> I'd argue this makes a lot more sense than some sort of drone delivered jettisoned/retrieved battery..
Oh absolutely, it compares favourably to one of the most asinine first-pass approaches to this problem I've ever seen, heheh.
The real solution is to find a way to produce good liquid fuel from a cheap and abundant source of overprovisioned baseline power (maybe make hydrogen†from your nuclear power in off-peak hours).
Batteries are mostly composed of matrix, so even if you could extract energy as efficiently from the non-matrix materials in the battery as you can from hydrocarbon combustion, you would still be lugging around all that matrix.
†Yes, I get that it's 3 times less energy dense than good hydrocarbons, but it's a start when compared to batteries.
Oh absolutely, it compares favourably to one of the most asinine first-pass approaches to this problem I've ever seen, heheh.
The real solution is to find a way to produce good liquid fuel from a cheap and abundant source of overprovisioned baseline power (maybe make hydrogen†from your nuclear power in off-peak hours).
Batteries are mostly composed of matrix, so even if you could extract energy as efficiently from the non-matrix materials in the battery as you can from hydrocarbon combustion, you would still be lugging around all that matrix.
†Yes, I get that it's 3 times less energy dense than good hydrocarbons, but it's a start when compared to batteries.