There’s Hydrogen In That There Biogas
I don’t suppose that anyone actually dreams of hydrogen, but in the bio-economy there just isn’t quite enough of it and we read about it and sometimes think about it so much that we might as well be dreaming about it.
For those newer to the field, one of the problems of using biomass to make a fuel is that a carbohydrate contains around 53% oxygen by weight and needs about 16% more hydrogen that it contains to make a hydrocarbon fuel. That’s one of the reasons that biofuels are often esters (such as biodiesel) or alcohols (such as ethanol),...
What Do Investors Get With BioSolar?
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
Last week management of energy storage developer BioSolar, Inc. (BSRC: OTC/PK) provided an update on the company lithium-ion battery design. The company’s engineers along with a manufacturing partner are still making changes to the design called the 21700 cell. Additionally, the company recently decided to take greater control over raw materials supply, potentially sourcing and processing materials in the U.S.
Engineers at BioSolar have been trying to increase the storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries by improving the anode component. The plan is to sell 'super anodes' to battery manufacturers to make existing lithium-ion batteries work like super batteries. Prototypes were tested in July...
Shareholders Cry Foul as UQM Agrees to Buyout
UQM Technologies (UQM: NYSE) has agreed to be acquired by Danfoss Power Solutions for $1.71 per share in cash, providing a deal value near $100 million. UQM leadership expects timely review by government authorities and has recommended approval of the deal by shareholders. A date has not been set for the required shareholder vote. Assuming all goes according to schedule, a deal closing is possible sometime in the second quarter 2019.
Electric propulsion and generation technologies are at the core of UQM’s solutions for manufacturing, transportation and power industries. The substitution of electric motors for combustion engines has been driving demand for the UQM’s products. Market opportunities have abounded...
DOE Reports That Lithium-ion Batteries Are Not Ready for Prime Time
by John Petersen Last month the DOE released its 2008 Annual Progress Report for the Energy Storage Research and Development Vehicle Technologies Program. This report is a frank and relatively upbeat assessment of the current status of Li-ion battery research and development that also provides a stark wake-up call for investors in energy storage stocks. The reality check has been done and the DOE’s verdict is clear: Lithium-ion batteries are not ready for prime time. In its description of ongoing research efforts to develop high-power batteries for HEVs, the DOE said: “High-power energy storage devices...
Solar & Storage Finance Conference Notes
I attended the Solar & Storage Finance conference hosted in NYC in late October 2018. Presenters included a mix of capital providers & asset managers, private non-profit entities & public agencies, legal, accounting & consulting firms, intermediaries, firms providing risk analysis, ratings & mitigation, & various vendors of energy storage and IT-related services. The tone of the discussions was noteworthy for its near total absence of ideological comments about environmental urgency. Rather, it was a meeting of finance technicians and technocrats focused on the nuts & bolts of accomplishing those ends, with the merits and relevance of mission assumed.
The...
USPS Study: EV Economics Depend On Smart-Grid Revenue
John Petersen On August 28th, the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service published the results of a feasibility study titled, "Electrification of Delivery Vehicles." While the feasibility study reaches a foregone conclusion and recommends the purchase of a 3,000 unit demonstration fleet, I was surprised by the high level of Federal subsidies the Inspector General thought necessary to bring EVs within Postal Service capital investment policies. I was even more surprised by the conclusion that the tipping point in the economic analysis was revenue from ancillary vehicle to grid, or V2G, services. The...
Axion Power – A Battery Manufacturer Charging Forward
John Petersen Last week Debra Fiakas of Crystal Equity Research published an article titled "No Battery Producer Left Behind" that was based on old information about the relationship between Exide Technologies (XIDE) and Axion Power International (AXPW) and reached several erroneous conclusions. Since I'm a former Axion director, the stock is my biggest holding and I follow the company like a hawk, Tom Konrad asked me to clarify the record and present a high level overview of Axion's business history, stock market dynamics and technical accomplishments over the last four years. Since Tom's request is a...
Lesser Known Battery Chemistries
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
The last post Vanadium Flow Battery Companies, featured several companies bringing vanadium redox flow batteries to the market for large-scale energy storage projects. These highly efficient and long-lived batteries take advantage of the unique properties of vanadium. There are other interesting chemical mixes on the battery market that could yield returns for investors.
Sodium-sulfur
There are at least eight different installations of sodium-sulfur or NaS batteries around the world. One of the largest is the Yerba Buena Energy Storage System owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PCG: NYSE) in California. Rated at 4 megawatts or 24 megawatt hours, the system can provide backup electricity...
Energy Storage on the Smart Grid Will Be 99.45% Cheap and 0.55% Cool
7.17.09 Storage Week John Petersen Infocast’s Storage Week was all I had hoped it would be, and more. While I thoroughly enjoyed serving on three discussion panels and was warmly received by roughly 250 attendees, including executives of companies that I've occasionally criticized, the most important value for me came from the opportunity to hear four days of high-level presentations by industry executives, national thought leaders and policymakers who repeatedly stressed that: From a utility perspective grid-based energy storage is the functional equivalent of an instantly...
Canadian and Tanzanian Graphite Connections
A list of graphite companies covered in this series can be found here.
Like performance test results, customer relationships are critical stepping stones for graphite developers. In June 2018, Northern Graphite (NGC: TSX-V) announced a memorandum of understanding with a European trading company to sell 100% of the output from Northern’s Bisset Creek resources in Ontario, Canada. China-based manufacturers are the intended end-users. Northern management is using the arrangement as leverage with prospective investors to finance mine infrastructure and processing equipment. Capital costs are expected to exceed CA$145 million.
Northern claims a proprietary purification technology the company intends to use to upgrade its graphite output. Its Bissett Creek deposit...
ETS Interview: The Will the Real Transportation Fuel of the Future Step Forward
For macro reasons, I think that the next generation liquid fuels may be cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel or renewable diesel from algae. But those fuels will increasingly be sharing the roads with the long term transportation fuel of the future: electricity from renewable sources, especially wind. Wind will be important for electric transportation and electric transportation will be important for wind because, when you're already going to be charging batteries, you may as well do it when the electricity is cheap, which will be when the wind is blowing.. Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) neatly solve the main barrier...
Viva the Cleantech Revolution
It’s official! Cleantech, the sixth industrial revolution, has arrived on time and in the midst of extraordinary crisis. Like every good revolution, blood is flowing in the streets; the guillotine is en route to Wall Street and the mob is so busy plotting retribution for the excesses of the past that most have no time to consider the future. But as yesterday’s dynasties decay, crumble and fall, a new generation of visionaries is already building on the wreckage of the past. These are indeed troubled times that bear an eerie resemblance to the opening sentence from A Tale of...
PEM Fuel Cells – Hoping to Challenge Internal Combustion
The first article in this series introduced the two prominent types of hydrogen fuel cells - alkaline fuel cells (ALKFCs) and proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Fuel cells are devices that convert stored hydrogen into usable energy, and constitute an essential part of the hydrogen economy. Subsequent articles shall focus on various characteristics of these two cells.
The graph above shows the power costs ($/kW) of PEMFCs and ALKFCs as the technology has advanced over time. In other words, they show the initial capital cost for every 1 kW of fuel cell capacity (note that this axis is in the...
Why I’m Long Active Power
10.08.09 ACPW John Petersen This morning I awoke to a comment from Seeking Alpha contributor Michael Eisenberg who asked me to lay out my core thesis on why Active Power, Inc. (ACPW) merits attention from investors who are interested in the energy storage sector. While Altenergystocks and Seeking Alpha don't generally like to publish articles about companies that trade for under a dollar, I believe Active Power merits an exception to the general policies. As regular readers know, I've been a small company securities lawyer for almost...
The Lithium-ion Battery Glut Will Be Massive
John Petersen I hate being wrong, but Mother always taught us, "if you have to eat crow don't nibble." In February 2010 I wrote an article titled "Why I Don't Expect A Lithium-Ion Battery Glut" that's shaping up as one of the worst predictions in the history of my blog. This week Lux Research published a report titled "Using Partnerships to Stay Afloat in the Electric Vehicle Storm" that has me convinced that the capacity glut in lithium-ion batteries will be massive for at least a decade. I humbly and sincerely apologize to any readers...
The Alternative Energy Fallacy
John Petersen In 2009, the world produced some 13.2 billion metric tons of hydrocarbons, or about 4,200 pounds for every man, woman and child on the planet. Burning those hydrocarbons poured roughly 31.3 billion metric tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. The basic premise of alternative energy is that widespread deployments of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles will slash hydrocarbon consumption, reduce CO2 emissions and give us a cleaner, greener and healthier planet. That premise, however, is fatally flawed because our planet cannot produce enough non-ferrous industrial metals to make a meaningful difference and the prices...
