Lead-acid batteries
Lead-acid batteries are an older technology used mostly as car batteries (gasoline-powered cars, to start the engine). Could they help solve the energy storage problem?
Viability
#Need for lead | Maybe an issue |
Toxicity | Probably an issue |
#Suitable for electric vehicles? | Unknown |
Charge/discharge losses | Inferior to other battery types |
#Good enough for DIY projects? | Probably |
Need for lead
Lead is usually considered an abundant (cheap) metal - but apparently, not abundant enough to really scale up lead-acid batteries for on-grid energy storage:
Note: This is roughly the amount of on-grid energy consumption that we might need energy storage for. It consists of - for example - lighting, heating, appliances, and other energy used in homes and other buildings. We don't count industrial here, because we can assume (in principle) that most factories could operate during peak sunlight/wind, needing negligable energy storage.
But lead resources are a lot higher than lead reserves, for some reason (yes (calculation loading)there's a difference): So from that perspective, lead is in fact abundant enough, but the environmental footprint of mining it might be quite high.[QUANTIFICATION needed] And we still haven't counted the need for energy storage in (calculation loading)electric vehicles.
Suitable for electric vehicles?
Lead-acid batteries are already used in gasoline-powered vehicles, but you'd need to stack a lot more of them to make a fully electric vehicle. This might not be safe.[RESEARCH needed]
Good enough for DIY projects?
If you have some extra car batteries, may as well use them for a rooftop solar project. They probably won't store enough energy to power your whole home, but it's better than nothing. Beware of safety issues.[ELABORATION needed]