Old Wizard

Battery Investing for Beginners, Part 2

John, The subsequent comments stenghten my assertion, I think, that China and Asia will lead in the lithium battrery race. The subsequent comments raise the environmental and raw material issues to a more formidable level than what I asserted and indirectly bring in the cost of labor as well. This is part of the reason I believe that our Government is ignoring the reality of their push to phev's, and that their investment strategy is muddled at best. It would be just another Government blunder if the deficit spending was not so great, but at worst it can be disasterous for the future well-being of our country.

Battery Investing for Beginners, Part 2

John, Thanks for the comprehensive article. I have profited from your articles in that I have a much greater appreciation of the whole energy storage evolution. I will disagree with your conclusion that the Chinese battery companies will not play a big part in our world. It is a fact that both GM and Ford are either negotiating with or have chosen asian battery makers over those in the US. Isn't it a familiar story that we invent, often start production domestically and when the product takes hold, the production goes off-shore, usually to asia or other low cost labor places where environmental and other regulations are not so stringent. As a case in point, First Solar's large production expansion has been in Malasia and off-shore. It's latest large contract is in China and the statement from the company spokesman was that such a project would not be possible in the USA because of the difficulty in tranmission and linkage to the grid.

Are Energy Storage Investors Chasing Their Own Tails?

Another good article, John. I caution you not to be too exuberent about GE's announcement. Immelt's stuardship at GE has not been exactly a rollicking success. The stock price, net profit, dividend, and product market share on engines, appliances, lamps and even generators to a lesser extent has decreased during his tenure while the risk in GE capital has increased leading to a downgrading of GE's corporate bonds. Deals like the one made with Warren Buffet weren't particularly advantageous for existing stock holders. The announcement, while making some sense from their new thrust into the green energy era, seems to be playing more to the politics of the country. GE management is on the Obama team and has gotten guarantees that it can go to the Fed loan guarantee window as a back up to shore up the cash requirements in GE Capital. Given the bet Immelt has made on windmill farms, electric grid management and medical record computerization, he must support the administration programs and 100m is good pr. The only problem is that demand at this point is pretty much Gov. fostered and may or may not be real, take longer to develop so that break even can be realized and not represent what the 200k or less user wants, needs or can afford. For example, what real evidence is on the table that leads us to believe that the railroads of the world want to buy and can afford hybrid electric train engines that makes the investment viable and at what point would their new batery venture coincide with a real windmill market. The Gov.'s goal is to provide 20% of todays generating capacity from wind and solar by 2030. Is the payoff from this investment going to break even in the next ten years? If I were running the ship I would be more inclined to build train engines that ran on natural gas, but my measure of performance would be nearer term and not driven by as many unpredictable dependencies such as politics, speed of windmill facility installation, development of high temperature reliable and safe batteries, and the time horizon of when effective electric grid management from wind generated electricity of any magnitude is brought on-line.

Why Pure Play Energy Storage Companies Could Double for Investors

Firfly, It's not just the solar cell farm, the intermediate storage, the storage mechanisms, it's also the right away for the transmission lines, the type of transmission lines, the insertion into the existing grids and the ability of the grid to control itself efficiently when subjected to impulses in demand that constitutes the system problem that must be addressed. Unless the gov jump starts the whole system with large enough[ I refer to them as pilot projects] progress will bog down in interminable legal, technological and cost-effective semi conjectural arguments. The Cape wind project is a case in point;it's been in the works for over 5 yrs and has gotten only 3 of the required 11 permits to proceed. Our technology for alternative energy is far more advanced to accomplish significant alternate energy in less than 10 years than was our technology to go to the moon and we did it in 8.5 years.

Why Pure Play Energy Storage Companies Could Double for Investors

John, I think it will take 20 years with the approach being taken for solar and wind to change much in the way we create relaible energy. The new president states that he wants to double today's capacity to generate electrical energy by renewables, particularly, wind and solar in 3 years. Today the alternative sources account for something less than 1% of our electrical capacity. I believe that our new energy secretary is a smart man, but my fear is that he is an R&d academician and is not geared to the implementation of complex systems. The need to replace 6.5 million barrels of oil/ day we import from unstable and in several cases unfrendly regimes requires a greater sense of urgency. If we are going to allocate over 100b dollars of investment, it should be focused on large scale pilot projects for alternate energy that would provide the forcing function and direction for componet development and deployment. Establishing a bigger goal to be achieved in 5 years would lead to your witnessing some of the unimaginable progress sooner and be a wiser investment strategy for the future well being of the country.

Why Pure Play Energy Storage Companies Could Double for Investors

John, As I have said before, your articles are informative and try to analyze the options in an objective and logical way. My problem with the stimulus is similar to another commenter's. The buckshot bottoms up approach does not put storage mechanisms in any systems or end product goal. For example, if a near term goal of putting x electric cars on the road that have a range of y miles in z years was established, then RD&D evaluation criteria could be used to drive the grant process. Since I believe that battery development is at least as advanced in China, what will drive the process in america that results in energy independence?

Smart Grid's Enabler - Alternative Energy Storage

John And Fitz, I think John's articles are a refreshing attempt to actually do some analysis of alternatives. An observation about the smart grid, If there is so much debate about the method for storing intermittant supply that comes from wind and solar if those two sources are to be significant, what does building out the grid mean? Just a carryover from filter theory, Impulses must be carefully addressed if the system is to be stable.Does building out the grill mean that the control functions will only deal with current sources and attempt to optomize it or is it something more? Since the grid has to deal with peaks and valleys, the more interconnection the more complex the contol function becomes and must deal with many local peaks in what is a non linear problem.

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

JP, Your analysis presented in this article is among the best I've read. The time to market of promising technologies has long been the insumountable obstacle for start-ups and under-capitalized companies. This is one reason why I believe that if some of these technologies are to be realized in our alternative energy thrust, the government,itself, must enable significant pilot projects. In the past much new product development using advanced technologies came from Nasa or the defence dept.. if alternative energy sources are to be implemented here in a timeline that will significantly impact our current account and strategic dependence on hostile suppliers of oil, they must get a significant investment boost from the gov.and help to simplify the regulatory hurdles. Missing this gov. intervention, the cost and investment risk will always favor that which is seen to have a favorable rate of return. Risk associated with fighting interminable legal and reulatory challenges always work adversely in these evaluations. In the Appollo program the investment to eliminate the risk of reducing advanced technologies to practise was largely borne by the Gov.. There has to be a reason why many of the technologies and things invented here are reduced to marketable products in China, Japan and other countries and not here.