Batteries and Renewable Energy

Batteries are pretty useful. In fact, they’re everywhere throughout the world. Without them, we wouldn’t be using our phones, driving our cars, or keeping people alive on pacemakers. Our lives simply wouldn’t be the same without them. However, despite their incredible usefulness, batteries are far from perfect. Our world and energy needs are changing every day as electric cars become the standard and the call for renewable energy grows stronger. With the current electrical landscape, batteries must improve if we hope to reach a sustainable future.

While we normally think of batteries as the little cylinders we put in the back of electronics, there are many ways to store energy. For example,by simply climbing up a hill, you’re storing gravitational energy that is then released on your way down. What we traditionally call batteries work by converting stored mechanical energy to electrical energy (Bhatt et al); however, other technologies exist, such as molten salt batteries, which use high-temperature salts to store energy. As engineers continue to innovate, solutions like molten salt batteries help store greater wealths of energy (Umbrex). One innovation that is important to consider when talking about batteries is the electric car. Electric cars use lithium-ion batteries, which use lithium (shocking I know) as one of the main materials in the battery. These batteries store incredible amounts of energy and are rechargeable, making them a crucial part of modern innovation.

As our world becomes more and more digital, the desire to store energy grows. Electric cars, as I mentioned earlier, are but one example of the growing energy storage demand and the problems that come with it. Lithium, the key component of many EV batteries, is a rare element that is incredibly hard to obtain. Found in and around the Amazon Rainforest, the ecological consequences of lithium mining are serious. Water sources can become polluted, and ecosystems often collapse. Towns in and around this resource watch the natural world around them fall victim to unsustainable mining practices. 

Not only do batteries often have a negative footprint, but without them, the transition to clean energy is impossible. Electricity is generated to match demand: It is also generated in the cheapest way possible. Therefore, during the day, large amounts of electricity are generated using a variety of both sustainable and non-sustainable ways. However, at night, very little energy is required and thus very little is produced. With greater storage capacity, excess energy generated during the day (especially from renewable sources) could be stored and used later, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. At the same time, renewable sources aren’t predictable as more traditional sources of electricity, and therefore need to be stored. The sun produces and hits the earth with incredible amounts of energy every single day, and only very small amounts of that energy is harvested by solar panels. Unfortunately, those solar panels are useless at night or when there are heavy clouds. Therefore, to ensure that there is enough energy, energy would have to be stored. This is true of many other sustainable sources, as the wind and the flow of rivers varies based on weather conditions and seasons. Simply put, energy storage allows for the versatility to use renewables at the right times and serve energy needs.

The potential uses for powerful energy storage are endless. The capacity to store electricity and run entire power grids off of energy generated days ago is an amazing possibility. Unfortunately, right now, it is merely a possibility. Current battery storage is paradoxical: powerful lithium-ion batteries power amazing, climate saving innovations, but at the same time, their existence requires ecological catastrophe. Even worse, this sacrifice still isn’t enough as energy storage abilities are insufficient to be successfully powering our future. Batteries hold not just energy, but amazing potential. Sadly that potential can’t be tapped by USB or lightning cables. We need something else.

References

Bhatt, Anand, et al. "Australian Academy of Science." How do Batteries power our phones, computers, and other devices, 25 Feb. 2016, curious.science.org.au/technology-future/batteries. 

"Umbrex." Molten Salt Batter, umbrex.com/resources/energy-industry-glossary/energy-storage-glossary/molten-salt-battery/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.