Totally agree, it's a bit like when some physicists were convinced that there wouldn't be other great breakthroughs after Maxwell's theory of electromagnetics. Maybe Yann LeCun is the Einstein of Machine Learning? haha
Since 60s, hackers have greatly changed the world of communication with internet and new technologies. Hackers democratize the communication, giving everybody the capacity to share his opinion and his culture around the world. We could do the same with energy. Why don't we build an internet to share energy? I think, as for the communication internet, hackers have to take the first step. It could change the world another time, less need to store energy, more possibilities to use renewable energies. What do you think ?
You really do need to make distributed/decentralized generation the first priority for energy with storage the second. Make it a box that generates 1kWh/day that costs $99.00, something cheap and small.
Without generation and capture, there's nothing to sell or share. Capture could be thermal, compressed air or water potential, anything that doesn't rely on batteries should be considered. If you're just storing the energy as heat, imagine something as crazy as a molten-salt or phase-changed material carrier that you can carry back to your stove to cook on.
