Tag: Batteries

A Michigan-based company slated to produce lithium-ion polymer batteries for electric vehicles has instead kept production overseas, has failed to meet job targets outlined in a $150 million grant from the federal government, and has been reimbursed by the government for $842,000 in wasted work time, according to a U.S. Department of Energy Special Report released Wednesday.

The DOE says Holland, Mich.-based LG Chem Michigan misused part of a $150 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds and has decided not to shift production from its plant in South Korea to Michigan. It painted a stark picture of wasted U.S. federal dollars.

"Until the shift in production takes place or some alternative use for the plant is developed, U.S. taxpayers will receive little direct benefit from a plant for which they provided up to half of the funding," the report said.

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In Mid-December, Senator Carl Levin posted a position piece supporting further battery technology spending by taxpayers in Michigan.  He states:

That's why an announcement in November by the Department of Energy was so important to Michigan. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, a consortium of government, university and private-sector research labs aimed at revolutionizing battery technology.

Fittingly, Michigan is playing a key role in the effort. The consortium, headquartered at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, will include research hubs at Johnson Controls in Holland, and on the University of Michigan campus. Dow Chemical in Midland is also a key corporate partner.

The JCESR is nothing short of a Manhattan Project-styled effort to blow through the technical and economic limitations imposed by existing battery technology. Despite enormous progress that has allowed impressive accomplishments in hybrid vehicles and plug-in electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt, today's batteries are still bigger, heavier, more expensive and lower capacity than we'd like. With technical improvements, we can bring down costs, reduce our dependence on imported oil and protect our environment.

The answer to this challenge is an effort that, as my colleague Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois put it, "brings together, under a single organizational roof, the world's leading scientists, engineers and manufacturers in energy storage and provides them with the tools, resources and market reach necessary to produce major breakthroughs."

Between the sale of battery technology to China, and a dismal failure of LG Chem to realize the investment made:

"But now you're getting it. Reporters who visited the Michigan factory of the South Korean company LG Chem, which got $151 million in stimulus money to manufacture lithium-ion batteries, discovered workers sitting around playing Monopoly and poker. The employees said it wasn't their fault: "What do you do when there's no work?"  "

As far as going all-in with these schemes, one might better be served with the proverbial 'fool me once .." advice.  Frankly, Senator Levin should take the advice given to Harry Reid by the weeper last night.  

That is the hard fact of what it took to get a battery plant built here to provide 3300 new jobs.  Never mind the NEED for those jobs, or whether the new green economy demands it enough to make it PAY FOR ITSELF.  It is the cost of having business DO BUSINESS in Michigan it seems, and no amount of common sense ought to dissuade our dear leaders from paying that price right?

And that price per job, is only if all goes well.

As we have seen by recent events, the MEDC record for picking winners is not even as accurate as my dog's method of identifying visitors.  Never mind the trickle into the Michigan economy from these new jobs cannot offset the cost in taxes paid to make it possible.  And Never mind the very people who are running the taxpayer supported operation say they haven't been profitable.. yet:

In a filing with the SEC, the company stated: "We have never been profitable. ...We have a history of losses, and we may be unable to achieve or sustain profitability."

The company was founded in 2001 and announced its lithium-ion battery system in 2005. Since then, A123 states that it had net losses of $31 million in 2007, $80.5 million in 2008, and $86.6 million for 2009. Furthermore, it had negative cash flow of $56.1 million in 2007, $76 million in 2008 and $114.7 million in 2009.