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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."
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.....
Qxe4
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.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
I find this ironic as I got laid off from a battery company. Too late for me I guess...
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.
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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)
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
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.
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.
Provisions in the Congressional stimulus bill could help jump-start a new, multibillion-dollar industry in the US for manufacturing advanced briberies for congressmen and senators and for siphoning off money from government pork to enable the widespread use of luxury homes and lifestyles by politicians. The nearly $790 billion economic stimulus legislation contains tens of billions of dollars in loans, grants, and tax incentives for advanced bribery research and manufacturing, as well as incentives for earmarks and kickbacks, which could help create a market for these briberies. Significant advances in bribery techniques, including the development of new fully off-shored briberies, have been made by corporate legal departments in the past few years. Advanced bribery manufacturing is primarily at the state and federal level, particularly in Washington D.C., but local governments are looking forward to far greater participation.
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.
I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
- 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
Sorry, you can't have it. There's always going to be some set of people that don't want to live up to the same environmental standards as you. Some people might not care about a 1-million chance of getting cancer, but you might. What right do you have to hold them back, in a Democracy?
I say, keep the asians out, but let each state do its own thing. I would add though, as an aside, if a state is blocking economic development due to environmental laws, and have to come crawling to the feds for a loan (say California), then maybe they should quit trying to enjoy nature on everyone else's dime and do some work for a change.
We can only borrow so much government cheese money (stimulus) from the Chinese.
This is my sig.
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
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.
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 "sciences" for this purpose alone. That is not about advancing science but advancing government. So we will spend more to establish bigger government control over our privacy and choice instead of funding science?
Science, the only real science is where the bill was signed.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Oh my God! They were using RATS to fuel these cars?! Now I truly know The Secret of NIMH!
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
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!
This is my sig.
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.
This is my sig.
...causing starvation and riots in poorer countries that needed corn for food.
And the end of the stimulus will kickstop the US Battery Industry. There are many examples of subsidized industries that died when their subsidy went away -- and industries that remain subsidized because they lobbily heavily to keep their subsidy (cough ag subsidies cough) (cough mortgage deductibility cough).
Subsidies are fucking stupid. The stimulus is fucking stupid. A trillion dollars later, we'll have tons of jobs -- all of which depend on further borrowing, further taxation, further inflation. Or do you think the US government can spend a trillion dollars without distorting the marketplace?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Do you have any clue how much toxic debt there is circulating out there?
There is far, far more debt than there is money. It can't be paid off. It's pretty clear that the US can't even pay the interest any more.
You can approximate the percentage of people and businesses who may go bust by the credit/debt ratio. Once many of their debts have been written off and the ratio falls, the economy will be ok again for a few years until the debt grows out of hand again. (maybe the system will have been reformed by then, who knows).
Approximate numbers (not quite up to date, but ballpark, they should be worse by now)
US total debt is around 47 trillion dollars. That's national, business, personal.
US total money is around 11 trillion dollars. (M3)
The ratio then is around 4:1
As each dollar of credit pays off one dollar of debt, it vanishes. So you see, any attempt to pay off the debt using credit is completely futile. What America has been doing for the last 40 years is create new credit and debt to pay off the interest on the debt. (Gotta love these Ponzi schemes.) That's what all the "growth" bullshit has been about.
However that assumes that there is someone out there willing and able to take on that new debt. It used to be China, Japan and the UK as the primary holders. The UK is in an identical position to the US. Japan's economy just dropped 12%, so that pretty much leaves China, and they have a billion people internally to take care of.
My, aren't you guys proud of yourselves?
So... I think you'll find the government under Obama beginning to print (not borrow) trillions of dollars. Or rather, the fed will buy newly issued debt with freshly printed dollars. I'm fairly sure this stimulus package will be but the second of several more even larger packages. Obama gets to go on a spending spree of epic proportions. How would you like a 20% raise? What depression? It's going to be the roaring 10s.
This has all been predicted, the system is predictable. Hell, there have been loads of books written about it, maybe you read them. No?
(http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/data.htm)
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That is.
You're imagining that there are dollars outside your system which can come in and pay your debt.
National currencies aren't like that. All the dollars and all the debt are already there inside.
The US is in this position; All it's debts are denominated in US dollars. There are 47 trillion in US debts. There are only 11 trillion US dollars.
How can you pay back the debt? No matter what you do. No matter how efficient you are, no matter how hard you work. There are still only 11 trillion dollars to pay back 47 trillion in debt. Even worse, most of those dollars (90%) are credit, so they simply vanish when they pay the principal on the debt.
The genius of the capitalist system is that it gets you busy working as hard as you can and you simply get deeper and deeper in debt.
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I interpet the Pink Floyd quote in my sig as refering to ideological cages rather than physical ones. "Left leaning greenie" is how others would usually describe me (particulaly on a US centric site such as this one). OTOH I have also been described by fellow "enviornmentalists" as a captialist pig and an environmental rapist because of some of the following actions and opinions that are offensive to the dogma held by many in the green left.
:)
I spent a year working in an old growth sawmill, some of the trees were 350yo, 12-14 feet in diameter and took two log trucks to carry. As you can see from this link the forest is still there almost 30yrs later. It is still being logged in a responsible/sustainable manner and I see no reason why it cannot continue to provide jobs and timber in perpetuity.
I spent another year working on fishing trawlers - somehow this makes me a dolphin killer even though it's impossible to catch dolphins with a scallop drag unless they lay on the seabed and commit suicide.
I think culling kangaroos and using them for dog/human food is more humane than letting them starve due to over-population.
I think we (Australia) should dig up our vast uranium resource and sell it to nations where renewables are impractical. If it wasn't for the embarrasing wealth of renewables in Australia I would also argue we use the uranium at home.
Probably the biggest herasy I have is that I belive trees are valuable in their own right and should NOT be included as a credit in a CO2 cap & trade scheme. The science of the matter is that CO2 uptake by vegetation is too difficult to quantify on anything but a global scale and even then there are large error bars. The idea is ripe for corruption and will have the opposite effect to that desired by it's advocates (re: biofuels and Indonesian palm oil plantations).
Anyway I wish you well in your efforts to chip away the dogma from the inside, but whatever you do, don't let the bastards put you in a cage.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.