In the Know

Huge Incentives for Energy Storage in Today's House Bill

JP,

You can tell I don't believe in emerging "bailouts". Should we give the homebuilders money to increase their production capacity? No, no one is buying. Should we give them money to build houses with the same standards, features, and size in the sub $100,000 range? Perhaps. Should we give the homebuilders money to start developing energy efficient appliances? (This analogy is to point out the stupidity of the car companies developing batteries). The point is that I believe the funds should help deliver the solutions and not accelerate bad management and business models at taxpayer cost.

Huge Incentives for Energy Storage in Today's House Bill

This portion of the bill is great for energy storage in general. The distribution of funds is going to be key. Companies that have overstated capabilities in order to get Venture Fund money should be eliminated off the top. Three in particular went through these phases and should continue to fund themselves with public and private funds (non government). That's Altair, Ener1, and A123. These three companies are in existence only because of their pretensive claims on capability. All the money put into these companies needs to be washed out before any federal funds flow in or we the taxpayer will be left holding the bag of past decisions and mistakes.

Li-ion Batteries: A Speculative Field of Dreams

realist2

If the business case is good, the investors should be lining up. Its not our governments responsibility nor the people they represent.

I want this industry to work, I just don't want the game fixed. Also, you better do a little more homework on the non-toxic part before you start eating.

Li-ion Batteries: A Speculative Field of Dreams

It sickens me to hear that our own Government is even considering providing any assistance to these speculative technologies and companies in the kind of money to build plants vs the critical R&D, supply chain development, and manufacturing development needs.

GM getting into batteries is really not too much different than them getting into oil extraction and refining. Their core is ICE and have no more right to this space than Fisker or Tesla. They have a proven track record of failure in this area.

Ener1 is a joke and advertises that they are past the stage that realistically should be funded by such funds. They should be at the stage where enough investors should step up to the plate (if they can't find them, they deserve to fail).

There are going to be product liability issues in which the companies are responsible for solely. Look at all the lithium ion recalls. This is investor risk, not taxpayer risk.

Will the Audacious Bailouts for Alternative Energy Happen?

It is safe to say that companies like Ener1, A123, and Altairnano have pursued using private and public routes to fund their business plans. All of these companies have been around a while and have serious cash burn problems which means to me that they didn't move their product efficiently through the product development cycle so that at the end, they had revenue, cash flow, reason for further investment from their sources. If they pursue money from the government, in my opinion, is one big ponzi scheme.

It is ridiculous to even consider offering any of these companies any money from the government without having any track record. I haven't seen any articles at all that suggest that perhaps if we want battery production in the United States, that we go to our world leaders in the business like Duracell, Energizer, and Spectrum/Rayovac. A decade or two ago, all of these companies had lithium ion programs but they didn't pursue this route because it wasn't financially viable. Even though companies like Valence or Ultralife or Yardney all had their own lithium programs, haven't asked for handouts from the government, but have more experience than all three of these greedy new guys and have at least some track record. I believe Yardney produced the batteries that lasted 6 years on Mars so far.

I also suggest that GM is not the one either. It is already obviously apparent that their ability to run their business is extremely flawed. Also, they had a lithium program that failed miserably through Delphi which suggests that can’t engineer their way through this problem.

I say either engage our US experienced battery companies or let the Asian lithium ion producers install their plants here like Toyota has with vehicles. It will have the same job effect without the risk. If one of these private companies can compete, all the more power to them, but no handouts.