The Powerhouse

The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World
by Steve Levine

Main Points:

• Why write a book on batteries? After the 2010 crash, there was a question on whether the United States could innovate a new, large economy. Attention came onto the battery- a goal to create a more powerful battery to enable other industries - EV's, Solar and Wind, etc. Obama said they would put 1 million batteries on the road. In 2010 we didn't know that shale oil would come upon us, now we see 4 billion barrels/day come onto the market and cut the cost of oil in half. This has hurt Russia and caused OPEC to flounder. Another thing he saw was that the Exxon 25-year forecast of the future showed that by 2035 electric cars makeup 1% of the sales on the global market because battery scientists would make no progress. The Exxon report said that due to intermittency that solar and wind would have a slender slice of the pie. Giant incumbents were taking a massive risk in betting on only oil. There was a race among 20 nations to make the big break- so who is America's team on this?
• Argonne National Lab is one of 17 national labs and is located outside Chicago. It was the first national lab and Enrico Fermi made the first self-sustained nuclear reaction. Around the world there are 20 recognized national battery scientists and two of them designed batteries that went into the Chevy Volt. He visited Argonne National Lab that coincided with China's Minister of Science Wang Gang- so he witnessed America and China's battery team at the same time. Jeff Chamberlin who is the head of the battery department and the chief character in the book was in a battery race with China. 
• Why don't we have a superbattery yet? The battery was invented in 1799 by Alessandro Volta. The lithium ion battery was in invented in 1980 and commercialized in 1991. We are accustomed to Moore's Law, but the reason chips can do that is that when engineers build architecture that is stable. Battery scientists deal with unstable reactions- for example for the Chevy Volt battery wanted to go from 3.3 volts to 4.7 volts. At the cell level, the capacity of that battery balloons and they create the super battery, but at scale the atoms within the cathode start moving (manganese, cobalt, and oxygen all diffuse)- NMC or nickel manganese cobalt, the material in the Volt. Lithium leaves the cathode and goes to the anode, and within that nanosecond oxygen is also lost- thus causing the cathode to change shape. The material changes, so the battery scientists are trying to figure out how to keep the atoms in the same place. 
• Dr. Steve Chu, the Secretary of Energy at the time, decides that he is going to recreate Bell Labs. He decides he will fund $120 million for each of these Bell Lablets for five years to undertake a big task and one of these lablets is established at Argonne. 
• The Battery Industry: Thomas Edison in the 1920's said that when he is trying to hire battery guys to build an electric car and design a nickel based battery. He finds out and throws up his hands- there's something about the rechargeable battery that turns people into liars. Steve Levine spent two years of the book in Argonne Lab and he got a phone call from one of the guys he had been relying on for the book had been exaggerating the performance of his battery- he deceived the Department of Energy (ARPA-E) and a big commercial player (GM). 
• Exxon Mobil has updated their 25 year forecast, and still claim that by the year 2040 that electric cars, fuel cells, batteries only make up 5% of the market. 
• When do people longer have range anxiety? 200 miles is a pretty good distance. Elon Musk's target is the BMW 3 Series ($33,000 base price), so this means that by 2018 if Musk produces his Model 3 car ($35,000) people can agnostically compare an electric or combustion side by side. Musk has determined that taking stuff off the shelf (Panasonic battery-8,000 in the Model S) and engineer energy management/design a beautiful body. This is an inflection point. Another news article about Apple is trying to build an electric car (poaching top battery scientists from A123- biggest IPO in year 2009). 
• Energy Storage for your home and business becomes a $400 billion/year business by 2030, which is larger than Exxon Mobil's business. Cities for countries like Saudi Arabia and Japan that burn oil to create electricity should install large lithium-ion batteries in their electric grids. Those countries will burn 4 million barrels/day than they currently are if they take on electric storage. This is equivalent to the volume of shale oil that has come onto the market in 2015. Battery revolution will shakeup politics, the same way shale oil has. 
• Miscellaneous: Toyota has determined fuel cells is the future. Instantly charge (3 minutes) is a plus, and Wang Gang of China believes this is important, but it costs $75000 in a car- and the Toyota Mirai costs $57,000, but costs over $100,000 to make. Supercapacitor is another alternative to get tons of power. Rare earth metals- how big of an issue is it? There is a little bit of rare earths in an electric car. Lithium is recyclable, but minerals like Cobalt is expensive. Goal by some to reduce cobalt and increase amount of manganese. Role of Oil? Exxon Mobil invented the pre-cursor to the lithium ion battery in 1973 (while it was producing 8 million barrels/day, but with nationalization of oil supplies that was reduced to 2 million barrels/day), but it kept catching fire. Ronald Reagan came into office and subsidies for renewables were reduced. 

For a brief book review, read this article by Vox on the great battery race between Japan, South Korea, China, and United States!

Read this article in MIT Technology Review on "Why We Don't Have Battery Breakthroughs"!

Watch a lecture by Steve Levine at Google on his famous battery book!