Talking Up Eos Energy Storage at the Energy Efficiency Summit

I’m taking a break from the activities at this, the second and last day of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s annual Energy Efficiency Summit to write this short note.

My friends at Eos Energy Storage would have been thrilled if they could have seen me in action this morning.  After a presentation on battery chemistry and other materials sciences issues that affect storage, I took the microphone, introduced myself and explained that my website’s purpose is to identify good ideas and assist in taking them forward.  One such idea is a breakthrough in zinc-air batteries.  I happen to have a client in this space, and if they were here this morning, I think they would say, “Do you mean to tell me that we’ve been here a day and a half and I have never heard zinc-air mentioned once?  How is this possible?”  The speaker, unfortunately ignorant on the subject, replied that zinc-air is actually an older technology (half-true), and, since it’s used only for primary (i.e., nonrechargeable) batteries (false), it has little bearing in today’s world.

Now get this: I had handed over the mike, so I couldn’t stay involved in the conversation, but I happened to be sitting next to Steven Chu, recently retired U.S. Energy Secretary, who stood up and said, “Let me make a correction on that.  This gentleman has a good point; there are several important advancements in zinc-air that make this a very relevant subject to both electric transportation and utility-scale energy storage.”  In a private conversation I had with Chu a few minutes later, he promised to send me more information on this, which I’ll readily share with readers.  He also mentioned that he’s familiar with Eos.

Well, my friends at Eos?  Do you see how far I go to tell your story?  🙂