The energy storage problem...

TED recently released a talk looking at the problem of storing electricity, focusing on the development of a particular type of liquid metal battery. It's the sort of thing that's needed to help get renewable energy other than hydro to be able to provide more reliable power. (You might have noticed when standing outside that the sun isn't always shining or even over the horizon).

Even when the sun is up, power output of something like solar panels isn't constant - with the possibility of changes of +/- 50% in a 30 to 90 second time frame and +/- 70% in a 5-10 minute time frame. Solar panels it seems are continuing to come down in price, with one recent development promising solar panels at half the cost, using about 1/10 the material of conventional solar panels. Perhaps with changes like this in conjunction with improved energy storage devices we'll gradually start to be able to phase out some of the coal, oil, and gas powerplants.

On the downside, as my research is looking at how to exploit the crazy levels of volatility in the electrical market that are in large part a consequence of this absence of storage, in the future that sort of research might become somewhat less important (although some of the stuff that I'm working on is looking at trying to provide battery-like services by adjusting the operational patterns of some types of equipment which would still persist). I suppose that such a downside is something that I could live with though.