I believe it could just be “awe” or “awestruck” with it’s roots in both awesome and awful. Though the context of the modern usage of “awe” is maybe not quite right.
The specific context here would be closer to breaking free of the simulacrum of the hyperreal (media, digital life, and our daily work) and seeing reality as it is. I’m not sure that there is a single word for this combined concept and feeling, though it would be a good one to know.
The hyperreal concept is interesting, though I admittedly don’t know much about it.
Flow batteries seem very promising, but the chemistry required needs more scale/external funding to be viable.
There were some thermal battery retrofits for coal power plants using carbon and steam that looked interesting in principal, though cost and logistics are not fully solved problems, and the round trip efficiency was rather bad compared to other storage methods.
There were also some molten metal batteries that have been working towards useful scale over the past decade or so. They had cheap and abundant matetial inputs and significantly long charge discharge.
There are many neat options out there. I think researching and building out each as they become viable would help to improve system resiliency and long term viability.