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New battery material could help wind and solar power go big

♤ Harvard University researchers say they have developed a new type of battery that could make it economical to store a couple of days of electricity from wind farms and other sources of power.

♤ The new battery is based on an organic molecule — called a quinone — that’s found in plants such as rhubarb and can be cheaply synthesised from crude oil. The molecules could reduce, by two-thirds, the cost of energy storage materials in a type of battery called a flow battery, which is particularly well suited to storing large amounts of energy.