“If you want to make something dirt-cheap, make it out of dirt.”
—Prof. Donald Sadoway, John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I love innovation. I love when people think outside the box. Too often I hear comments like “the battery capability isn’t there,” or “the grid can’t handle the intermittency of renewable sources of energy.”

But I don’t think that means we have to continue to work within our current framework and squeeze out every drop of oil from beneath the ocean floor or out of the tar sands in Alberta. Nor do we need to dig out every nugget of coal from every mountaintop that we’re tearing down. What we should be striving toward instead is change the infrastructure so it can deal with these newer developing technologies.

One inspiring individual who thinks outside the box is Professor Donald Sadoway at MIT. Although he has research interests in many areas of chemistry and metallurgy, one area of research he has focused on has been to produce more efficient batteries, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially within the industry sectors. His research has often been driven by his desire to reduce carbon pollution output by various industries.

Professor Sadoway recently had a TED talk posted on a new efficient battery he and his research team have been working on. I found his video particularly inspiring. If you have fifteen minutes, I strongly recommend you watch this informative and enlightening piece of education.