Batteries are not cheap, especially on industrial scale. And most batteries are not ecologically friendly. It makes far more sense to put all the power solar panels produce during the day to immediate use for maximum efficiency, there is no form of battery that exists that doesn’t have some kind of efficiency loss.z
Putting a battery on this is like building a water tower in your front lawn that only feeds your sprinkler, and you’re only filling it from a hose. You don’t really get any benefit out of it and it’s just easier to run the hose right to the sprinkler anyways.
They’re probably upset that MIT refused to let someone attend the graduation because of their pro-Palestinian views, and therefore they make dumb statements about MIT’s education and contributions.
MIT is in the business of marketing MIT, and they are damn good at it. And I do think the people doing this work should be highlighted. However, it ends up being almost exclusively hype.
Every university markets itself including the research university. Can’t we just accept that battery-free desalination is really cool and efficient? The fact that they were research students of MIT had not registered any land in my mind until you pointed it out.
I understand your motivation and desire to not let the morons go un-opposed, I appreciate what you’ve done, but it’s time to leave the troll in it’s cave. The ogre will not turn to stone if it feels the touch of sun unfortunately. Shine your brightness in places it’ll be appreciated.
2019 article about battery technology; meanwhile, we’re literally living in a revolution driven entirely by the battery technology (and pricing) that the article says shouldn’t have happened: quite simply, they got it wrong.
The price decrease and performance increase in battery technology has made them disproportionately more valuable than we expected them to be.
Go find a 2025 article if you want to support your previous point.
The fact is batteries got better and cheaper, both, faster than we expected them to. Solar is already more than efficient to overwhelm our storage capabilities. Its a better investment to design and build with batteries, almost always. The additional complexity at this point is minimal.
If the technology is so great, why not just slap in some batteries and have it run 24/7? Batteries are so cheap there is no reason not to.
They are not that cheap. I don’t know what age you think this is, but batteries and replacement is a huge investment. It is the main reason people sell their cars because the cost is so prohibitive.
Your statement about understanding technology is bull.
The battery price revolution started way before 2019. There’s nothing unprecedented about today’s battery prices from the PoV of 2019. In fact, your own data says that in fact the price decrease has been slowing down: Besides the visible fast decrease between 2014 and 2017, prices-per-kWh were about $128 in 2018, $120 in 2019, $110 in 2020, $99 in 2021, and then pandemic inflation spiked it and three years later it only managed to decrease to $78 in 2024. No, I don’t think battery prices are falling faster than we expect them to.
Why battery free?
Batteries are cheap and great.
Oh its refried MIT garbage. Ok.
Batteries are not cheap, especially on industrial scale. And most batteries are not ecologically friendly. It makes far more sense to put all the power solar panels produce during the day to immediate use for maximum efficiency, there is no form of battery that exists that doesn’t have some kind of efficiency loss.z
Putting a battery on this is like building a water tower in your front lawn that only feeds your sprinkler, and you’re only filling it from a hose. You don’t really get any benefit out of it and it’s just easier to run the hose right to the sprinkler anyways.
Extra, expensive layer of maintenance. This isn’t just your average 5V1A AA battery; even the batteryless thing needs 100Wh.
What do you mean refried? What about MIT?
They’re probably upset that MIT refused to let someone attend the graduation because of their pro-Palestinian views, and therefore they make dumb statements about MIT’s education and contributions.
saying someone’s statement is dumb is very provocative
Then don’t be dumb.
I assume you stand with Israel?
MIT is in the business of marketing MIT, and they are damn good at it. And I do think the people doing this work should be highlighted. However, it ends up being almost exclusively hype.
Its a trope specifically related to MIT.
Every university markets itself including the research university. Can’t we just accept that battery-free desalination is really cool and efficient? The fact that they were research students of MIT had not registered any land in my mind until you pointed it out.
I understand your motivation and desire to not let the morons go un-opposed, I appreciate what you’ve done, but it’s time to leave the troll in it’s cave. The ogre will not turn to stone if it feels the touch of sun unfortunately. Shine your brightness in places it’ll be appreciated.
I get that you simply don’t understand whats being said. You’ll figure it out eventually.
Agreed, got very MIT ‘WaterSeer’ vibes from this…
WaterSeer was initially somehow related to some part of UC Berkeley, rather than MIT.
You may be thinking of this device: https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30444-X
… Or the metal oxide framework predecessor to it, or the newer thing that uses some sort of gel.
I’m not aware of a commercial product based on this work.
I stand corrected, you are right. All the links I bookmarked 404 now but it was a UC Burkely funded project.
https://scet.berkeley.edu/vici-labs-collider-project/ https://scet.berkeley.edu/waterseer-collider-winners-announced/
Thank you for correcting the record.
I can’t find any relation between WaterSeer and MIT. And unlike WaterSeer, this was published as a peer-reviewed Nature paper in Oct 2024.
Its its coming from MIT, it deserves an extra pass of scrutiny.
Tell me more about how you don’t understand technology or politics.
I understand both, excellently.
Could you explain why https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30723834/ is wrong in saying batteries are a significant barrier to deploying the solar-powered, then?
2019 article about battery technology; meanwhile, we’re literally living in a revolution driven entirely by the battery technology (and pricing) that the article says shouldn’t have happened: quite simply, they got it wrong.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-price
The price decrease and performance increase in battery technology has made them disproportionately more valuable than we expected them to be.
Go find a 2025 article if you want to support your previous point.
The fact is batteries got better and cheaper, both, faster than we expected them to. Solar is already more than efficient to overwhelm our storage capabilities. Its a better investment to design and build with batteries, almost always. The additional complexity at this point is minimal.
If the technology is so great, why not just slap in some batteries and have it run 24/7? Batteries are so cheap there is no reason not to.
They are not that cheap. I don’t know what age you think this is, but batteries and replacement is a huge investment. It is the main reason people sell their cars because the cost is so prohibitive.
Your statement about understanding technology is bull.
The battery price revolution started way before 2019. There’s nothing unprecedented about today’s battery prices from the PoV of 2019. In fact, your own data says that in fact the price decrease has been slowing down: Besides the visible fast decrease between 2014 and 2017, prices-per-kWh were about $128 in 2018, $120 in 2019, $110 in 2020, $99 in 2021, and then pandemic inflation spiked it and three years later it only managed to decrease to $78 in 2024. No, I don’t think battery prices are falling faster than we expect them to.
And here’s an article from 2023: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479724010430
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