Batteries

In their application to green technology, batteries are systems for storing electrical power for use in vehicles or to provide temporary power to compensate for intermittency of generation. With limited ability to store large amounts of energy, they are the weak link in all-electric vehicle applications but are needed to replace disappearing energy supplies. Batteries can also be applied to load leveling of intermittent but renewable electric power sources such as wind and solar and to future hybrid power sources, mixing on-board [Page 39]energy storage with power picked up by a moving vehicle.

There are two classes of batteries: single-use batteries, such as those in flashlights that are discarded after they are exhausted, and rechargeable storage batteries that convert chemical to electrical energy and back again ...