What about replacing hydrocarbons for your car? (Haha)
I don’t mind at all that funds go towards research, even if that research ends up going nowhere. At some point, there will be an Eureka level discovery that Allows America and the world to have a real energy revolution on a scale that allows us to have 500 years of prosperity.
Maybe this combined with solar power could be a ticket. Use the solar power to heat up the salt and then use the salt to keep your home warm.
For those who want a better understanding as to how molten salt works, it isn’t just salt.
Fire? Maybe not. Explosion? Likely!
I remember a demonstration of Sodium back in my 7th grade science class. The sodium was held inside a container filled with kerosene. Why kerosene? Because the Sodium had an explosive reaction when brought in contact with water. The instructor, who happened to have a PhD in real science, not education, demonstrated this by dropping a tiny piece of the sodium into a water bath so we could see this. It was quite impressive.
So, if you want to have large quantities of liquid sodium at temperatures over 600 degrees F (hot enough to ignite paper on contact), and explosive when contacting water, it better be miles away from me.
The major problems with battery storage are 1) scalability and 2) sustainability. How many mega watts you can store is a big factor but not as important as how many megawatt hours you can provide. How big a battery source would you need to maintain power to the grid to prevent a blackout across southern California, say, that might last for hours?
As long as it doesn’t burn my house down...or my Tesla. Or my Tesla AND my house.
Could be a great boon for off-grid living.
Molten salt heat storage has been in use for decades in cars to provide rapid heating of engine coolant in cold climates. The “battery” is charged while driving and stores enough thermal energy to quickly heat the car the next morning.
it’s interesting but as they admit not ready yet for prime time, and there is no assurance that the additional hurdles to be overcome will be overcome, in ten years time, or in a real-time cost effective manner.
I am not betting on solar & wind and their need for battery solutions.
I am betting on latest technology small safe and modular nuclear power plants, and they will be dominating the energy scene before fusion is ever reliable.