4 astonishing energy storage green-tech you need to know about
--
British summer-expectations: pleasant, glorious sunshine and a cool, soothing breeze. Every soul comes out to receive the nourishment of the sun, which is scanty in this part of the hemisphere. Cheery and lively atmosphere and a zing in the air.
Reality: scalding heat with temperatures soaring above 38 degrees. Summers breaking heat-records each year. People fainting due to heatstrokes. Complete infrastructure meltdown.
This is the global north we are talking about.Climate change has never felt more real. I use the aforementioned statement almost every year. Every year something ever-more drastic happens as a result of climate change and it feels like it cannot get worse and scarier than this and then the following year stumps every belief there is.
But this is today’s reality. Yes, the UK has hit temperatures as high as 38 degrees Celsius and yes, it has seen four heatwaves so far this summer (and the frequency of such heatwaves is expected to increase in the future, see fig.1). This is irreversible and the only thing we can do now is to adapt to this “new summer.”
Apart from climate change adaptation, we need to expedite our mitigation efforts too.
We know that energy sector is the most carbon intensive and currently global energy needs are met primarily through fossil fuels. Therefore, getting to a net-zero energy system is essential. Hence, decarbonisation strategies and innovative low-carbon technologies will be elemental in achieving a sustainable and secure future and to keep global average temperatures under 1.5 degree Celsius, at all costs.
Trailblazing the cause, the EU has even earmarked around €38 billions for an Innovation Fund from it’s Emissions Trading Scheme budget to encourage EU companies, big and small to move towards low-carbon technologies.
With the global energy mix shaking-off dirty fuels and making more space for renewables, the future looks promising. But renewable energy has an essential bedfellow; storage batteries. The issue of recycling the mountains of used storage batteries is one of the roadblocks in renewables going full throttle. The following list of large-scale storage batteries using renewable energy have immense potential in…
