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The race is on.

Though the pressures are still very high – about a thousand times higher than you’d experience at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench – they continue to race toward a goal of near-zero. It’s a race that’s gaining steam exponentially at UNLV as researchers gain a better understanding of the chemical relationship between the carbon, sulfur, and hydrogen that make up the material.

“Our knowledge of the relationship between carbon and sulfur is advancing rapidly, and we’re finding ratios that lead to remarkably different, and more efficient, responses than what was initially observed,” said Salamat, who directs UNLV’s NEXCL and contributed to the latest study. “To observe such different phenomena in a similar system just shows the richness of Mother Nature. There’s so much more to understand, and every new advancement brings us closer to the precipice of everyday superconducting devices.”
I guess it's not that big a coincidence, but researchers are developing a new kind of battery for utility scale storage (like solar energy at night). It's based on sulfur, aluminum, and aluminum chloride. I guess the similarity is sulfur plus very common elements.

The AlS batteries operate best at around 230°F, too hot for small things like cars, but no prob for big utility scale installations, and they can charge and discharge VERY rapidly.

https://news.mit.edu/2022/aluminum-sulfur-battery-0824
SW-User
I hope we're on the cusp of a convergence of breakthroughs ... transporting energy is getting interesting, and creating the energy to transport is getting interesting

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/26/nuclear-fusion-technology-climate-change/

Nuclear fusion power inches closer to reality

... Scientists are mere years from getting more energy out of fusion reactions than the energy required to create them ...

Yet challenges remain, according to nuclear scientists. The U.S. energy grid would need a significant redesign for fusion power plants to become common. The price of providing fusion power is still too high to be feasible ...

Moreover, to create an electricity grid through which fusion technology provides large amounts of power, many things need to happen. Universities need to churn out scientists more capable of working on fusion technology. Fusion power companies need to build devices that create more energy than they consume. Scientific and manufacturing materials must be constructed in difficult ways if power plants want to scale.

“Can we get there?” Whyte asked. “I think we can if we get our act together in the right way. But there’s no guarantee of that.”

 
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