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Stimulus Could Kickstart US Battery Industry
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 17, 2009 05:32 PM
from the charging-ahead dept.
from the charging-ahead dept.
Al sends along a Technology Review piece that begins "Provisions in the Congressional stimulus bill could help jump-start a new, multibillion-dollar industry in the US for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrids and electric vehicles and for storing energy from the electrical grid to enable the widespread use of renewable energy. The nearly $790 billion economic stimulus legislation contains tens of billions of dollars in loans, grants, and tax incentives for advanced battery research and manufacturing, as well as incentives for plug-in hybrids and improvements to the electrical grid, which could help create a market for these batteries. Significant advances in battery materials, including the development of new lithium-ion batteries, have been made in the US in the past few years; but advanced battery manufacturing is almost entirely overseas, particularly in Asia."
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Submission: U.S. Battery Makers Benefit Most From The Stimulus by Anonymous Coward
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Environmental issues (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Environmental issues (Score:5, Interesting)
I would want a nice clean one in my back yard. We should set tariffs on products that are not manufactured in a way that would be legal in the US. This would level the playing field.
Parent
Re:You can't have it. (Score:4, Insightful)
So other than racism do you have any comment you wanted to make?
The reality is dumping in China or in California will impact everyone. Do you know where rivers end up going? We can and should set standards on environmental cleanliness. Then to ensure that our companies are not at a disadvantage all products imported to this nation must be produced in a way that meets those standards or its cost should be increased via tariffs to prevent abuse of the commons.
The reality is dumping has a cost, but it is externalized. A tariff would merely internalize this cost.
Parent
How is it racism? (Score:5, Interesting)
To say that the asian countries should be kept out of the USA. To a nation, China, Japan, S Korea, all adopt mercantile trading policies - essentially hoarding dollars the same way 18th century Britain tried to load up on gold. At the same time, they protect their own economies from foreign imports both by encouraging a nationalistic culture that rejects foreigners and foreign things, and also through a use of tariffs. The fact of the matter is, you would be extremely hard pressed to make any reasonable argument that any asian country is interested genuinely in free trade. Go ahead, name me just one. Call me a racist all you want, but the same damn US Trade Office report on Japan's own unwillingness to buy stuff is that.
Trade with asia is like a black guy trying to get a job in the old american south. No matter how he dressed, what degree he had, he was screwed because he was black. The same thing with trade with Asia. They can complain about this feature or that feature all they want to, and then perhaps even bribe some American media whores to defend their points, but the overall thrust is that no matter what the USA makes, or Europe for that matter, there will be no significant free trade between the West and Asia. It's just not going to happen.
Free traders have been predicting a leveling of trade with asia now for 40 years, and I'm sick of waiting. Kick them the fuck out!
Parent
Re:How is it racism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like it or not it was the greed of certain Americans that caused this crash, the reason it spread all across the world is because the whole world has been investing in the US sub-prime sector.
Trying to deny that we live in a global economy, just as it goes into a crisis, is extremely irresponsible and we'd only end up hurting ourselves.
Finally if you want to "Kick them the fuck out" try not buying their products.. Good luck, their products are what make the Western lifestyle affordable.
Parent
Re:How is it racism? (Score:4, Insightful)
How convenient, after years of economic prosperity on the back of trade with China (which both benefited from) now that there's a crisis they're against free trade and everyone should isolate themselves.
China and the USA have a complicated relationship that goes through weird phases. By and large most Americans like Chinese people... Chinese food is great, the history and artwork are just amazing. There's always going to be an American soft spot for China because the two countries are opposites in some ways - China is very old, and America is very young.
Like it or not it was the greed of certain Americans that caused this crash, the reason it spread all across the world is because the whole world has been investing in the US sub-prime sector
Well, I'm not buying the sub-prime thing. The total value of all mortgages in the USA is only about 10 trillion dollars, and so I would think that if the subprime mess were the problem, that's only about two trillion worth, and the USA has already pumped that much money into the banking system to cover those losses, either via TARP, or via games played with the Federal Reserve.
Finally if you want to "Kick them the fuck out" try not buying their products.. Good luck, their products are what make the Western lifestyle affordable.
Um, the western lifestyle was more affordable before those products happened. It used to be, before free trade, that a single man could work 9-5 at a steel mill, support a stay at home, a bunch of kids, pay for medical expenses out of his pocket, own his house and have two new cars and a TV, and he could send his kids to college. When he retired, he got a company pension that lasted not only until he died, but until his wife died. Since the emergence of free trade, bit by bit, that standard of living has been eroded and that's what the Democrats are just screaming about while, foolishly, Republicans keep pushing the free trade button despite all the ruin that it caused. Yes, its good on paper, free trade is, but it just doesn't work.
Parent
Re:How is it racism? (Score:4, Interesting)
Neither Hong Kong or Singapore are countries in the country sense of the world. Singapore is just a city and Hong Kong is just a tiny, tiny island. They HAVE to have some measure of free trade because they have essentially no natural resources, no room for manufacturing... putting them in the same category as the rest of Asia is like saying all of Europe is like the Channel Islands.
Parent
Re:You can't have it. Too bad it took (Score:4, Funny)
The "American made" Hondas are actually kit cars whose primary engineering and most labor intensive components are produced in Japan. People that buy Hondas in America are still traitors, no matter how you rationalize it. The Big Three, for all their faults, created the American class, and also provided the manufacturing know how and expertise to win two world wars, and secure freedom for the world. The Japanese, well, were on the other side.
Parent
Re:Environmental issues (Score:5, Informative)
But, would you like to pay $5 a AA battery? That's what the result would be. As much as we hate pollution and forced Chinese labor, we also hate high prices even more. Also, what would you do with Mexicans and Canadians smuggling batteries across the border. That's what will happen, like it or not.
Exactly, I mean a factory that employs 50 people and makes millions of batteries per year would experience significant savings if they could pay Chinese wages.
Wait a minute: Union wages x 50 employes / millions of units = very very small labor premium per unit. Turns out maybe battery manufacturing is probably dominated by the material costs, which aren't really any cheaper in China after all. All in all, it will probably add a few cents to the cost of "Made in USA" batteries.
But I'm just /. spewing right? Anyone can pull numbers out of their ass!! If only there was some American AA battery factory out there so we could see the reality. Lucky us:
"All Panasonic Alkaline batteries are made in the U.S.A. at our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Columbus, Georgia."
Of course, those are "Panasonic Industrial Alkalines" those are gonna cost you a fortune:
Panasonic Industrial AA Batteries 24/carton - $9.60
Works out to $0.40 per battery. I think we'll cope.
I accept your apology.
Cites:
Made in USA claim:
http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/battery/oem/chem/alk/ [panasonic.com]
Panasonic Industrial AA's for sale:
http://www.jirehsupplies.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=PI-AA [jirehsupplies.com]
Parent
Re:Environmental issues (Score:4, Interesting)
And, not all "battery" technolgies are harmful; I read one proposal for storing and shipping hot water as a cheap and quite efficient means of energy storage. Pumping water uphill is another.
Parent
Re:Environmental issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Every type of battery is different; categorizing them all with a single statement about the consequences of their manufacturing is silly. You might as well just claim "My understanding is that businesses pollute the environment... do you really want a business in your back yard?"
FYI, but the sorts of batteries being looked at here -- mostly phosphate or manganese li-ions, lacking in cobalt cathodes -- are among the most environmentally benign battery chemistries out there.
Parent
Re:Environmental issues (Score:5, Informative)
Please stop making false claims that would have taken you 3 seconds to check.
http://www.toxco.com/ [toxco.com]
There you go they recycle. Besides if no one recycled them why would the recycling centers and such pay so much for old lithium batteries?
Parent
Re:Environmental issues (Score:5, Interesting)
Where to start?
1) We're talking about li-ion, not "lithium batteries". Lithium batteries are a completely different tech.
2) There is no single type of battery known as "li-ion"; it's a family of different chemistries. Each one has their own different traits regarding recycleability.
3) The single element that makes it hardest to recycle li-ions is the presence of a cobalt cathode, which makes the cells much more flammable and provides pretty much all of their (limited) toxicity. Most EV manufacturers are looking at li-ion variants that don't use them.
4) Even in cells that use cobalt cathodes, such as Tesla's, they're perfectly recycleable [teslamotors.com].
5) The main reason li-ions aren't generally recycled isn't due to some sort of impossibility of it; it's that the ingredients, especially in the newer variants, are dirt cheap. Cobalt is a relevant portion of the costs of traditional li-ions, but that's gone in the latest. What in a LiP cell is worth recycling? Lithium carbonate at $7 a kilogram? Graphite at even cheaper? Phosphorus and iron? The raw ingredients are pretty worthless. Which brings us to our next points.
6) There is not a "limited" amount of lithium in the least. Lithium carbonate can be recovered from seawater in virtually limitless quantities at $22-$32 a kilogram with first generation technology. That's a couple percent of the total cost of the batteries. The reason people don't generally do that is because it can be gotten *even cheaper* from places like Bolivia, Chile, China, etc, for $7-8/kg (used to be $4-5/kg, but recent demand has outpaced scaleups of the mines). It's so cheap people can afford to use it for low-value uses like greases and glasses. In fact...
7) At *current prices*, they have big competition right here in the US. These sorts of prices make the Kings Valley lithium deposits (Nevada) being developed by Western Lithium Corporation economical, for example. There's enough lithium in that one deposit, for example, to build hundreds of millions of electric vehicles.
I could keep going, but I think I've made my point that you know nothing about what you're talking about.
Parent
Check one for science (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Check one for science (Score:5, Insightful)
You feel good about an agenda being forced on you and paid for with your taxmoney? This has nothing to do with the economy. They are using the economy as an excuse to pay for things that are not necessary.
drink the cool-aid sheeple.
Parent
Re:Check one for science (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Check one for science (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you plan to give people "faith in the system"? Do you have any clue how much toxic debt there is circulating out there? If you think things are bad right now, just wait to see what the unemployment situation is like by the time the financial system has worked it all out of its system; unemployment always lags behind everything else. Right now, about the only entities that *can* borrow money effectively are governments -- in particular, the US government.
$800B sounds like a lot, but we'll be lucky
Re:Check one for science (Score:5, Interesting)
The business my wife works for is stocking up for the summer, they just got a credit line for five million dollars - the same as they do every year.
Ah yes, taking money from one pocket (mine) and moving it someone else's pork barrel is a wonderful way to stop the slide. I suspect you've never heard of the Broken Window Fallacy. [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Check one for science (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, taking money from one pocket (mine) and moving it someone else's pork barrel is a wonderful way to stop the slide.
Oh really? They took it from you? So, your taxes jumped by about $8000 this year? No? Then you are lying. They didn't take anything from you. They increased the $100,000 or so you already owe. And if you have a problem with that, you should have brought it up before, as the paltry $800 billion is nothing compared to the increase in debt over the past 8 years.
Parent
Re:Check one for science (Score:5, Interesting)
I read an excellent book by James R. Cook called Full Faith and Credit: A Novel About Financial Collapse. It starts out with the US stock market over-leveraged, and then the stock market crashes, mortgages collapse, and massive inflation and interest rates occur as the government steps in and tries to help. The main character is a trader who buys gold and makes a vast fortune.
As liquidity disappears, hedge and mutual funds and AAA companies fail and the dollar slides, Congress bails out banks and major funds to no avail. At the end a (laughable now) $100 billion stimulus is proposed (centering on infrastructure improvements), but the federal government teeters on default and starts having troubling paying bond interest. Unemployment benefit claims balloon, and in the face of imminent default and chaos, the president courageously proposes and passes a plan to cut the government down to actual income levels and shears off roughly half the government. There are various riots initially, but things finally settle down to a hard and thrifty recovery.
At the end Cook includes a note saying that the collapse was compressed to 3 years for the sake of the story but that the real crash could take several more years. It's scary how realistic the entire things is, right down to terms like 'stimulus package' and 'bailout'. It's copyright 1999.
Parent
So NASA was given what? (Score:3, Insightful)
400 million for climate research? OK, another 450 for the manned space program (drop in a bucket) but their funds that were going to fix the place got butchered? (50m instead of the 250m they needed)
So out of 789 BILLION NASA gets 1 Billion and that is OK? So, that puts NASA up to 18 billion? Well, who got more?
So, lets see where did the rest go? The bulk of the 20 billion or so is for the NIH to establish a National Health Registry. Actually the figure is about 19 billion of what is allocated to "sci
Irony (Score:5, Funny)
I find this ironic as I got laid off from a battery company. Too late for me I guess...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
mod + funny
Re:Irony (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I read "grant", "advanced research", and "tax incentive", I see "gift", "white elephant", and "sleaze".
Yes, it's good to spend collective funds on roads, bridges, art, maybe even public fiber, insurance, and banking. But anything the market can do, it should. And I mean a free market, not that fake crony capitalism championed by Bush. In a free market, with proper authority to stop the powerful from escaping the rules, every company is free to compete without barriers. Every subsidy, cheap loan, and grant is a distortion of that market unless it goes to areas that cannot make a profit.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:4, Funny)
It's such a good thing that the government never subsidized research into computer communication networks!
Now check the gauge on your sarcasm detector.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The average congressman is barely able to find their own ass with both hands and a mirror. Yet we expect that these people are more qualified to run industries than the experts in those industries. This stimulus package is nothing more than a trillion dollars of salted pork.
Just like 9/11 was an excuse for congress to meddle in our private lives, the economic crisis is just an excuse for congress to spend our money. Obama told us this package was so urgent that we couldn't even take the time to READ it. He
Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Read my post again. A free market is not the Wild Wild West. Unions, labor laws, and environmental laws are about stopping the powerful from escaping the rules. In a free market, for example, an individual has the option to withdraw his/her labor. Big businesses try to remove this options. Unions put it back.
At the same time, unions can work against a free market, when they get too powerful and themselves try to escape the rules (like competition).
Parent
Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Milton Friedman argued that the legal framework is already in place to deal with companies polluting the environment. It all boils down to private property. Few people pollute their own land and few people care if someone pollutes his/her own land.
Companies that pollute another person's property are already liable for damage caused to that property. The problem comes into play when dealing with public property and with the atmosphere. What we need is to extend private property laws to be inclusive of the atmosphere above that property. If someone pollutes the air on your property then you can sue him for the damages. There are already laws in place that touch on this to an extent. For example: here in Canada, if I run a business out of my home I can not allow any toxic gases to escape onto my neighbour's property. The only reason big industry isn't punished under these same laws is the practicality associated. We already have mass dumping into the atmosphere and for the government to say that it will enforce these pollution laws will have gross effects on the economy. There's really no other reason the government doesn't begin to more stringently enforce this principle.
The way I see it, the public should start suing companies in class action suits for damages to public property, the same way they do for damages to private property.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not holding my breath until they do, but if you don't, you're a hypocrite for exhaling (dumping) your CO2 into the atmosphere.
I've heard this argument made before. It's pretty funny.
Everything we eat and breathe out as CO2 was formed from very recently grown plant material. Plants, as we all know, consume CO2.
So excepting anyone drinking fossil fuels straight from the tap, human body processes, including breathing, are inherently carbon-neutral.
This being the case, your charge of hypocrisy doesn't fly (except, of course, in whatever nutcase right-wing blog you got it from).
Why batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want another battery, I want something completely new. I hope that the text of the bill doesn't actually use the words "battery" or even "electro-chemical".
I would so much rather a ultra-capacitor or some similar storage device that could conceivably be free of rare metals, and have extremely fast charge times (were the current available)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You left out the bit about them needing replacement every couple of years.
1886 called; their want their knowledge of battery chemistry back.
The longevity of a battery pack depends entirely on its chemistry. Early 1900s EVs were often powered by nickel-iron cells, which have extremely long lifespans. Jay Leno has one that's still operating on its original batteries today. At the same time, they also had lead-acid batteries, which were much cheaper and had more storage capacity, but had very short lifespan
That kind of language doesn't say much (Score:4, Insightful)
Stimulus Could Kickstart US Battery Industry...
The stimulus *could* do this or that or else...
I am tired of that kind of language. Can someone tell us what the stimulus *will* actually do? Could this or that or else does not say much at all.
Re:That kind of language doesn't say much (Score:5, Informative)
Can someone tell us what the stimulus *will* actually do?
It *will* increase the deficit.
Other than that, the jury is still out.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, we'll never know for sure, even in retrospect. Some people still think the New Deal was a net loss.
To the grandparent I say, certainty is simply not a realistic request. Would I like certainty before investing in stocks, or taking a job, or starting a business? Sure. Ain't gonna happen.
Re:That kind of language doesn't say much (Score:5, Insightful)
There are only three ways to finance a deficit: taxes, debt, and inflation. Add this trillion dollars to Bush's trillion dollars, and the inescapable conclusion is that payment will be large, painful, and unlubed.
Parent
Re:That kind of language doesn't say much (Score:5, Insightful)
If you finance with debt, and spend the money borrowed on something that makes you markedly more productive, in the end it can be far cheaper than never going into debt at all. Let's say I'm selling firewood. If I borrow to buy a chain saw and a mechanized log splitter I'm going to be able to produce 20 times the firewood in the same amount of time, with the same amount of labor. That log splitter pays for itself in the first year. Smart debt is like that.
The whole point of "capitalism" is capital - specifically borrowing it through various mechanisms so it can be employed to produce efficiencies that more-than-pay-it-back. A system without such mechanisms of debt isn't capitalist at all. Not all uses of debt work out; but when they do it's the very genius of the capitalist system.
Parent
Re:That kind of language doesn't say much (Score:4, Informative)
You can hand-pick talking points out of the bill. Or, you could actually see the breakdowns [recovery.gov]. Your call, I suppose. Once the grants start going out, that site will even have every last contractor, what's going to what congressional district for what projects in that district, and on and on.
Parent
most tech-y part of the stimulus? (Score:5, Interesting)
Newsflash, paraphrased (Score:5, Funny)
Better Headlines (Score:5, Funny)
- Stimulus Could Give Battery Industry A Jolt
- Stimulus Gives Battery Industry a Jump Start
- Stimulus Gives the Battery Industry A Gift That Keeps Going and Going and Going...
- Battery Industry Charged Over Stimulus
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
just keep the US auto industries hands off it (Score:5, Interesting)
those companies once had millions to develop new battery tech and nothing came of it. Ovonics goes and invents the NiMH, partners with GM and sells a majority stake in the patent and then GM sells that to the oil industry who won't let anyone make large NiMH for electric vehicles. Leave the US auto industry out of this battery industry and maybe something will happen and it'll get a chance to be used in the next-gen autos.
Remember, the EV1 got over 140 miles per charge on the NiMH batteries in the late 90s or very early 2001 period. GM is hardly getting 40 miles per charge of expensive lithium batteries today and nobody is using NiMH for mostly electric or all electric vehicles. It's not because the tech can't handle it. Ask any of the few Rav 4 EV owners out there.
If the US auto industry is tied into this, I give it less than a 50% chance of working out to anything viable.
LoB
Re:just keep the US auto industries hands off it (Score:5, Interesting)
By volume, the Volt has 1/3 as much battery as the EV1 (even less by weight). (source [wikipedia.org])
The EV1 was also designed to be as efficient as possible - it was a two-seater with the lowest drag coefficient of any production vehicle. I can't find any definitive sources, but it seems that the Volt is about 500 lbs heavier as well.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
However, the EV1 had one gigantic problem: the battery pack was so big that you barely had room for a decent interior! Small wonder why the idea failed.
A better solution is plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, where you have a powerful battery offering about 40-50 miles range on a full battery charge and then the vehicle operates like a normal hybrid vehicle a la Toyota Prius. Indeed, the 2010 Toyota Prius and 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid already are ready for PHEV conversion as soon as higher density storage batte
I want to see 'battery drop off centers' (Score:3, Insightful)
a few years ago I bought a currie electric scooter, just for fun. it gets about 10-15 mi range before it runs out.
the idea I would LOVE to see is where there are frequent stops (like gas stations) where you can swap your drained batt for a freshly charged one. they have that idea for propane tanks at supermarkets - you don't have to WAIT to have yours filled; you simply swap your empty for a full one.
why can't the same thing be done for short-distance pure electric vehicles? the issue with these vehicles is distance on a single charge and if you can make the batts swappable (easily and safely) then you have removed the distance limitation.
its a huge infrastructure to implement, but at some point, we NEED to rethink our whole energy plan. this could be one way.
too late. the lunatics already run the asylum. (Score:4, Informative)
As an R&D type who has spent way too much time in the business world I can tell you that Obama, despite having thrown gargantuan amounts of money at this, is going to have a hard time making it stick.
Western business has a sickness which one might call "middle man disease". For every $1 put into battery factories, 90c will go on financiers, accountants, marketers, "business development" and whatever else the middle men of today choose to call themselves.
It is folklore that in certain parts of the world nothing gets done without bribing the right people. We have the same thing in the West except its a legalised, lobby-driven, slick form of bribing.
For example in my native UK whenever the govt has some new "initiative" its remarkable how the same usual self-promoting suspects are quick to get around the trough. Despite inventing nothing (and contributing very little) this is where the vast majority if the funding gets creamed off. When the oxbridge/city/public school set have had their fill what little is left is passed on to their mates the next stratum down.
And so on and so forth. On and on, down and down until the likes of you and me see a pitiful salary and a budget so tight nothing of value can be done and under terms and conditions so punishing (think: ownership of arising intellectual property) that nobody in their right mind would even think of getting out of bed to do it.
Its a systemic sickness and Obama needs to get a clue real quick that between his lofty goals and the poeple doing the actual work lurk the layers upon layers of talentless parasites that got us here in the first place.
It makes me mad that ANOTHER generation is lost to the same ivy-league/power/money/military-industrial complex.
An outside viewpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm perplexed. Why is there so much fuss about spending $800bn on at least vaguely useful stuff when the Iraq war has already cost you $600bn and that's not counting ongoing medical care for the 30k+ injured veterans? Serious question guys - I really didn't see people complaining about the cost of the war in the same way as they're complaining about this stimulus bill.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with that idea is that we tried that before/during the Great Depression. We jacked up taxes on stuff not made here. US citizen then stopped buying stuff made "there". Once "there" got wind of this, they stopped buying our stuff. We were left holding our dicks.