Solar power and wind power becomes more and more viable as the issue of power storage is resolved. That’s because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. But with effective power storage, that won’t matter. That is the challenge for solar and wind energy technology and ending our dependence on fossil fuels. There is a race on to find to best and most cost effective ways to successfully store energy. One company, SolarReserve, built a solar plant in the Nevada desert that can store heat from the sun for as much as 10 hours. They’re storing energy in molten salt contained in a system of pipes and tanks. Another company, LightSail in Berkeley, California, is working on a technology using an air compressor. And another California company named Ice Bear is using a technology that uses ice to store energy. And then there is Elon Musk, head of Tesla Motors Inc. They are making massive investments in what is essentially a system that ties millions of small lithium-ion batteries together.
Here’s Tesla’s Elon Musk pitching his idea.