Is the U.S. serious about developing new battery technology to power the future?
Is the U.S. serious about developing new battery technology to power the future? Right now, it looks more silly than serious. A highly promising new battery was developed at a cost of $15 million in a U.S. government lab, but then the U.S. Department of Energy awarded many of the manufacturing rights to China in violation of its own licensing rules. Now, China is about to bring online one of the largest battery farms to ever power a major city.
And not just any battery farm. It uses vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB), a new technology that enables large, long-lived batteries that provide grid-scale energy storage to be competitive and that ensures they won’t catch fire, as lithium-ion batteries often do. The new batteries are a major advance in improving battery-storage efficiency and longevity. When power demand shoots up and there is no spare capacity to generate more power, the stored energy inside the VRFB batteries can meet that need.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is furious at just how easily a Chinese firm was able to dominate the manufacture of the technology, when U.S. law clearly requires the batteries to be “substantially manufactured” in the U.S.
“For far too long, the Chinese Communist Party has captured vital U.S. technology through illicit means and the carelessness of government agencies and businesses,” Rubio wrote to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm last month. “Chinese hegemony in energy grid-related systems is a national security threat, as American utilities that wish to utilize this technology may be forced to source it from the Chinese, potentially giving Beijing access to sensitive grid control systems. Chinese Communist Party access to, or control over, U.S. energy grid systems would be unacceptable.”
The battery bust over VRFB began over 15 years ago when scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory began work on new technology. In 2012, the project’s lead scientist, Gary Yang, applied for a license to manufacture and sell the design using his firm, UniEnergy Technologies.
In 2017, UniEnergy Technologies granted the Chinese firm Dalian Rongke Power a license to manufacture the battery in China. Rongke is the recipient of large amounts of funding from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a key player in the development of China’s defense industry.
In 2021, UniEnergy Technologies asked the U.S. Department of Energy to transfer the official VRFB license to Vanadis Power, a German-based company that produces batteries in China. According to an eye-opening story by Courtney Flatt and Laura Sullivan of NPR, what happened next could serve as a blueprint for how the U.S. has fallen behind in the manufacturing of everything from solar panels to drones to telecom equipment, even when the basic science behind them was developed in the U.S.
“On July 7, 2021, a top official at UniEnergy Technologies emailed a government manager at the lab where the battery was created. The UniEnergy official said they were making a deal with Vanadis and were going to transfer the license to Vanadis.”
“We’re working to finalize a deal with Vanadis Power and believe they have the right blend of technical expertise,” the email from UniEnergy Technologies said. “Our transaction with Vanadis is ready to go pending your approval . . .”
The government manager responded that he needed confirmation before transferring the license and emailed a second employee at UniEnergy. The second employee responded an hour and a half later, and the license was transferred to Vanadis Power.
Whether the manager or anyone else at the lab or Department of Energy thought to check during that hour and a half or thereafter whether Vanadis Power was an American company, or whether it intended to manufacture in the U.S., is unclear. Vanadis’ own website said it planned to make the batteries in China.”
The Department of Energy isn’t explaining its actions. When NPR sent the agency written questions on the licensing approval, the DOE promptly terminated the license with the Chinese company. Somebody there must have thought there had been a screwup.
The entire episode is yet another example of how the U.S. fails to protect its own technology. In 2018, the Government Accountability Office issued a report finding that the DOE wasn’t properly monitoring its licenses and didn’t have its labs follow the same protocols for approval.
Joanne Skievaski, the chief financial officer of a Washington State company called Forever Energy, has been trying to get a DOE license to make the new batteries for over a year. “This is technology made from taxpayer dollars,” Skievaski told NPR. “It was invented in a national lab. [Now] it’s deployed in China, and it’s held in China. To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.”