Lithium ... CLQ as a good junior bet? SQM obviously as a good "senior" bet. I have both.
Edit: Here I am again into the age thing. LOL
Lots of blue sky for lithium
Companies line up to join electric-car battery industry
Grants: Feds offer $2 billion jump-start
STEVEN MUFSON; The Washington Post
Published: 07/26/09 12:05 am
WASHINGTON – The Energy Department is getting ready to hand out about $2 billion in grants to create a domestic industry for electric-car batteries, and 122 companies are scrambling to get pieces.
The companies range from small niche firms to giants such as Dow Chemical and Johnson Controls. All are promising a combination of innovation and ability to deliver new products on a commercial scale to prevent the United States from trading dependence on foreign oil or reliance on foreign-made batteries.
“We’ve had 20 years of bad behavior in the United States in terms of developing ideas into products,” said Mary Ann Wright, chief executive of Johnson Controls’s joint venture developing hybrid battery systems.
Now policy-makers hope that helping domestic battery manufacturers will produce economic savings that often come with large-scale production and which are needed to make electric cars affordable. With funds provided by the stimulus bill in February, the Energy Department can cover up to half the cost of a battery-related project.
“This investment will not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it will put Americans back to work,” President Obama said in March. “It positions American manufacturers on the cutting edge of innovation and solving our energy challenges.”
The federally funded battery effort has its skeptics. Grants are expected to focus on lightweight lithium-ion batteries similar to those found in laptops. They are the newest thing in a business that had not changed much since lead-acid batteries were invented a century and a half ago.
But U.S. hopefuls face stiff competition from foreign firms such as Japan’s Panasonic and Sony, and South Korea’s LG Chem, which already dominate the lithium-ion battery market in power tools, laptops and cellphones. Some domestic firms have recruited foreign companies as partners in new U.S.-based manufacturing facilities.
Moreover, some economists warn of the perils of government subsidies. “To the extent that this is part of a broader industrial policy scheme, I’m against it for all the reasons I’ve always been against it,” said Charles Schultze, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. “If you’re not heavy-handed about screening (applications), you’re going to get a lot of the equivalent of political pork.”
Some industry experts also note that lithium-ion batteries may not be ready for tough road conditions, that they generate a lot of heat and that there is no infrastructure for recycling them. For the moment, it is easier to recycle lead-acid batteries, like those in regular cars, or nickel-metal hydride batteries, like those in hybrid vehicles.
Nonetheless, Obama has set a goal of having 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015 and the Energy Department is trying to make sure a large share of them are powered by U.S.-made batteries. In addition to the $2 billion in grants it is expected to announce soon, the Energy Department can also lend from a separate $25 billion program. It has already announced a $1.6 billion loan to help Nissan develop an electric car, including the construction of a new battery plant, and a $465 million loan for Tesla Motors.
Johnson Controls, the world’s largest maker of lead-acid batteries, is applying with Ford Motor to make lithium-ion batteries at a Michigan plant that once made automobile interiors. The Wisconsin-based company says the project would be up and running within 15 months, creating 4,700 jobs for Michigan.
“Some people won’t lose their jobs and some people who’ve lost theirs will get new ones,” said Alex Molinaroli, president of power solutions at Johnson Controls.
The company touts its experience. “It’s a natural extension of what we do,” Molinaroli said of the battery business. Last year, Johnson Controls made 112 million conventional car batteries. |
