Monday, May 19, 2014

Energy storage

There's another story linked to Tesla Motors, Inc., which goes off in a different but maybe significant direction.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, plans to build a "gigafactory" in California specifically to produce the lithium ion batteries for his electric cars.  The factory will double global production of those batteries and will cost $4-5 billion to build.  

Ever the big thinker, Musk sees greater significance in the gigafactory:  maybe it could revolutionize solar power with the battery's energy storage capacity.

"Advanced batteries could help power buildings by storing power from wind farms and solar-power plants. . . There's essentially quasi-infinite demand for energy storage, if the energy density and the price are good enough."

Innovative, entrepreneurial thinking solves problems.  Maybe he'll make wind & solar viable.

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