Ordinarily we detest rust. It eats the undersides of our vehicles, helped along by road salt in winter. But the rusting process involves electricity, and can be put to good use.

A new company, Form Energy, is capitalizing on that fact by designing and building an iron-air battery system filled with water. Electrical currents, generated by solar and wind for instance, charge the battery by converting rust back into metallic iron, releasing oxygen. When discharging, the battery absorbs oxygen from the air, returning the iron back to rust! Over and over!

Form Energy, based in Somerville, Massachusetts, manufactures the batteries in an abandoned iron foundry in West Virginia. Each is about the size of a washing machine and dryer standing next to one another — clearly too big to fit into an electric vehicle. But it could fit in your basement, perhaps.

One of Form Energy’s first big projects will bring hundreds of such batteries for placement in an 87 MW battery bank to reenergize the former paper mill in Lincoln, Maine. When fully built it will be able to store power from solar and wind. When fully charged, it’ll be capable of discharging 100 hours of power (that’s four days) to whomever needs it.

Projects like this deserve the support of Sens. Collins and King, both members of the Bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus. Form Energy is supported by funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, which supports worthwhile clean energy projects all across the country.

Peter Garrett

Winslow