Originally Posted By: Bill
The problem with lead acid batteries is that they just don't work that well for large applications. If

They just don't work that well for anything. It's not about scaling. They aren't even used to power toy cars, except the ride-on ones where cost and lifetime have to be very low just so people can afford them at all.

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kind of an off-the-wall idea that turns things all on their heads.

Something I just discovered, which seems to be one of the preferred battery types for large scales is "flow batteries". It sounds a lot like what Paul was saying with the swimming pool full of acid and just a small set of electrodes. Well they still require a lot of large electrodes but the capacity can be increased arbitrarily without adding more electrode material.