I’m not a subscriber to PM so I couldn’t read that particular article, but it’s easy to go online and do a dive into the tech. Executive summary… very promising at first glance but they have some serious weaknesses. Researchers are trying to iron out the kinks.
I read an MIT article a few years ago about molten salt/aluminum batteries. Haven’t seen those yet either, in spite of the glowing review.
Battery tech is still in its infancy. Improvements seem like low hanging fruit. I hope it works out soon.
Seems to me a fairly mature infancy. Toddlerhood perhaps? Sixty five years ago my father was in charge of the US Navy efforts to adapt fuel cells and silver/?? batteries for submarine propulsion (fuel cells were far from ready, and the silver batteries were deemed too expensive).
From the source of the PM article.
I used some Edison batteries on an off grid solar install 20 years ago.They are heavy and require maintenance but those are still going strong after 20 years.
Every telephone company central office used to have a cellar full of them, which is why the phones still worked during power outages.
Side note: NiFe cells were featured in Alistair MacLean’s Ice Station Zebra, though I forget in exactly what [ahem] capacity.