The biggest clean energy breakthrough of 2025 is not a new solar panel. It is not a nuclear reactor. It is rust.... batteries.

 

The biggest clean energy breakthrough of 2025 is not a new solar panel. It is not a nuclear reactor. It is rust.

A company called Form Energy figured out how to store electricity by deliberately rusting iron pellets. When the grid needs power, the battery breathes in oxygen from the open air. The iron turns to rust, releasing energy. When there is excess power, an electric current runs back through it holding it in reverse. The battery exhales oxygen, turning the rust back into iron. The cycle repeats.

The result is 100 hours of continuous energy storage. Four straight days. A standard lithium-ion battery taps out after four hours.

The ingredients are iron, water, and air. No lithium. No cobalt. No heavily mined rare earth metals. Just the cheapest, most abundant metal on the planet. The batteries are shipping right now from a new factory in West Virginia, built directly on the site of an abandoned steel mill. Google just ordered a massive system. A Dutch company called Ore Energy just connected a similar system to the public grid.

The target cost is under $20 per kilowatt-hour. That is a tenth of the cost of lithium. The solution to our power grid problem is literally rust.