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I mistakenly interpreted the headline as a battery with some kind of liquid electrolyte and outside air as a reactant. Kind of like a https://en.wikipedia.org/w
by nayuki 6y ago
I mistakenly interpreted the headline as a battery with some kind of liquid electrolyte and outside air as a reactant. Kind of like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc%E2%80%93air_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc%E2%80%93air_battery . But nope, it's just the liquefaction of air, no chemical reactions involved.
- sandworm101 6y agoYes. The term "battery" is being thrown around too much. Are hydroelectric dams to be called "rain batteries"?
- vikramkr 6y agoYep. A lot of people call pumped storage "water batteries" or the like[0]. It baffles me as well, but now that language is evolving to redefine a battery as pretty much anything that generates electrical power than can be recharged with electrical power, I guess that's the world we're walking into and I should get used to that. [0] https://www.hydropower.org/sites/default/files/publications-docs/the_worlds_water_battery_-_pumped_storage_and_the_clean_energy_transition_2.pdf https://www.hydropower.org/sites/default/files/publications-...
- icegreentea2 6y agoHave you seen where "battery" comes from? Electrical batteries are called that since they were made of sets of electrical cells working together, analogously to a battery of artillery.
- vikramkr 6y agoYes I'm aware of that - good point. I could have included that in my post above to highlight that this word itself has gone through plenty of language change already, from meaning "a number of pieces of artillery used together" to "electrochemical energy storage" to "energy storage." While it keeps most of those original definitions as well - including "to strike" etc. The only definition I don't think has really survived to the current day that I see when looking at its etymology is "metal articles wrought by hammering." Wonderful word.
- reaperducer 6y agoGovernment cheese can be thought of as a milk battery.
- cagenut 6y agoall food is batteries
- taneq 6y agoLikewise, I was expecting some kind of redox flow battery. Compressed air is heinously inefficient due to thermal losses (and pumping losses to a lesser extent) but I guess if the energy is literally free (eg. solar or wind overproduction) then that matters less than the cost per kWh stored.