Surely someone will invent a "new" type of battery that will not be just an update on what is available at the moment.
Throughout history things have normally been attributed to the one person who is said to have invented it. People like Marconi and John Logie Baird are said to have been the inventors of the radio and TV, however there were lots of people working on the same thing at the same time. If someone was living on a remote island without any communication with the rest of the world it might be possible for them to come up with a totally different idea. Even when I was at primary school we used to make a potato battery ! Hmm a whole sack full of spuds might work as you can get 5volts out of one boiled potato
