> Using electric car batteries to smooth out load on the grid is a good idea, but there’s no need for the car to be physically proximate to electricity sources

transmission losses are non-zero. so there is at least _some_ value in having the power for the air conditioner 20 feet away.

Agreed that transmission losses are real, but I would be amazed if mechanically transporting batteries down a road were more efficient than a wire. Consider the capital cost of adding miles to roads and tires vs. running electricity through wires. You’d also decrease speed of transmission and availability - both important when we are trying to distribute load across time and space.

> but I would be amazed if mechanically transporting batteries down a road were more efficient than a wire.

It is, because it doesn't require building a fucking electric pole (or run it underground: more expensive) and making sure its not cut by external factors.

Suppose that a vehicle carrying a 1Ah battery passes a given point on the freeway every second.

That's like 3600A of current!

(Well, except that both positive and negative charges are present, so it's like two 3600A currents in opposite directions which cancel.)

The poles have already been built. This would only be relevant if we were considering building new construction that isn’t connected to the grid, or letting existing grid infrastructure fall apart completely. In this analogy, the wires and poles map to the road the car is driving on.

What about some sort of electrical power hawala transaction?

I provide power in some far place with my car, and in exchange the power supplier gives an equivalent amount of power to my air conditioner for free for as long as I’m providing power.

Wow that is actually a really interesting idea! The problem with that approach would be trust: to trust that both parties hold their part of the bargain. There's likely to be a cryptographic solution to ensure that though, right?

Why do we need any of this? Physics takes care of it if we just hook everyone up to a grid. Electricity pretty much finds the sources and sinks by itself if you provide capacity (it’s more complicated that that, but simpler than what you are proposing). It’s kind of like saying why don’t we pump and sell well water to one another instead of using a common water supply where the runoff from all our land goes to the same pipes.

> Why do we need any of this? Physics takes care of it if we just hook everyone up to a grid.

That's exactly what is the bottleneck: the grid. Operating a grid, eating transmission losses etc. cost a lot of capital and labor. Not to mention: its also a single point of failure. Whereas communication (through cellphone towers) is cheap(er).

> It’s kind of like saying why don’t we pump and sell well water to one another instead of using a common water supply where the runoff from all our land goes to the same pipes.

Its not the same, and I don't think its a good comparison. Solar energy is much more plentiful than groundwater, and does not require any "processing".

Grid storage is the bottleneck today. You make the problem worse by splitting things up.

Maybe this is one example of a use case for blockchain technology.

With hawala the trust depends purely on a money brokers reputation.