Energy storage will “topple dictators”

MIT professor Donald Sadoway is already something of a legend thanks to his ground-breaking research on liquid metal batteries and his barnstorming presentations promoting the technology as the future of energy storage.

But his profile, and that of energy storage in general, can only have been enhanced when he went head-to-head with faux right-wing blow-hard, Stephen Colbert, on Comedy Central’s hit showThe Colbert Report.

Sadoway did a great job explaining the importance of energy storage in allowing renewables to play a bigger part in America’s grid system and thus reduce the country’s reliance on oil as a strategic resource, receiving plenty of applause from an enthusiastic studio audience when he underlined how this could promote world peace.

Responding to criticism that he has received Department of Energy money, Sadoway noted that, unlike Solyndra, the famously defunct solar developer, his MIT spin-out was engaged in basic research and thus a more worthy recipient of the taxpayer’s largesse. Needless to say, the appearance attracted a lot of media attention, and Sadoway found himself the toast of energy storage-savvy Tweeters.