In Australia, community opposition to big batteries due to fire risk is developing a sort of thermal runaway of its own – self-sustaining and difficult to extinguish.

Small nuclear reactors (SMRs) are possible in the future, but they are not a panacea compared to their renewable energy counterparts.

The extraction of work (i.e., usable energy) from quantum processes is a key focus of quantum thermodynamics research, which explores the application of thermodynamics laws to quantum systems.