I have been thinking for some time that the smartest kids in MIT, Stanford, England, China, Japan are dreaming of breakthroughs in green energy. It is clear that fossil fuels is a major part of Global Warming and Climate Change. So, what to do?
Energy storage can be a big step in decarbonizing the world. Store the energy in the grid when the sun shines and the wind blows and release it into the grid when they don't. Turns out China is making big strides in that direction already.
"...China is positioning itself to command the next big innovation in rechargeable batteries: replacing lithium with sodium, a far cheaper and more abundant material...They keep almost all of their charge when temperatures fall far below freezing, something lithium batteries typically do not do...The most immediately promising use for sodium batteries is for electric grids, ... Sodium batteries need to be bigger than lithium ones to hold the same electrical charge. That is a problem for cars, which have limited space, but not for electricity grid storage."
The oldest Econ 101 truth is that the demand for buggy whips declined dramatically with the rise of the demand for automobiles. Well, the demand for fossil fuels could start to decline if we get good energy storage to make solar and wind power available 24/7.
Go for it.
