Tag: AXPW

John Petersen Last week I stumbled across a disturbing quote from Thomas Edison that was published in February 1883.   "The storage battery is, in my opinion, a catchpenny, a sensation, a mechanism for swindling the public by stock companies. The storage battery is one of those peculiar things which appeals to the imagination, and no more perfect thing could be desired by stock swindlers than that very selfsame thing. ... Just as soon as a man gets working on the secondary battery it brings out his latent capacity for lying. ... Scientifically, storage is all right, but,...

John Petersen I've written several articles over the last year that explain why idle elimination is a crucial first step in the global effort to increase fuel efficiency and curb CO2 emissions. For readers who are new to my blog, or confused by a torrent of news stories and analysts reports that wax poetic on the expected benefits, costs and challenges of gee-whiz vehicles that are "coming soon to a showroom near you," altenergymag.com describes stop-start systems, or micro-hybrids, as follows: "These are conventional vehicles powered either by gasoline or diesel engines in which the 12-volt starter...

John Petersen On April 1st the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a joint final rule establishing fuel economy standards for all light duty vehicles sold in the United States. Since the existing standards don't apply to light trucks, I used vehicle sales forecasts from the Energy Information Administration's "Annual Energy Outlook 2010" to estimate a current baseline fuel economy of 19.6 mpg. The new rules will be phased in over a five-year period beginning with the 2012 Model Year and are certain to drive rapid evolution in the auto industry....

John Petersen Yesterday a reader sent me a copy of an exhaustive new study titled "Energy Storage for the Electricity Grid: Benefits and Market Potential Assessment Guide" that was commissioned by the DOE's Energy Storage Systems Program and prepared by Jim Eyer and Garth Corey. I've been following the work in progress on this report since last summer and have eagerly awaited an opportunity to shift away from the overhyped electric vehicle market and focus instead on a far larger market where cost, performance and substantive business merit will be the only drivers. It looks like my time...

Year in Review: Ten Green Energy Gambles for 2009 Tom Konrad, CFA My speculative renewable and alternative energy stock picks for 2009 had mixed results. The gambles came nowhere near the performance of my 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2009, and only kept pace with their benchmarks.  The reasons why can be found on the companies' balance sheets and cash flow statements. In January 2009 in response to popular demand, I gave readers ten picks of speculative green energy stocks.  I tend to buck the general trend that renewable energy investors tend to be gamblers, but my annual stock...

John Petersen This morning Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) announced the closing of a $26 million private placement of straight common stock that was sold to institutional and individual investors lead by Special Situation Funds, Manatuck Hill Partners and Narragansett Strategic Master Fund. While some current shareholders will no doubt complain that the private placement price of $0.57 per share represents a $1.01 discount from yesterday's close and seems pretty dilutive, I'm thrilled that my fondest wish has come true a couple days before Christmas. After several months of nagging doubt over whether Axion would be able to...

John Petersen On December 14th the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences issued a new report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy titled "Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies – Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles." The press release headline announcing the report proclaims, "PLUG-IN HYBRID VEHICLE COSTS LIKELY TO REMAIN HIGH, BENEFITS MODEST FOR DECADES." In other words, grid-enabled vehicles, or GEVs, are nowhere near ready for prime time and investors that buy into the GEV hype can look forward to decades of pain and suffering. Serious investors who want to understand the electric vehicle...

Tom Konrad, CFA I never thought 2009 would be a good year for risky stocks, but my readers asked for them anyway.  The market's strong third quarter have paid off for risk-takers who gambled on my 10 Green Energy Gambles for 2009. I started out the year by providing readers with a portfolio of ten relatively conservative plays on green energy.  That portfolio was representative of how I planned to approach the market this year, and has produced stronger returns and less volatility when compared to both green energy stocks and the market as a whole.  Many of my...

John Petersen Yesterday I asked a frequent commenter and staunch electric vehicle advocate whether he ever questioned the ethics of building an EV that can save one owner 400 gallons of gas per year while using enough batteries to build ten Prius-class hybrids that could save their owners a combined total of 1,600 gallons of gas per year. I then spent an hour in stunned silence as the critical importance of that question crystallized in my mind. I didn't get a responsive answer from the commenter, but I did get one of those rare moments of clarity...

John Petersen During his address today at Navistar International's (NAV) facilities in Elkhart, Indiana, President Obama announced a total of $2 billion in ARRA battery manufacturing grants and another $400 million in Recovery Act awards for transportation electrification. The complete list of grant recipients, most of whom are private companies, is available here. The recipients of $1.25 billion in the primary class of grants for cell and battery manufacturing facilities are as follows: Johnson Controls JCI $299.2 Production of nickel-cobalt-metal battery cells and packs, as well as production of battery separators...

John Petersen For over a year I've been cautioning readers that while lithium-ion batteries are glamorous, sleek, sexy and hot; they are about to face a formidable challenge from lead-carbon batteries that are a little bulkier and heavier, but offer competitive cycle-life and power for a tiny fraction of the cost. To placate lithium fundamentalists and EV evangelists, I want to clearly state up front that lead-carbon batteries will probably not be the first choice for plug-in vehicles. Nevertheless, it is crystal clear that lead-carbon batteries will be the only sensible choice...

John Petersen For the last three weeks I've been writing about why rising oil prices, tightened CO2 emission standards in Europe and accelerated CAFE standards in the U.S. will combine to foster rapid implementation of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) technology in the automotive industry and result in huge revenue increases for all automotive battery manufacturers. These articles have generated record numbers of comments and questions from readers that want a clearer understanding of what the rapidly changing demand picture means for battery investors. While I generally try to avoid revenue forecasts because they require pricing assumptions...

My last article, "The Obama Fast Track for HEVs" graphically highlighted some critical cost issues that I've been writing about for several months and was surprisingly popular with readers. After responding to numerous comments and considering the gaps in that article, I believe a follow-on article is appropriate to provide additional color, put a finer point on the differences between advanced lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries and try to relate those differences to the rapidly evolving HEV markets. As I explained last week and in a November 2008 article titled "Alternative Energy Storage; Lithium, Lead or Both?"...

John PetersenToday I'm going to begin with an apology because I've done a terrible job of describing the basics of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) technology for energy storage investors. Many of my earlier articles dove straight into the mind-numbing details of battery technology without first providing an overview of what those batteries will be used for. In other words I'm guilty of putting the cart before the horse. It's time for me to make amends. While the differences between HEV technologies have always been important to automobile manufacturers, the public's understanding of those differences is limited. That...

John Petersen After devoting several months to articles on arcane technical and economic issues that normal investors should not have to endure, I declared a cease fire last week and advised readers that I was done with technology and planned to focus on more interesting topics like the future of the energy storage sector and making money from energy storage investments. I've spent enough time discussing trees. Now I want to evaluate the forest and show investors how to position their portfolios for the coming of cleantech, the sixth industrial revolution. I hope old friends and new...

In mid-February President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), a massive spending bill that spawned gigabytes of analysis and comment from bloggers like me. Unlike many, I've tried to stay politically agnostic and focus solely on the economic impact of ARRA on companies that manufacture batteries and other energy storage devices. From that limited perspective, everything is wonderful! The principal energy storage appropriations included in the ARRA were: $4,500,000,000 for grants for “Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability” including activities to modernize the electric grid, include demand response equipment, enhance security...