Obviously it is and will take a lot to reshuffle the way our energy needs will accommodate our electric vehicles, EV and plug-in hybrids, PHEV.
John Peterson over at Seeking Alpha is also coming to the same conclusion we are. Utilities and energy storage are segment of the energy industry that are getting a lot of attention and seeing amazing breakthroughs. It is obviously where the investment money is going to be made. Given the complexity and scope of the problem of supplying more and more electricity the point of contention will be storing it so that it is constantly available when needed. Yet, there is no single technology that can uniquely solve all energy storage problems currently. The idea is that only a multitude of technologies will each solve part of the problem and integrated into a coherent system, such as V2G.
We found it interesting at first to find this: “I’m a proponent of advanced lead-acid batteries because basic R&D on lead-acid technology was largely abandoned in the ‘70s and ‘80s when gas was $1 a gallon…” But upon reflection, it is a technology that has already advanced to a mature level and could be an intelligent transition until Lithium’s latest iteration makes even more financial sense.
Another place to look for innovations are the current electric train systems. In many mountainous places where electricity was favored over diesel or steam, the use of storage units, or supercapacitators to charge substations when trains come down steep hills as they recharge electricity back into sub-stations is widely used.
We should never underestimate man’s incredible capacity to surmount obstacles. After all, we went from monstrous very slow revving gas engines that yielded little horsepower to smaller and more efficient ones. The same could be extrapolated from better and better battery technology.