Are we on the threshhold of finally ridding the world of fossil-fuel-fired power plants? My understanding is that it is now becoming feasible to store energy created at power plants.
What does that have to do with renewable energy? For one thing, the knock against wind farms is that they only generate power when the wind is blowing. So, if you were to rely only on wind-generated power, when the wind stopped blowing, the lights would go out. But, if you could save the extra power created when the winds were blowing by placing the extra power in a large battery, then when the winds stopped, you would still have power to keep your lights on.
And, the batteries might also benefit the hydro power sector. As is, at moments when not enough power is being used to match the power a dam can produce, they have to open a spillway and let the water pass through without it hitting the turbines, thus turning off the energy-making function. If batteries could store that power, though, then we could produce that power without interruption, and thus have more and be freer from needing as much fossil-fuel power.
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