Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy
Why Hacker News recommends it
Referenced as an early, inspiring presentation of the molten-metal battery idea that later grid-storage startups pursued.
What it is
MIT professor Donald Sadoway argues that grid-scale storage is the missing piece for renewable energy. He sketches at the blackboard how large, cheap liquid-metal batteries could store wind and solar power.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2013 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec lifeisstillgood · 2013-04 · on “The Ever-Shrinking Role of Tenured College Professors”
Meh. There are two roles for Tenured College Professors: * Making intellectual bets that might not pay off for decades * Making Graduate students work hard Everything else is gravy. The university and country that puts most effort into these two will over the long term get the most out. The important thing here is tenure . The next most important thing is you get to be a professor because all the other professors think you might make a good one. Just pay up the money, and make the empirical sciences better paid. Its like a magic machine is edication. Put in money get out more. If you want to see my poster-child for College Professors (#) go [this video] . (#) No, not that Playboy spread. Differen
Cites panick21_ · 2023-02 · on “Grid scale buffering with molten salt batteries that run at 500 Celsius”
This is the company cofounded Prof. Donald Sadoway from MIT. I have been following their progress for a while. He made a lot of media around this technology 10 years ago. See the TedTalk: [this video] So this is one of those case where you hear some news about amazing battery tech, and the reality is it minimum 10 years before it ever on the market. The company had ups and downs and it seems they are actually pretty close to actually deploying a major system within the next year or so. This if further then most other grit batteries companies get. This is a bit of newer talk with some more information: [LINK] He also worked on a really cool idea for Green Steel making, producing iron from iron ore
Cites philo_sophia · 2025-12 · on “Iron-sodium grid batteries just took a big step toward US rollout”
Remember seeing this idea 13 years ago [1] Glad they're finally coming online, though I think these iron-air batteries[2] will take most of the market share (room for all though!). [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]