Stimulus Could Kickstart US Battery Industry

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."

Comments

Environmental issues

[phantomfive]

My understanding is that battery manufacturing pollutes the environment, and other countries have fewer environmental regulations, making it easier to do whatever you want. Realistically, think about it......do you want a battery manufacturer in your back yard? It may sound selfish, but I really don't. Maybe it would be ok, though.....

Re:Environmental issues

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Environmental issues

[timeOday]

Certainly, some of the money should be spent studying environmental issues.

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.

Re:Environmental issues

[Rei]

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.

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.

Check one for science

[mc1138]

It's really positive to see things like this coming out of the stimulus package. Yeah there's some serious question as to how well its going to do getting us out of this recession, but that being said, it does have some nice provisions in it for science related improvements, including a nice sized boost to NASA. Long term this is the sort of investment that will help keep our economy moving and on the forefront of innovation.

Re:Check one for science

[DerekLyons]

Right now, about the only entities that *can* borrow money effectively are governments -- in particular, the US government.

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.
 
 

$800B sounds like a lot, but we'll be lucky if it even manages to stop the slide, let alone pull us back.

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.

Re:Check one for science

[bendodge]

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.

most tech-y part of the stimulus?

[wjh31]

is this really the most important part of the stimulus in relation to tech, R+D, and similar things, how about a break down of all the ways it's going to affect anything that is 'stuff that matters' to nerds. I dont mean this as a troll, i would genuinely like to see a full list, new age batteries sound good, but cant be the only thing.

just keep the US auto industries hands off it

[Locutus]

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

[nxtw]

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.

By volume, the Volt has 1/3 as much battery as the EV1 (even less by weight). (source)

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.

How is it racism?

[tjstork]

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!

Re:How is it racism?

[tjstork]

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.