There's also various schemes to use gravity. Pump water uphill above a dam when power demand is low like at night, also I have read speculation of trying to do this in some underground mine or something so it doesn't evaporate.

That has even a worse energy density and thus requires a lot of space.

We have nuclear energy, we don’t need to use technology from the medieval ages.

"Batteries are terrible for long term storage, namely they are toxic"

Only some are toxic. But can you name the poison or danger with saltwater batteries?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery

Yes, there are excellent non-"battery" technologies. I'm explicitly talking about the high capacity chemical batteries everyone's crazy for these days.

Sodium ion batteries are chemical and can have as much capacity as you like. They just need a bit more space, but not too much more, as they are already used in cheaper electric cars.

"Chinese automaker Yiwei debuted the first sodium-ion battery-powered car in 2023. It uses JAC Group’s UE module technology, which is similar to CATL's cell-to-pack design.[82] The car has a 23.2 kWh battery pack with a CLTC range of 230 kilometres (140 mi)."

And for grid storage, "slightly bigger size" really doesn't matter.