Russia Influenced our Blog! What happened next surprised us!

This blog, despite the hiatus over the last few weeks, is still keen to bring you the news and views of the battery world. Curiously, it is served outside the US as much as inside the US. And Russian is the most translated version delivered to the non-English speaking world.

Why to people in Russia want to read about the fascinating goings on about batteries? Could it be because of the great engineering minds that dwell in those parts? Could it be that batteries are seen as a solution for more problems by more people there?

I'm not sure. Perhaps some of you in Russia could comment. Go ahead and respond in Cyrillic and I'll just push the handy "translate this" button I have here in Chrome, and I hope the online translator will make sense when I reply.

I know just a little about Russia having traveled there 3 times. 1 time for business, 2 times for pleasure. And there are some truly wonderful people one cannot help but meet if you spend some time anywhere in the country. And I noticed that even though I didn't run into a lot of engineers, everyone had an analytical mind.

Take for instance the babushka (babule?) I stayed with on one trip. She was a medical doctor by learning and had a long career. She was retired in her 70's and receiving a pension. The pension she received was the full amount of rubles that were promised to her.

Unfortunately with inflation that entire payment was only a few dollars per month. She wasn't a bitter person, but she supplemented her income by renting her storage room (big closet?) to people like me. And she did doctoring over the threshold.

Doctoring over the threshold was a little trick she understood because if someone came inside her apartment for medical advice, she could be breaking state laws. However, if they stayed out of the house while she talked about their case, then she had some protection if someone told the authorities that she was helping people outside the system.

I hope she is still doing what she loves - helping people and using her very sharp mind.

And that's what I experience in the little time I was there. People always thinking. It's what we will make solar and wind work because there is no getting around the problem of energy storage. There have already been a number of breakthroughs come out of Russia.

And let's not forget that Russia sits on vast unexplored areas that could hold a great deal of raw materials for the unique use in batteries. Not only are they ramping up production in known deposits, but other rare earths will be needed and many areas have yet to be checked.

So jump on in. The water's fine. Join us in the US to tackle the energy storage problem. It may not be the catalyst to produce world peace, but it will be a great good for everyone in the world.