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US Corps Want $1B From Gov't For Battery Factory
tristanreid writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that a consortium of 14 US technology companies will ask the Federal Government for up to $1 billion for a plant to make advanced battery technology, as a part of the broad fiscal stimulus package that Pres. Elect Obama is planning. The story quotes a report by Ralph Brodd, which suggests that while existing battery technology was developed in the US, the lead in development is now held in Asia. From the WSJ story: 'More than four dozen advanced battery factories are being built in China but none, currently, in the US.'"
Instead we should invest that $1B into researching fundamentally new battery technologies.
Hopefully Obama realizes how many theoretical research salaries can be paid with $1B and chooses to spend the money on this kind of long-term project.
Um, say gents, you can feel free to pool your resources on your own to develop new battery technology. However, there's no need for the government to pony up my tax dollars on this endeavour, especially considering how eager you folks are to outsource jobs overseas left and right, mm-kay?
Except China has a metric assload of people. They could power the plants with people used as fuel and still have more than enough for cheap labor.
superman runs linux
i say give it to them. it's a wise investment.
that is, of course, so long as:
we need improved/cheaper battery technology to boost the development & adoption of electric vehicles.
Simple government matrix for the politically impaired:
Who owns the resources?|Who Allocates the resources?|Government type
Private individuals Private individuals Capitalism
Government Government Communism
Private individuals Government Fascism
Government Private individuals Socialism
...most manufacturers build their products in Asia, so a component plant in the U.S. is likely to have a hard time selling any products, particularly given China's stiff import restrictions.... You'd have to make the products a lot cheaper than they can be made in China, which seems dubious at best. Otherwise, no manufacturer in their right minds would go through all the hassle and expense of buying batteries from an American plant, shipping them to China to be assembled into a product, then shipping them back to the U.S. for consumption....
Yes, most manufacturers build their products in Asia. But this is about car batteries. The auto makers (the folks that TFA focuses on as the main consumer for next-gen batteries) aren't in China. Most vehicles bought in North America are assembled in North America. No round-trip necessary for these batteries.
You are correct about the price - American-made batteries would likely cost more than batteries made in China. Probably even after factoring in the shipping on those heavy suckers. However that would be largely due to China's lax environmental restrictions rather than labor costs (a typical culprit). So, while we'd save some money by just abandoning the battery industry and letting China take it, every time a consumer bought a "green" car, they'd be making an excessively nasty dent in the environment. (Battery production would be messy here too, but a helluva lot cleaner than in China.)
All that said, I'd really prefer to see private investors step up for factories and tax-dollars only used for public-domain research...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Besides, battery technology is not the most effective way to power cars. They are too volatile, have too short a life expectancy, and produce too much nasty chemical waste (both during manufacture and disposal).
False.
1) I don't know what you mean by "volatile", but if you mean "catching fire", that's mainly just a problem for traditional li-ion. The phosphates, titanates, and stabilized spinels don't do that because they don't get lithium metal plating and the like. The worst you can say for the advanced li-ion cells is that the electrolyte is often flammable, and that if you had both a puncture and a spark (puncture alone won't cut it), you could get fire. But you know what? So is gasoline. At least the electrolyte is isolated into a bunch of small containers that would, worst case, fail individually.
2) The life expectancy notion is way off. Let's start by busting the basic premise -- that all batteries inherently have to have short lifespans. Jay Leno's early-20th century Baker Electric still runs on its original nickel-iron batteries. Decade-old RAV4EVs are still running fine on their original NiMH packs despite heavy usage. It's simply a myth that there's something inherently about being a battery that means you must have a short lifespan; it all depends on the chemistry. And getting to the advanced li-ion types being looked at -- the various olivine and spinel cathodes and titanate anodes -- they're incredibly stable. Assuming you keep the temperature in the packs from getting ridiculously hot, you're good for the lifespan of the car. A123 and Valence's LiPs, for example, are good for about 7,000 cycles at 1C before losing 20% capacity. AltairNano's titanates take tens of thousands of cycles to lose that much.
3) What nasty chemicals do you think are involved here? The worst you can say is that the titanates, like traditional li-ion, have a LiCoO2 cathode. But that's only mildly toxic. Phosphates and spinels, you can literally throw straight into the trash in some places. The worst thing in them is that the electrolyte is corrosive. Manufacture is no worse. Phosphates, for example, traditionally have their cathodes made from phosphoric acid, iron powder, and lithium carbonate, with a carbon binding from burning sugar. The anodes are just graphite. The separator is just plastic.
Shiny New Australia.
And that nothing will ever be made, ever again.
You're just digging yourself into a deeper hole.
1. I don't just mean catching fire, but sure, let's go with that. Lithium cells don't stop burning until the contents are power. Lithium can burn through steel. Even gasoline fires won't do that. Lithium also can reignite after you put the fire out. I'm assuming Lithium because quite frankly no other battery tech has enough energy density to really be viable, last time I checked.
Lithium ion batteries contain no metallic lithium. Now, traditional li-ion batteries have a defect, where when they age significantly or are charged in sub-freezing temperatures, metallic lithium can plate out. This ruins the batteries. This effect does not happen in the advanced li-ions that are being considered for use in EVs. *There Is No Metallic Lithium In Them*.
2. Yes, lots of batteries last a long time. Let's put that in perspective. Those advanced Li Ion batteries are still only rated for a couple of decades.
That's a great point, because as you know, the average person keeps their car around for about 4,000 years. ;)
Also, the Rav4 EV had a maximum range per charge of roughly a third what is expected from a consumer vehicle, and requires five hours to charge, which is also unacceptable for most people.
Which is, of course, completely unrelated to the topic of how long batteries take to charge, but if you'd like to talk about that, that'd be golden! :) The more the range an EV has, the *longer* its battery pack lasts. Each cell goes through fewer cycles per mile travelled. As for charge times, phosphates and stabilized spinels can fully charge in 10 to 20 minutes. Titanates can fully charge pretty much as fast as you can cool them down; individual cells have been charged to 80% in under a minute, while pack charging times are more in the 5 to 10 minute range due to cooling. The titanates are capable of such fast charges and are so stable in doing so that they're being promoted for grid stabilization, where the grid feeds megawatts of power into them or pulls it out of them depending on its needs, with cycle times on the order of 5 to 10 minutes, over and over nonstop for decades.
3. Sure, it's not as nasty as some stuff, but if you're just throwing these things in the trash every few years---even every twenty years---that's a significant amount of metal salts leaching into the soil.
Lithium is not a heavy metal. It's not toxic. Heaven forbid that the average person throw away, say, LiPs, which are made from about 1kg of lithium carbonate per kilowatt hour, so ~30 kg for a ~30kWh pack, once every couple decades, when I dump that much sodium salts on my driveway every couple years. Much better is to burn a hundred kilograms of gasoline straight into the air every year, right? Mmm, I love the smell of VOCs in the morning!
Disposing of these batteries is a nothing environmental consequence. The metal in the car's frame poses more of an environmental consequence as the batteries (hey, ever looked what's in alloying agents?). The plastics in the interior probably pose more environmental consequences. So do the tires. Heck, the *single* lead-acid battery in a conventional car is probably ten times more of an environmental risk than an entire EV LiP battery pack. Or antifreeze for that matter. LiP battery disposal is simply not an issue.
I'd be concerned about the health effects if that much of these chemicals end up in our water supply.
You do realize that mineral water contains 0.05-1mg/l of lithium *already*? Lithium isn't exactly rare. And seriously, do you *really* want to try and avoid lithium? Better boycott lithium greases! Better boycott air conditioners! Better boycott glazed glasses! I could go on for days. Lithium is used all over the place.
I would also add that the biggest problem with batteries is charge time.
You have a problem with 5 to 20 minute charges every 2-3 hours of driving? Because that's *current* tech. Let alone what we'll have in five years.
Shiny New Australia.