My pick is to place small children under morning glories, give them food and attract bees. Courtesy of the OLD FAMERS ALMANAC AND Rosaly’s Garden in Peterborough, NH

This may be a more useful article:
Be a Good Shopper

“Preserve it in the wild.
Perpetuate it in your garden.”

That’s the motto of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Shop at reputable native-plant nurseries rather than kidnapping plants from the wild. Collecting wild plants has already seriously diminished and even eliminated whole colonies of natives, and it’s not even very successful.

Find a native-plant nursery which uses plants propagated from wild populations within 50 miles (or as close as possible) to your garden. Look for plants that are “nursery propagated” not “nursery grown.”
Native Perennials

Blue star
New England aster
Wild ginger
Cabbage-leaf coneflower
Stonecrop
Catchfly
Compass plant
Cup plant
Indian pink
Ladies’-tresses orchid

Native Geophytes (Bulbs)

Dutchman’s breeches
Whipoorwill flower
Bloodroot
Yellow trillium
Jack-in-the-pulpit
Canada lily
Desert lily
Spider lily
Crinum lily

Native Ferns

Narrow beach fern
Male fern
Glade fern
Lady fern
Goldie’s fern
Five-finger maiden-hair fern
Southern beech fern
Interrupted fern
Rusty woodsia
Deer fern
Maiden fern

FOR THE BUTTERFLY
For a nectar-rich flower border designed to satisfy these requirements, consider the plants listed below. Then invite a few butterflies over for a drink.

Common Name Latin Name
Beard tongue Penstemon
Bee balm Monarda
Butterfly bush Buddleia
Catmint Nepeta
Clove pink Dianthus
Columbine Aquilegia
Coral bells Heuchera
Daylily Hemerocallis
Larkspur Delphinium
Desert candle Yucca
Flag Iris
Flowering tobacco Nicotiana alata
Foxglove Digitalis
Lily Lilium
Lupine Lupinus
Petunia Petunia
Pincushion flower Scabiosa
Red-hot poker Kniphofia
Scarlet sage Salvia splendens
Scarlet trumpet honeysuckle Lonicera sempervirens
Soapwort Saponaria
Summer phlox Phlox paniculata
Verbena Verbena
Weigela Weigela

http://www.almanac.com/garden/

Isa 30:25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers [and] streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

Isa 30:26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/r/russian-911-memorial.htm

The “Teardrop” memorial is real and is a 100-foot September 11th sculpture that was donated by the Russian people and is located in New Jersey.

The memorial was dedicated on September 11, 2006 in a ceremony attended by former President Bill Clinton. Also in attendance were Michael Chertoff, the Bush Adminstration Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and family members of World Trade Center victims. Recording artist Leann Rimes sang the National Anthem and Amazing Grace at the dedication ceremony.

Click for Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority site.

Contrary to the claim of the eRumor, the announcement of the intended memorial as well as its dedication did receive nationwide news coverage including a visit to New Jersey on September 15, 2005, by Russian president Vladimir Putin for the groundbreaking ceremony.

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES support this:
Link to the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia: http://www.amcham.ru/
Representing you on all fronts.The largest foreign business organization in Russia, effectively advocating the trade and investment interests of over 800 member companies
Moscow Time: 21:28 (Apr 15, 2009)

We have made them happy and now they return the favor.

Miller Beer in Russia
Published: Wednesday, September 18, 1996

The Miller Brewing Company, a unit of the Philip Morris Companies, said today that it had extended distribution of its brands into Russia. Under a three-year agreement, Miller Brewing International will supply beer for distribution through Stanley Beverages Ltd., a Russian company that distributes to 50 sites throughout Russia. Miller Genuine Draft and a new product devised for the Russian market — Miller Magnum 7.2 — will be sold in the country in 12-ounce bottles and 16-ounce cans, Miller said.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/18/business/miller-beer-in-russia.html

NASA image of ghostly blue cloud
Resembles giant hand stretching
Recalls picture of “eye of God”
WE’VE already seen pictures of his eye … now we have the first image of the hand of God.

A ghostly blue cloud seems to form an outstretched thumb and fingers grasping a ball of fire.

The amazing image was taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, which is orbiting 580km above the Earth.

It recalls pictures of the Helix planetary nebula, with its blue centre surrounded by white clouds which earned it the nickname “the eye of God”.

The hand was created when a star exploded in a supernova, creating a rapidly spinning 20km-wide star called a pulsar, which is deep inside the white blob at the hand’s wrist.

The pulsar is spewing out enormous amounts of electromagnetic energy, creating a dust and gas cloud so wide it would take 150 years to cross at the speed of light.

The red disc is a separate gas cloud. The fingers are thought to have been created as energy passed from the pulsar to the gas cloud.

5 Ways to Recharge Gadgets Without Plugging In – US News and World Report

Mellon family’s legacy lives on:
Powercast’s technology uses radio waves to transmit electricity through the air, and Mr. Mellon sees the budding business as part of a long tradition of energy entrepreneurship in Western Pennsylvania, from the discovery of oil by Edwin Drake to the development of nuclear power by Westinghouse Electric
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07182/798280-28.stm
__________________________________________________________________________________________
(Business 2.0 Magazine) — How much money could you make from a technology that replaces electrical wires? A startup called Powercast, along with the more than 100 companies that have inked agreements with it, is about to start finding out. Powercast and its first major partner, electronics giant Philips, are set to launch their first device powered by electricity broadcast through the air.

It may sound futuristic, but Powercast’s platform uses nothing more complex than a radio–and is cheap enough for just about any company to incorporate into a product. A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.
Picture your cell phone charging up the second you sit down at your desk, and you start to get a sense of the opportunity. How big can it get? “The sky’s the limit,” says John Shearer, Powercast’s founder and CEO. He estimates shipping “many millions of units” by the end of 2008.

For years, electricity experts said this kind of thing couldn’t be done. “If you had asked me seven months ago if this was possible, I would have said, ‘Are you dreaming? Have you been smoking something?’” says Govi Rao, vice president and general manager of solid-state lighting at Philips (Charts). “But to see it work is just amazing. It could revolutionize what we know about power.”
World’s 11 coolest products

So impressed was Rao after witnessing Powercast’s demo last summer that he walked away jotting down a list of the industries to which the technology could immediately be applied: lighting, peripherals, all kinds of handheld electronics. Philips partnered with Powercast last July, and their first joint product, a wirelessly powered LED light stick, will hit the market this year. Computer peripherals, such as a wireless keyboard and mouse, will follow in 2008.

Broadcasting power through the air isn’t a new idea. Researchers have experimented with capturing the radiation in radio frequency at high power but had difficulty capturing it at consumer-friendly low power. “You’d have energy bouncing off the walls and arriving in a wide range of voltages,” says Zoya Popovic, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Colorado who works on wireless electricity projects for the U.S. military.

That’s where Shearer came in. A former physicist based in Pittsburgh, he and his team spent four years poring over wireless electricity research in a lab hidden behind his family’s coffee house. He figured much of the energy bouncing off walls could be captured. All you had to do was build a receiver that could act like a radio tuned to many frequencies at once.

“I realized we wanted to grab that static and harness it,” Shearer says. “It’s all energy.”
Entrepreneur finds ’suite’ dreams

So the Powercast team set about creating and patenting that receiver. Its tiny but hyperefficient receiving circuits can adjust to variations in load and field strength while maintaining a constant DC voltage. Thanks to the fact that it transmits only safe low wattages, the Powercast system quickly won FCC approval–and $10 million from private investors.

Powercast says it has signed nondisclosure agreements to develop products with more than 100 companies, including major manufacturers of cell phones, MP3 players, automotive parts, temperature sensors, hearing aids, and medical implants.

The last of those alone could be a multibillion-dollar market: Pacemakers, defibrillators, and the like require surgery to replace dead batteries. But with a built-in Powercast receiver, those batteries could last a lifetime.

“Everyone’s looking to cut that last cord,” says Alex Slawsby, a consultant at Innosight who specializes in disruptive innovation. “Think of the billion cell phones sold last year. If you could get Powercast into a small percentage of the high-end models, those would be huge numbers.”

Could Powercast’s technology also work for larger devices? Perhaps, but not quite yet. Laptop computers, for example, use more than 10 times the wattage of Powercast transmissions.

But industry trends are on Shearer’s side: Thanks to less energy-hungry LCD screens and processors, PC power consumption is slowly diminishing. Within five years, Shearer says, laptops will be down to single-digit wattage–making his revenue potential even more electrifying.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/04/01/8403349/

Mellon family’s legacy lives on

Mellon family’s legacy lives on

“Iridium has been linked with the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species 65 million years ago. The unusually high abundance of iridium in the clays of the K–T geologic boundary was a crucial clue that led to the theory that the extinction was caused by the impact of a massive extraterrestrial object with Earth—the so-called Alvarez hypothesis. Iridium is found in meteorites with an abundance much higher than its average abundance in the Earth’s crust. It is thought that due to the high density and siderophilic (“iron-loving”) character of iridium, most of the iridium on Earth is found in the inner core of the planet.”

It is Feb 19, 2009 and by now everyone has heard that the debris will burn on impact. OK?
” very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family, iridium is the second densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C. Although only certain molten salts and halogens are corrosive to solid iridium, finely divided iridium dust is much more reactive and can even be flammable. “

__________________________________________________________________________________________Iridium 33

* *Owner:* Iridium LLC
* *Technical operator:* The Boeing Co. under
subcontract
* *Manufacturer: *Motorola, Inc.
* *Launched: *14 September 1997
* *Orbit:* near-circular 776 km x 86.4 degrees polar orbit

Iridium 33, an operational spacecraft in the Iridium phone satellite
constellation, and Kosmos 2251, a defunct Russian military satellite,
have collided in low-Earth orbit. The crash took place on 10 February
2009 at 1656 UTC over northern Siberia, resulting in the destruction of
both spacecraft.

Kosmos 2251, a Strela store-and-dump communications satellite, was
launched in June 1993 aboard a Kosmos 3M rocket from Plesetsk, Russia.
The 900-kg satellite was placed in a 778 km x 803 km x 74 degrees orbit.
It is likely to have operated for no more than a few years.

“While this is an extremely unusual, very low-probability event, the
Iridium constellation is uniquely designed to withstand such an event,
and the company is taking the necessary steps to replace the lost
satellite with one of its in-orbit spare satellites,” Iridium stated.

But that’s not the real problem.

Using a computer model, British space debris expert Hugh Lewis predicted
10,000 tennis-ball-sized debris shards – more than triple the number
created in China’s anti-satellite weapon test in January 2007. “There
was more energy here than in the Chinese ASAT test so we’ll see more
debris,” he was quoted as saying by New Scientist.

Iridium spokeswoman Liz DeCastro said the company had had no advance
warning of an impending collision. “If the organisations that monitor
space had that information available, we are confident they would have
shared it with us.” The company (or its subcontractor Boeing) apparently
did not perform own analyses.

Retired U.S. Air Force General John Campbell, Iridium’s executive vice
president for government programmes, in 2007 told a forum
hosted by the George C.
Marshall Institute that Iridium had been receiving a weekly average of
400 conjunction reports from the U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Space
Operations Center.

“The ability actually to do anything with all the information is pretty
limited,” he said, describing a kind of data overload. The conjunction
reports were issued every time a potential threat object was to pass
within five kilometers of a commercial satellite, he said.

It has been pointed out that Russia was also to blame for the incident.
Certainly Russian officials could have warned Iridium or its
subcontractor Boeing of the possibility of an impending collision.
However, we will never know whether Iridium or Boeing would have reacted
to such a warning — or ignored it like the warnings from USSTRATCOM.

Iridium spokeswoman Elizabeth Mailander confirmed that the company never
performed a single collision avoidance manoeuvre in the entire history
of its satellite constellation.

/Last updated: 16 February 2009/
——————————————————————————————————-US Iridium satellite collides with secret Russian military craft above Siberia
Front page / Science / Planet Earth
12.02.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru

Pages: 1

Russian and US communication satellites collided in space today at the height of over 800 kilometers above the territory of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, an official spokesman for NASA Kelly Hamphries said. The incident occurred Tuesday, February 10, Itar-Tass reports.
It goes about Russia’s defunct satellite launched in 1983 and a US communication satellite launched in 1997. The US craft was a part of Iridium global mobile communication network owned by Motorola. Each of the satellites weighed more than 500 kilograms.

The accident marked the first-ever collision of undamaged spacecraft in orbit. At least two large clouds of debris were formed as a result of the collision. The fragments of the satellites pose no danger to the International Space Station, because the station sits on a lower orbit, NASA officials said.

Russia’s Roscosmos Space Corporation told RIA Novosti that the collision did not result in any losses for the company.

Four other similar incidents were reported last year, when small satellites collided with space garbage, NASA said.

The accident occurred on the altitude used by weather, communication and scientific satellites. The collision did not result in any technical problems for customers, although some of them may experience difficulties in using their cell phones.

The US satellite was launched into space on board a Russian booster rocket in 1997. The Russian craft, which was launched in 1983, stopped operating about five years ago, specialists said.

Orbits of many other satellites will have to be changed to protect them against similar accidents.

Russia’s Cosmos 2251 military communication satellite was not operating for many years. It was living out its days in orbit like many other old satellites.

Cosmos 2251 satellite weighs about 800 kilos. It was used as a communication satellite for military purposes. The satellite lasts for only three years.

Iridium 33/24946 is a commercial communication craft weighing about 700 kilos. It lasts from five to eight years. There were 66 Iridium satellites in near-Earth orbit before the collision. Iridium Holdings LLC will replace the damaged satellite during the upcoming 30 days.

Iridium satellites have been in use since 1989 to provide mobile communication via Iridium satellite phones that cover the planet entirely. The number of Iridium customers amounts to over 330,000.

Iridium telephones are twice as large as conventional cellular phones. Iridium satellites are capable of moving at a very low orbit, unlike other satellites that can operate only on high altitudes
——-http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/12-02-2009/107095-satellites_collide_siberia-0
——————————————————————————————————-
—Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds. One was a malfunctioning Russian satellite, the other an Iridium commercial satellite. The odds of it happening were considered remote, the Russian craft changed orbit ‘randomly’ to exactly hit the Iridium craft. Its like a bullet hitting a bullet.

The Iridium satellite is used primarily by the U.S. Department of Defense and the accident with the ‘malfunctioning’ Russian satellite happened over Siberia.

Accidental or a first shot in a form of space war? The Pentagon knew where the Russian satellite was, and they could move the Iridium satellite, yet inexplicably a fluke happened and it hit. Did the orbit change and they missed it?

Fortunately there are seven spare satellites in orbit that can be boosted to the correct orbit to replace the destroyed one, assuming the orbit is cleared of debris.

The Russian craft was being monitored by Pentagon organizations that keep track of space debris in order to prevent in-orbit collisions from damaging or destroying both commercial and government satellites.

Pentagon officials will face a barrage of questions about how they missed such an impending collision with an intact satellite, according to Tim Farrar, a satellite consultant familiar with Iridium. Commercial satellites are “routinely repositioned to avoid potential collision with smaller pieces of debris,” said Mr. Farrar.

Pentagon brass, satellite industry executives and NASA leaders for years have publicly expressed concern about the dangers of orbital debris. But the odds of a direct hit between satellites were considered so small as to be basically unthinkable. The ground-based and space-based reconnaissance tools available to the Pentagon generally were considered adequate to keep close track of larger objects.

NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday.

“We knew this was going to happen eventually,” said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA believes any risk to the space station and its three astronauts is low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course. There also should be no danger to the space shuttle set to launch with seven astronauts on Feb. 22, officials said, but that will be re-evaluated in the coming days.

The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. The Russian satellite was out of control, Matney said.

The Iridium craft weighed 1,235 pounds, and the Russian craft nearly a ton. No one has any idea yet how many pieces were generated or how big they might be.

“Right now, they’re definitely counting dozens,” Matney said. “I would suspect that they’ll be counting hundreds when the counting is done.”

As for pieces the size of micrometers, the count will likely be in the thousands, he added.

There have been four other cases in which space objects have collided accidentally in orbit, NASA said. But those were considered minor and involved parts of spent rockets or small satellites.

Nicholas Johnson, an orbital debris expert at the Houston space center, said the risk of damage from Tuesday’s collision is greater for the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites, which are in higher orbit and nearer the debris field.

At the beginning of this year there were roughly 17,000 pieces of manmade debris orbiting Earth, Johnson said. The items, at least 4 inches in size, are being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, which is operated by the military. The network detected the two debris clouds created Tuesday.

Iridium Holdings LLC has a system of 65 active satellites which relay calls from portable phones that are about twice the size of a regular mobile phone. It has more than 300,000 subscribers. The U.S. Department of Defense is one of its largest customers.

Iridium satellites are unusual because their orbit is so low and they move so fast. Most communications satellites are in much higher orbits and don’t move relative to each other, which means collisions are rare.
http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=5927
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Special Report for Space Daily
Bethesda MD (SPX) Feb 11, 2009
We have been speculating that pieces of space debris occasionally hit active satellites, but we had no concrete evidence to confirm such a hypothesis.
All that has changed in an instant. On February 10th, an active commercial satellite and an expired Russian Cosmos spacecraft apparently tried to cross the same point in space at the same time.
Both vehicles were traveling at about 16,800 MPH (26,800 KPH). Since they were in different orbital planes, their relative closing speed must have been at least several hundred miles per hour. One of Iridium’s mobile telephony nodes instantly became a cloud of space junk, as did the Russian spacecraft.
The resulting debris field adds to the already vast quantity of space junk in low Earth orbit. Since the satellites collided at an altitude of 491 miles, this new debris will remain in orbit for decades, if not centuries.
To compound the situation the Iridium satellite was part of a constellation of over 66 identical spacecraft, all in near-polar orbits. Therefore, this single event dramatically increases the probability of further collisions among Iridium satellites and many other commercial and government spacecraft.
The cThere is a real possibility that this collision will initiate a chain of other collisions. Other Iridium satellites may collide with pieces from the February 10th event.

The rate of collisions could then increase exponentially until all 66 active Iridium nodes and spares are rendered space debris. This series of collisions would then yield thousands of new debris objects that would then threaten other satellites.

The average time between collisions could possibly be reduced from tens of years to a year or less. One thing is certain, whatever happened over northern Siberia on Tuesday will be detrimental to space flight.

If there is any good news from this disaster, the International Space Station is in an orbit well below that of Iridium and does not appear to be immediately threatened by the new debris.

However, it is likely that some fraction of the resulting debris field will intercept the station’s altitude. A complete picture of the resulting debris distribution will not be available for several days.

Results of initial tracking indicate that there are nearly 300 new detectable fragments, but experience tells us that there are probably thousands of small pieces that cannot be tracked easily.

As the debris field spreads out around the globe various tracking networks will piece together the complete extent of this hazard.

The unfortunate Iridium satellite weighed as much as 1,400 pounds and it collided with a spacecraft of similar mass. You don’t have to be an expert to conclude that we have a problem.

Now imagine what might happen if all 95 Iridium satellites that were launched between 1997 and 2002 collided with the resulting debris.

At that point there would be a loud cry for action from all who use space. There soon could be no more direct-to-home satellite television, no more weather pictures from space, no more GPS navigation and no more access to space. Let’s not wait until it is too late!

ritical question we should ask is, “Are we going to get serious about actively managing orbital debris?”
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/It_Finally_Happened_Two_Satellites_Collide_999.html

Fourteen U.S. technology companies are joining forces and seeking $1 billion in federal aid to build a plant to make advanced batteries for electric cars, in a bid to catch up to Asian rivals that are far ahead of the U.S.

The effort, the latest pitch from corporate America to inject federal dollars into a project, is similar to an alliance that two decades ago helped the U.S. computer-chip industry restore its competitiveness. Participants include 3M Corp. and Johnson Controls Inc.

Many experts believe battery technology and manufacturing capacity could become as strategically important as oil is today. Auto makers, including General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., say they plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010. But the U.S. has limited capacity to make the lithium-ion batteries those cars will need. Asian producers such as Panasonic Corp. dominate the car-battery field.

Federal energy laboratories, including the Argonne National Lab, are advising the alliance, and more companies are expected to join. Together, the consortium members estimate the plan to build the first large-scale lithium-ion battery plant in the U.S. could cost $1 billion to $2 billion.

Experts say the plan faces several hurdles, including its high cost and the fact the U.S. has lost the lead in battery manufacturing.

Ralph Brodd, a Nevada-based energy-storage consultant, recently published a report on battery manufacturing for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He said that though much of the advanced battery technology was developed in the U.S., American companies “opted out” of battery production because of the low returns the business offered. Asian manufacturers picked up the business because of their proximity to makers of electronic devices, which need a steady supply of batteries.

Mr. Brodd said American companies now face significant hurdles in regaining lost ground, including the preference by Asian car makers to use Asian-made batteries in their hybrid models. However, he said U.S. concerns could leap ahead if they developed the right technologies.

“If you manufacture everything in China, you lose control of the technology,” Mr. Brodd said.

The consortium’s plant would make battery cells of various chemistries and sizes for the consortium companies. Members would turn the output into finished batteries by adding their own proprietary electronics, which would control factors such as operating temperature and voltage, and package the batteries to fit specific products.

The consortium intends to solicit as much as $1 billion in federal funds from the Obama administration by tapping loan guarantees contained in an energy-security act passed last year. The act pledges as much as $7 billion in loan guarantees for advanced-battery plants in the U.S. The focus is to produce jobs and create a domestic supply chain, and the factories need not be owned by U.S. companies.

Alliance members also may seek funding through the Energy Department and legislation that could funnel money to job-creating industries aimed at developing greener energy technology.

Experts said the consortium, called the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture, has a high likelihood of receiving U.S. funding because it gives the government a place to concentrate efforts and investment in battery technology without favoring any one company.

But the consortium faces obstacles. Several national labs and U.S. companies including 3M and General Electric Co. have been pursuing advanced battery technology for years. But researchers have been dismayed that the technology and processes they develop appear to be migrating largely outside the U.S. Battery manufacturing has moved to Asia for many reasons, among them a better-developed supply chain and lower labor costs.

Most of the batteries used in today’s hybrid vehicles, including Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius and some of GM’s hybrid models, come from Asian makers.

The consortium is the most ambitious effort to date to boost the ability of U.S.-based companies to meet what is expected to be surging demand by auto makers for high-tech batteries. U.S. companies say the alliance attempts to lower the biggest hurdle they face: funding construction of a large manufacturing facility when there aren’t orders yet for the batteries.

More than four dozen advanced battery factories are being built in China but none, currently, in the U.S.

Chinese vehicle maker BYD, which also makes lithium-ion batteries and has received financial backing from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it will begin exporting electric vehicles to the U.S. in the next few years.

American auto makers are concerned that Asian battery makers may reserve the largest portion of their production for Japanese, Korean or Chinese car companies, leading to further loss of market share for domestic auto makers.

Recently, Andrew Grove, former chairman of Intel Corp., began urging the chip maker to explore whether it could play a role in battery manufacturing. Mr. Grove and others say U.S. companies must step up efforts to produce advanced batteries for the country’s car industry or America will end up trading its dependence on foreign petroleum for dependence on foreign-made batteries.

Jamie Gardner, technical manager for 3M’s battery materials group, said it is important for the U.S. to create “world-class manufacturing” to drive down costs and bolster energy security.

Aakar Patel, chief executive of advanced battery maker Mobius Power Inc. of Fremont, Calif., said it would be a “daunting task” for a small company like his to build a U.S. manufacturing facility because of the overhead costs and lack of domestic equipment suppliers. He hopes the consortium members, which include his company, can effectively pool resources. “There are plenty of U.S. companies that could blow away the competition” if they worked together, he said.

The consortium is modeled on Sematech, the group formed by U.S. computer-chip companies in 1987 to compete with the Japanese. Sematech, based in Austin, Texas, is credited with helping U.S. companies regain their footing by focusing on manufacturing and design advancements with funding from the federal government. “We think Sematech was one of the best examples of government intervention in industry,” said Jim Greenberger, a Chicago attorney at Reed Smith LLP, who is working with the battery consortium.

The consortium’s goal is to make U.S.-built batteries lighter, cheaper and more powerful than batteries made elsewhere.

Other consortium members include chemical-maker FMC Corp. of Philadelphia and advanced battery makers EnerSys of Reading, Pa., and ActaCell Inc. of Austin.

——————————
December 26, 2008, 7:15 am
Electric-Car Battery Makers Seek Federal Funds
By Claire Cain Miller

In the race to make the lithium-ion batteries that will run the electric cars of the future, the United States is losing to Asian countries, and start-ups and big companies need to band together to build a lithium-ion battery industry in the United States, says Jim Greenberger.

Mr. Greenberger, a lawyer specializing in clean technology who organized a new alliance of lithium-ion battery makers made up of 14 big companies, like 3M, and start-ups, like ActaCell.

“The great age of automobiles lies ahead of us, not behind us,” said Mr. Greenberger, who heads the clean-tech practice at the law firm Reed Smith and advises clean-technology venture capital firms and start-ups.

The group, called the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture, took a page from the chip industry’s playbook. It is modeled after Sematech, which in the 1980s raised $990 million in federal grants and private investment to keep semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.

The alliance plans to introduce a proposal in Congress in January to raise $1 billion to $2 billion for lithium-ion battery manufacturing in the United States.

The ultimate goal, according to Mr. Greenberger: “We’re going to start to be able to manufacture cars in the United States again, on a basis that’s competitive with the Asians.”

Lithium-ion batteries, besides eliminating the need for petroleum, are three times as efficient as internal combustion engines in typical cars, Mr. Greenberger said. Furthermore, they can be charged by alternative sources of energy like wind or solar.

Several large companies, including General Electric and Sanyo, which was just bought by Panasonic, have been working on lithium-ion batteries. Many start-up companies have recently emerged, too, including Imara, which we wrote about last week.

The future of these batteries will depend on start-ups “because it’s a start-up industry,” Mr. Greenberger said. “We are five years behind Asians in our ability to manufacture the cells.”

The United States has the technology to develop lithium-ion batteries, he said. The two biggest challenges the industry faces, though, are building prototypes to simulate new batteries and then building the factories required to manufacture the batteries.

“We’re really good on theory and basic science,” he said. “It’s putting that theory into production where we’re falling down.”

One reason is that United States auto manufacturers are not yet buying lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, so there is not enough money to build prototypes and factories.

Yet car manufacturing will eventually move where the batteries are made, he said. “If we’re dependent on Asia, transportation and even defense will gravitate there.”

The initiative will require United States companies to shift their individualistic way of thinking and could fail if certain companies try to strike out on their own and raise money from their state representatives instead of going after a pool of government money for all lithium-ion battery makers, Mr. Greenberger warned.

“We’re trying through the alliance to come up with a way and mechanism to work on an industry-wide basis rather than everyone off for themselves,” he said. Otherwise, each company “will be crushed in turn by the Panasonics of the world.”
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ALSO SEE:http://willowtrees.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/life-and-death-of-the-electric-car-2010/

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