Renewable energy is expanding at a record pace, but still not fast enough. Here are the key areas to watch for progress in bringing more wind and solar into the power grid in 2022.
Energy storage can make facilities like this solar farm in Oxford, Maine, more profitable by letting them store power for cloudy days.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
The US is generating more electricity than ever from wind and solar power – but often it’s not needed at the time it’s produced. Advanced energy storage technologies make that power available 24/7.
Right now, the nation is almost entirely dependent on other countries for minerals that are used in everything from wind turbines to strike fighters and satellites.
Batteries used in Spanish energy storage tests.
Agefotostock/Alamy Stock Photo
A planned battery project in Essex will be ten times larger than the UK’s current biggest battery.
A “creuseur,” or digger, descends into a tunnel at the mine in Kawama, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Zheng Chen, University of California, San Diego and Darren H. S. Tan, University of California, San Diego
Batteries power much of modern life, from electric and hybrid cars to computers, medical devices and cellphones. But unless they’re made easier and cheaper to recycle, a battery waste crisis looms.
Grid-scale batteries could be at least double the cost of those in electric vehicles.
Replacing carbon-emitting gas-powered cars with EVs requires whittling away EVs’ price premium, and that comes down to one thing: battery cost.
Westend61 via Getty Images
EVs will have lower sticker prices than gas vehicles when batteries are cheaper. Getting there comes down to knowing where to cut costs.
Lithium-ion batteries are already supporting renewable power generation, but a future without fossil fuels will need even better battery technology.
AAP
The future of zero-carbon transport starts today. First stop, Britain’s railways.
Buildings at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, illuminated by George Westinghouse’s alternating current.
Field Museum Library/Wikipedia
Nobel Prizes in science are usually given for revolutionary ideas that change our perception of the universe. But this year’s chemistry prize was awarded to inventors of a revolutionary device.
M. Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino.
Binghampton University/University of Texas/Kimimasa Mayama/EPA