Refined aluminum is in quite a high-energy state. Chemically you could extract energy or make electricity from aluminum. It's used in some types of military explosives. Because the refining takes so much electricity, some well-meaning people suggest running it at times of low demand to balance the grid. But refining is capital intensive so you don't want to turn it off or you miss out on the returns from the investment, and the process runs at high temperatures and can't just be turned on and off (in fact if that happens unintentionally it makes a big mess!)

I agree with what you're saying though.

You're right. If we further expand the idea we can extract energy from anything flammable or otherwise reactant. I'll refrain from calling my dog a battery though.

Now excuse me while I go feed little Duracell. Good girl!

> we can extract energy from anything flammable or otherwise reactant.

You don’t need that either. Stacking concrete blocks can work as a battery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmrwdTGZxGk

There are aluminum batteries you know. There are practical reasons they're not in wide use, but they have incredible energy density, one of the highest of any battery.

Actually we can extract electricity from aluminium. A while ago someone proposed a "battery" that would consume aluminium as it provides electricity. Supposedly this battery was going to have 10x the energy density of today's li-ion batteries.

Edit:as for crypto you're completely correct. If one set out to invent the most inefficient energy use possible in computing the result would be crypto proof of work that grows all the time.

Agreed - calling it a battery is definitely a massive conflation with calling it an “energy sink”.

While you could call it (generously) a form of embedded energy, it fundamentally can not turned back into a form of energy directly, making the comparison very silly.

As others have mentioned, Aluminum can actually be turned into a battery to get the energy back. Bitcoin only if you traded it for energy....(still not a battery)

Imagine that as you mine BTC, you’re instantly paying that BTC for someone to drill some oil and put it in a barrel wherever you plan to use it. The system of you and your BTC plus that other person and the oil in the earth is a battery. Ok now just delay the other person’s actions in time.

Human organisations don't run on energy and resources. They run on money.

Crypto is a weird kind of battery, where you can put in energy, take out money, and when you need energy later, buy energy for that money.

Analogy doesn't make sense at all if you skip the money part.

> Human organisations don't run on energy and resources. They run on money.

You are talking nonsense here. Money is just an abstraction of energy and resources used by a human organization. Remove the money and the organization can still function. Remove energy and resources and the organization can't function.

> You are talking nonsense here. Money is just an abstraction of energy and resources used by a human organization.

Money is a separate system that often but not always flows hand in hand with the flow of energy and resources.

> Remove the money and the organization can still function.

Not every organisation. Remove money from the stock market and you have barely anything left. Large portion of money circulates in organisations that have very little to do with energy or resources.

> Money is a separate system that often but not always flows hand in hand with the flow of energy and resources.

It is an exception when money doesn't flow hand in hand with energy and/or resources not a rule as you are implying

> Not every organisation.

You are moving the goalpost here. Your claim wasn't that few organizations don't run on energy and resources. Your claim was that no organization runs on energy and resources.

> Remove money from the stock market and you have barely anything left. Large portion of money circulates in organisations that have very little to do with energy or resources.

Stock market is an organization which has everything to do with energy and resources. Money is just used as an abstraction of those. Remove energy and resources of companies whose stock is being traded and you have nothing left.

Considering that your claim was that human organizations run on money and not on energy and resources I'm sure you won't have a problem naming a few of those organization. Just pleas don't name those where money is just an abstraction of energy/resources because those organization do actually run on energy and resources.

my underwear is a weird kind of battery actually. You put your energy in it, and when you need energy later, you use the money I paid you.