Nov 3, 2026 - A Battery Made of Sand Is Now Heating a Town
The Hidden Problem With Battery Breakthroughs. Battery breakthroughs make big promises, and a lot of you tell me they never go anywhere. So I went back through the new battery technology I covered over the last few years. One sand battery is now heating a Finnish town, but a liquid metal battery ran out of money after 15 years, and another company killed its own battery to save itself. I scored each one on the Technology Readiness Level scale, from an idea on a whiteboard to something customers already use. So are these breakthroughs actually reaching customers? Or is the road from lab to market just too long?