New 2GreenEnergy Intern to Explore “The Truth About Batteries”

It appears that 2GreenEnergy has taken on another eager and extremely bright intern, Audrey Cook, who lives close enough to me (Orange County, CA) that periodically meeting her in person won’t be too difficult.  Audrey’s background and interest lies in the subject of batteries, an area of extreme importance for a great number of reasons, largely facilitating the adoption of electric vehicles and the integration of more renewable energy into our grid-mix.

I was just writing an email for her, but I thought I’d make it a blog post:

Great to speak with you.  Per our talk, I’m sure our readers would love to see a series of articles on batteries that focus on separating the truth from the hype in this space.  You could explore:

• The history of deceit (or, at least, over-setting of expectations) in this space

• The truth about lithium carbonate shortages

• The practical limits to gravimetric energy density of lithium ion

• What we can rationally expect from air batteries, e.g, zinc air

• Other promising battery chemistries

• What lies behind the steady decline in the price of lithium-ion batteries, and how this squares with the prediction that pundits made a few years ago to the effect that this was impossible

• What the trends in batteries mean to electric transportation, in a world where EVs seem to be struggling

• Batteries as a component of smart grid

• The capability of utility-scale batteries to compete against the construction of new gas-fired peaker plants

I’m sure we’ll come up with others as we go forward.

Again, welcome to the team!  Thanks very much for your help here.