Vinod Khosla's Stance on the Future of Lithium-ion Batteries

On Monday of this week, the treehugger blog published a guest essay from Vinod Khosla that clarified his stance on the future of next generation lithium-ion batteries. The essay was prompted by "blog chatter" about an article in Earth2Tech where he was quoted as saying that lithium-ion batteries are overhyped. Since my article "Why Lead-Carbon Batteries Will Deflate the Li-ion Bubble" was specifically mentioned in the Khosla essay, I feel obligated to tell readers that Mr. Khosla has written an essay on the subject and encourage them to get the full story straight from the source.

The essay from Mr. Khosla is available here.

While we use different terms to frame the issues, it's pretty clear that Mr. Khosla's views of the lithium-ion battery sector are not all that different from mine. We both question the ability of leading lithium-ion battery developers to move down the cost curve and up the performance curve over the next five years. We both believe that without disruptive advances in cell design, battery chemistry and manufacturing technology, the market for PHEVs and EVs will be limited to a small fraction of the potential market. We both hope ongoing R&D will lead to the disruptive advances the industry needs. And we're both a little skeptical about EEstor.

After spending a good deal of time analyzing the Khosla essay, about the only place we disagree is his suggestion that "Even the old lead acid battery suppliers like Firefly and other lead acid battery makers are making a play to reach the electric car specifications."

I've always been very careful to respect the difference between cars that use electric drive to supplement internal combustion engines and cars that use internal combustion engines to supplement electric drive.

That difference is a plug.

I believe advanced lead-acid and lead-carbon batteries will be a dominant technology for micro, mild and full HEVs that do not have plugs. I also believe they will not be competitive in PHEVs and EVs where battery size and weight are mission critical constraints. The only clear exception to the rule is gas guzzler to dual mode EV conversions.

Last November I wrote "Alternative Energy Storage is an Investment Tsunami," which began with a Khosla quote that “500 million people on earth enjoy a lifestyle that 9 billion people will want in 2050.” This quote had a profound impact on my thinking and has gradually morphed into a frequently repeated theme that 6 billion people already know about the lifestyle that 500 million of us enjoy and every single one of them wants to earn his piece of the dream. The trick will be finding a way to raise the standard of living in developing economies without crushing the standard of living in developed economies. For that to happen without catastrophic conflict and horrific environmental consequences, the world must find relevant scale solutions for persistent shortages of water, food, energy and virtually every commodity you can imagine.

Since I admire Mr. Khosla, I deeply regret any trouble I may have caused by not spending more time discussing his vision of the opportunities in next generation lithium-ion batteries. A favorite theme of mine comes from William Martin's novel The Lost Constitution, “In America we get up in the morning, we go to work and we solve our problems.” Solving our energy and carbon emission problems is a daunting task that will take decades and probably never be complete. In the meantime, we need to go to work with the tools we have and be ready to embrace new tools when they're developed. I don't view advanced lead-acid and lead-carbon batteries as the be all and end all of energy storage. They are, however, key bridging solutions that can help us get from where we are to where we need to be.

Comments

[John Petersen:]

In case anybody's wondering, I am reading but there is no way I want to jump into the middle of this particular debate. I will note, however, that in his presentation at Storage Week Dr. Moseley of ALABC made a point that lead-carbon devices have shown a remarkable ability to self balance without a complex BMS. We'll still need the normal voltage control and charging circuitry, but the system will be far lighter and less complex.

Aug 14 04:28 PM

[Don Harmon:]

Good decision, John....lol! Yes you don't need a BMS for Lead-Carbon but that item (BMS) weighs about 6 ounces - it's just a circuit board after all - so "far lighter" is a bit of a stretch when you consider Litium is already half the weight of any Lead-Carbon battery.

Also having a circuit board embedded into the advanced Lithium-ion battery packs allows them to offer many advantages such as "on-board" Battery Diagnostics, GPS tracking, and CAN Bus interface with the new EV's.

Cell balancing is not an issue with Lead-Carbon because it is all one big cell, and because Lead Carbon is a single big "dumb cell" battery, that give it the cost advantage over Lithium as well as being widely understood (accepted) and having existing factories that can make it!

This is why I keep getting frustrated with everyone trying to compare apples to oranges. You just can't do that. You can't plant corn and expect to grow tomatoes as an old mentor once told me.

Aug 14 04:42 PM

[Don Harmon:]

I was just thinking of something that hasn't been discussed here yet that I know of? What happens if you get a "bad Lead-Carbon" battery pack vs. a "bad Lithium-ion" battery pack? Now, before you jump let's consider this potential problem in a calm manner. I would say in either case, from a practical viewpoint, you simply replace the "bad pack" with a new one right? I mean there is not much choice if you want to keep a vehicle on the road immediately now is there?

Soooo, now you have swapped out the respective packs - what next? What happens to these packs? Well, as far as I know (and that's not that far) the Lead -Carbon pack will have to be re-cycled unless there IS a way to open it up and perform some sort of internal surgery on it? Maybe Axion can answer this for me? Is there any built-in diagnostics on these so you would even know which is the "bad pack"?

I know our LiFeBATT (LiFePO4) packs can be easily opened up and repaired by qualified technicians and returned to active service without a problem. This can be done and still maintain the original warranty! In addition the pack with a problem will alert the user automatically either by calling his cell phone or by LCD readout in the driver's cabin. Tech's can pull a pack and replace one cell and you are good to go (if you want to wait about 30 minutes) ?

I am not sure anyone has factored this into their cost equations between these two very different battery solutions, but I suggest that John or others here try to do this when making cost comparisons in future articles.

You may think that Cheap always beats Cool, but someone needs to make the distinction clearly between what "Cheap" is offering vs. what "Cool" is offering. Until this is clearly defined, everyone will naturally gravitate towards Cheap!

When more people can grasp the value proposition of "Cool" I think you will see a very big shift of consumer preference - hey but what do I know?

Aug 14 08:29 PM

[Don Harmon:]

Might want to ask this question of Cheap vs. Cool to all the people who have purchased i Macs, Macbooks, iPhones and iPods ?

Aug 15 12:09 AM

[John Petersen:]

The standard lead-acid (lead-carbon) configuration is a six cell battery and if you get a bad cell it's easiest to just replace the defective battery and send the old one to recycling. There's no question that the lithium-ion packs have much more built in intelligence, but that intelligence is one of the cost factors that the DOE would like to see simplified or eliminated over the next decade. Their long-term vision is a very simple lithium-ion battery that like current lead-acid (lead-carbon) intuitively knows the next right thing.

There is no question that I'm a very early adopter of most cool technologies. An article that discusses my decades of experience as an early adopter is here:

seekingalpha.com/artic...

Aug 15 02:18 AM

[Advill:]

Talking about cool and technologies early adoptions ( that is after all, what reads and writes in this forums) sent you this link of especulative Science that i love to follow, good weekend and hope you enjoy it.

Regards.

nextbigfuture.com/2009...

Aug 15 05:05 AM

[John Petersen:]

Advill, it's way speculative, but the kind of cutting edge science we really need to make a difference. Let's hope these guys find a way to cut generating costs by an order of magnitude and change the world!

Aug 15 05:21 AM

[Jack Lifton:]

Gentlemen,

You've finally arrived at a key point of understanding. It is, indeed, the internal wiring that is the issue, but it's not that of any battery chemistry it is, rather, of our own brains and endocrine systems.

John is correct: Cheap beats cool every time, because the American way is instant gratification and to do that one needs new adultolescent toys regularly even as net worth declines. The marketing of the lithium-ion battery is the same as of a music "album" or the ticket to a concert; if you don't have one, and if you don't have the prospect of having one you're (GASP) uncool.

In a world of limited resources and increasingly limited resources it is simply foolish to the point of jejeune (reasoning unleavened by experience as with a child or a new CEO) to squander resources of time and money just to be cool.

But that's what we're doing in the field of storage batteries.

Does anyone who is actually an adult believe that the next two generations of mankind will spend an ocean of treasure and tie up the intelects of thousands of the dwindling class of men and women who dedicate a quarter of their lives to learning engineering and science just to have a cool "anything."

Our civilization is evolving to where the standard of living of billions, not just of a few hundred million who live among, but are not themselves, the gifted in the sciences and engineering, or the dedicated in either, must now rise if the world is to continue at peace.

The Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Koreans see the future as one of limitations of extra-territorial ambitions as solutions to domestic problems. This means that they must grow their domestic economies rapidly to avoid the poison of envy.

We are giving them very good reasons not to envy us any more.

While they develop the underpinnings of a strong economy of manufacturing and energy we simply give them the means to grow by paying for their growth until they can utilize it internally and no longer require our money or our doestic markets.

Korea has announced that it will dedicate itself to controlling or owning 40% of its needed strategic resources by 2020. Japan has a higher goal, and China's goal is 100%. This means that sometime in the next decade free market capitalism as a driver for increased supplies of resources will cease to function in the United States.

The money we send to Japan and China for affordable (no longer "cheap") cars, clothes, and electronic toys that dissipate irreplacable resources comes back our way to buy natural resources not shares in American lithium-ion battery R&D startups masked as manufacturing ventures ready to build factories with public handouts.

China now says that it will begin to reduce its emissions of "greenhouse" gases in 2050 if its goals for domestic growth have then been met. America says it will begin to reduce its emissions of such gases now and then decide if it has any set goals for domestic growth.

If China meets her goals for domestic growth by 2050 it will mean that the US no longer has access openly to natural resources at a level necessary to sustain the 2007 standard of living.

China has already closed off the adult toy box of cheap manufacturing for foreign consumption. Now China is closing off America's access to rare earth metals, metals for solar energy conversion, and metals, such as tungsten, for specialty steels. China is doing nothing secret or underhanded; it is buying control even of what dwindling remaining production of those resources that we have but not to invest in our producers but rather to move the resources into China's domestic economy. The Japanese have now awakened to this and are adopting the Chinese strategy.

North America is still a treasure house of natural resources, but if we don't expand our production of them for our own use then we are headed for the position of a mediocre future economy.

For those of you who will live in the America of the future I am warning you that natural resources are finite as is the creation of wealth. Stop squandering both on dreams of cool positional (status) personal goods.

Aug 15 08:58 AM

[John Petersen:]

Jack, in other times economies that sent their natural resources out in raw form and bought them back as finished goods were generically referred to as colonies. The countries that got natural resources from colonies and sent them back as finished goods were generically referred to as empires. I agree wholeheartedly that raw materials and finished goods are currently cycling in the wrong direction. Let's hope the youth recognize the dangers, because after spending a lot of time with Asian youth I have grave reservations over whether my children of comparable age will ever be able to compete effectively.

Aug 15 09:57 AM

[MRTTF:]

Don, I agree with everything that you wrote. I just think that it's misleading to pass off the cell-level specs as chapter and verse for any chemistry. We quote cell level specs all of the time, but often note to the potential cusotmer that those figures are for the CELL only. Anything beyond that changes the equation and performance charateristics.

As for cell safety, we have several things that we do that allow us to use whatever chemistries we want and still mitigate the safety issues and/or prevent significant cell damage. I will acknowledge that LiFePO4 is the safest cathode chemistry and that lithium titanate is the safest anode chemistry, but they both have their limitations.


On Aug 14 04:19 PM Don Harmon wrote:

> MRRTF, sorry but your same arguments can also be made for Lead Acid
> batteries too. Of course any system will suffer loss in energy from
> the amount of connections, size of the packs, size of the total system,
> etc. but these are variable, so starting @ the Cell level to spec.
> Energy Density is still valid !.
>
> Of course you can probably make any battery explode or catch fire
> if you want to - but the chemistry itself is always proven @ the
> Cell level again which means if Sandia or the U.N. labs cannot make
> a single cell explode & catch fire - probably no one else can
> either!
> And the U.N. labs test complete packs as part of getting certified
> which LiFeBATT is!
>
> When you build up complex packs is where there might be some problems
> but that's why we develop things like the BMS, the BPM, the LVC,
> etc. to protect a total system.
>
> We don't advertise that it's impossible to make our cells blow-up
> but we also cite legitimate lab tests and let the engineers decide
> for themselves if there is some inherent saftey risk that they need
> to be concerned with.
>
> I don't think there is a "safer" Lithium - ion cell made that beats
> Lithium Iron Phosphate?

Aug 15 10:49 AM

[Mayascribe:]

Jack: As a bit of a wordsmith you chased me to my dictionary in using the word, "adultolescent." Wasn't there, but should be. Your comments and articles and opinions expressed within those articles are, "brillgenious."

Aug 15 11:34 AM

[Don Harmon:]

MRRTF,

I agree totally and on a project basis we don't pass off cell level specs. as gospel. But since every application is truly different it is impossible to devote engineering time for every discussion - so as a simple way to compare Lithium cells, we use the specs. for the particular cell to compare.

I am curious to ask who you work for - but if you don't wish to divulge that here maybe you could send me and email off-list so we can chat a bit about the industry?

[e-mail]




On Aug 15 10:49 AM MRTTF wrote:

> Don, I agree with everything that you wrote. I just think that it's
> misleading to pass off the cell-level specs as chapter and verse
> for any chemistry. We quote cell level specs all of the time, but
> often note to the potential cusotmer that those figures are for the
> CELL only. Anything beyond that changes the equation and performance
> charateristics.
>
> As for cell safety, we have several things that we do that allow
> us to use whatever chemistries we want and still mitigate the safety
> issues and/or prevent significant cell damage. I will acknowledge
> that LiFePO4 is the safest cathode chemistry and that lithium titanate
> is the safest anode chemistry, but they both have their limitations.
>

Aug 15 02:31 PM

[MRTTF:]

Don, it would be a pleasure to chat off-list. I will send you an email from work Monday morning.

Aug 16 12:55 AM

[Don Harmon:]

Looking forward to it.

Aug 16 08:17 PM

[Old Wizard:]

John, Jack and others, The point of Jack's article is crucial and it is what I have consistantly stressed by talking to our negative operating cash flow, investing in the wrong areas of energy generation, not treating a comprehensive energy plan for the country and spending barrowed money to feed the development of new battery technology and reduction to practice overseas. Today Chrysler announced that they will build the first compact Fiat in Mexico. It's no secret that both GM and Ford are negotiating with Chinese companies to get batteries for their electric plug-in vehicles and the mandated energy saving light bulbs are made in China. Mercedes has a car that goes double the mileage of Volt on battery and it will be available here next year. By the way it automatically shuts the electric motor off when the car stops and restarts it when the gas pedal is depressed. They, however, have looked ahead to design the car such that the electric battery can easily be replaced by a fuel cell[ a scheme with which they have experimented and it is believed has already been prototyped. It is entirely necessary as Jack as pointed out so eloquently to ask our political, industrial, and financial investment commuities and all who care about this country's future," Wither thou goest?".

Aug 17 11:33 AM

[John Petersen:]

Wizard, my simple foundation premise is that any technology that can reduce aggregate waste of natural resources (oil, metals. etc.) is a public good and that any technology that increases aggregate waste of natural resources will ultimately fail, no matter how cool it is. I think the administration is trying hard to rebuild a manufacturing base that has been exported for far too long. But the lure of cheaper labor is strong. For better or worse, our children and grandchildren will have to learn to be more effective competitors than we were forced to be.

Aug 17 11:41 AM

[deskjock:]

John,

what do you think of this new battery:

www.heraldextra.com/ne...


On Aug 13 12:02 PM John Petersen wrote:

> MRTTF, I don't know whether the discoveries have been made yet, but
> it's hard to disagree with Khosla's position that breakthroughs are
> needed and the payoff will be big for the companies that make them.
> The biggest strength of America is the willingness of our scientists
> to try something new without fear of failure. If we can get enough
> smart people working on the problem someone (or perhaps even many)
> will make an important difference. Our biggest mistake would be to
> assume that the current state of the art is the best we can hope
> for.

Aug 18 07:40 AM

[John Petersen:]

deskjock, it's interesting, but the numbers seem like a bit of a stretch. Right now the biggest manufacturer of NaS batteries is NGK insulators and their pricing is $450 kWh with a 10-year target of $350 kWh. The NGK system operates at temperatures in the 450 C. range. I have a hard time seeing how it will be possible to reduce the operating temperature, increase the electrochemical efficiency and slash the costs to $100 kWh at the same time. Nevertheless, if they can do what the article claims at the claimed price, the opportunities for diurnal storage (night purchase for day use) are immense and frankly beyond the cost-effectiveness curve for all existing batteries. In other words, if it works it could make a big contribution in a space that's presently a vacuum.

Aug 18 08:38 AM

[Jack Lifton:]

It sure is fun watching you young-uns play in the sand box of technological history...Yesiree, it sure is.

Again, I worked on the molten alkali salt storage battery at Ford Scientific Laboratories some 45 years ago.

It was an excellent system, but it was impractical for cars, so the mandate from the laboratory director, Dr. Jacob Goldman, who came to Ford from Xerox (Xerox in the glory days of the development of Carlson's concept to a practical machine) was to extrapolate and see of we could devise a system operating at a lower temperature while maintaining its high storage capacity.

I see now that the end-use has changed, and the storage system may become cost efficient in this "new" use.

John, I looked at a company (in Texas) as an analyst last year that was producing lithium-ion batteries for military and civilian off-grid storage. It was working with Panasonic on supplying remote locations in Japan, and I was told that this is a very unreported market. This was not a molten salt system. I think that a lot of good may come from mass storage and diurnal smoothing storage research into lithium and its salts as an electrochemical storage base.

Do you have data on who is developing such storage electrochemistry? How is lead-acid impacted in that market by other technologies today?

Jack

Aug 18 10:44 AM

[John Petersen:]

Jack, right now the leaders are NGK insulators of Japan who is working on a NaS battery that runs at very high temperatures and GE, which has announced plans to build a plant that will make Na-MCl batteries for hybrid locomotives. The company in Colorado is funded by Coors and claims that they'll be able to make a low temperature NaS batteries for $100 per kWh. The numbers seem awful low to me, but you may know better.

Aug 18 11:49 AM