a straw man. I never claimed storage technologies other than lithium batteries didn't exist. Electric cars continue to be a central example of the relatively recent increase in research into storage technologies.
And you still can't extrapolate indefinitely from an exponential curve. We don't know where the floor will be, or whether it will be low enough.
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