Ricknplano

DOE Report: Lithium-ion Batteries Are Not Ready for Prime Time

John,

Thanks for your article. Some good comments above but the tone of some comments was more argumentative than instructive which serves no one really.

Renzo, my kudos to anyone who uses both apotheosis and Arrhenius equation in the same comment. Also you are right to mention thorium fission as the future of nuclear. Others above are also right to mention the long lead for nuclear plants. Together these two arguments tell me to start now on safer nuclear and also to implement shorter term solutions like smart grids, wind and solar (with storage systems to smooth the supply) and CNG and even coal where necessary.

I will also share a fact I recently learned about natural gas. While it is a clean burning fuel, it is not such a clean fuel to access. Here in the Dallas Ft Worth area we are in the midst of a drilling boom into what is called the Barnett Shale. Recently the EPA announced that the methane and CO2 emissions from the gas wells in the area now exceed the emissions from all the vehicles in this area of over 6 million people. That was news to me for what I thought was a more green alternative to coal and oil. I am not sure if those emissions end once the drilling is completed or if that is an ongoing issue with gas wells. Perhaps other readers can educate me.

All of us want to be green if reasonable and feasible. We will disagree about what exactly is reasonable and feasible, to an extent, but John is right to point out that few of us will be economic martyrs if the cost of lithium is substantially above that of a lead alternative. Axion, CSIRO and Firefly all have good LAB alternatives coming to market that will (probably) find their respective niches regardless of lead content.

Questions about this industry that nag me remind me of Donald Rumsfeld when he said, "We know what we know and we know what we don't know. What worries me are those things we don't know that we don't know". By that I mean there are constant efforts to improve all battery and capacitor technologies. None of the technologies are standing still. There could be an announcement tomorrow that makes my conclusions today obsolete. While the technological changes may not change radically or swiftly, I just do not know what I don't know about this industry. With time I may be more comfortable in my knowledge level. That is one reason I read these postings and one reason I have yet to invest heavily. I want to see sales and performance charts and warranty claims data and profit projections from these new companies with new ideas. As John has so elequently argued, manufacturing and marketing a profitable product is a lot different than a lab report. And while I share much of John's enthusiasm for his former employer, my desire for such proof goes as much for Axion as it does for any lithium manufacturer.

I also wonder about the intellectual property of Axion versus that of Firefly and CSIRO. They seem to be following the same general idea of substituting carbon (the more surface area the better) for lead in the anode of the battery and then trying also to improve the cathode. Improving the cathode seems to be more challenging. To what extent does the IP of Axion, for example, protect it from challenges by its LAB competition, in particular that of CSIRO and its U.S. licensee, East Penn? Could CSIRO have priority IP claims that may stifle Axion at some point? Will Firefly prove to have a better design once they perfect their carbon cathode design?

I have more questions than answers and welcome comments from anyone with insight into these matters.