Focus The New York Times – July 14 The Energy Department on Wednesday announced a new effort to tackle one of the toughest technical challenges facing President Joe Biden's push for an electric grid dominated by solar and wind power. While dozens of companies are working on different ideas for so-called "long-duration energy storage," most are still too expensive to be useful. As part of its initiative, the Energy Department wants to drive down the cost of long-duration storage 90% below the cost of today's lithium-ion batteries by 2030. The agency will direct experts at its national labs to focus on improving such technologies while it seeks funding from Congress for early demonstration projects.