Question: How fast are technologies to address climate change developing, particularly with regard to ebergt storage?
GenerallyEclectic looked at Canada's Greenhouse Gas emissions and found that in 2012, the combustion of fossil fuels (petroleum products, natural gas, coal) account for just under 80 percent of emissions. In a low emission world, this energy source will need to be replaced. There are a number of candidates to replace fossil fuels: solar, hydro, thermal, tidal, nuclear. One essential component is energy storage.
To answer the question on how fast are energy storage technologies developing, GenerallyEclectic looked at articles in Science Daily on emergy storage for the previous eighteen months, which at the time of writing was December 1, 2018 to May 31, 2020. Titles, summaries and links to the relevant articles are provided, so you can make your own judgments.
The summaries presented here are limited to Science Daily findings, which are in turn determined by Science Daily's methodology, which is outlined at About Science Daily. To the extent that Science Daily undoubtedly missed some technological developments, this summary under-reports developments.
Findings
A New Material for the Battery of the Future July 17, 2019: Researchers have discovered a new high performance and safe battery material (LTPS) capable of speeding up charge and discharge to a level never observed so far...Researchers...recently discovered ... LiTi2(PS4)3 or LTPS. The researchers observed in LTPS the highest lithium diffusion coefficient (a direct measure of lithium mobility) ever measured in a solid. LTPS shows a diffusion coefficient much higher than known materials. ... This lithium mobility comes directly from the unique crystal structure (i.e., the arrangement of atoms) of LTPS. The understanding of this mechanism opens new perspectives in the field of lithium ion conductors and, beyond LTPS, opens an avenue towards the search for new materials with similar diffusion mechanisms.
North Sea Rocks Could Act as Large-Scale Renewable Energy Stores Jan. 21, 2019: ... An advanced technique could be used to trap compressed air in porous rock formations found in the North Sea using electricity from renewable technologies...The pressurised air could later be released to drive a turbine to generate large amounts of electricity...Using the technique on a large scale could store enough compressed air to meet the UK's electricity needs during winter, when demand is highest, the study found...Engineers and geoscientists ...used mathematical models to assess the potential of the process, called compressed air energy storage (CAES)...A similar process storing air in deep salt caverns has been used at sites in Germany and the US ...
Fine-Tuning Renewables Could Help Texas Balance Energy Resources Dec. 5, 2018: Timing and placement of wind and solar power facilities are critical factors for Texas electricity providers that juggle their output with other resources to provide a balanced flow of energy. University researchers ...performed an analysis of recent peaks in production from West and South Texas renewable resources and suggested that the state's power production can be made more reliable by adjusting where and when those resources are deployed....
New Catalyst Produces Cheap Hydrogen Fuel Nov. 29, 2018: Chemistry researchers have discovered cheaper and more efficient materials for producing hydrogen for the storage of renewable energy (They) developed ... electrochemical water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen using cheap and readily available elements as catalysts. ... "What we have found is that we can use two earth-abundant cheaper alternatives -- cobalt and nickel oxide with only a fraction of gold nanoparticles -- to create a stable bi-functional catalyst to split water and produce hydrogen without emissions. ...(T)he stored hydrogen could then be used in fuel cells."