More From Tech Maven Fritz Maffry

It’s always time well-spent for me to go through Fritz’s offerings; hope you agree.

I haven’t written much on the lithium air battery chemistry, but it’s an extremely important development insofar as it has a potential gravimetric energy density of over 40 MJ/Kg, which is comparable to gasoline.  If course “potential” is a big word here; current offerings are less than one-thousandth of that. – Craig

Form Fritz:

Battery road map 

We described the expected battery road map about 7-8 years ago. In fits and starts, with surprises to the negative predominating, but the relentless advancements telling the real story, battery technology is on its way to completing the transition to distributed renewables, electric vehicles, and a whole host of other remarkable capabilities. Tesla hit scale with the Gigafactory along with their partner Panasonic. China apparently has a solid state firm in limited scale production already. A commercial lithium air offering has been brought to market, which was thought to be further away. Then we have the myriad alternatives such as hydrogen fuel cell, ultracapacitor, sodium flow, and others.

At the leading edge of practical technologies now commercially available in any real volume, the leading horses by design-ins are Panasonic (through their efforts with Tesla), and LG Chem (with their footprint with GM and their rumored replacement business with Nissan for the next generation Leaf).  Much that was trumpeted has fallen by the wayside; at the essential level of practicality though, generally we have made marked advancement in price/performance and safety, durability and scale of adoption. You hear little about large scale battery problems; it is found the batteries are long lived, surpassing pretty much all expectations re: performance. Tesla has driven down costs to the point at which they are near the earlier government target price for general cost equivalence in total costs with internal combustion powered vehicles. We handicap Tesla/Panasonic first, because of performance, cost, volume. LG Chem is a real contender, still not believed to be as low in price, or as prevalent in volume and scale. Then in China we have BYD and CATL, which are growing scale and cutting costs

Leading lights in the quest for battery leadership

The next real leap forward is believed to be some combination of solid state and metal air battery. It will be most interesting; there is some top flight research moving the state of the art forward. If anything, the road map informs us that PR announcements don’t equal practical availability at scale and a price. Thus, so much noise on announcements and only a fraction translates into the real adoptions that advance the art.

Solid State in China

If the press is to be believed, there is a very competent technical firm in China that has cracked commercial solid state, albeit at a very limited scale. If this is validated, and sets the pace for the next paradigm to be adopted, we know substantial power density increases are coming soon.  We will watch this closely, as will the entire industry. An advantage of 30% in battery performance can mean the difference in winning vs. losing products.  The solid state is not scaled presently for anything like electric car use, but it begins the drumbeat of proof statements that it is possible.  More here.

Lithium air in small use cases

Now we have lithium air in relatively limited volumes, but these are rechargeable. Again, cost and scale not there for cars, but proof statements defining advancement are showing up, also in limited release volumes. This is past lab demonstrations; it is in utilization.  See this.

Mainstream market players, Scale matters

Tesla/Panasonic in partnership have driven volume, and price further, it is believed, than any other players. That in turn gives them a battery performance/cost advantage the reinforces their leadership. Also, Toyota is working with Panasonic on solid state forms. Solid State has been elusive, and there have been a collection of firms that have under-delivered despite early hype. It is interesting to see Sakti3 gone, to see the majors investing in promising startups, to see Fisker touting solid state and the Caterpillar co-investment, though little has been demonstrated or validated by third parties. On one hand we have parties like Toyota saying they think it is a decade, on the other ahnd we have Fisker and the Chinese startup say we are banging on the door right now in realizing this breakthrough.

Trump and new pronouncements, stealing failure from the jaws of victory

Now we have Kudlow saying that the administration will discontinue electric vehicle subsidies. Of course that is right after he extends all sorts of subsidies to the other formats of energy that have less merit, such as ethanol and oil.  The total, internalized cost of coal particulates is never taken into account, and ethanol is not a cost effective format; it is really simple pandering to a constituent audience. The military costs of our footprint supporting the oil industry dwarf other subsidies. Kudlow was a well dressed shallow commentator on financial markets; now he is throwing shade on one of the most positive movements of our time.  We haven’t even spoken of the tax advantages that are really a form of subsidy that the oil industry gets.

This time, the administration has misread the public, the tech community, and what is right for the best outcome of our future. It is interesting that the administrations thinks by pronouncement they can overturn an established program that was passed and implemented by Congress. I view subsidies as something that should not have an infinite life; there must be some congruence to the other formats, so we cannot have a case where clean energy loses all subsidies while all other formats are in fact massively subsidized.

Trump has gone against GM, against the vision of Tesla, and against the automakers’ intentions on emissions.  The idea that you will institutionalize the past will not work, and this is a seed of “throwback thinking” that will turn constituencies against him.  Republicans like solar energy, electric vehicles and clean air.  Policy seems to be smug and based on being contrary to anything that smells of progress.  We have reverted to full-sized pickup trucks that get 15-17 mpg.  We saw Trump’s mug on camera with his “maybe global warming is real, maybe it is not.” Of course he likes to get his adversaries talking about side agendas so he can slip by things on another topic, so as to distract from the issues that are plaguing his presidency. Increasingly the US stands alone in defying a the intention to improve the environment, as was illustrated in the G20 actions.

40 years in Afghanistan, the indirect costs of the oil patch

Mattis is perhaps my favorite talent in the Trump administration. He has a hard job, a resurgent Russian military, the growth of China in capability, and the changeover to new types of war, where our historical investments may not matter as much as we would hope. Mattis says we have 40+ years in Afghanistan, and we need to figure out a way out.  We are not winning, though we are not losing either; we are stuck. I wish Mattis well, and hope he can accomplish what he is trying to do.

Not sure Pakistan or Putin or Iran will play along. It should be clearly emphasized, though, that $10 trillion of spending has brought us to this point.  One should not go to easy on the Democrats here either; a good portion of the refugee crisis was the result of policy decisions made on their watch.

The Saudis are not aligned with our national interest. Bandar helped create ISIS as a backfire to Iran, and Israel seemed to not mind either. In this part of the world, negative consequences come from “darned if you do and darned if you don’t” outcomes. Putin must enjoy his low-cost proxy machinations while he postures to get more leverage. He accomplished cheap leverage on Israel, and thus on the United States to a degree.

Mattis wants the status quo on military budgeting and more–all the new areas to be supported too. Will tough decisions that are on-point be acted upon, or will more of everything, and the momentum of bureaucracies play for more of the same?  The meter is always running in the war zones, and we need to think about the opportunity cost of what we could do with that money, like have prevalent clean and abundant energy that is self reliant and resilient; instead we overvalue postures of endless war. Now, how to get out?  There is no ready military solution to win the war in the next half decade, and our time there costs us greatly.  It will be interesting to see what further Mattis suggests as actions, and how that works. In the Middle East, oil, religion, politics, and economics are interwoven in inherently poisonous fabric. At some point we exhaust our budgets, our soldiers, so what is the value of more of the same?

In closing

Batteries will be increasing in power to be sure, they are so central to the developing economic advancement, from robotics, to drones, to electric and autonomous autos, to medical devices, to information technology that improves our lives as power tools of fulfillment. Alternatives will be here, advancement will continue, and the economics are increasingly favorable in accelerating the impact.  Batteries and solar cells, as well as electric vehicles will replace wars, pollution, and atmospheric change. Particulates’ impact on mortality will be an issue, and eventually a class action lawsuit will probably turn the tide.

If Trump were using other platforms to stimulate positives, then those policies could be considered. It will be interesting to see where Elon and the tech industry come down on administration policies.  I think policy change will get great resistance, in the absence of some other incredibly positive mechanism to advance further what is working.  I don’t really think the environment or benefits of advancing technology should be partisan issues, though various forces seem to want to make it that way.

Our competitors will steer to win the future, so what are we steering towards?  What must Apple, Google, Tesla, GM, and Amazon think?  Smug and contrary is not a policy, and the future says this will not stand. By the way, everyone of those technologies from AI, to batteries, to electric pools, to robotics has military relevance too; there is extraordinary dual purpose to the pursuit of our advancement here.