The ZEBRA battery is a well tested, long lived and fire proof battery that is built from common ordinary materials and has similar if not better energy storage capacity to Li batteries. It can be cooled with simple air circulation at the highest possible air temperatures and can continue to operate with many failed cells. It has been tested in hybrid locomotives and trucks as well as cars and buses for over ten years and is now being used in a NATO submarine rescue vehicle in the UK. The cells need no special protection from over currents either on charging or discharging. It is being actively marketed by Rolls-Royce for naval vehicles. Li batteries are too big a danger and too costly for naval vehicles. An array of several small diesel engines can be more energy and fuel efficient than any battery system.

No naval vessel should ever have only one turbine and in fact should not rely upon turbines for ordinary running at all because they have too low an efficiency at full load and much worse efficiency at part load. There are ways to improve part load efficiency, but multiple engines with electric drive will always be more reliable and efficient. Modern piston engine technology and high fuel costs have eliminated the practical use of turbines in sea going vessels of any type.

In the last few years, at least three generating stations have been built in the US with more than ten gas powered engines each so that any amount of power up to the full capacity can be generated at high efficiency. For very cheap operation, gas could be made from coal or coal coke or even biomass charcoal. With computer control and high power silicon or silicon carbide electronics now very cheap, there may be no reason to have an engine generator with more than one piston. Arrays of such single piston engines or ordinary multiple piston engines make large batteries obsolete where air is always available.

Two large compressed air energy storage systems are in operation and one UPS company uses ordinary compressed oxygen type tanks for compressed air energy storage. Carbon fiber or other materials can make such tanks much lighter so that they approach the weight energy density of batteries. In theory, large diameter pressure tanks have no weight advantage over multiple small diameter tanks, the size of tank that can be mass produced in large number would be the cheapest. If a heavy steel tank can store compresssed gas at a lower cost, then it is more suitable than a carbon fiber tank for a stationary installation. Air heaters, even fuel powered ones, increase the power available to the simple air turbines.

To store electricity in a battery increases its cost by a factor of more than three and may not even be practical for wind or solar energy. Most wind and solar projects rely upon grid connections and other interconnected generators for continuous power not batteries. Even HONDA sells inteconnected multiple electronic engine generator systems for portable power. ..HG..

The Zebra battery is not the right answer for cars, it has a strong internal resistance, need to be keep at 250C which consume at least 10% of it is energy, so the returned energy is not good at all. If it accidentally cool down it takes 2 days to be re-heated, how can it be practical ? no way