Also right now about 70% of all lithium comes from only two places (Chile, Australia). Iron and sodium are pretty much everywhere so this potentially eliminates at least one supply bottleneck
The CIA wants to know your location /s . I know this kind of joke is not appreciated on HN (for good reason), but one has to ponder of the implication of cheap/dense energy/storage and what big actors like governments, big corporations would think about not being able to effectively control energy production/storage/distribution.
If you are the Chilean or Australien government you would maybe be unhappy about moving away from Lithium. Most other governments would love it e.g. Europe doesn't have much Lithium (or at least not a lot that is easy enough to extract to make it profitable). The EU and european governments already try to rely less on foreign supply chains, especially since they relied so heavily on Russia for gas and now have to scramble to find other sources.
Maybe the corporations of those countries. But Australian and Chilean citizens both loathe the environmental and health impacts of these industries. Especially those that live in or around the "sacrifice zones" of these industries
At least in Europe, governments are going to great efforts and expense to decentralise and decarbonise the production, storage and distribution of energy. The implication is that as well as producing energy through renewables close to where it is used, it can be cheaply and sustainably stored there as well.
