Technology to the rescue??

Solar power might be a great source of alternate energy -- if it wasn't for something we call NIGHT. But now there's news about a battery breakthrough that might possibly make a lot of people power producers, with no need of Mr. Fusion; a battery with sufficient storage power to save all the power generated by a household daily to get them through half the night; and then they recharge.

At least that's how I read it. We'll have to see if the stories bear out. If so -- I might even call it a career and swear off nukes. (But there's a big IF factor.) That recharging thing -- still an important role for nukes, I think: but maybe less plants necessary.

New battery could change world, one house at a time

Here are some parts of this article that sound very high-hopin' :

It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this time the mainframe is America's antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to personal power stations in millions of individual homes.

"These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables," said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec's science advisory board. "They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 -- a 110-year-old approach -- and turn us forward."

"If you look at the president, he inherited some really difficult things," Cannon said. "But he hired a guy to be the secretary of energy who is a scientist. And we are on the verge of so many scientific breakthroughs that no matter what the president's ideology is, if we do the right thing scientifically, America is going to do well. Many of the innovations that are coming out of Utah that I'm involved with are likely to be really important, regardless of the leadership."

Ceramatec: Bringing distributed power storage to your home

And this adds:

The Ceramatec battery separates the sulfur and sodium from each other with a thin ceramic membrane which allows electricity to be stored while operating at a much lower temperature. Ceramatec envisions a refrigerator-sized unit that would remain below 98 degrees C (208 degrees F), the melting point of sodium. Keeping the sodium solid makes for a much safer battery. The battery could store 20 kWh worth of energy, either from local, sustainable sources such as wind or solar, or from off-peak recharging from the grid, much like a plug-in hybrid car recharges when the grid demand is low.

This technology is of potential interest to everyone, not just to homeowners with their own power generation systems. Many parts of the country offer off-peak rates for electricity that are lower than daytime costs. This is because demand is lower during evening and overnight hours. Along with overnight recharge of plug-in hybrid automobiles, houses with their own battery storage could store electricity overnight for use the following day. This would provide cheaper electricity for the homeowner, while also reducing the daytime demand on the grid. This, in turn, would be a more efficient use of existing grid infrastructure, and could help reduce demand for new generating plants.

Well, it sounds promising... I think it's going to have an impact.