Long Live the Cleantech Revolution

It’s official! Cleantech, the sixth industrial revolution, has arrived on time and in the midst of extraordinary crisis. Like every good revolution, blood is flowing in the streets; the guillotine is en route to Wall Street and the mob is so busy plotting retribution for the excesses of the past that most have no time to consider the future. But as yesterday’s dynasties decay, crumble and fall, a new generation of visionaries is already building on the wreckage of the past. These are indeed troubled times that bear an eerie resemblance to the opening sentence from A Tale of Two Cities.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870)

However like all times of trouble, this too shall pass.

In mid-February, President Obama signed an economic stimulus package that included $38 billion in alternative energy spending. A week later, in a memorable address to a joint session of Congress, the President outlined a vision for America’s future that rests on four pillars: energy independence, improved education, reduced healthcare costs and jobs.

Last Thursday, he unveiled a 10-year plan that envisions $150 billion in alternative energy subsidies that will be paid for by a carbon cap and trade scheme. After decades as a backwater agency with a modest mandate and budget, the Department of Energy is finally surging to the forefront as the powerful agency it should be. With a little luck we may even see a comprehensive national energy policy and that would be a wonderful thing.

If you believe the press and listen to the politicians, a brave new world of clean renewable energy is just around the corner, but there are a couple of particularly nasty flies in the ointment. Alternative energy is inherently less stable than its conventional counterparts and cost-efficient transmission, distribution and storage systems do not yet exist. While the litany of potential solutions grows longer with each passing day, these solutions are largely unproven and will take years if not decades to implement nationwide. In the interim, our only option is to wake up in the morning, go to work with the toolbox we own, solve our problems to the best of our ability and be ready to embrace newer and better technologies when they are perfected. If we're lucky and sensible, cheap will triumph over cool.

I’m a dilettante when it comes to power generation, transmission and distribution, so I’ll leave those issues to better-informed writers and focus my attention on a narrow sector that I know well, manufactured energy storage devices.

Historically, batteries have been a critical but largely invisible part of daily life. They start our cars and power our cell phones but the only times they merit more than a passing thought are when they need to be recharged or replaced. With the dawn of cleantech, however, rechargeable batteries are no longer mere conveniences. For the first time in history, rechargeable batteries are fundamental enabling technologies that can help smooth the peaks and valleys in renewable power and foster the development of electric vehicles. Unfortunately, the battery industry is not ready for the current challenges, much less the sweeping changes that the cleantech revolution will require.

To understand the current state of battery technology, one must first understand the historical necessities that were the mother of invention. Around 250 BC, a clever Babylonian discovered that a genie could be released from a clay pot containing the right combination of lead and acid. During the 1800s, people began to find ways to make the genie do useful work beyond electro-plating and parlor tricks. Until the 1970s, there were only two primary classes of batteries: rechargeable lead-acid batteries and disposable dry cells. Lead-acid batteries handled the heavy work like starting cars and providing emergency lighting while dry cells were used for flashlights, toys and consumer goods, including the first portable radios and tape players.

In the mid-70s, maintenance free valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries were introduced and rapidly became the dominant automotive technology. They worked so well in fact that most battery manufacturers cut their R&D budgets to the bone because VRLA batteries performed well and a complacent auto industry saw no reason to pay premium prices to fund further research. While there was some progress on deep-cycle batteries for golf carts, forklifts and industrial systems, R&D in the lead-acid sector essentially took a 25-year siesta as electrochemistry became passé and college students gravitated toward more exciting, glamorous and rewarding careers in electronics, communications and information technology.

Over the last few years, rapidly evolving bulk energy storage needs have sparked a new wave of lead-acid research that uses modern materials and manufacturing methods to improve and revitalize an old-line chemistry. The results have been almost magical and an entirely new generation of advanced lead acid and lead carbon batteries is in the final stages of pre-commercial development. These products are not widely available yet, but the new generation of batteries promise extraordinary performance at a lead-acid price, which once again proves the ancient wisdom that with time, everything old is new again.

The late 70s were a time of sweeping change as electronics manufacturers shifted their focus from toys, radios and tape players to productivity tools. The introduction of business tools like electronic calculators and the pagers, computers and telephones that quickly followed, drove the development of compact and light-weight rechargeable battery chemistries including nickel cadmium (Ni-Cd) nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) and lithium ion (Li-ion). Since buyers of portable electronics invariably viewed run time between charges as a critical performance metric, R&D spending on these technologies soared and continues to this day.

Until recently, rechargeable batteries were not something the average consumer would think of as a discrete product class. Instead, they were relatively inexpensive components in high-end consumer durables like cars and electronics. In automobiles, batteries typically represent less than 1% of total product cost and in electronics it is rare for batteries to represent more than 5% of product cost. This historically low ratio of battery cost to total product cost resulted in a market dynamic where the auto industry could afford to be complacent, while electronics manufacturers were willing to pay huge premiums for modest improvements in battery performance. Both approaches were sensible in an earlier epoch, but neither has any utility in the emerging world of cleantech.

Where batteries were once viewed as low-cost components in expensive products, the pendulum is swinging in the other direction with a vengeance as the ratio of battery cost to total product cost escalates to the point where the batteries represent up to 20% of the cost of an HEV, up to 50% of the cost of an EV and over 90% of the cost of a grid-based system.

Unfortunately, most batteries are simply too expensive for the jobs people want them to do. As thought-leaders, policymakers, manufacturers and consumers come to grips with the cruel and inflexible economic realities, cost accountants and industrial engineers will end up making the hard buying decisions and the opinions of futurists, scientists, techno-geeks and bloggers like me will become increasingly irrelevant. In the end, the only thing that will matter is a rigorous and comprehensive cost benefit analysis for each new energy storage application.

A couple days before Christmas, I published “Alternative Energy Storage Needs to Take Baby Steps Before It Can Run,” an article that was selected as an Editor’s Pick at Seeking Alpha and included cost data from a July 2008 Sandia National Laboratories report on its Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems – Energy Storage program. While the Sandia report focused on the current and projected capital costs of energy storage for solar power installations, the basic cost structure applies to the entire spectrum of energy storage applications. Several Li-FePO4 advocates promptly pointed me to Chinese Internet sites to support their arguments that Sandia's cost estimates are wrong, but I've found the Sandia estimates consistent with available industry cost data and believe they provide a reasonable basis for investment decisions. The Sandia capital cost estimates are set forth in the following table:

Technology	Current Cost ($/kWh)	10-yr Projected Cost ($/kWh)
Flooded Lead-acid Batteries	$150	$150
Sealed Lead-acid Batteries	$200	$200
Low-speed Flywheel	$380	$300
Na-S Batteries	$450	$350
Asymmetric Lead-carbon Hybrid	$500	<$250
Zn-Br Batteries	$500	$250/kWh + $300/kW
Ni-Cd Batteries	$600	$600
Zebra Na-NiCl Batteries	$800	$150
Ni-MH Batteries	$800	$350
Li-ion Batteries	$1,333	$780
Vanadium Redox Batteries	20 kWh=$1,800/kWh 100 kWh =$600/kWh	25 kWh=$1,200/kWh 100 kWh=$500/kWh
High-speed Flywheel	$1,000	$800

With the basic cost structure firmly established from reliable sources, it’s probably worthwhile to revisit some cherished mythologies and incontrovertible realities that I assembled from eight months of reader comments and discussed at length in an article on the importance of rebuilding America’s domestic battery infrastructure.

Cherished Mythology Lead-acid batteries are environmental hazards.

Incontrovertible Reality With recycling rates approaching 99%, lead-acid batteries are the most highly recycled product on the planet and substantially all of the materials recovered through recycling can be used to make new batteries. Neither NiMH nor Li-ion chemistries can even come close to matching the natural resource efficiency and environmental safety of lead-acid batteries.

Cherished Mythology Li-ion batteries are one-quarter of the weight of their lead-acid counterparts.

Incontrovertible Reality The relentless but frequently unsuccessful quest for product safety has doubled the weight of Li-ion batteries. So while the explosive Li-ion chemistries have four times the energy density of lead-acid batteries, the safe Li-ion chemistries only cut the weight in half. In either event it’s silly to fret about battery weight in the context of a 3,000-pound car or a stationary power storage installation.

Cherished Mythology NiMH and Li-ion batteries have more power than lead-acid batteries.

Incontrovertible Reality The recent development of asymmetric lead-carbon hybrids has improved the power profile of advanced lead-acid batteries to competitive levels at a fraction of the cost.

Cherished Mythology NiMH and Li-ion batteries have far longer cycle-lives than lead-acid batteries.

Incontrovertible Reality The recent development of asymmetric lead-carbon hybrids has improved the cycle-life of advanced lead-acid batteries to competitive levels at a fraction of the cost.

Cherished Mythology NiMH and Li-ion batteries will improve as the technology matures.

Incontrovertible Reality NiMH and Li-ion batteries are already fully mature technologies. Substantially all of the recent advances in Li-ion technology are like changing a carrot cake recipe; call it what you will, but it's still a carrot cake when it comes out of the oven. There have been big safety gains from new flavors of Li-ion chemistry, but those gains have always come at the cost of reduced energy density.

Cherished Mythology Li-ion batteries are an ideal solution for most energy storage problems.

Incontrovertible Reality Li-ion batteries are the best solution for small format energy storage needs including cellular phones, power tools and portable computers. They also have significant potential for use in electric bicycles and hybrid scooters. Their cost effectiveness plummets when the battery pack is bigger than a breadbox. Even if Li-ion batteries could be cost effective in power-hungry applications like EVs and stationary applications, sound economics and rational industrial policies will always favor the manufacture and sale of 5,000,000 cell phones or 500,000 laptops over exporting the same batteries to power 1,000 EVs.

Cherished Mythology Plug-in electric vehicles provide a cost-effective path to a clean energy future.

Incontrovertible Reality Plug-in electric vehicles provide dramatic PR sound bites for politicians, car companies and environmentalists, but even the auto executives are quick to acknowledge that pure electric vehicles cannot be paying propositions for the average consumer until gas prices are far higher than they have ever been.

Cherished Mythology NiMH and Li-ion batteries will get cheaper as demand increases.

Incontrovertible Reality Roughly 75% of the cost of any battery is raw materials and NiMH and Li-ion batteries have been mainline industrial products for almost 20 years. The bulk of the potential manufacturing cost savings have already been achieved and the only way battery prices can fall dramatically is if massive new supplies of raw materials become available at bargain basement prices.

At the dawn of the cleantech revolution, the financial sector is in shambles and the Obama administration has thrown down the gauntlet on healthcare spending. While I have every confidence that the banks and insurance companies will heal with time, I also believe that margins in healthcare will be pressured for the foreseeable future.

So the only investable long-term trend that I see in the current economic and political environment is alternative energy. In the alternative energy sector, the fundamental enabling technologies are transmission, distribution and storage. Each of these sub-sectors is essential, each is a target rich environment for investors and each will be a major recipient of long-term government support. Since accepted market wisdom holds that you should never fight the Fed, I think the policy clues for investors are crystal clear.

I can identify a dozen pure play public companies that have the potential to make a real difference in America’s energy storage future. Since I’ve made my personal opinions clear in earlier articles, I won’t bother re-plowing that ground today. However I encourage readers to study each of the principal market participants, consider where their existing and proposed products will mesh with the needs of the coming cleantech revolution, and consider who the likely buyers of their existing and proposed products will be. The short list of pure play public companies includes:

Name	Trading Symbol	Product Class	Product Status
Active Power	ACPW	Low-speed flywheels	Manufacturing
Altair Nanotechnologies	ALTI	Li-titanate batteries	Demonstration
Axion Power International	AXPW.OB	Lead-carbon batteries	Demonstration
Beacon Power	BCON	High-speed flywheels	Demonstration
C&D Technologies	CHP	Lead-acid batteries	Manufacturing
Enersys	ENS	Diversified batteries	Manufacturing
Ener1	HEV	Li-titanate batteries	Demonstration
Maxwell Technologies	MXWL	Ultracapacitators	Manufacturing
Ultralife Batteries	ULBI	Diversified batteries	Manufacturing
Valence Technologies	VLNC	Li-phosphate batteries	Manufacturing
Exide Technologies	XIDE	Lead-acid batteries	Manufacturing
ZBB Energy	ZBB	Zinc-bromine batteries	Demonstration

The following comes from the 2010 budget proposal for the DOE. For the sake of clarity I've edited the paragraph to use numbered subparagraphs, but made no other changes.

"The Budget provides support for the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy reliability as part of the President’s investment plan to modernize the Nation’s electric grid. It includes:

1. energy storage;
2. cyber-security and investments in research, the development and demonstration of smart grid technologies that will accelerate the transformation of the Nation’s energy transmission and distribution system;
3. enhancement of security and reliability of energy infrastructure; and
4. facilitating recovery from disruptions to the energy supply."

As a student I strove for the extreme right hand tail of the bell shaped curve. As a businessman, I’m delighted to sacrifice the extremes on both ends of the curve because the bulk of the revenue will go to the company that best serves the needs of the guys in the middle.

Disclosure: Author holds a large long position in Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) and small long positions in Active Power (ACPW), Exide (XIDE), Enersys (ENS) and ZBB Energy (ZBB).

Comments

[Knowshitsurelock]

“For Whom The Bell Tolls” will be heard in the background for those who invest in your battery stocks. I like your anaolgy to, "A Tale of Two Cities" should help the bulk of your readers with their limited comprehension skills, And your right, these are the best of times for AE. Unfortunately your routine or consistent pattern of trotting out debunked fertilizer every few weeks to re-introduce it to those who don’t know they’re full of fertalizer. Is well boring. Batteries will and do have a place. But they are to heavy,to costly (replacement wise),enviormentally a no no, and as you say achient technology. Energy storage will not be limited to any single tech on your list. But I think and hope we don't get to battery dependent. How many Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are already just repositories for, saposidly "recycled" batteries. The recycle fee is really a shipping fee to these islands.
www.sopac.org/data/vir...
some are smelted in Australia to recaputure the toxic lead. but less than a quarter of earths "USED" find a secondary market. I still pay attention to the contributions of substance that you make. Thanks you have inspired me to re-read "ATale of Two Cities"..The greatest story never told here is "FLYWHEELS" you shouldn't even have them in your mix. Are these justs props to try and make your battery stocks look better? I wonder...no I don't....:K™

Disclaimer. I hold a long position in BCON, And didn't make a dime for my rebuttal to your ...'article'... let the flagulation begin

…

2009 Mar 01 06:16 AM

[Knowshitsurelock]

Sorry John,I just broke most of the rules for formulating a good argument and should not have ended my rant with a rhetorical question. My tone was contentious and i made a few spelling errors that really make me look like a illitrate.ileterat,ill... damn! I know you really put a lot of hard work into this article and it shows. You did leave out the rebuttal; but you also cited your source so all in all i give you a B say B+. What the H.E. double toothpicks, there's plenty of day light left. right...:K™

2009 Mar 01 07:05 AM

[The Proclaimer]

Good Morning John. Excellent Article to wake up to. I hope that I someday I will get a chance to talk with you in person. I like your comment about "leaving issues to better-informed writers". Causes me to focus my attention on a much anticipated early retirement. I will leave you with this thought: Have you noticed that today's babies are born walking, NO, make that running!

2009 Mar 01 07:14 AM

[John Petersen]

Surelock, I'm saddened to hear about the lack of recycling infrastructure and disdain for the environment in Fiji and Australia, but I can assure you that things are different in the US where the big dog in lead-acid battery recycling is Exide. From now on I'll make a point of specifying the US when I mention battery recycling rates. Beyond that I think we will have to agree to disagree on the role batteries and other storage devices will play as the cleantech revolution emerges.

2009 Mar 01 08:33 AM

[varmet]

Babcock Power the juggernaunt of cabon fueled plants fired a warning salvo last week with its announcement of its advancement of
a new combustion design so clean no smoke stack is needed while capturing co2 in a liquid form...amazing!

www.babcockpower.com/i...

2009 Mar 01 09:36 AM

[Renzo]

Good afternoon, John. It's helpful to have a concise summary of your theses.

I'm curious about Active Power. Their website (www.activepower.com/) shows that they focus almost exclusively on uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). There is, however, an interesting note suggesting their flywheels could complement battery stacks by isolating them from frequent charges and discharges, thereby increasing their lifespan. There is no mention of utility-scale power quality applications and also no discussion that I could find on their intellectual property.

How would you compare the utility of ACPW's flywheels to Pb/C batteries in the UPS market (competitive or complementary?) and do you think they have potential for utility-scale (substation) use?

Low-speed flywheels seem somewhat low-tech (not that there is anything wrong with that). Do you have a sense of their IP position and barriers for potential competitors?

2009 Mar 01 09:37 AM

[billp37]

"Last Thursday, he [Obama] unveiled a 10-year plan that envisions $150 billion in alternative energy subsidies ..."

This may be a lawyer's attempt to fund repeal of the first law of thermodynamics?

Kedrosky appears to be getting close to this conclusion.

Alternative Energy Is a Giant Capital Pit, Kedrosky Says: "There's No There There"

finance.yahoo.com/tech...

Is "Long Live the Cleantech Revolution" attempted business PR for

www.altenergystocks.co...?

2009 Mar 01 09:45 AM

[John Petersen]

Renzo, Active Power is making modular UPS systems for server farms and other mega-power hungry installations. If you look at a battery installation, it's hundreds (or thousands) of discrete units working together to accomplish a goal. The same with the Beacon high-speed flywheels that handle about 25 kWh each and are also deployed in arrays. Scaling a modular Active Power system up for a bigger load is no more difficult than scaling up any of the others.

Until the PbC and other advanced lead acid batteries are available in commercial form (as opposed to pre-commercial prototypes) and the makers publish detailed performance data, I couldn't begin to make a comparison. I would also note that there is no such creature as a low tech energy storage system. Regardless of whether you're talking batteries or flywheels, the control and management systems are amazing.

billp37, it's hard to disagree with the points Kedrosky makes, which is the big reason I think cheap is far better than cool. I for one am a global warming agnostic but a firm believer in peak cheap oil. I'm also a firm believer that there are about 5 billion people in the world who want the lifestyle 500 million of us have. As developing economies demand a larger share of the pie, the only choices are make do with less or make a bigger pie. There are a world of AE choices, but with the exception of nuclear, they all require storage systems for stability. I feel much better investing in fundamental stability than I would fundamental instability.

The PR is for Fefer Petersen & Cie, one of my favorite law firms that is always looking for new clients.

2009 Mar 01 10:05 AM

[battman]

As a believer in Axion, I think it may be an interesting point to say that Lead Acid could very well be a dinasour, but Axion's Pbc battery is not the same old fashioned lead acid battery. So knocking lead acid is fine if you want, but understand that lead acid-carbon batteries is like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. It's important to understand that difference when you debase lead acid.

I also find it kind of strange when Li-ion supporters talk about how mystically and magically prices will come down because of advances we don't yet know about (or that may never transpire), but want to knock lead acid type batteries even though there have been advances that we actually know about (Axions Pbc and CSIROs Ultrabattery). On one hand they are prepared to suspend their disbeliefs, on the other they won't open their eyes to a reality.

John as you've said from day one, many different battery techs will win for many different applications. The pie is definitely big enough, that's for sure.

2009 Mar 01 10:11 AM

[billp37]

"[J]ust outside the city sits a sprawling complex abandoned years ago by US Steel. Not long ago, it was a brownfield, the soil contaminated and the massive industrial buildings rusting alongside the railway tracks that once brought in the ore and carried out steel beams and rolls.

Now, it is an incubator in the so-called "Green Economy" that President Obama and others hold out as both the answer to America's industrial decline and its dependence on foreign oil. ..."

www.cnn.com/2009/POLIT...

Facts:
1 Laws of thermodynamics are tough to repeal
2 HEAT RATE - second law
3 CAPACITY FACTOR - reality

An email message from Whitman [a liberal arts] College college president Gerorge Bridges.

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/whitman59/w...

Money to be made from those who don't understand 1, 2, and 3.

2009 Mar 01 10:25 AM

[isaac the terrible]

Any suggestions about learning more about the state of Zebra battery developement?, who are the players in that segment?
Thanks

2009 Mar 01 11:28 AM

[John Petersen]

battman, I try to avoid spending too much time talking about Axion because it is my clearest conflict, but as near as I can tell all of the survivors will have more business than they can possibly handle, so the real key is staying in the game. I even like Li-ion chemistry for a lot of applications, but when I see Li-ion companies carrying market valuations that are up to 10x the market valuations of comparable lead-acid companies, I need to mention the disparity and explain why it is unsustainable.

billp37, I fully understand the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of supply and demand. While I don't have any problems with nuclear, lots of folks are not as sanguine on that issue. The economics of AE are not as good as the economics of oil used to be, but they beat freezing in the dark.

isaac, the Zebra is an interesting technology but there are no U.S. public companies in that particular space, so I don't really focus on it because like CAES and molten salt, it's no fun talking about neat developments that folks can't invest in. The principal developer is MES-DEA, a Swiss company that's only a couple hours from my home. With any luck, they'll decide they need counsel on matters of US law.

2009 Mar 01 11:47 AM

[frflyer]

Projections of energy prices for new nuclear plants and supposed clean coal, as compared with projections for energy prices for solar and wind, clearly show that they won't be able to compete with wind or solar within a decade, which in the case of nuclear, is about how long it will take for the first new nuke to come online.
I think billp37 has a conflict of interest he's not telling us about.
Those who are forever telling us how renewable energy is a no go have lost all credibility with me.

climateprogress.org/20.../

climateprogress.org/20.../

climateprogress.org/20.../

www.scitizen.com/scree...

climateprogress.org/20.../

8.3 GW of new wind energy came online in 2008. Oh yes the capacity factor! OK, 35% for wind. That still is the equivalent of 3 nuclear power plant being completed in one year., or 5-6 coal plants. At 7-8 cents/kWh wind is hardly expensive.
And wind is the cleanest of all, with the lowest land footrint of all.

Not all renewables will need electricity storage. Geothermal and solar thermal with heat storage are two exceptions.

In regard to climate change, read the new book "The Carbon Age"
by Eric Roston. A fascinating read that covers many topics and is much more than just another book on global warming.

Then explain how speeding up the natural carbon cycle a hundred fold could possibly be anything but trouble. And explain how pumping the carbon that took 60 million years to precipitate out of the carbon cycle in the form of coal deposits, back into the carbon cycle in a few hundred years, or a geological nanosecond, could possibly not be trouble. This is unprecedented in the history of the earth. And it upsets a balance in the carbon cycle that has been in place for hundreds of millions of years.
Nah, man can't effect a big ole thing like the planet.

On the cost of clean energy conversion
www.hks.harvard.edu/pr...

How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet?
The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change
By Eric Pooley

25 peer reviewed studies have shown that changing to clean energy and efficiency will have minimal economic cost.

Or you could believe the heavily biased, heavily flawed, non transparant, and not peer reviewed, study by the Manufacturers Association and a chamber of commerce proxy that has been widely debunked.

2009 Mar 01 02:22 PM

[John Petersen]

frflyer, I'm an agnostic not a denier. My biggest problem with the warming models I've seen is that they don't seem to give our neighborhood star much of the credit and there seems to be substantial evidence that solar output variability has a lot of impact. That being said, I do have an open mind and think that no matter which argument is right, the economic imperative of the 5 billion will trump all other considerations for the next 50 years and we will need every scrap of energy we can get from every source available. Think back to that old song by Blood Sweat & Tears, "I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell."

2009 Mar 01 02:45 PM

[Fredrik88]

"...it’s silly to fret about battery weight in the context of a 3,000-pound car..." -- John Petersen

According to some data on Green Car Congress, the Axion batteries have an abysmal Energy Density of 20.5 watt hours per kilogram. That is lower than even ordinary lead acid batteries!

The Phoenix SUV uses 35,000 watt hours of Altair's "NanoSafe" Lithium batteries. So, with Axion, 35,000 divided by 20.5 = 1707 kilos!! 1707 x 2.2 = 3,756 lbs. of Axion batteries required to run the Phoenix EV!! (That is if it would even move...)

I see no use ever for Axion batteries in EV's. Cost is not an issue. They could give them away for FREE and it wouldn't make any difference.

www.greencarcongress.c...

2009 Mar 01 03:00 PM

[frflyer]

more on the cost of nuclear
solveclimate.com/blog/...

Nah, we can't effect the big ole Earth.

E. O. Wilson, who is an expert on biodiversity, commenting on Bjorn Lomborg's innacurate numbers in his book "The Skeptical Scientist"

"Before humans existed, the species extinction rate was (very roughly) one species per million species per year (0.0001 percent). Estimates for current species extinction rates range from 100 to 10,000 times that, but most hover close to 1,000 times prehuman levels (0.1 percent per year), with the rate projected to rise, and very likely sharply."

"Area-species curves. Ecological research across a wide range of habitats shows that the number of species inhabiting a patch of land increases exponentially with the size of that patch. Different studies have produced different estimates for the species-area exponent; the higher the value of the exponent, the steeper the general relationship between land area and species diversity, so that a small change in land area has a large effect on diversity. In The Diversity of Life, I use the conservative values of the area-species exponent and rate of tropical deforestation to arrive at about 0.25 percent of tropical forest species extinguished or committed to early extinction annually."

"Studies from tropical America, New Guinea, and Indonesia (cited in The Diversity of Life) show that when forest fragments are reduced to anywhere from one to 27 square kilometers, 10 to 50 percent of the species in the fragment go extinct within 100 years, consistent with the Diamond-Terborgh models of exponential decay. The area-dependent decline in mammal species of the U.S. and Canadian western national parks also accords with the picture of committed extinction by area reduction alone. "

On ocean acidification

'Basic chemistry leaves us in little doubt that our burning of fossil fuels is changing the acidity of our oceans,' said John Raven, professor of biology at the University of Dundee, UK. 'The rate of change we are seeing to the ocean's chemistry is a hundred times faster than has happened for millions of years. We just do not know whether marine life which is already under threat from climate change can adapt to these changes.'

www.rsc.org/chemistryw...

Another article on ocean acidification here:

www.cbc.ca/technology/...

And in the book "The Carbon Age" you will learn how ocean acidification is potentially destroying one of the biggest carbon sinks on Earth, the gazillions of shelled algae called cocolithophores that live in the ocean, and take carbon to the sea floor when they die, effectively removing it from the carbon cycle .
They have been doing this for hundreds of millions of years, helping to keep the carbon cycle in a balance that has supported life as we know it for all that time . They can't form their alkaline shells in an acidic ocean.

Nah, man can't effect the big ole earth.

"Massachusetts Institute of Technology
has joined the climate realists. The realists are the growing group of scientists who understand that the business as usual emissions path leads to unmitigated catastrophe...."

climateprogress.org/20.../

Greenhouse Gamble
The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
globalchange.mit.edu/r.../

The most expensive thing we can do is to continue with the fossil fuel based energy, or business as usual.


westcoastclimateequity...
Global Warming Solutions for Governments

"Behind fossil fuels’ global dominance lies the shocking fact that governments still subsidize them with tax-breaks and price supports, some dating back to World War I. The total global give-away to fossil fuels comes to more than $210 billion a year."

Not to mention the externalized costs of continued fossil fuel use, which is in the hundreds of billions annually.

2009 Mar 01 03:04 PM

[frflyer]

John
I know you have an open mind. My comments are not necessarily directed at you. But the majority of deniers who endlessly repeat every skeptic argument, or usually a whole littany of them, when only one in a hundred is even worth talking about. And the majority of deniers are motivated by politics, not science.

2009 Mar 01 03:20 PM

[John Petersen]

User, you need to understand that I'm an unrepentent skeptic when it comes to cars with plugs because people want more than batteries can realistically offer. It makes no difference whether you are talking about Nano-safe or PbC, an EV with a 100 or 150 mile range can never make economic sense. Minor creature comforts like heat and AC will only make a bad equation worse. Long-range EVs are toys for rich boys. The numbers don't work and they don't lie.

The fundamental problem is the vehicle weight to passenger weight ratio. Electric works great when the ratio is low and gets incredibly expensive as the ratio increases. Electric bicycles and scooters pay well, as do ultra-light EVs, but when you start talking about thousands of pounds and more than an absolute minimum battery range, the economics just aren't there.

There will always be people who can splash out $75,000 to $100,000 for a Tesla or Phoenix roadster, just like there were people who could splash out for a Delorean. But until we get to a product that an average guy will find acceptable and can afford, vehicles with plugs will be curiosities rather than mass market products. Right now, the DOE does not expect plugs to be on more than about 7% of the new vehicles in 2030. I think we can do better than that but not with the current crop of batteries.

frflyer, I don't take it personally and know that you understand where I'm coming from. In the final analysis we just have different reasons to reach the same result.

2009 Mar 01 03:50 PM

[Advill]

Interesting article and some good comments, i hope than tomorrow many other informed readers will participate.

Usually inventions goes in a far different ways of what inventors think is the most obvious use, this is the case of laser which was ahead of its time until it was use as the ideal vehicle to telecommunications, Minoxidil was designed as a blood pressure control agent until it was found to be the only FDA aproved anti hair loss treatment.....and so on.

In energy something similar will happen, we are assuming that "storage" will be important part of Grid 2.0 however it s foresable that centalized power systems (smarter and more open to bidirectional flows) will be kept as basic backbone of postindustrial society, in this, there will be some other equipments that are not consider in this and some of them will play the basic role that we now assign to batteries (as related by John):

1. Ultracapacitors (there are 3 well funded start ups related with this application, DARPA already commited hugh amounts for this technology that will change perception of energy storage.

2. Nuclear "batteries", there are a couple of iniciatives on this fascinating possibility (see Hyperion.com), batteries that last 50 years, without maintenance and no nuclear residuals or proliferation problems....available from 2012.

3. New discoveries in chemistry as MIT Dr. Nocera slow energy electrolysis which hopefully will transform hydrogen use in the smart grid.

4. New materials for use in batteries as MIT liquid batteries announced few days ago.

5. And finally there is the another field that promises in the long term to be a feasible, the storage of light, physics of "frozen light" are being developed and promises radical new ways of "storage" ratios that are science fiction today.

I know we are in John" s article talking about investment realities but keeping an eye in what is in the future, some of the products in a matter of months could be advisable

Regards

2009 Mar 01 03:55 PM

[John Petersen]

Advill, we can only hope that many of the exciting things that are now going on in the laboratory come to fruition, along with many others that haven't been thought of yet. I'm a huge optimist when it comes to the innate ability of humans in general and American's in particular to find new ways of doing things that are both better and cheaper. Storage in all its current and proposed forms and finding other ways to smooth power from variable sources is a critical field. Now that the public is becoming more aware of the critical needs, maybe some of tomorrow's best and brightest will decide that chemistry and physics make more sense than an MBA.

2009 Mar 01 05:07 PM